Reading post: Cogewea, the Half-Blood

I have finished my fifth book for the Classics Challenge: Cogewea, the Half-Blood by Mourning Dove (aka Humishuma, of the Okanogan and Colville tribes), first published in 1927 but written earlier, said to be the first or second novel written by a Native American woman (Wynema: A Child of the Forest by Sophia Alice Callahan, published in 1891 may be the first). This fulfills category #3, "A classic by a woman author." It is a romance, a meditation on the fate of American Indians at the time, and a portrayal of the difficulties of being what is called in the novel a "breed" -- among other things.

The trouble with reading "classics" in English by lightly-educated people writing their first novels, especially if English isn't their first language, is that the books aren't very good. This is my third "classic" by a Native American and they've all been disappointing. Cogewea is perhaps the worst of the three. But again, as with Pokagon's Ogimawkwe Mitigwaki, the book has compensations. There are very good passages, especially when the old grandmother tells stories. Then there are awkward, embarrassing passages.

But also as with Pokagon's novel, we've got the problem of a text that has been messed with by a white person and no way to know who wrote what or whose fault the problems are. [But see post-note below.]

Mourning Dove, who was born in 1887 in Idaho, was a member of the Okanogan tribe on her father's side (he was also at least half white, maybe all white) and the Colville tribe on her mother's side. She did not have much education, but she had a great longing to write, and was encouraged to do so by one Lucullus Virgil McWhorter, a writer and academic who homesteaded in Washington state beginning in 1903. Mourning Dove worked as a migrant farmworker and wrote in the evenings, in her tent, after working 10-hour days. She finished a draft of this novel in 1914 and she and McWhorter worked on it together until 1916. But when it was finally published, 11 years later, she wrote to McWhorter, 

"...I am surprised at the changes that you made... I felt like it was some one elses book and not mine at all..." 

There's no way to know what all McWhorter did to the book. You can guess that he is responsible for the formal analysis of the abuse of Indian rights that Cogewea (the heroine) subjects Densmore (her false lover) to in Chapter XVI, right after Densmore has told her he loves her. That is probably the worst chapter in the book: the information Cogewea dispenses is true, but it's such an inappropriate place to dump it. But what else did McWhorter do? And what did Mourning Dove actually write? No way to know.

The basic story of Cogewea, the Half-Blood is simple. Cogewea, a young woman who is half white and half Okanogan, lives on a ranch in Montana owned by her older sister's (white) husband. The ranch foreman, another half-breed named Jim LaGrinder, is in love with Cogewea but she views him only as a friend. One day, an Easterner, Alfred Densmore, is hired to work on the ranch, and Cogewea becomes interested in him. He finds her attractive and decides to seduce her in order to steal her land and money (he thinks she has more than she does). This set-up is established by page 87, but it is drawn out for another 198 pages. Toward the end, the book starts to get exciting, as Densmore is revealed to be even more evil than we suspected. At last Cogewea comes to her senses and marries Jim, and of course it turns out that she's actually very wealthy and presumably they live happily ever after.

Cogewea is an interesting heroine, or would be if the book were better written. She is willful, independent, and an excellent horseback rider. She has some education and wants more out of life than what it seems to be offering her. We can assume she is something like her creator, whose dreams obviously extended beyond being a migrant farmworker. Cogewea's dissatisfaction with life is probably what makes her so susceptible to Densmore's lies, but her strength of character helps save her.

There is a great deal of discussion throughout the novel about Indian rights or lack thereof, how Indians are abused by whites and have been from the start. But it's all talk until the very end, when we see what power the evil Densmore has and what danger Cogewea allowed herself to get into. She makes no attempt to get back at him, and forbids the ranch hands to try anything, knowing that they can do nothing -- and trying to do something may backfire on them. That hit home with me, in a way that all the general talk did not. Thus the power of fiction over nonfiction is demonstrated. 

Despite the clear portrayal of Indians (often referred to as Americans, or original Americans) as "good guys" and whites as "bad guys," Cogewea and the others seem resigned to the idea that the whites are winning and there is nothing they can do about it. This point is made over and over. Even though the old traditional grandmother is shown to be enormously wise and good, she is described as one of the last of a dying race. This all recalls Pokagon's point of view as well. I wonder at what point the books I'm reading will stop viewing Native Americans that way. It will be something to watch for.

Post-note
I have to add something to this, because I've now read a scholarly article by one Martha L. Viehmann ("My People...My Kind": Mourning Dove's Cogewea, the Half-blood as a Narrative of Mixed Descent) and it's helped me to think about the book a little more clearly. Viehmann states unequivocally that the stories and romance were written by Mourning Dove, while Lucullus McWhorter added in all the policy bits that so badly interrupt the narrative. Viehmann is more charitable than I am:

A notable difference between Mourning Dove and McWhorter is that she has strong faith in the power of stories (or fiction) to sway readers to her point of view, whereas he places his faith in the power of historical facts. Where Mourning Dove included dramatic vignettes of western life and incorporated Okanogan folktales into the novel, McWhorter added footnotes and arguments against the Indian Bureau.... In the novel proper, his inserted arguments can jolt the reader. [I'll say!]

Viehmann also discusses at length the issue alluded to by the subtitle, "the Half-blood." I kind of ignored that aspect of the novel, but it is important. Cogewea is to some extent at home in both worlds, Indian and white, but not completely accepted by either. But she is especially not accepted by the whites. In one important section, she rides in both the "squaws' race" and the "ladies' race" and wins both, but she is only given the prize in the squaws' race. The white man managing the races is horrified at the idea of her acting white, even though she is half white. Cogewea feels a bond with other Indians, not so much with whites, and of course many of the white characters are bad people (Densmore and her own father, especially). Since most of the Native American writers I'm reading have some white ancestry, this issue will undoubtedly come up again. It reminds me of the theme of "passing" in Black literature.

The article was originally published in Early Native American Writing: New Critical Essays, edited by Helen Jaskoski, 1996, and reprinted in the volume I got from the Longmont public library, Native-American Writers, edited by Harold Bloom, 1998. The latter volume says Viehmann is "currently adjunct professor of English at the University of Denver," but that was back in 1998. She received her PhD in American Studies at Yale in 1994, so her Cogewea article is obviously part of her dissertation. More recently she seems to have taught writing at Northern Kentucky University (there are "rate my professor" reviews from 10-15 years ago). Now she appears to be active in Black Lives Matter marches and such.  She seems to be about my age, yet another would-be academic who didn't make it. I suspect I'd like her. We'd certainly have things to talk about.