The edition I read was published in 2011 by the Michigan State University Press, and it includes a lot of "front" material: essays by a couple of graduate students at the University of Michigan (both now professors elsewhere -- I looked them up) as well as Margaret Noori (now Noodin) who was at the time teaching Anishinaabe Language and American Indian Literature at U of M but is now a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The grad students' essays were a little over my head, too English departmenty, but the essay by Noori was interesting, with lots of linguistic analysis. After those essays, there is introductory material that was present in the original edition, including a short grammar of what Pokagon called the Algonquin or Algaic language. Noori, in her essay, explains that Algonquin is a major North American language family and Anishinaabemowin is the currently accepted name of the language in that family that includes the dialects of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatami. When Simon Pokagon was born, in 1830, the dialects would have been closer together and perhaps not even recognizably different (if I'm reading the essay correctly).
All that front material takes up almost 100 pages and the book itself is only about 90 pages long, divided into 12 chapters, and followed by two appendices (two addresses given by Pokagon in 1893 and 1898). Despite its brevity, the book is not a quick read, because many of the words are given in Anishinaabe, followed by an English translation in parentheses. It is not clear who decided which words would be given in both languages. The book is said to be a translation from Anishinaabe into English, and the translation may have been done by a Mrs. Cyrus Engle, wife of the publisher of the work. Pokagon knew English, but this text is said not to resemble the English in his letters. Pokagon may have dictated it to Mrs. Engle in Anishinaabe and they may have worked on the translation together. It was published not long after he died, so his health may have been a factor. It's not, as one of the contributors says, a "clean" text.
I could have skimmed over the Anishinaabe words, but it was fun trying to sound them out (silently), and that made the reading take a lot longer. Here is an example passage:
With some reluctance I now asked, "What did you tell your mother about me on your return home?" "Ekwaw, ekwaw! (Well, well!)" she said, with a curious smile, "I told her I met oshkinawe (a young man) agaming Sebe (near the river's shore) agwiwinondowan ogimaw (dressed like a chief), gigit mojagissinon igo (and he spoke kindly to me), makaw tchi minbim ibato (but that I ran away and left him); and after I had gotten away began to wish I had stayed longer, and learned more about him, for he could speak the Ottawa and Pottawattamie odawnawnaw (tongue)." (p. 118)
Although this book is called a novel, it is apparently quite autobiographical. Simon Pokagon was the youngest and only surviving son of Leopold Pokagon, chief of the Pokagon Band of Potawatami, and Simon was also at times a chief. He was sent to boarding school when he was 14, and this novel begins when the main character, also called Simon Pokagon, returns home to Michigan one summer, so that would be perhaps the late 1840s. He and his widowed mother take a sort of vacation in an abandoned wigwam up the river, "the wildest place that could be found within fifty miles," and there Simon observes and eventually meets a "little maiden" who captures his fancy. The young woman, who is called Lonidaw or Loda, has a special relationship with the creatures of the forest: she can summon birds by imitating their calls, and her closest companion is a very jealous white deer.
Simon falls in love with his "Queen of the Woods," and after another year of school he seeks out Lonidaw and asks her to marry him. They eventually are married and have two children, but tragedy awaits in the form of alcohol abuse. Earlier in the book there are passages about the dangers of alcohol, but after the demise of Simon's family, the book becomes merely an anti-alcohol tract and the last two chapters are nothing but that.
So it's an odd mix. Large sections of the book are very interesting and moving, full of descriptions of nature and Indian life and history. I was fascinated by the detailed descriptions of the now-extinct passenger pigeon, which Loda can call to her, but which the characters also hunt and cook and eat.
Looking up, I saw high above the trees, multitudes falling like meteors from heaven with sky-rocket sound to the earth, until acres were blue with them. At some signal given by the watch-sentinels with a sharp clap of "ningwiganog" (the wings), the vast numbers would rise with the roar of "anamike" (thunder) and sweep in circles around us, hiding the sun from view, and continually increasing in numbers. (p. 141)
And then there are the temperance sections, which quickly become boring -- even though I realize that alcohol was (and to some extent still is) the scourge of the Native American population, encouraged by whites in order to destroy Indian cultures and exert control. It's just that this kind of thing seems so out of place in a novel.
I wonder what Pokagon intended: did he want to write a novel about his youth and his first marriage, about Indian life and customs, comparing them with the culture of white Americans, or did he want to write a tract condemning alcohol? Did he start out doing one thing and then switched to the other? Or did he think he could do both? And what was the influence of Mrs. Cyrus Engle? Did she nudge the book in one direction or the other?
Regardless, it was an interesting read, and I loved the descriptions of nature and culture, and the story of the courtship of Pokagon and Loda.
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