When the victims talk back, they stop being victims.
For centuries, in cartoons, stories, songs and paintings, Native Americans have been culturally invented and represented from the outside. These invented narratives of decimation and victimisation are described by Gerald Vizenor as ‘simulations of dominance’.[1] By moving away from the sentimentality that had characterised earlier periods of Native American fiction, contemporary indigenous American writers have transcended their role as victims in their quest for cultural survivance.[2] Vizenor describes these writers as ‘postindian warriors’, a term coined by Vizenor and used to describe Native American people who pursue creative acts of resistance and are concerned with authentic counter-narratives of survival.[3]
Continue reading “Survivance and Storytelling: Erdrich’s Tracks and Welch’s Winter in the Blood”
only coffee is real 