There’s a lot going on in this one sentence that I want to unpack, chief among them the seemingly arbitrary declaration that Tekahionwake, or Pauline Johnson, is not “the real thing” because she’s half-white. Putting aside for a moment that she wrote this statement in an essay praising Native author Thomas King—the son of a Cherokee father and a Swiss, German and Greek, i.e. white, mother—let’s consider Canada’s history of dictating Native identity. After all, there has to be a reason non-Native people feel they’re so damn good at determining “the real thing.”
Part of building a nation is dismantling all that undermines it. In Canada’s case, the dubious honour of undermining the nation falls to Indigenous peoples. While Britain, and by extension Canada, did not take the absurd route of Australia and declare a clearly populated land mass to be terra nullius, or vacant land, they didn’t exactly shake hands and promise to leave us alone, either. Since the passing of the Indian Act in 1876, Canada has been in the business of doing exactly what those Caledonia citizens felt so entitled to do: determine our lives—and lands—for us. Where we could go, what we could do, how our lineage could pass down to new generations, what we could name ourselves, what we could teach our children, what ceremonies of ours we could legally engage in. All of it was dictated to us in this racist document.
In a stroke of colonial genius, the Indian Act also defined who could actually be Indian. You may have thought you were an Indian, seeing as that’s what white Canadians called you, sometimes preceded by an expletive or two, but you could be wrong. There were “status Indians” and “non-status Indians.” There were Inuit and Métis, and later, the catch-all term that’s recently gone out of vogue: “Aboriginal.” Although the act clearly wanted all Indians to assimilate (residential schools were a pretty big statement on that front), those who dared to reproduce with non-Native people were also punished. Until 1985, depending on an increasingly convoluted set of circumstances bound up in imperial sexism, marrying a non-Native person could mean you and your children were stripped of your status. If you were a Native man who married a non-Native woman, congratulations! You, your wife and children were legally entitled to a laminated card affirming everyone’s Indian status. However, if you were a Native woman who married a non-Native man, tough luck. Not only were your kids unable to claim their inherent treaty rights; yours were officially forfeit. That’s right: Native women were put into the position of having to choose between their nation, home and identity—and their husband. Pretty good way to further degrade traditional matrilineality, no?
Meanwhile, politicians trumpeted “multiculturalism” as a defining Canadian value with straight faces. If you’re starting to feel like this is an episode of The Twilight Zone as narrated by the Mad Hatter, welcome to the wild world of Indian politics.
Into this toxic, traumatizing history of colonial dominion over Indigenous identity comes Atwood’s at worst insensitive, at best ignorant, comments about Pauline Johnson. What, one wonders, would make Johnson “the real thing”? Considering the legislation at the time of her birth, odds are that both she and her mother were technically status Indians. Her father was a well-known chief in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. She lived on the Six Nations reserve, had a Mohawk name, and only narrowly avoided being forced to attend the Mohawk Institute. Would Atwood have deemed Johnson worthy of “real thing” status if Johnson had attended a residential school? What about if she danced in the powwow? Didn’t she see any of those pictures of Johnson in leather, fringe and feathers? What more did she want?
To paraphrase the title of one of Thomas King’s short films, Johnson was simply not the Indian Atwood had in mind. King, meanwhile, who has been quite open about his white mother, regardless of whether Atwood chooses to acknowledge her existence, doesn’t have the same problem. It’s like a literary continuation of the Indian Act: favouring men and repressing women who, apart from their gender, are otherwise in the exact same circumstances.
For those lucky enough to escape the authenticity test, there are other ways their writing gets policed. In a review of Eden Robinson’s book Blood Sports, a book that features non-Native characters, Canadian Literature reviewer Laurie Kruk writes: “Robinson proudly identifies herself as a Haisla woman, raised [on a reserve] 500 miles north of Vancouver. She has been celebrated as an up-and-coming Native Canadian writer, yet it is interesting that two of her three works have no obvious Native characters or themes” (italics added). Kruk starts off by identifying Robinson’s heritage and connection with a specific reserve, perhaps to firmly place her in the category of “the real thing,” perhaps not. Then, directly after mentioning Robinson’s being “celebrated as an up-and-coming Native Canadian writer,” she innocently drops in the word “yet,” implying what she’s about to say is a contradiction of all that came before. It’s not. Being a celebrated Native writer in no way conflicts with Robinson writing about non-Native characters and themes—unless you happen to be a non-Native reviewer who’s been taught that Native people should exist within the cozy confines of your colonial imagination. That might, indeed, call for a nicely cloaked objection, a “yet.” Kruk never explains why, exactly, it’s “interesting” that not all of Robinson’s writing is based on Native peoples, or why, exactly, that negates her status as a “Native Canadian writer,” but one can guess. If only Robinson had written more about powwows.
But what do “real” Native people know about non-Native life, anyway? That seems to be a genuine point of contention for reviewers of Indigenous work. In reviewing a staging of Cree writer Tomson Highway’s Rez Sisters, the first thing Globe and Mail reviewer Ray Conlogue writes is a comforting assessment of Highway’s “real” Indian status: “Tomson Highway has long black hair, worn straight and loose. There is no mistaking that he is a Native person.” So far, so ridiculous. Once Highway’s Indigeneity is established (to the collective delight of settler Canadians everywhere), Conlogue goes on to write that Kuna and Rappahannock actress Gloria Miguel’s “stolid and monumental face lends a comic aspect to [her character] Pelajia’s longing for Toronto: as if a pre-Columbian stone carving longed to land on Yonge Street.” The actress’s performance is comic not because of her timing or talent but because of her “monumental” face. In case you were naively hoping Conlogue meant “monumental” as in “great in importance, extent or size,” he immediately clarifies: Miguel doesn’t remind him of anyone great; she doesn’t even remind him of a person. She reminds him of a pre-Columbian stone carving. Her face is “monumental” like an actual monument. Further, isn’t it hilarious to think a Native person would want to go to Toronto? What would they do there? There’s no buffalo or sweat lodges! Let’s forget that “Toronto” itself comes from a Mohawk word and the city was built on stolen Mississauga and Haudenosaunee land. Let’s also forget that Indigenous people are not historic artifacts that rumble to life whenever a non-Native person wants a good chuckle. I’d say we should forget that there are, in fact, buffalo and sweat lodges in Toronto, but to forget that, non-Native people would have to know it in the first place.
Even if a Native writer is deemed “the real thing,” writes the appropriate ratio of Native to non-Native characters and endures belittling “profiles” in national newspapers, that doesn’t mean they’re left alone. Success and canonization are afforded only to those who truly deserve them, after all, and what Native author is worthy? That’s exactly what Jennifer Lee Covert’s UBC thesis tried to figure out in seventy-nine pages’ worth of research and inquiry. I wish I were making this up. The thesis, titled “A Balancing Act: The Canonization of Tomson Highway,” posits that the plays Highway has written have been canonized not because of their quality but because they came along at a time when settlers were feeling particularly guilty about their history with Indigenous peoples—and because Ojibway playwright Drew Hayden Taylor “has not found as attractive a balance between Western and native….Instead of blending two cultural perspectives, [he] supplants white characters and their problems with nati
ve characters and their problems.” There’s another item to add to the list: Native writers must be careful to strike the right balance between Western and Native culture. No one wants to see Native peoples’ problems being explored the same way white people’s problems are. That would mean Native peoples’ lives are equally worthy of artistic inquiry—which they clearly are not.
The implied message in Covert’s thesis is that Native success is always suspect. If non-Native audiences graciously grant acclaim to Indigenous work, it’s not because the work itself deserves acclaim; it’s because critics feel bad about that whole genocide business. According to this warped rationale, Native success becomes pity success, easily explained away as a fluke instead of recognized as a genuine, deserved achievement. Curiously, you don’t see Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro or Timothy Findley’s success and canonization being dissected and dismissed the same way.
Essentially, there’s no way for Native writers to really win. If the criticisms I’ve looked at here are any indication, as long as Indigenous writers are “the real thing,” their work features mostly Native characters, they prey on colonial guilt and blend Western and Native cultures appropriately, they should be allowed to be successful. But these unfair, ridiculous standards are literary colonialism in action. These people aren’t simply casting a critical eye on Native writers’ work; after all, no one is asking Margaret Atwood to prove her lineage or accusing Alice Munro of not striking the right balance between Canadian and Scottish cultures. (Did you even know Munro was of Scottish descent? I certainly didn’t.) The criticisms lobbied at Native authors are not about style or form or symbolism; they specifically replicate damaging colonial attitudes that Native people have faced since contact. There is an insidious undercurrent driving critics to question a Native author’s identity, written content and success, directly calling to mind the Indian Act and the continual dehumanization of living, breathing people into historic artifacts.
These types of reactions aren’t really about Native authors or their work. They’re about keeping narratives consistent. When these critics look at Native writers—at Native people—they want to see antiquated stereotypes staring back at them because that is the fairy tale upon which Canada’s existence depends. It’s the fairy tale that keeps Canada’s conscience clear: the fairy tale that allowed former prime minister Stephen Harper to apologize for residential schools one year, then claim Canada has no history of colonialism the next, then pull all support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP, the next, then say our missing and murdered women weren’t a priority the next, then weeks later threaten to pull already threadbare funding from band councils that didn’t abide by strident, unfair financial requirements. All of this injustice can coexist with non-Native Canadians proudly declaring Canada the best country in the world precisely because of the existence and continued maintenance of national fairy tales. Without them, the narrative of “Canada the good” crumbles, and with it, the identities of so many Canadians.
With the rise of Reconciliation© Canada, however, a newer, more insidious twist on this fairy tale has emerged. During the 2015 federal election, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau attempted to court Indigenous support, promising to implement all of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s ninety-four calls to action, including full implementation of UNDRIP. Indeed, once elected, Trudeau announced that his government would be launching an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women. They would lift the 2 percent cap on funding for First Nations education programs. And Trudeau actually used the words “nation-to-nation relationship” when discussing his government’s approach to dealing with Indigenous peoples! Be still, every hot-blooded Indigenous heart! That’s basically the Native equivalent of finally hearing the commitment-phobic dude-bro you agreed to “keep it casual” with for twenty years while he messed around with other girls—even after you bore three of his children and raised them all without a penny of child support—finally refer to you as his “girlfriend” in public! Gold stars all around!
Except according to a January 2017 segment of the CBC’s The Current, “an internal report card from the Privy Council Office has given the Trudeau government a failing grade for delivering on its promises to Indigenous Canadians.” Apparently, even though he’s been making meaningful eye contact with Indigenous leaders all across Canada—he’s even been gifted with a headdress by the Tsuut’ina Nation—Trudeau has not implemented UNDRIP. In fact, much like Harper before him, Trudeau has not required consent from Indigenous nations before approving resource development on Indigenous lands. In 2016, he approved two contentious pipelines, Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline and Enbridge’s Line 3, saying, “We have not been and will not be swayed by political arguments, be they local, regional or national.” Prior and informed consent? What prior and informed consent?
Additionally, Trudeau has not forced his government to stop racially discriminating against 163,000 First Nations children, despite being mandated to by the Supreme Court of Canada. When Saskatoon Tribal Council Chief Felix Thomas asked Trudeau why so little of promised federal funds have actually made it to Indigenous communities, Trudeau used some classic misdirection to turn the question around on the chiefs, saying he could tell none of these chiefs actually talked to their own youth to get their opinions. Luckily, Trudeau was there to give precious insight into what Indigenous youth really want: “a place to store their canoes and paddles so they can connect back out on the land.” According to the prime minister, they don’t want fair and equal funding, nor clean drinking water, nor investment in mental health services, nor the right to live with their families without fear of being targeted for abduction by social services. They don’t even want their language back. They just want a few sheds. Indian-youth-whisperer Trudeau didn’t explain why his government wasn’t meeting such a modest but important request. I’m sure our young people’s rightful canoe storage is just caught up in a bit of bureaucratic red tape, just like all our other rights.
Is Trudeau critically interrogating Canada’s national ideas of Indigenous peoples? Is he honestly examining Canada’s historic relationship with Indigenous nations so he can forge a different, respectful path forward? Though his crafty pro-Indigenous PR makes his policies appear different from those of his predecessor, if the effects are ultimately the same, how different are they? Throwing glitter on the same old fairy tale doesn’t suddenly make it new.
The problem with continuing these national fairy tales is they’re flimsy and false, furthering the chasm between those who hold an idealized vision of Canada and those who see and acknowledge the hidden, darker side. It’s only by putting away such childish fairy tales and looking at our less than magical reality that Canada can really mature as a nation and engage in open, honest discussion about its ongoing treatment of Native peoples. Apologizing for residential schools is not enough; an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women is not enough. True reconciliation with Native peoples requires Canada to stop its paternalistic, discriminatory policies and, most important, stop interfering with our sovereignty over our identities, communities and lands. These are by no means easy or comfortable actions for Canadians to undertake, but they must be undertaken regardless. Anything else is simply not “the real thing.”
* * *
So where does that leave an Indigenous writer like me right now: a half-white, half-Tuscarora woman who writes about whatever she pleases and has, mournfully, never danced in a powwow? There are already three strikes against me, yet there’s still this persistent belief that I’m somehow at an advantage because I’m a Native writer. Richard Wagamese best summed up my feelings on this idea: “I’m not a native writer. I’m a fucking writer….I don’t want to be compared, I don’t want to be ghettoized, I don’t want to be marginalized….I just want [people] to read my work and go, ‘Wow.’ ”
Don’t misunderstand me. My hesitation to be labelled a “Native writer” isn’t a hesitation to be
labelled such by other Native people. That is a point of pride, a sign of kinship and solidarity. Being labelled a “Native writer” by non-Native people, however, is more often than not an act of literary colonialism, showing paternalism, ownership and a desire to keep us inside a neatly labelled box where they deem us a non-threat. A continuation of the fairy tale.
While certain non-Native readers, writers and critics continue to bemoan our refusal to be the Indian they’re looking for, others are willing to see us as ourselves. To acknowledge not only our talents but the historical landmines we’ve had to sidestep on our way towards each milestone. To appreciate our successes instead of regarding them with suspicion. To refuse literary colonialism and the way it desensitizes them as well.
In the meantime, I’m proud to say I’m no one’s Noble Savage and I’ll continue to write what I please. Though maybe I will learn how to powwow dance—alone, in the privacy of my living room. It looks like good cardio.
SONTAG, IN SNAPSHOTS
Reflecting on “In Plato’s Cave” in 2018
“In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe. They are…an ethics of seeing.”
—Susan Sontag, “In Plato’s Cave”
I started to dodge cameras around the age of ten. Photos, I thought, were reserved for preserving images of the beautiful. I was not beautiful. I was ugly, and therefore not worth being immortalized on film or—more recently—in digital images. Any time I saw myself in a photo at one specific moment, at one specific angle, I felt sick. Why did they take that picture? I’d wonder. Who would want to look at an ugly girl like me? I didn’t even want to look at me.
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground Page 14
