Pocahontas and the Impact of Story Making

For a final project in my Native American Literature's class, I am writing a short story in which I deconstruct the myths and fables surrounding Pocahontas and reveal who she really was, functioning within her own Native American society and the European society. During my research, I have come across some very interesting view points and facts. One fact that struck a particular cord with me, was the story of Pocahontas with which we are most familiar. In the story, Pocahontas saves Captain John Smith from execution by Pocahontas's father. However, as it turns out, the story that has emerged in history text books since 1805 was actually a fabrication. The fact of the story was that it never even happened. Captain John Smith wrote it up when he was writing his National Histories of Virginia. How can we tell? Smith waited to write the story until almost 15 years after Pocahontas (actually named Matoaka) had died. Also, there were no witnesses to the event still alive, and the few that did back up Smith's story, had not actually been at the execution. Finally, Smith's Histories contains to other stories remarkably similar to Pocahontas's in which a beautiful, powerful woman saves him from certain death at the hands of a relative. It's an interesting side note to history and raises a fascinating question about what we take blindly as the truth. If it's in a text book written by people who were "present" at the events, then what is put forth must be what happened. Right? Wrong. History is written by the victors of the war and the people in power. Those on the opposite side of that fence never get their stories out. In the case of Pocahontas/Matoaka, the only story we get of her was one that was fabricated by the surviving conqueror of the America's.

The truth of the story is that Matoaka was an extremely important asset to the European settlement of Jamestown in their first years in America. She worked tirelessly for peace between her Algonquian tribe and the settlers. She brought food and supplies to the settlers when the winter proved too harsh for them. And she constantly worked to help train the settlers how to survive in the harsh Virginia climate. In the end, while Matoaka was on a mission of peace, she was kidnapped by an enemy Indian nation and handed over to the Europeans as a prisoner, a prisoner of the people she had helped keep alive. She was converted to Christianity, given the Christian name Rebbecca, and married off to a European man. Matoaka had a son and moved to England with her husband. In England, Matoaka was used as a walking advertisement for the America's and the opportunities and adventures that existed there. Upon her return to the America's, Matoaka was taken ill and died. Her grave was lost when the church by which she was buried was rebuilt over her grave.

It's not as happy or romantic a story as Disney's Pocahontas would like it to be, I'm sure. It's the straight forward story of a diplomat, but I find it completely fascinating. It's the myths that have clouded our visions of her that drive me to find the truth. Who was she really? How did she grow up? How did she live and survive? What did she feel at her conversion and removal from her homeland? Where would she fit into history today if her story was told correctly? I seek to find out.

The Truth About Stories

In class we read The Truth About Stories by Thomas King. This book was very striking and once I started reading, I couldn't set it down. Though he said a great many profound things, there was one idea in particular that stuck with me the most. It was the idea that a story can change how you live your life. He writes that you shouldn't say I would have lived my life differently if only I had heard this story, because "You've heard it now." There was something about this comment that really struck home for me. I love to write. I write poetry, short stories, and novels in any spare time that I can find. I like to labor under the fantasy that my words will change how someone thinks or lives. That I will inspire someone with my words and bring something amazing into their lives. When I was little, I always said that if just one person is struck my book, then I'll be happy, that's all I want. I think that's why the idea of "You've heard it now" stood out so much. It's the idea that any story can alter the way we see the world. It can change our perception of a simple daily task or alter the whole course of our futures. This semester has been a whirlwind of life changing events, the stories being a major part of it. Native American Literature's and Cultures has opened my eyes to a whole new way of viewing the world. It's why I took the class, but I still didn't expect the eye-opening to be so amazing.

The Truth About Stories opened my eyes even more to the truth of the world, life, and the words I cling to. In the opening pages, King makes the statement "I tell the stories not to play on your sympathies but to suggest how stories can control our lives, for there is a part of me that has never been able to move past these stories, a part of me that will be chained to these stories as long as I live" (King 9). This is the idea that I've been searching for all my life. Plain and simple. It's changed my life. Whenever I sit down (or stand up) to write, I find myself flipping through the pages of my past looking for that one moment that will help people to understand where my character is coming from. However, I've never told my stories, personally. There are facets of my life in each of my characters. There are moments that make them change that also changed me. But my story, the whole dirty truth of it, stays buried deep inside of me, like an album tucked far under the bed, dusty and forgotten until the single moment that you need it. Sure I flip through the major moments of my life almost every day, but no one else does. I never knew why I kept my stories so secure, so close to the chest, as it were. But this statement makes it very clear. I never wanted sympathy. My stories, the major moments of my life, are what made me the person that I am and I like me, so why should anyone feel sorry for me. I couldn't stand it when people get that teary eyed look when you tell them something traumatic or big. I didn't feel that way, why should they. Sure, my stories do make me sad sometimes, there's a lot of pain there, but there's still a lot of good there too, and it's the good that I'm holding on to everyday. I don't think of a lost friend, and only see the funeral. I see all the happy times, all the laughing and the goofiness. I don't think of cancer, and see only IVs and my bald head. I see the day my hair started to grow back, and the minute I stepped back into a classroom. Sure there's pain, sure there's tears, but there's also strength and determination and life. Life is the key. Living is the key. My stories are about living, not just surviving (an important difference). And I wouldn't let my stories go for anything. They're mine and they're me. I'll keep them, but I won't be afraid to pass them on anymore either. Thomas King opened a door.

The Truth About Stories is one of the most amazing books I've read this semester (and that's a tough call--there were a lot of amazing ones in there). I will definitely be reading it--again and again. To see what else my world might be missing. I've heard it now, and now I'm going to live it.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Joy Harjo "I Am Not Ready to Die Yet"

Joy Harjo's "I Am Not Ready to Die Yet" was an extremely moving poem. Joy Harjo is an exceptionally talented artist who has lived a life defined by struggle, perseverance, and strength. Her struggles with depression and suicide, I feel, are reflected in many of her poems which was why I found this one so powerful. One of Harjo's new poems, I felt that it was a gateway, or a new perspective on life that can only be achieved through the window we open into poetry. The end of the first stanza stood out the most to me:

"My ashes will return there,
But I am not ready to die yet
Nor am I ready to leave the room
In which we made love last night."

These four lines say so much about life, death, and Harjo's views of these facts of life. There is a major idea of acceptance here that can be seen in the first line, "My ashes will return there." Harjo is accepting of death and the idea that we all return to the earth in the end. There is a symbiotic relationship represented that is undeniably beautiful and comforting. In the lines preceding these four, Harjo is personifying the water as a god that has commanded her presence in the past, just like the fishes that live there as she looks out over the great expanse. However, she is asserting in the next lines that while she bears a deep understanding of this spiritual relationship with the next phase of existence, she has also come to accept the hardships and joys of this life.

"But I am not ready to die yet" is far more powerful than it may seem at first glance. Knowing some of Harjo's background makes this line more intense, but the word choices themselves also add something to its impact. Understanding that Harjo struggled with suicidal tendencies as a younger person brings this line into perspective. By asserting that she isn't "ready to die yet" tells the audience that she has accepted her life and has made the choice to see it through. Also, by starting the line with "but" makes an immediate turn of perspective. The line before asserts an acceptance of death and as soon as the word "but" is seen, it jars the reader into a new line of thinking, thinking about life instead of death. It creates a mental switch that can occur when someone makes the conscious choice to live rather than die and by adding "but" to the beginning of the line, it causes the reader to experience the same sort of mental event.

I also love how Harjo places the spirituality of death in the same sentence/lines as making love. This adds a spiritual element to making love and reveals the emphasis that love and the physical act of love can have on a person's experience of life and their outlook on that life. Love is often a positive experience and her refusal to leave the room or to willingly die at that moment reveals that the speaker has found a deep, living connection with life. Again, there is a drawing in of the reader into the speaker's profound and intimate mental experiences. A very powerful element and an excellent poetic move.

Harjo's poetry is beautiful and moving. The poems are very personal but there are elements that allow the reader to peek into the speaker's intimate thoughts and mental processes. It associates the audience with a certain identity and makes the whole poem and experience for the reader, just as it was for the speaker. A very profound writer and a very talented woman, Joy Harjo certainly engages her readers and keeps us yearning for more.

Read Around Blog 2

After reading several of my classmates blogs, I found some very interesting views on the readings and activities we have done for class. One of my peers did an analysis of Qwo-Li Driskill's poem "Summer Haiku." Her focus on the language of the poem was fascinating and insightful. She saw the language as part of an easy going conversation. It's the type of language that would come up during a "comfortable silence" with someone we care about, to paraphrase her. I hadn't seen the poem in this form but I can definitely see where she's coming from. When I read the poem, I saw the language as word play, as a method for exploring the new fangled use of the English language. However, I can also see that it very conversational, a passing thought that arouses between friends. I also agreed with my peer on the view of the last line as one of a sensual nature. The line "cups my belly like water" certainly expresses an idea of closeness and harmony, and something erotic can easily be found lingering beneath the surface. I loved her analysis and her ideas and look forward to reading more of her ideas.

Another peer examined the article "Rape of the Land." He found the article disturbing and was amazed by the length of the corruption inflicted on both people's and their lands by corporations and the government. I completely agreed with him that this article was an eye-opener. I knew of the corruption and disregard for people's and their homelands that is harbored by certain large corporations and the government, but I had no idea of the extent. The idea that bombing occurred with the knowledge of it's harmful side effects near an island of people of this country is barbaric. The population was destroyed and still the government had the nerve to try and sweep it under the rug. "Rape of the Land" is an article that should not be suppressed but brought to the forefront so that other's will not live in the perpetual darkness that is tossed over by these corrupt corporations and the government.

The last peer blog that I read was reexamining the PBS special, "We Shall Remain." I completely agreed with her that the episode was an excellent portrayal of Native history intertwined with Western American history. Too often are the stories of the Native Americans put on the back burner, misrepresented, or credited to a mythological time that exists today only in Western movies. The directors, producers, and writers did an excellent job of portraying life shortly after the arrival of the Mayflower. My classmate also emphasized her interest in the tensions that existed between the Native American women and the Pilgrim women in the early colony. I also found this very interesting. You can see what the women are thinking as they work. For the Native American women, it is patience and then frustration as they try to teach the reluctant Pilgrim women how to cook and prepare food. For the Pilgrim women, you can see their religious tension mingled with their need to survive. There's a want on both women's parts to learn from the other for different reasons, but there's still the tension that their ways of life may be too different for them to comfortably mingle. A very fascinating observation.

My classmates have very insightful views and ideas and I look forward to reading more and hearing more of what they have to say on future topics.

We Shall Remain-Episode 1

"We Shall Remain: After the Mayflower" on PBS was enlightening and a fascinating view of the American history that is often forgotten, misconstrued, or deliberately left out. The episode focused on the Wampanog, an Algonquian tribe, that lived in, what is today, New England. Specifically, the episode followed the figures of Massasoit and then his son, Phillip, as they worked through different types of diplomacy and dealings with the European settlers. The different views of these men were interesting and their methods for dealing with the views impressed upon them by the whites was even more fascinating.
Massasoit was a sachem of the Wampanog tribe and he worked throughout his life for peace and harmony with the settlers. Massasoit believed that they could share the land and live as a single entity, a tribe of sorts. He saw the settlers as allies and a group of people that could help the Wampanog in their defenses against stronger enemy tribes. Greatly depleted from several ravaging diseases, the Wampanog were desperate for alliances. Upon seeing the white settlers in the same predicament, barely surviving their first winter on American shores, they decided that the settlers were also in need of help and believed that a quick friendship and alliance would grow from their negotiations. However, there was constant tension as the settlers had been run out of Europe on account of being religious radicals. Because of their religious beliefs, the settlers saw the Native Americans as a source of corruption and temptation. The two groups did, however, manage to keep the tensions to a minimum as survival was the key importance for both. For a number of years, the settlers and the Wampanog's were able to live in peace together.

Trouble came with further colonies though. As time went on, more and more Europeans began flooding into New England and setting up their colonies. The Puritans presented the largest problem as they saw the Native Americans as heathens and obstacles on their path to trading posts and further expansion. The Puritans viewed the Native Americans as less than human and started to force their religious views on them. Praying Towns began to pop up and Native Americans began to be converted to this strict sect of Christianity. I found it fascinating that the Puritans, full of fear and guilt themselves, impressed these feelings on the Native Americans and used fear of damnation and guilt of praying to multiple gods, or even being emotionally attached to their own hair, to warrant a conversion.

Massasoit continued to try to work peacefully with the settlers. However, as the settlers began swindling land from Massasoit and the Wampanog, he began to grow frustrated and resisted their further attempts to claim his land. Massasoit began to feel that peace in the early years may have been the wrong choice and he saw that he and his people were facing an invasion of their lands, their lives, and their beliefs.

Massasoit's son, Phillip, was born after the settlers had arrived and had lived all his life in their presence. He had several European ways and even carried a European name. However, he was not an ally of the Puritans and would eventually lead a band of Wampanog in an attack on several colonies. After their first raid, other Native American tribes joined Phillip's cause and fought against the invasion of their lands and ways of life. King Phillip's War escalated and for a long time they enjoyed victory after victory. Striking fear into the hearts of the settlers, they struck anger into the hearts of the Mohawks. The Mohawks were allied with the settlers and eventually took up arms against the other Native American tribes that were under Phillip's leadership. King Phillip's War soon came to an end with Phillip on the side of defeat. He returned to his homeland that was even further claimed by settlers and there he was captured, executed, and dismembered. His head was put on a stake and kept in a Puritan colony to remind Native American tribes the risks of moving against the crown.

This was an extremely interesting show and I look forward to seeing next Monday's episode, Tecumseh's Vision.

On a side note, it was fascinating to me that they followed up this riveting and informing episode about true American history with a show that focused on Westerner's searching through their family history for ancestor's in the original colonies in the New World. One woman expressed her pride in having an ancestor who had been the only survivor of the first "Indian attack." The images were stereotypical Western views of history and the Native Americans were portrayed as the savage attackers of Puritan belief. The idea that was expressed implied that the settlers had been peaceful and had done nothing to invoke the attack upon their village. This, however, as we had learned a mere ten minutes earlier, was untrue. I found the juxtaposition of these two views of American history to be fascinating and extremely enlightening.

Song of Removal by Qwo-Li Driskill

"Song of Removal" by Qwo-Li Driskill asks its reader to think about colonization and the forced removal of Native Americans from their homelands from an interesting perspective. I'm going to examine on stanza in particular that struck me the most.

"And while Disney paints Pocahontas the great white wet dream
while Russell Means sells out
military occupation of our homes persists
We are still being removed"

The first line of this stanza is very powerful on its own. To many, Disney is a benign childhood dream creator. He paints the picture of the elegant and strong princess again and again. But what about the underlying context or the cultural ramifications of the story that he's telling. Pocahontas was a real woman who lived her life and died very young. She played a major role in the peace negotiations between her tribe and the British settlers at Jamestown. She saved John Smith's life and later married John Rolfe before moving to England. She is undoubtedly a very important woman in both Native American and Western cultures, but how has the story been altered to better appeal to a Western audience. The story was changed from a fight against assimilation and destruction to a romance story about a princess and the young knight-like figure. Disney's Pocahontas remains in a position of resistance and power but it is somewhat diminished by the twisted facts. This story, that should really be about the Native American resistance and their culture's fight for survival, is turned into a Western love story. The Native Americans are being removed even from their own history and Pocahontas has been rewritten as something of a fantasy instead of a woman who lived and fought for peace for her people.

The idea of Disney being juxtaposed with military occupation is also an interesting point that struck me. Disney is not often associated with violent or submissive acts, but here it is placed in the same stanza as the forced removal of Native Americans from their homelands. Disney in itself is a culture. By being placed alongside this idea of military action, the idea of Disney's culture invading the Native American culture is solidified. Disney's improvisations with the story of Pocahontas is a forced removal of the Native American purpose and implications of the true story. Disney can mass produce his version and thus the Native American version and the truth are forced out.

There is this idea that Native American cultures are struggling from every aspect to survive. It is more than just land and religious views, it has infiltrated into their very history and memories. "Song of Removal" really delves into the extent to which Native American cultures have been exploited, lost, and destroyed and how they are still being invaded and forced out of popular culture.

Qwo-Li Driskill and Walking with Ghosts

In class we read the poetry collection Walking with Ghosts by Qwo-Li Driskill and I found it to be extremely moving, beautiful, and powerful. The combinations of struggles that have been incorporated into each poem is amazing and offers such a vision to the reader. Qwo-Li illuminates his words with images of Native American activism, transgender and gay struggles, identity crisis's, and the idea of sovereignty--both of the land and of the body. I found each poem to be such a powerful expression of emotions and ideas that it was difficult to pick a favorite or even just two, but for the sake of analysis, I have attempted to do just that.

The poem "For Matthew" was so powerful and emotionally explosive. The reader gains a real sense of loss, confusion, and even betrayal. From my point-of-view, I saw the poem as the outpouring of grief over the death of someone we never imagined missing from our lives and the struggle to comprehend how something like this could happen. The opening lines, "I found my body collapsible, choking on your death like a small child who seeks to understand by stuffing pennies and marbles into mouth" is a perfect description of the indescribable emotion. If you've ever lost someone in your life, this is the emotion that seems to filter through those first, unimaginable moments. It's the stage before we can put anything into words or even into order. The idea of trying to make sense of such a tragedy by reverting to an early, underdeveloped stage of our lives is unique and perfect. The final lines also hold such an impact that it's impossible not to be stirred into action or to feel as Qwo-Li is feeling as he writes these lines.
"We have no more time for symbols.
We have no more time for vigils.
We have no more time..."
The idea of time is something that the human race developed for its own purpose and then has spent the time trying to figure out what time is. We have an idea that there is always more and that we are the ultimate commanders of our movement through time. But these lines reveal the anxiety and the truth that we so often seek to avoid. This truth is so often revealed to us when someone is lost. It's the idea that time is out of our control and that we can't stop it for anyone or anything. After losing someone we love, time seems to act unmercifully and marches forward without our preparation or readiness. Also, these lines emphasize people's desire to memorialize a person, the want to remove them from their skin and thus away from the ultimate, harsh truth of their reality. However, Qwo-Li addresses the fact that this isn't possible. That Matthew Shepard was a person, a person who lived and breathed just as we all do now. There isn't a moment to detach him or make him a banner of the injustices inflicted on the gay or transgender community. There's a call to action because he was human, not because he was a symbol. These lines reverberate his humanity, the fact that he lived and wasn't simply a face on a poster board. The very last line of the poem reads, "you were still alive." There's a definite emphasis on his living juxtaposed against his tragic death. His life is a reason to fight back. There's a need to fight for what he lived for before using him as an example for what he died for.

This poem harbors a lot of anger as well that I found moving and undeniably passionate. "In Seattle, 1000 lit candles, (I wanted the city to burn.)" These two lines alone pack a punch that is hard for some to deal with. Such aggression can be perceived as blind hatred or misunderstanding, but truly, this is an act of emotion and a lashing out while seeking understanding. The hatred here is directed towards the crime, not the city or people in it. It's a way of dealing with pain and devastation, to see the world burning around you is a distraction. This anger is a distraction from the piercing pain.

"For Matthew" was an extraordinary poem that moved me in such a powerful way. It speaks more than just to the community in which Matthew Shepard found his true identity, it really speaks to anyone who believes in humanity and the right for people to live their lives. Its grief and agony speaks to anyone who's lost someone in a tragedy and it calls on us to act and remember how they lived instead of just how they died. The life will give us something even more powerful to fight for.