Reading post: Indian Captive and other children's books

I have finished my eleventh book for the Classics Challenge, so I'm almost done. I think I will save the 12th book for December. Today I am writing about what I read for category #9, "A children's classic." I actually read four books for this category, all written by white authors, because I was trying to get a sense of how Native Americans have been presented to American children through fiction. The books I read were published between 1941 and 1970. The protagonists of the first two are white and those of the later two are Indian. It is worth noting that all four books are historical fiction -- they all subtly perpetuate the idea that Indians are a part of the past, not the present.

As I read, I started wondering about what a children's book really is. I should know -- I've been reading them all my life. But none of the four books I read seem like typical children's books. I am not sure any of them would be published today without some revision.

The book that I decided to count for the Challenge is Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison by Lois Lenski, published in 1941, about a white girl who was captured by the Seneca in the 1700s. This was not my original choice for this category, and I probably would not have read it if my cousin Marina hadn't recommended it. I hated Lois Lenski when I was a kid. Her books always seemed so depressing. It never would have occurred to me that she would have written a worthwhile book about Indians. But she did. It was part of a series of historical children's books she wrote, before she wrote the "regional" books that I hated so desperately. Indian Captive was a Newbery honor book in 1942.

Mary Jemison was a real person, born in 1743 on board the ship her parents took from Ireland to North America. Her family's home in Pennsylvania was attacked by a group of Seneca Indians and Frenchmen when she was a young girl, and all within were captured except her two older brothers who escaped. Her parents and three other siblings were murdered soon after, but Mary was brought to Fort Duquesne (controlled by the French), where she was given to two Seneca women whose brother had been killed in the French & Indian War the year before. They adopted Mary as his replacement. She ended up living with the Seneca the rest of her life. She had the chance to go back to white society a few different times, but by then she was married and a mother. So she chose to stay with the Seneca. She lived to be 91.

Her story was first published in 1824, when a minister named James E. Seaver wrote it up as the Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison. It is a "captivity narrative," a genre that was especially popular in the 1600s and 1700s because so many white settlers were captured by Indians (sometimes aided by the French) and later escaped or were released. When I was first planning my reading list for the Challenge, I considered including a captivity narrative as one of my books. Mary Jemison's story was especially interesting because she chose to stay with the Seneca. Lenski's book is not the only retelling; there are many versions of the story, some for adults and some for children. 

Lenski's novel, Indian Captive, begins with a fairly accurate description of what happened to Mary (or Molly, as Lenski usually calls her), but gradually deviates from the true story. It's quite interesting to compare her book with the real Narrative. There is some question about how old Mary was when she was captured: she says it happened in 1755, when she would have been 12, but there are indications that it may actually have been 1758, when she would have been 15. Lenski says, in her interesting Foreword to the book, "I have chosen to keep her twelve," presumably because that makes her more of a child, and thus easier for Lenski's readers to identify with her. Of the four "children's" books I read, this one is the most clearly intended for children (Amazon rates it as being for Grades 5-6). But in order to make that true, Lenski had to bury key parts of the real story.

Lenski's book covers about two years of Molly's life, but it includes experiences that the real Mary had over a longer period of time -- and leaves out others. For instance, by the time the real Mary traveled to Genishau with the Seneca, which happens after about a year in Indian Captive, she was married and had a baby. But Lenski omits any suggestion that Mary/Molly will soon be married, probably because she is trying to "keep her" a child. (Perhaps also the idea of her marrying an Indian would have been challenging to a 1941 white audience?) She also makes changes that seem to be attempts to improve the story. In Indian Captive, Molly is first called "Corn Tassel" because of her blond hair, and later earns the name "Little Woman of Great Courage" because she decides to stay with the Seneca. But Mary Jemison's real Seneca name was neither of these. Lenski also chooses to make one of Molly's new sisters mean and the other kind. In Mary Jemison's narrative she refers to both sisters very positively.

The real triumph of Indian Captive is its positive portrayal of the Seneca. Although Molly starts out hating and fearing them, she gradually comes to like and admire them. While the real Mary stayed with the Seneca because her Indian children would have no place in white society, Molly in the book stays because the Seneca are her family now. At the end, she acknowledges that she was never very good at sitting still and doing needlework. The Seneca have taught her to be more patient, but she also just feels more comfortable with them and their world. She feels that her life is more pleasant than it would have been as a white lady. That seems like a radical concept for 1941, and I admire Lois Lenski for putting it in her book.

***

The second children's book I read was Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith, published in 1957. I originally picked this up last year when I was looking for books to read about the Civil War. But when that challenge morphed into books about the Black experience, I set this aside. This year, when I decided to read books about Native Americans, I remembered Rifles and decided it was time to read it. It was my first choice for the children's category until I found Indian Captive.

Rifles for Watie is the story of Jefferson Davis (Jeff) Bussey, a Kansas farm boy who enlists in the Union Army in 1861 when he is 16 years old. He falls in love with a part-Cherokee girl he meets when his unit is stationed in Tahlequah, the capital city of Cherokee Nation in what later became Oklahoma. But she is a rebel, like most Cherokees, and her brother and father are fighting with Stand Watie, a Cherokee general in the Confederate Army. While on scout duty one night, Jeff finds himself surrounded by Watie's men and, to save his own life, pretends to want to join them. He then spends 14 months with the rebels, much of that time laid low with malaria but also fighting with them against the Union occasionally. Finally he learns who on the Union side is illegally selling "repeating rifles" to Watie (hence the novel's title). He runs away from the rebels to deliver that information to the Union Army, with whom he finishes out the war.

So it's an unusual Civil War book, with great sympathy for both sides, although Jeff never truly becomes a rebel. Trying to read between the lines, I wonder whether Oklahoma native Harold Keith wanted to write a pro-Confederacy book and this was the closest he could come. There are very few Black characters in the novel and they are either "happy slaves" (or former slaves, I guess, but still slaving away for their former owners) or portrayed as kind of stupid, speaking terrible broken English. But the Cherokee characters are much more nuanced -- Keith obviously thought highly of them. Maybe his real goal was to write about the Cherokee; maybe making his protagonist a Kansas white boy was just a way to attract more kids to read the book. When Jeff first meets Lucy, the Cherokee girl he falls in love with, he registers her Indian looks but is not put off by them:

...Although the girl's skin had a brownish cast, her complexion was lovelier than wild strawberries. Breathless, he wondered what any girl that pretty was doing in this far-off Indian town.

So there is that implication that being "brownish" is not attractive, and that great beauty was not to be expected in a "far-off Indian town," but otherwise, and ever after this, Jeff finds Lucy stunning. Also, I noticed that she is usually referred to (in Jeff's thinking) as "that rebel girl," not "that Indian girl," which also seems significant -- she's allowed to be defined by her opinions, not her ancestry. Many other Cherokee characters are also portrayed positively. Jeff learns to admire Stand Watie's troops, and Lucy convinces him (in a long, completely unrealistic discussion where the two of them sound like a couple of college professors) that the Cherokees' support for the Confederacy is justified. Sometimes it seems as though it is only the thought of his own family being overrun by Confederate troops that keeps Jeff on the Union side.

The book was fun for me because it hearkened back to some of the books I read earlier in the Challenge, especially The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit by John Rollin Ridge, published in 1854. Ridge was a cousin of Stand Watie and much of what we know about him comes from letters he wrote to Watie. Also, Lucy's explanation for why the Cherokee don't like the U.S. Government involves the story of the fights among the Cherokee over whether to agree to move from Georgia to Oklahoma. Harold Keith manages to include a lot of interesting Cherokee history in the novel.

I enjoyed Rifles for Watie, although I think it's just as well I didn't read it to my boys. It's a bit long (332 pages) and dry for them, there's a lot of tobacco use, the n-word comes up now and then, there are those apologies for the Confederacy -- I don't want to say it's outdated, because it's still a very good book, but maybe better for older kids or even adults, who have a better chance of parsing its mixed messages. Amazon rates it as being for Grades 8-12, and it is apparently now considered a "Teen" book rather than a children's book, even though it won the Newbery Medal (for "distinguished contributions to American literature for children") in 1958.

***

The third book I read was The Story Catcher by Mari Sandoz, published in 1963. When I was trying to choose my book for this category, I came across a couple of children's books about the Sioux by Sandoz, The Horsecatcher and The Story Catcher. The Bookworm had copies of both and I looked at them, but didn't choose them because they seemed dry, plain, uninteresting. It's that university press problem again -- they don't know how to design their books to appeal to a non-scholarly audience (or maybe they don't care to). 

But when I went back to the Bookworm to look for (and find) Indian Captive, I looked at these books again and decided I could read one, for comparison purposes. I chose The Story Catcher because it was Sandoz's last book and it won a couple of awards.

Sandoz was a Nebraska writer, born in 1896, and my mother was a big fan of her work. I've read Old Jules, her biography/memoir of her Swiss immigrant father, which blew me away, but I hadn't read any of her many books about Indians, both fiction and nonfiction. I don't have a good sense of how her work is currently rated, in particular whether her portrayal of Indians is still considered accurate, fair, etc. There is a biography of her, from 1982 -- of course our library doesn't have it, but I decided I'd like to read it, so I just now ordered a used copy (from someone in Lincoln, Nebraska, which seemed appropriate -- I looked him up and he's a music professor who I guess sells books in his spare time). 

One thing I've read about Sandoz is that she researched her Indian books heavily, conducted interviews with elders, read through crumbling manuscripts. Having recently read the almost-ethnography Waterlily by Ella Cara Deloria, I was struck by how similar the world portrayed in The Story Catcher is. And of course, they are supposed to be the same, more or less. They are both about the Lakota, though different branches of the tribe.

The Story Catcher is the coming of age story of Lance, a Sioux teenager (we don't know his exact age, but I'm guessing he might be 15 or 16 or 17 at the start of the book, roughly similar to Jeff Bussey in Rifles for Watie). It's clearly the 1800s, because whites are starting to encroach, but I didn't see anything in the book that explained when in the 1800s. The blurb on the back of the paperback says it's the 1840s, but I don't know how the blurb knows that. I really would have appreciated some explanatory material: a Foreword, an Afterword, something. The only clue we get is the dedication:

Dedicated to the Bad Heart Bull Family,
a long line of story catchers,
and particularly to Amos Bad Heart Bull,
artist and great historian of the Oglala Sioux

Wikipedia tells me that Amos Bad Heart Bull lived from 1868 to 1913, so Sandoz could have known him when she was a teenager (she would have been 16 or 17 when he died), but perhaps she only knew him by reputation. According to Wikipedia, his drawings influenced the design of the interior of the Nebraska state capitol building.

Anyway, back to Lance and The Story Catcher. Like Waterlily, The Story Catcher is mostly just incidents in the life of the tribe, but with a close focus on Lance. Like any teenager, Lance takes a lot of risks: some get him in a lot of trouble, while others end in triumph. He comes close to dying several times, but always manages to save himself. By the end of the book he has proved himself to be not only brave, honorable, and worthy of the girl he loves, but also the tribe's new artist and historian (like Amos Bad Heart Bull and his father).

I probably would not read this to my kids -- it's slow-moving and sometimes a little hard to follow, very different from a modern children's book. I think they would get bored. The writing is lovely, though, and the story of Lance is moving. Sandoz would have been about 67 when the book was published; for an old white woman, she did an amazing job of portraying the mind of a young Sioux warrior. Still, I wonder what makes this a children's book. Is it the focus on a young person? The lack of sex? There is one scene where I think Lance possibly comes close to having sex with the girl he loves, but it's so wildly understated that I wasn't sure. The thing is, there was no sex in Waterlily either, and yet I never thought that seemed like a children's book. There is no shortage of violence in this book -- true of all four books I read, incidentally. Amazon claims it is for Grades 7-9. Hmm.

***

Finally, I read Sing Down the Moon by Scott O'Dell, published in 1970. O'Dell also wrote Island of the Blue Dolphins, another important children's book about Indians of the past written by a white person, but of course I'd already read it (in elementary school, and also more recently, to my kids). I had never read any of O'Dell's other books, and only came upon this one because it was in a Little Free Library in our neighborhood. I wasn't even going to take it, but Teen B told me I should. I put it in our "to be read" pile, but then pulled it out to read to myself for this challenge. It's another Newbery honor book.

I was surprised to discover that O'Dell was only two years younger than Mari Sandoz, though he went on publishing until his death at age 91 in 1989, with two books published posthumously. Sandoz's last book was The Story Catcher, published in 1963, and she died in 1966, which is probably why I thought she was much older. Like Sandoz, O'Dell wrote historical novels about the area where he grew up, in his case California.

This is the first book I've read for the Challenge about the Navajo, but it felt familiar because of all the Tony Hillerman (and now Anne Hillerman) Navajo mysteries I've read! Those books often mention the Long Walk of 1864-65, when the U.S. Government forced the Navajo to leave their land in Arizona and walk to eastern New Mexico, a journey of 300 miles or more. Many of the Navajo died along the way. They were forcibly detained in New Mexico for a few years, and many more of them died during this time. In 1868 the Navajo were allowed to return to their land, which they hold still. But it was a terrible, defining episode in their nation's history.

Sing Down the Moon tells the story of Bright Morning, who is 15 years old when the book begins (not 14, as it says on the back of the book). She lives a rather idyllic life, driving her mother's sheep up into the hills to eat grass every day, though the Long Knives (white Government people) threaten to burn the village down if its warriors go on a raid. One day while she is out with the sheep, she and a friend are captured by Spanish slavers. But after a few months they manage to escape and return to their village, resuming their pleasant life. Bright Morning has her Womanhood Ceremony and is interested in a young man called Tall Boy, who was injured while helping her return from slavery.

Then, just past the halfway point in this rather short book, the Long Knives come back, and this time it's serious. They post a notice saying that the community must leave their home. The people try fleeing to a nearby mesa, but the Long Knives wait them out, and when they are starving, they come down from the mesa and begin the Long Walk to New Mexico. While the book ends happily, we first hear many sad and terrible stories about this experience.

I was puzzled by this book. Who is it for? It is written in simple language, with short sentences and short chapters, so kids certainly can read it. But would they want to? Bright Morning is 15 at the start of the book, and maybe 17-18 at the end, married and with a baby. Much of the subject matter is deadly serious and depressing. But Amazon claims it is for Grades 3-7, and some of the reviewers talk about it being appropriate for elementary school children: "My ten year old enjoyed reading this." I will say one thing: there is no sex. When Bright Morning and Tall Boy marry, he moves into her family's hut, which is already overcrowded.

...Now there was no room, so we made a lean-to of willow poles and earth nearby. It was really more of a cave and in it we stored the things we did not use every day and food if we had more than we needed, which was not often.

That's all we get: no information about where anybody sleeps, just that they built a "lean-to" to store the stuff that now wouldn't fit in the hut because a large young husband has been added to it. A few months later we hear that Bright Morning is going to have a baby, so sex must have occurred, but you sure wouldn't know it. Did someone writing a "children's book" in 1970 really have to be this discrete? Or maybe Scott O'Dell, in his 70s, felt uncomfortable saying anything more.

I read one review from an adult learning English who said they used Sing Down the Moon in her English class and everyone enjoyed reading it. That makes sense to me, because the book presents adult content in very easy to read language. But is it a children's book? I thought about O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins, which is about a young woman left behind on an island when the rest of her tribe is taken to the California mainland. She lives alone on the island for many years before she is finally discovered. It was required reading when I was in elementary school in California. Is that a children's book? I think because Karana, the girl, lives alone, she always seems young. And I admit that Bright Morning always seems young too, despite her husband and child. Sing Down the Moon is in some ways like a preteen's fantasy of adult life.

I'm not sure whether I will read this to my kids or not. I think I will put it back in the "to be read" pile and see if anyone chooses it (we alternate who gets to pick the next book). I may not choose it, but I'll see if one of them does. 

***

And to sum up, what did I learn from reading these four books? Well, as I noted at the beginning of this post, they are all historical. Nothing about Indians today; these are all stories of the past. Scott O'Dell does note, in his Postscript, that the Navajo still exist:

Some 1500 Navahos died at Fort Sumner from smallpox and other diseases. But the group who survived has grown to more than 100,000. The Navahos wanted to live. Like Bright Morning, they thirsted for life. They still do.

So that's kind of a nice thing to say, although why wouldn't the Navajo "thirst for life"? Don't all human beings? And then he goes on to add -- his last comment -- 

You will see girls who look much like her, tending their sheep now in Canyon de Chelly. They are dressed in velveteen blouses, a half-dozen ruffled and flounced petticoats, their hair tied in chignons -- a style copied from the officers' wives at Fort Sumner long ago.

I mean, it's interesting that the Navajo costume is based on what the officers' wives at Fort Sumner wore (this is not mentioned in the novel), but it seems like a weird way to end. It makes the Navajo seem almost stupid, out of date, unaware that the times and the fashions have moved on. 

I'm probably being too critical. Just having a little trouble making sense of everything. All the books I read portrayed Indians in a positive light. Maybe just a little bit too "other"? Maybe in their valiant attempts to portray them as good people, these white authors occasionally forgot that Native Americans are also human beings.