Counter-Discourse in Native American Literacy Practices CLARK FENNIMORE

COUNTER-DISCOURSE in

Native American Literacy Practices

BY CLARK FENNIMORE

People of many ethnic groups live throughout the Western Hemisphere. However, the descendants of the indigenous peoples have become minorities. An important issue has become how they deal with this situation. There are many countries to which the issue applies, and they have different legal and cultural relations to the natives. The United States is the nation of interest here. Literature is a major area in which Native Americans deal with the situation in this country. Their use of counter-discourse expresses their identity in literature portraying many aspects of their culture. Of particular interest here is counter-discourse in their literacy practices, meaning the way they write materials of different kinds.

The definitions of two major terms form the basis of discussing this theme. First is counter-discourse, which Tiffin defines as the writings and discussions about imperialism that deviate from those that have been common historically. While the European nations tended to see their empires in a panoramic view, in which the lands were the same due to being inhabited by savages, counter-discourse looks with respect at the experiences of these lands. It looks both at the individual experiences in the lands and at larger patterns in imperialism. Furthermore, it has a general context in the aftermath of imperialism (Tiffin).

The next term is Native American, which refers to people groups who have been in the Americas since before the coming of the first European explorers. It is an interesting idea because these people groups are native to different parts of two whole continents. Based on the differences among people in Europe alone, since that was the homeland of the explorers, it is not surprising that the Americas would likewise comprise many differences. According to Mann, the use of a single term for them, such as Native American or Indian, deviates from their historic sense of identity on a tribal basis. The United States alone represents a great range in tribes with different cultures, since it ranks among the largest countries in the Americas (39). traditions keeps them separate from the dominant culture around them, connecting them instead to their own history. Furthermore, literature becomes a means of declaring that identity. The literacy ingrained in American culture as a whole brings the possibility of a wide readership of such writings, even outside of the Native American context. It makes the dominant culture aware of the natives who have been outnumbered by them. They declare that they are not the same as the majority, showing pride in their unique ways.

Furthermore, part of what is to be declared to the majority is the range of native cultures. Part of counter-discourse, as deducible from its definition, is declaring differences among groups covered by the general term Native American. Therefore, two specific authors of very different kinds of Native American background are to be discussed. First is Lesley Marnon Silko, a novelist of Pueblo background. Her tribe is native to the southwestern states. Of particular interest here is her novel Ceremony, in which she portrays many aspects of her people’s experience of being outnumbered by white people while still living in their traditional homeland. In other words, the homeland is very different from what it was (Silko, Preface).

The other author is Luis Valdez, a Chicano playwright. According to Anzaldua, a Chicana writer, the culture of interest comes from the intermarriage of Spanish settlers with the indigenous people of Mexico. The first half of the nineteenth century saw white Americans come into the northern lands belonging to the independent Mexico, resulting first in the independence of Texas after the Battle of the Alamo, and then in the Mexican War. With Texas, California, and some surrounding lands becoming states as a result of this process, Chicanos became minorities in American culture (27-29). This is why Valdez fits into the scope of this discussion. Of particular interest is his play Zoot Suit.

These two examples of Native American experience are important because they deal with the experience of being a minority population, adding to their people’s history through literary contributions.

This is certainly not to say that they are the only such examples. However, the two works of interest here are very influential examples with different approaches to the issue. They also deal with the issue of current Native Americans tending to be of mixed race. It has already been explained from the perspective of Valdez as a Chicano. However, Silko also addresses it by telling the story of a young man with a Pueblo mother and a white father. The issue gives a degree of social construct to the meaning of the term Native American, since people who use the designation separate themselves from other people with part of their ancestry from a tribe. It is a matter of how such people identify themselves culturally. Actual ancestry is part of it, but there is also a cultural factor which is not the same.

Before literature is specifically discussed, an important question to consider is how the native groups of the United States have become minorities in their own homelands. Within the three centuries after Columbus’ famous first landing in the Americas, as explained by Mann, European nations colonized most of the land. A large part of how this happened is that the colonizers were carriers of diseases to which natives, but not colonizers, lacked immunity. Natives weakened by resulting epidemics were then subjugated, often violently, by European armies.

There are theories as to how it started, but it contributed to massive destruction of native societies (101-109). As a result of such widespread death from disease and violence, natives came to be outnumbered by colonists. The maintenance of meaning in their cultures is thus a challenge while they have avoided complete destruction. Literature is a major method of preservation for their cultures. The historic importance of oral tradition for them will be described later. However, their cultures still change over time.

In specific terms of literacy, several Native American groups have a history of unique practices. The best examples to start with are those of groups native to Mexico, since Chicanos have part of their ancestry coming from among such groups. This part of the discussion is not even coming from the Spanish influence on the groups, as that had not even begun yet. Rather, these are examples of fully native literacies as a foundation for counter-discourse in modern literacy. Part of why the cultures do not stay the same, as will be seen, is that literacy changes.

Literacy in and around Mexico started in the ancient world. It had a unique origin there, according to Mann, developing from the fixing of dates. Two notations were used together: a solar calendar, with the same basis as the modern calendar and thus having 365 days; and a religious calendar of 260 days, possibly based in the position of Venus. The combination of the two notations gave each date a distinct designation within a fifty-two-year span. They created a Long-Count system to distinguish one era of such length from the next. An ancient artifact of the Zapotecs, a civilization of the area, has a carving of a date, foreshadowing writing (238-243).

Different scripts of several kinds, according to Mann, have been found in ancient sites within ancient Mesoamerica alone. The Nudzahui civilization has surviving examples of codices with pictographs. They even include rebuses, in which a word without its own symbol is represented by that of a similar-sounding word (243-245). The Mayans can also be seen to have writing, examples surviving on codices (303). Mexico was home to several literate societies.

Mann explains that early civilizations of Mexico included Teotihuacan, from over a thousand years ago, and then the Toltecs, from a little bit less than a thousand years ago. Ancient writings have been discovered among their sites. A better understood civilization later dominated the area: that usually called Aztecs. They were really a coalition of three nations led by the Mexica starting by the middle of the fifteenth century. They united to defeat another civilization that dominated them all. Literacy was still in the form of codices filled with pictographs used to tell history. Upon victory, they erased the past of subjugation by throwing the codices of the enemy in fire. For the same reason, they then did the same to their own codices. They started over with codices giving themselves a glorified past (126-131).

Mann also explains that the composition of the new codices was entrusted to members of a special position in the society defined by training and respect. In their language, Nahuatl, someone in this position was called a tlamatini. Their writings were a means to instruct society. The codices were about more than just history, but also ethics. They composed a great collection of literature, which they also used while teaching the boys being trained for prestigious positions in the future (134-135).

In short, the native ancestors of the Chicano people and the people who influenced them developed literacy without any inspiration from colonists. Their writings developed in distinctive ways, forming part of their identities. The purpose of writing described in the context of the Aztecs shows it as a tool in establishing the values of society. This is part of identity, as is the history which it also conveyed. The tlamatini class represents the skill as being confined to the privileged, since it was viewed as prestigious.

America. It concerns the language of the Cherokee, a tribe native to the southeastern United States. The language’s distinct writing developed after the United States had become a nation. It was developed within the first quarter of the nineteenth century by Sequoyah, a previously illiterate member of the tribe. Though he had not learned English, he actually based many of the characters in the writing system on the Latin letters that he had seen. Based on the structure of Cherokee phonology, he decided on a syllabary system. As a result, characters borrowed from Latin do not transfer into the same values in the Cherokee script. Major uses of the writing have included a Bible translation, the Constitution of the Cherokee Nation, and the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper (Alexander).

In short, the area of North America has seen several examples of distinct forms of literacy both before and after colonization. Literacy is shown as a valuable skill among the societies in the examples. Cherokee writing is a unique form of decoloniality, using colonial writing to make something just for the Cherokee. Arola describes a relevant example of literacy in the information age: a social media site constructed specifically to be used by Native Americans. It failed to connect the intended community in the long-term, but it showed adaptation of a modern phenomenon for a specific culture. Many kinds of literacy, even digital, can be used as statements of identity for the Native American community (Arola). This fact reflects the history of distinct literacy in the ancient civilizations of the area. As social media is a form of creative writing, it leads into a discussion of a novel and a play as other forms.

Another point about the digital example is that literature in English can express counter-discourse, just as literature can in indigenous languages. In fact, Silko writes in her article “Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective” about how she incorporates the oral tradition of her people into her writing, which is in English. Words in Pueblo discourse are considered to have their own stories. Telling a story even has some improvisation to it since the speaker decides what stories should be brought into the overall narrative (Silko, “Language”). The title of her novel, Ceremony, is just one word, reflecting this idea of a word as well as the theme of the book. It also summarizes the healing needed by the narrator, the main character, and the Native American people in general. It shows a written form of Pueblo story-telling to bring healing from traumatic experiences to all these people (Silko, Ceremony).

Part of the trauma is violence and oppression experienced by Native Americans at the hands of white Americans. The healing is shown in the novel to come from a new ceremony for the modern world. This concept is decolonial because it represents the ancient religion of the people adapting to the circumstances changing around it. In Ceremony, Tayo is helped by the medicine man Betonie. There is a scene when Betonie says: “At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white man came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies. I have made changes in the rituals.” Tayo is later healed through an adapted ceremony. Counter-discourse is here opposed to the Western stereotype of native ceremonies staying the same, showing instead that they can change (Silko).

Silko, as explained by Park, represents a reconnection with nature as the mode of healing for Tayo in this ceremony. There is a separation from urban life, which represents white domination and transformation of land (Park). An interesting aspect of her body of work is that government ownership of land is often critiqued (Rahman). This is certainly the case in Ceremony. In one part, Tayo is working to get his family’s cattle back from a white man’s land. As he is wondering whether the cattle were stolen, a revelation of his is described: “He knew then he had learned the lie by heart—the lie which they had wanted him to learn: only brownskinned people were thieves; white people didn’t steal, because they always had the money to buy whatever they wanted.” There is soon a statement that “white people” have “a nation built on stolen land” (Silko). By critiquing white people’s perceived ownership of the land, Silko certainly denies that right to the government.

In short, the title demonstrates the power of a word in Pueblo philosophy. This one word represents what is experienced by the protagonist, and yet it also has a deeper meaning for his people in general. At the same time, the need for a ceremony is rooted in the relationship of the people to the wider world. They have continually experienced the results of subjugation at the hands of colonizers and their descendants. Healing becomes part of how they find a place in the changing world around them. The process is important for their identity, expressed in counter-discourse. The culture adapts to the world instead of staying the same.

The Pueblo people to whom Silko and her characters belong have their own language with pragmatic characteristics, such as those already described and others that will be described shortly. However, she adapts them into English, making them accessible to a wider readership. The characteristics thus become counter-discursive in English. Oral narration is traditional for Silko’s people, who were illiterate before colonization. She transfers speaking discourse to writing (Silko, “Language”). Once again, counterdiscourse makes something new.

Silko describes how oral tradition has continued to be important to her people and other groups native to the United States even after the beginning of that nation. Though they now have writing as a mode of communication, they still have special respect for spoken communication. In their view, it has more life to it, including vocal inflections and often non-verbal communication when the speaker is seen. Therefore, she is trying to bring some of that life into a written format by imitating spoken discourse (Silko, “Language”).

The first element of the discourse is the “spider’s web” structure. It refers to the Pueblo tradition of mixing stories with transitions based on common themes (Silko, “Language”). Examples in Ceremony often switch back and forth between prose narrations about Tayo and poetic telling of mythical stories. There are often connecting themes shared among the stories being told, making a unified narrative in spite of different parts (Silko, Ceremony).

Another tradition of Pueblo narration is a “story within a story.” This means that the main flow of narration is interrupted by another story before it resumes (Silko, “Language”). One example in Ceremony is when Tayo has almost died before finding a pool of water, and then the story is interrupted by a poem in which the ancestors of his people have natural provision taken from them. The connecting theme is of situations when people almost died from lack, yet they survived somehow. Thus the story does not end for these people. It even shows the idea that a people group may experience the same problems many times, yet they always survive it (Silko, Ceremony).

Another element of Pueblo narration in the article is equal value given to different kinds of stories, both current and traditional (Silko, “Language”). Some examples in Ceremony have Tayo in current action as the main flow of narrative, but that is mingled with references to history. In one example, a current lack of rain is similar to a situation from about ten to twenty years earlier. In the earlier story, thinning cattle had to be sold, thus causing suspense in the idea that the same thing might have to happen this time. Mingled with these two incidents, there is also a mythical story reflecting the “mother earth” beliefs of Native Americans, especially of Pueblos in this context (Silko, Ceremony).

Another element of Pueblo narration is a lack of established time (Silko, “Language”). In Ceremony, there are poems referring to the old ways of Pueblo people. The time referred to in such stories is vague, often describing customs practiced for a long time but no longer in practice due to the rise of the United States (Silko, Ceremony).

The final element of Pueblo narration is repetition, in which the audience is continually brought back to an important idea in the story (Silko, “Language”). The title of the novel, Ceremony, comes from a word repeated many times. The repetition, especially in one seen in which Tayo is speaking to Betonie, reminds the reader of its importance in Pueblo culture. It shows a ceremony as important for Tayo’s healing, and thus to the plot (Silko, Ceremony). This importance is that already described.

Mythology forms a part of Silko’s narrative, due to its important place in oral tradition. An important example with special meanings in the novel, as explained by Park, describes white people as formed through black magic through the prophecy of a native witch. First, it challenges the typical view in the Americas, in which white man is considered dominant in history; in its place is a view in which Native Americans are dominant and white man owes his existence to them. Second, it questions white people’s perceived right to rule other people groups, showing them instead as an ethnic group controlled by destructive tendencies; thus white people are not r ight in ruling other races (Park).

The novel is a European writing form. Silko uses it to give her people their own unique voice by using their narrative style in place of that traditional in Western society. The stream of consciousness of Tayo allows current events and conversations to remind him of the past, as shown by the narrative’s continual switches among different times. Furthermore, his drunkenness or illness causes delusions in which he imagines that past events are happening currently. The style of narration then has many layers of meaning in the book.

While using many elements of Pueblo narration, there is something else of interest that she does with the written format. Though writing a novel, Silko skips the use of chapters as a typical feature of the genre. Because she is imitating the verbal narration of a story, she leaves out of the writing many elements of discourse that do not occur in speech. Since chapters are one such element, she does without them. She is not unique in this part of her style; in fact, some novels by white authors have also done without chapters. However, she is using this as an expression of Native American heritage.

Chapters are generally used to divide a narrative into parts for the Western readership. By refraining from using them, Silko represents the story as being intact instead of divided. However, she does use line spacing to separate one scene from the next. They are visual representations of verbal cues used to transition from one part of the narrative to the next. They are

read as pauses in the flow of speech. In short, she uses divisions analogous to those in natural speech, without adding extra written divisions like chapters.

Valdez also writes in English. However, his style is very different from Silko’s because he uses the play instead of the novel. The different genre involves a different approach to literacy. The verbal recitations imitated by Silko relate to Valdez’s writing of material meant to be acted on stage. There is a connecting theme of the written word directly representing the spoken word. Of course, all writing represents words in the spoken language. The difference is that there is a style of writing supposed to have greater quality than spoken language, whereas other writing is meant to show how people really speak. Of course, a play script is an example of the later type, as is Silko’s imitation of her people telling stories verbally.

Valdez’s writing is meant for performance. In fact, he uses the play in a counter-discursive way which challenges typical ways of representing his people. For example, throughout the play, dialogue mixes English and Spanish. According to Anzaldua, this combination represents Chicano speech (20). It challenges the historic preference of English for the writings in this country. Furthermore, while Valdez depicts a Chicano gang, he refuses to villainize the culture, even criticizing the general American culture that villainizes them.

Plays, like novels, are a common form of Western literature and entertainment. Valdez uses this form from the Spanish part of his Chicano ancestry, though of course he also connects to the general American public to whom it is popular as well. Pizatto explains that Zoot Suit presents a rendition of the true story of the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial. The main character is Henry Reyna, a Chicano who historically went to jail with his gang after being wrongfully arrested for the crime. The story includes references to the Aztec part of Chicano ancestry, such as the culture’s association of masculinity with violence and the symbolic character El Pachuco. The name of the character comes from a word for a man preparing to be ritually sacrificed in Aztec society—shown in the play through choreographed violence. As such a man would act as the deity Tezcatlipoca, this character represents divine characteristics through the power to change the chronology of events. There is also a scene when his zoot suit is taken off of him, and under it he has an Aztec garment (Pizatto).

The title of the play refers to suits worn by Chicano men in the World War II era, as explained in the play (Valdez, Act 1 Prologue). It is actually part of their identity. It was based on the mainstream American fashion of suits for men, but it was adapted in a unique way by Chicanos with their own colors and flourishes. In other words, they took the fashion of American colonizers and made their own statement with it.

The first scene of the play describes the fashion this way: “The Pachuco style was an act in Life and his language was a new creation.” There is also a description of the zoot suit itself, with its many pieces (Valdez, Act 1 Prologue). The zoot suit was then part of a lifestyle for those who wore it. Its many pieces also show it to be quite exquisite, thus based in an idea of self-respect. Also seen in this quote, Chicano dialect was another part of identity separate from mainstream society. Furthermore, the use of the word pachuco in this quote is described by Pizatto as referring to the same people wearing the zoot suit and identifying with their Aztec ancestry, such as through the violence used by their gangs.

As for one scene referred to by Pizatto, as mentioned above, there is more important detail to examine in the play. The script says that after having the zoot suit taken off him in a mob attack, “El Pachuco stands. The only item of clothing on his body is a small loincloth.” In the same context, “an Aztec conch blows” (Valdez, Act 2 Scene 6). This scene says that if the zoot suit is taken away, the Aztec identity remains because that is what lies underneath the clothing. It is a statement of who Chicanos are.

Literacy practices are used to express many interests of Native American culture. As Rahman explains, a specific example is post-colonial ecocriticism, a specific area of themes prominent in Native American literature. There are post-colonial themes in the oppression of people. There are ecocritical themes in the oppression of the non-human. The combination of these two themes shows the common thread of oppression to be resisted, since both have been brought by white people (Rahman). These kinds of themes form part of the counter-discourse, as seen in the examples of Silko and Valdez.

Counter-discourse comes to be about writing against a wide perspective of domination and preserving the culture of oppressed groups such as Native Americans. Imperialism, as described by Park, seeks to control all aspects of the land being subjugated. This means both the people and the environment. Silko expresses this idea in her myth about the origin of white men, who are shown to be characterized by a lack of connection either to other people or to nature. With this lack of care, they ruin so many parts of the world (Park).

Counter-discourse is then about protecting both people and the environment from this abuse. It teaches the Native American belief in the value of both. The authors defend their people’s historic connection to the

land against the colonizers’ gradual claiming of it. They protest many issues such as the gradual separation of the people into reservations, by which colonizers control them.

Several of the examples given earlier from Ceremony also demonstrate post-colonial ecocriticism. References to nature in these examples and other parts of the novel always show respect for the environment as an ecocritical position. Other examples given earlier call for respect for and preservation of the ways of Native Americans in spite of the domination of white man. This is a post-colonial position resisting the destruction brought by colonizers and their descendants. The culture is connected to the land.

Valdez takes a different perspective on postcolonial ecocriticism. Zoot Suit has an urban setting without condemning urbanization. However, it indirectly shows the cities of the white man as locations of oppression towards natives. There is post-colonial criticism of the oppression, with some implicit ecocritical themes showing the changed environment as part of the oppression. The environment, though, is not emphasized by Valdez as it is by Silko.

Counter-discourse then makes literature a form of protest. As mentioned, the literary forms and the language come from the colonizers, but Native Americans use them to resist the ways of the colonizers. In reference to the examples discussed earlier, Silko uses the novel and Valdez uses the play. They give different expression to their respective groups.

Creative writing, which includes novels and plays, is not the only area of counter-discourse. Some other examples of counter-discourse in literacy are seen in Native American culture. In fact, it influences how they regulate their affairs. For one example, of which the significance in literacy is to follow, the American government has given legal status to 574 “Indian Nations” entitled to run the local affairs on the lands granted to them. Several states also have given legal status to other tribes, with similar rights. Nations and tribes are subject to the United States and to individual states in which their lands fall. They are entitled to pass and enforce their own laws and policies within their lands. Furthermore, they have individual citizenship, automatically accompanied by American citizenship (Tribal Nations).

In modern society, laws and policies are made in a written format. It follows that when the Indian Nations individually pass such statutes in their own lands, they are using literacy practices to regulate the activities on such lands. Since counter-discourse is about minorities using literacy to distinguish themselves from the majority culture, the Indian Nations use counterdiscourse for legal purposes. In other words, their statutes distinguish their cultures from the mainstream American counterparts. It is interesting that the American government has legally entitled them to do so, as opposed to fighting the counter-discourse.

According to Mann, most of the groups from which the Indian Nations descended practiced a high level of freedom for their people. An interesting institution developed in the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee, all of Iroquoian origin. Formed almost nine centuries ago in the northeastern United States, this confederation was governed by a set of policies called the Great Law of Peace, which formed legislative procedures. Its purpose was purely for a common f oreign policy to be formed by the great council composed of all the sachems who led the nations. It also allowed a popular vote among the nations for the most significant issues. Its operation has continued under the jurisdiction of the United States. Its historic communication included pictographs of limited use, lacking standardization for widespread use. One important use of the pictographs was in Condolence Canes, on which they were used to list people who had sat on the council of the confederacy (370-374).

The confederacy still exists today, with its records and constitution in English. It also has a website in English, explaining its operation to other people. Its constituent Nations mostly follow the usual pattern of native relations to the United States and Canada (About the Haudenosaunee). This was a distinct organization in Native American culture, continuing to operate under colonization. It now expresses counter-discourse using English for records and for its online materials. It has taken the language of the colonizers in expressing its own culture.

One of the nations of the confederacy is the Mohawks (About the Haudenosaunee). They have taken a different kind of stance in relation to the United States. Part of their land from before colonization was within present-day New York; starting on 13 May 1974, they reclaimed part of this land as a sovereign state called the Territory of Ganienkeh. The entity has neither sought not received any legal status in relation to the United States, which it does not see as having the right to regulate the activities of native nations. It is intentionally outside the network of reservations and Indian Nations, asserting the identity of its people independent of colonial regulation. The tribal council that governs it has implemented many policies to assert the identity of its people, including gradual economic independence and gradual reformation of their old culture such as their language. In spite of the former goal, they have

so far had to accept the currencies of the United States and Canada for sustainability purposes (Ganienkeh).

This information about Ganienkeh comes from its website, in which they use English to express their identity and activities. The website definitely represents a form of counter- discourse, describing its resistance to the ways of colonizers around them. It does so while using the language of colonizers, as well as the structure of a website which was developed in the colonizing culture. While many tribes, as explained earlier, have sought legal status in the United States as a means to reclaim some identity, Ganienkeh is an attempt to separate from that country entirely though it admits to not yet being able to complete the process, such as in depending on the currencies around it. Its refusal even to have sovereignty granted by the United States, which most tribes have sought, is a major form of resistance to that country and to the usual position of tribes as colonized people. The website is counter-discursive in expressing a level of resistance that sets Ganienkeh apart from other groups.

Besides the modern formation of Ganienkeh, there was another important event in Native American culture in 1974. This was the original meeting of the International Indian Treaty Council, which included representatives from ninety-seven tribes. It produced some written material to be used for common goals among the tribes represented. It gave “Two Mandates” to the tribes: the gaining of international legitimacy collectively and the gaining of sovereignty individually. A major victory was “On September 2007, when the United Nations passed the Declaration of Indigenous Rights.” In this, the tribes achieved the international legitimacy goal. The other mandate is to be achieved on the part of each tribe. A major example was the Lakotah Freedom Delegation presenting to the American government the tribe’s rejection of its past treaties with the government. This action, near the end of 2007, led to the formation of the Republic of Lakotah. Like Ganienkeh, this has not been recognized outside the nation itself as sovereign in spite of its claims to such a status (158 Year Struggle).

Since Native Americans have historically been treated as subjects to the governments established by colonizers, those represented by the International Indian Treaty Council show counter-discourse in the written documents by which they seek to redefine themselves. The Declaration of Indigenous Rights shows that they do not have to rely purely on the colonizers for their status, since it was passed on an international basis involving the nations of the world, of which only a fraction have had colonies. It is through counter-discourse that they claim the rights described in the document, such as through writing their own tribal policies. The Republic of Lakotah is especially counter-discursive, redefining the tribe through its own writings including its website to replace the old discourse, which was in the form of treaties with the United States. The tribe’s earlier definition through the documents written by colonizers is replaced with documents written by the tribe itself.

In 2008, the Republic of Timucua formed as a result of the Declaration of Indigenous Rights. It is intended as a sovereign nation, but it has not been recognized as such outside the nation itself. Furthermore, its leadership admits to needing a lot of progress before the structures are in place as required of a sovereign nation (A brief outline). In short, Ganienkeh, Lakotah, and Timucua all represent counter-discourse in their documents and in their websites from which the information came. In all three cases, the counterdiscourse resists the usual relationship of Native Americans to the United States. Instead of the pattern of limited autonomy under American rule, these nations seek to separate from the United States entirely. Because none of them has been either granted or refused cessation from the United States, they are effectively operating independently of what the colonizers say. Their counter-discourse then includes a redefinition of the concept of sovereignty for a nation, though Lakotah and Timucua refer to international policy for their statuses.

Counter-discourse in Native American literacy practices thus forms an expression of their identity. They do not write the same way as the white majority around them, because they have their own cultures. The writings are about their resistance to the common approaches to literacy around them. The counterdiscourse includes their approaches to creative writing and to governing themselves. They have become minorities, but they still maintain their own voice. They assert the fact that the land belonged to their ancestors before it was claimed by the colonizers. They often express this in their official documents, while also expressing it creatively. While the language and many literary forms came from the colonizers, Native Americans use them in distinct ways. It is then an important part of their culture.

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Pueblo Indian Perspective.” Literary Analyses. Retrieved from http://www.unm.edu/~joglesby/ Silko%20Essay.pdf. Tiffin, Helen. “Post-colonial Literatures and Counter-discourse.”

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WORKS CONSULTED

Jakubiak, Katarzyna. American Ethnic Literature, 21 January- 8

May 2020, Millersville University, Millersville, PA.

Class Lectures.