Born in Cubero, New Mexico, and affiliated with Laguna Pueblo, Paula Gunn Allen is one of the Native American poets concerned with the question of sources and survivals into the industrial/postindustrial world. The issue of traditional continuities (and discontinuities)—and the meanings derived therefrom—has been central to Third and Fourth World cultures and to others threatened by internal imperialisms and the movement toward a global monoculture.
 
 

Literature is a facet of a culture. Its significance can be best understood in terms of its culture, and its purpose is meaningful only when the assumptions it is based on are understood and accepted. It is not much of a problem for the person raised in the culture to see the relevance, the level of complexity, or the symbolic significance of his culture’s literature. He is from birth familiar with the assumptions that underlie both his culture and its literature and art. Intelligent analysis in this circumstance becomes a matter of defining smaller assumptions peculiar to the locale, idiom, and psyche of the writer.

The study of nonwestem literature poses a problem for the western reader. He naturally tends to see alien literature in terms that are familiar to him, however irrelevant they may be to the literature he is considering. Because of this, students of American Indian literature have applied the terms "primitive," "savage," "childlike," or "heathen" to Indian literature. They have labeled its literature folklore, even though the term specifically applies only to that part of it that is the province of the general populace.

The great mythic’ and ceremonial cycles of the American Indian peoples are neither primitive in any meaningful sense of the term, nor are they necessarily the province of the folk; much of the material on the literature is known only to educated, specialized persons who are privy to the philosophical, mystical, and literary wealth of their own tribe.

Much of the literature that was in their keeping, engraved perfectly and completely in their memories, was not known to the general run of men and women. Because of this, much of that literature has been lost as the last initiates of particular tribes and societies within the tribes died, leaving no successor.

 Most important, American Indian literature is not similar to western literature because the basic assumptions about the universe and, therefore, the basic reality experienced by tribal peoples and westerners are not the same, even at the level of "folk-lore." This difference has confused non-Indian students for centuries, because they have been unable or unwilling to grant this difference and to proceed in terms of it.

For example, the two cultures differ greatly in terms of the assumed purpose for the existence of literature. The purpose of Native American literature is never one of pure self-expression. The "private soul at any public wall" is a concept that is so alien to native thought as to constitute an absurdity. The tribes do not celebrate the individual’s ability to feel emotion, for it is assumed that all people are able to do so, making expression of this basic ability arrogant, presumptuous, and gratuitous. Besides, one’s emotions are one’s own: to suggest that another should imitate them is an imposition on the personal integrity of others. The tribes seek, through song, ceremony, legend, sacred stories (myths), and tales to embody, articulate, and share reality, to bring the isolated private self into harmony and balance with this reality, to verbalize the sense of the majesty and reverent mystery of all things, and to actualize, in language, those truths of being and experience that give to humanity its greatest significance and dignity. The artistry of the tribes is married to the essence of language itself, for in language we seek to share our being with that of the community, and thus to share in the communal awareness of the tribe. In this art the greater self and all-that-is are blended into a harmonious whole, and in this way the concept of being that is the fundamental and sacred spring of life is given voice and being for all. The Indian does not content himself with simple preachments of this truth, but through the sacred power of utterance he seeks to shape and mold, to direct and determine the forces that surround and govern our lives and that of all things.

There is an old Keres song that says:

This idea is apparent in the Plains tribes’ idea of a medicine wheel (Storm 1972: 4) or sacred hoop (Neihardt/Black Elk 1961: 35). The concept is one of singular unity that is dynamic and encompassing, including, as it does, all that is in its most essential aspect, that of life. In his introduction to Geronimo’s autobiography, Frederick Turner Ill characterizes the American Indian cultures as static (Geronimo 1968:7), a concept that is not characteristic of our own view of things; for as any American Indian knows, all of life is living—that is, dynamic and aware, partaking, as it does, in the life of the All-Spirit, and contributing, as it does, to the ongoing life of that same Great Mystery. The tribal systems are static in the sense that all movement is related to all other movement, that is, harmonious and balanced or unifie’d; they are not static in the sense that they do not allow or accept change. Even a cursory examination of tribal systems will show that we have undergone massive changes and still retained those characteristics of outlook and experience that are the bedrock of tribal life (McNickle 1973: 12—13). So the primary assumptions we make can be seen as static only in that they acknowledge the essential harmony of all things, and in that we see all things as of equal value in the scheme of things, denying the qualities of opposition, dualism, and isolationism (separatism) that characterize non-Indian thought in the world. Civilized Christians believe that God is separate from man and does as He wishes without the creative participation of any of His creatures, while the non-Christian tribesman assumes a place in creation that is dynamic, creative, and responsive, and he allows his brothers, the rocks, the trees, the corn, and the nonhuman animals (the entire biota, in short) the same and even greater privilege. The Indian participates in destiny on all levels, including that of creation. Thus this passage from a Cheyenne tale: Maheo, the All-Spirit, created four things out of the void—the water, the light, the sky-air, and the peoples of the water.

The Judeo-Christian God created a perfect environment for his creatures, leaving them only one means of exercising their creative capacity and their ability to make choices and thus exercise their intelligence, and that was in disobeying him and destroying the perfection he had bestowed on them. The Cheyennes’ creator is somewhat wiser, for he allows them to have unmet needs which they can, working in harmony with him, meet. They can exercise their intelligence and their will in a creative, positive manner and so fulfill themselves without destroying others. Together Maheo and the water-beings create the earth, and with the aid of these beings, Maheo creates first man and first woman and the creatures and environment they will need to live good and satisfying lives on earth.

Of interest, too, is the way the loon prays: he looks around him as he addresses Maheo, for "he knew that Maheo was all about him," just as earlier, when the snow-goose asked if the water fowl could sometimes get out of the water, she addressed him in these words: ". . . I do not know where you are, but I know you must be everywhere (ibid.: 6—7). In these words we see two things: that the creatures are respectful but not servile, and that the idea that Maheo is all around them is an active reality. As he is not thought of as superior in a hierarchical sense, he is not seen as living "up there." Here again, the Indian sense of space relationships is different from that of the West. The one sees space as essentially circular or spherical in nature, while the other views space (and thus all relationships within that space) as laddered. The circular concept requires that all "points" which make up the sphere of being be significant in their identity and function, while the linear model assumes that some "points" are more significant than others. In the one, significance is significant, and is a necessary factor of being in itself, while in the other, significance is a function of placement on an absolute scale which is fixed in time and space. In essence, what we have is a direct contradiction of Turner’s notion about the Native American universe versus that of the western: it is the Indian universe that moves and breathes continuously, and the western universe that is fixed and static. The Christian attitude toward salvation is a reflection of this basic stance, for one can only be "saved" by belief in a savior who came and will never come again, and the idea that "once a saint always a saint" is an indication of the same thing.

In the Native American system, there is no idea that nature is somewhere over there while man is over here, nor that there is a great hierarchical ladder of being on which ground and trees occupy a very low rung, animals a slightly higher one, and man a very high one indeed—especially "civilized" man. All are seen to be brothers or relatives (and in tribal systems relationship is central), all are offspring of the Great Mystery, children of our mother, and necessary parts of an ordered, balanced, and living whole. This concept applies to what non-Natives think of as the supernatural as well as to the more tangible (phenomenal) aspects of the universe. Native American thought makes no such dualistic division, nor does it draw a hard-and-fast line between what is material and what is spiritual, for the two are seen to be two expressions of the same reality—as though life has twin manifestations that are mutually interchangeable and, in many instances, virtually identical aspects of a reality that is, essentially, more spirit than matter, or that more correctly, manifests its very spiritness in a tangible way. The closest analogy in western, thought is the Einsteinian understanding of matter as a special state or condition of energy. Yet even this concept falls short of the Native American understanding, for Einsteinian energy is essentially stupid, while energy in the Indian view is intelligence manifesting yet another way.

To the non-Indian, man is the only intelligence in phenomenal existence (often in any form of existence). To the more abstractionist and less intellectually vain Indian, man’s intelligence arises out of the very nature of being, which is, of necessity, intelligent in and of itself, as an attribute of being. Again, this idea probably stems from the Indian conception of a circular, dynamic universe: where all things are related, are of one family, then what attributes man possesses are naturally going to be attributes of all beings. Awareness of being is not seen as an abnormality peculiar to one species, but, because of the sense of relatedness (instead of isolation) the Indian feels to what exists, it is assumed to be a natural by-product of existence itself.

In English, one can divide the universe into two parts—one which is natural and one which is "supernatural." Man has no real part in either, being neither animal nor spirit. That is, the supernatural is discussed as though it were apart from people, and the natural as though people were apart from it. This necessarily forces English-speaking people into a position of alienation from the world that they live in. This isolation is entirely foreign to Native American thought. At base, every story, every song, every ceremony, tells the Indian that he is part of a living whole, and that all parts of that whole are related to one another by virtue of their participation in the whole of being. Incidentally, the American practice of forbidding Indian children to speak their own language forces them into isolation from their sense of belonging, or at best, creates a split in their perception of wholeness. This practice was specifically undertaken in the last century as a means of destroying the person’s adherence to "heathenish" attitudes, values and beliefs. It was felt that a person who spoke only English would necessarily forget his own way, and that one who spoke a Native language could not be assimilated into white culture. Those who decided on this policy spoke of "civilizing" Indian people, through the agency of alienation, isolation, and "individuation." Other aspects of this centuries-long process have included de-tribalization of land holdings and living arrangements, and prohibition of religious ceremonies and observances, forcing on American Indians the very sense of isolation that plagues and destroys other Americans.

In Native American thought, God is known as the All-Spirit, and others are also spirit—more spirit than body, more spirit than intellect, more spirit than mind. The natural state of existence is whole. Thus healing chants and ceremonies emphasize restoration of wholeness, for disease is a condition of division and separation from the harmony of the whole. Beauty is wholeness. Health is wholeness. Goodness is wholeness. A witch—a person who uses the powers of the universe in a perverse or inharmonious way—is called a two-hearts: one who is not whole but split in two at the center of being. The circle of being is not physical; it is dynamic and alive. It is what lives and moves and knows, and all the life-forms we recognize—animals, plants, rocks, winds— partake of this greater life. It is acknowledgement of this that allows healing chants such as this from the [Navajo] Night Chant to heal (make the person whole again).

Literature takes on more meaning when considered in terms of some relevant whole (like life itself), so let us consider some of the relationships between definite Native American literary forms and the symbols usually found within them. The two forms basic to Native American literature are the Ceremony and the Myth. The Ceremony is the ritual enactment of a specialized perception of cosmic relationships, while the Myth is a prose record of that relationship. Thus, the wiwanyag wachipi (Sun Dance) is the ritual enactment of the relationship the Plains people see between consecration of the human spirit to Wakan Tanka in his manifestation as Sun or Light and Life-Bestower. Through purification, participation, sacrifice, and supplication, the participants act as instruments or transmitters of increased power and wholeness (which works itself out in terms of health and prosperity) from Wakan Tanka.

The formal structure of a ceremony is as holistic as the universe it purports to reflect and respond to, for the ceremony contains other forms such as incantation, song (dance), and prayer, and it is itself the central mode of literary expression, from which all allied songs and stories derive. For the Oglala, all the ceremonies are related to one another in various explicit and implicit ways, as though each was one face of a multifaceted prism. This interlocking of the basic forms has led to much confusion among non-Indian collectors and commentators, and this complexity makes all simplistic treatments of Native American literature more confusing than helpful. Indeed, it is the non-Indian tendency to separate things from one another—be they literary forms, species or persons—that causes a great deal of unnecessary difficulty and misinterpretation of Native American life and culture. It is reasonable, from an Indian point of view, that all literary forms should be interrelated, given the basic idea of the unity and relatedness of all the phenomena of life. Separation of parts into this or that is not agreeable to Native American systems, and the attempt to separate what are essentially unitary phenomena distorts them.

For example, to say that a ceremony contains songs and prayers is misleading, for prayers are one form of address and songs are another. It is more appropriate to say that songs, prayers, dances, drums, ritual movements, and dramatic address are compositional elements of a ceremony. It is equally misleading to single out the wiwanyag wachipi and treat it as an isolated ceremony, for it must of necessity include the inipi (rite of purification) and did, at its point of origin, contain the hanblecyeyapi (vision quest)—which was how it was leamed of in the first place.² Actually, it might best be seen as a communal vision quest.

The purpose of a ceremony is integration: the individual is integrated, fused, with his fellows, the community of people is fused with that of the other kingdoms, and this larger communal group with the worlds beyond this one. A "raising" or expansion of individual consciousness naturally accompanies this process. The isolate, individualistic personality is shed, and the person is restored to conscious harmony with the universe. Alongside this general purpose of realization of ceremonies each specific ceremony has its own specific purpose. This specific purpose usually varies from tribe to tribe, and may be culture-specific—for example, the rain dances of the Southwest are peculiar to certain groups such as the Pueblos, and are not found among some other tribes, or war ceremonies which make up a large part of certain plains tribes’ ceremonial life are unknown among many tribes of California (Kroeber/Heizer 1968: 28—30). But all ceremonies—whether for war or healing—create and support the sense of community which is the bedrock of tribal life. This community is not merely that of members of the tribe, but necessarily includes all orders of beings that people the tribe’s universe.

It is within this context that the formal considerations of Native American literature can best be understood. The structures which embody expressed and implied relationships between men and other beings as well as the symbols which signify and articulate them are designed to accomplish this integration of the various orders of beings. It is assumed that beings other than the human participants are present at ceremonial enactments, and the ceremony is composed for their understanding participation as well as that of the human beings who are there. It is also understood that the human participants include those members of the tribe who are not physically present, for it is the community as community which enacts the ceremony, and not simply the separate persons attending it.