Early Native Literacies in New England: A Documentary and Critical Anthology
edited by Kristina Bross and Hilary E. Wyss
University of Massachusetts Press, 2008 eISBN: 978-1-61376-075-8 | Paper: 978-1-55849-648-4 Library of Congress Classification E99.A35E37 2008 Dewey Decimal Classification 974.004973
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Designed as a corrective to colonial literary histories that have excluded Native voices, this anthology brings together a variety of primary texts produced by the Algonquian peoples of New England during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and very early nineteenth centuries. Included among these written materials and objects are letters, signatures, journals, baskets, pictographs, confessions, wills, and petitions, each of which represents a form of authorship. Together they demonstrate the continuing use of traditional forms of memory and communication and the lively engagement of Native peoples with alphabetic literacy during the colonial period. Each primary text is accompanied by an essay that places it in context and explores its significance. Written by leading scholars in the field, these readings draw on recent trends in literary analysis, history, and anthropology to provide an excellent overview of the field of early Native studies. They are also intended to provoke discussion and open avenues for further exploration by students and other interested readers. Above all, the texts and commentaries gathered in this volume provide an opportunity to see Native American literature as a continuity of expression that reflects choices made long before contact and colonization, rather than as a nineteenth—or even twentieth-century invention.Contributors include Heidi Bohaker, Heather Bouwman, Joanna Brooks, Kristina Bross, Stephanie Fitzgerald, Sandra Gustafson, Laura Arnold Leibman, Kevin McBride, David Murray, Laura Murray, Jean O'Brien, Ann Marie Plane, Philip Round, Jodi Schorb, David Silverman, and Hilary E. Wyss.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Kristina Bross is associate professor of English and American studies at Purdue University and author of Dry Bones and Indian Sermons: Praying Indians in Colonial America. Hilary E. Wyss is associate professor of English at Auburn University and author of Writing Indians: Literacy, Christianity, and Native Community in Early America (University of Massachusetts Press, 2000).
REVIEWS
"A vivid picture of the complexities, contradictions, and challenges inherent both in early Native literacies and in the scholarly reconstruction of these textual encounters."—New England Quarterly
"It will appeal to a wide audience, including those interested in Native American studies, anthropology, religious studies, American colonial history, and the study of complex iconography.. . . . This is a well-written and informative addition to a wide range of interests. . . . I highly recommend this anthology to a wide body of readers. Even the price makes it an attractive choice for an instructor. The chapters provide a variety of perspectives and interpretations of primary American Indian colonial texts that are well grounded and designed to introduce these texts to a wide range of readers, from introductory university classes to anyone who is interested in colonial America or American Indian histories."—American Indian Quarterly
"The book presents a series of Native textual objects edited according to scholarly conventions with interpretive essays that explains the artifacts' production and subsequent archival history. Together, the essays in these collections represent some of the best work being done in this field."—Early American Literature
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations 00
Acknowledgments 00
Introduction 1
Chapter One. The Mohegans 00
Oweneco, "Letter of Instruction from Oanhekoe, Sachem of the Mohegan Indians in New
England, 14 July 1703" 00
David Murray, "Letter of Instruction from Oanhekoe, Sachem of the Mohegan Indians, 14 July
1703" 00
Joseph Johnson, "Diary, 1773" 00
Laura J. Murray, "Joseph Johnson?s Diary, Farmington, Connecticut, 18 November 1772 to 1
February 1773" 00
"Mohegan Wood-Splint Basket" 00
Stephanie Fitzgerald, "The Cultural Work of a Mohegan Painted Basket" 00
Samson Occom, "Temperance and Morality Sermon" 00
Heather Bouwman, "Samson Occom and the Sermonic Tradition" 00
"Title Pages from Samson Occom?s Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul" 00
Phillip H. Round, "Samson Occom and Native Print Literacy" 00
Chapter Two. The Narragansetts 00
Sarah Pharaoh, "The Case of Sarah Pharaoh" 00
Ann Marie Plane, "The Dreadful Case of Sarah Pharaoh: Finding Native Women?s Voices in an
Eighteenth-Century Infanticide Case" 00
Sarah Simon, "Letter to Eleazar Wheelock, 1769" 00
Hilary E. Wyss, "Writing Back to Wheelock: One Young Woman?s Response to Colonial
Christianity" 00
Chapter Three: Natick 00
Samuel Ponampam, "Confession Narrative, 1656" 00
Kristina Bross, "Temptation in the Wilderness: Ponampam?s Confession" 00
"Natick Indian Petition, 1748" 00
Jean O?Brien, "?Our Old and Valluable Liberty?: A Natick Indian Petition in Defense of Their
Fishing Rights, 1748" 00
Chapter Four: The Pequots 00
"Pequot Medicine Bundle" 00
Kevin A. McBride, "Bundles, Bears, and Bibles: Interpreting Seventeenth-Century Native
?Texts?" 00
"The Confession and Dying Warning of Katherine Garret" 00
Jodi Schorb, "Seeing Other Wise: Reading a Pequot Execution Narrative" 00
Chapter Five: The Wampanoags 00
"Mittark?s Will, 1681/1703" 00
David J. Silverman, "?We Chief Men Say This?: Wampanoag Memory, English Authority, and
the Contest over Mittark?s Will" 00
"The Hannit Family, in Experience Mayhew?s Indian Converts" 00
Laura Arnold Leibman, "Tradition and Innovation in a Colonial Wampanoag Family from
Martha?s Vineyard" 00
Chapter Six: Intertribal Conversations 00
"Pictograph Image on a 1725 Treaty" (Wabanaki) 00
Heidi Bohaker, "Reading Expressions of Identity on a 1725 Peace and Friendship Treaty" 00
"Montaukett Petition, 1788" 00
Joanna Brooks, "?This Indian World?: A Petition/Origin Story from Samson Occom (Mohegan)
and the Montaukett Tribe" 00
Sandra M. Gustafson, Historical Introduction to Hendrick Aupaumut?s Short Narration
Hendrick Aupaumut (Mahican/Stockbridge), A Short narration of my last Journey to the
western Contry 00
Sandra M. Gustafson, "Hendrick Aupaumut and the Cultural Middle Ground" 00
Contributors 00
Bibliography 00
Index
Early Native Literacies in New England: A Documentary and Critical Anthology
edited by Kristina Bross and Hilary E. Wyss
University of Massachusetts Press, 2008 eISBN: 978-1-61376-075-8 Paper: 978-1-55849-648-4
Designed as a corrective to colonial literary histories that have excluded Native voices, this anthology brings together a variety of primary texts produced by the Algonquian peoples of New England during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and very early nineteenth centuries. Included among these written materials and objects are letters, signatures, journals, baskets, pictographs, confessions, wills, and petitions, each of which represents a form of authorship. Together they demonstrate the continuing use of traditional forms of memory and communication and the lively engagement of Native peoples with alphabetic literacy during the colonial period. Each primary text is accompanied by an essay that places it in context and explores its significance. Written by leading scholars in the field, these readings draw on recent trends in literary analysis, history, and anthropology to provide an excellent overview of the field of early Native studies. They are also intended to provoke discussion and open avenues for further exploration by students and other interested readers. Above all, the texts and commentaries gathered in this volume provide an opportunity to see Native American literature as a continuity of expression that reflects choices made long before contact and colonization, rather than as a nineteenth—or even twentieth-century invention.Contributors include Heidi Bohaker, Heather Bouwman, Joanna Brooks, Kristina Bross, Stephanie Fitzgerald, Sandra Gustafson, Laura Arnold Leibman, Kevin McBride, David Murray, Laura Murray, Jean O'Brien, Ann Marie Plane, Philip Round, Jodi Schorb, David Silverman, and Hilary E. Wyss.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Kristina Bross is associate professor of English and American studies at Purdue University and author of Dry Bones and Indian Sermons: Praying Indians in Colonial America. Hilary E. Wyss is associate professor of English at Auburn University and author of Writing Indians: Literacy, Christianity, and Native Community in Early America (University of Massachusetts Press, 2000).
REVIEWS
"A vivid picture of the complexities, contradictions, and challenges inherent both in early Native literacies and in the scholarly reconstruction of these textual encounters."—New England Quarterly
"It will appeal to a wide audience, including those interested in Native American studies, anthropology, religious studies, American colonial history, and the study of complex iconography.. . . . This is a well-written and informative addition to a wide range of interests. . . . I highly recommend this anthology to a wide body of readers. Even the price makes it an attractive choice for an instructor. The chapters provide a variety of perspectives and interpretations of primary American Indian colonial texts that are well grounded and designed to introduce these texts to a wide range of readers, from introductory university classes to anyone who is interested in colonial America or American Indian histories."—American Indian Quarterly
"The book presents a series of Native textual objects edited according to scholarly conventions with interpretive essays that explains the artifacts' production and subsequent archival history. Together, the essays in these collections represent some of the best work being done in this field."—Early American Literature
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations 00
Acknowledgments 00
Introduction 1
Chapter One. The Mohegans 00
Oweneco, "Letter of Instruction from Oanhekoe, Sachem of the Mohegan Indians in New
England, 14 July 1703" 00
David Murray, "Letter of Instruction from Oanhekoe, Sachem of the Mohegan Indians, 14 July
1703" 00
Joseph Johnson, "Diary, 1773" 00
Laura J. Murray, "Joseph Johnson?s Diary, Farmington, Connecticut, 18 November 1772 to 1
February 1773" 00
"Mohegan Wood-Splint Basket" 00
Stephanie Fitzgerald, "The Cultural Work of a Mohegan Painted Basket" 00
Samson Occom, "Temperance and Morality Sermon" 00
Heather Bouwman, "Samson Occom and the Sermonic Tradition" 00
"Title Pages from Samson Occom?s Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul" 00
Phillip H. Round, "Samson Occom and Native Print Literacy" 00
Chapter Two. The Narragansetts 00
Sarah Pharaoh, "The Case of Sarah Pharaoh" 00
Ann Marie Plane, "The Dreadful Case of Sarah Pharaoh: Finding Native Women?s Voices in an
Eighteenth-Century Infanticide Case" 00
Sarah Simon, "Letter to Eleazar Wheelock, 1769" 00
Hilary E. Wyss, "Writing Back to Wheelock: One Young Woman?s Response to Colonial
Christianity" 00
Chapter Three: Natick 00
Samuel Ponampam, "Confession Narrative, 1656" 00
Kristina Bross, "Temptation in the Wilderness: Ponampam?s Confession" 00
"Natick Indian Petition, 1748" 00
Jean O?Brien, "?Our Old and Valluable Liberty?: A Natick Indian Petition in Defense of Their
Fishing Rights, 1748" 00
Chapter Four: The Pequots 00
"Pequot Medicine Bundle" 00
Kevin A. McBride, "Bundles, Bears, and Bibles: Interpreting Seventeenth-Century Native
?Texts?" 00
"The Confession and Dying Warning of Katherine Garret" 00
Jodi Schorb, "Seeing Other Wise: Reading a Pequot Execution Narrative" 00
Chapter Five: The Wampanoags 00
"Mittark?s Will, 1681/1703" 00
David J. Silverman, "?We Chief Men Say This?: Wampanoag Memory, English Authority, and
the Contest over Mittark?s Will" 00
"The Hannit Family, in Experience Mayhew?s Indian Converts" 00
Laura Arnold Leibman, "Tradition and Innovation in a Colonial Wampanoag Family from
Martha?s Vineyard" 00
Chapter Six: Intertribal Conversations 00
"Pictograph Image on a 1725 Treaty" (Wabanaki) 00
Heidi Bohaker, "Reading Expressions of Identity on a 1725 Peace and Friendship Treaty" 00
"Montaukett Petition, 1788" 00
Joanna Brooks, "?This Indian World?: A Petition/Origin Story from Samson Occom (Mohegan)
and the Montaukett Tribe" 00
Sandra M. Gustafson, Historical Introduction to Hendrick Aupaumut?s Short Narration
Hendrick Aupaumut (Mahican/Stockbridge), A Short narration of my last Journey to the
western Contry 00
Sandra M. Gustafson, "Hendrick Aupaumut and the Cultural Middle Ground" 00
Contributors 00
Bibliography 00
Index
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC