Discussing themes of Indigenous literature from works by Zitkála-Šá and Joy Harjo.

1. MAJOR THEMES IN INDIGENOUS
LITERATURE IN THE UNITED
STATES
By: Kaitlyn Craft
April 16, 2018

2. MAJOR THEMES BEING DISCUSSED IN
WORKS BY ZITKÁLA-ŠÁ AND JOY HARJO
• Common themes shown in Indigenous Literature:
• Nature & Spirits
• Colonialism
• Assimilation
• Identity

3. DEFINING TERMS USED
• Colonialism- (1) A control by one power over a dependent area or people (2)
A policy advocating or based on such control
• Assimilation- To absorb into the cultural tradition of a population or group
• Indigenous- Produced, growing, living, or occurring naturally in a particular region
or environment.
• Identity- Sameness of essential or generic character in different instances.

4. ZITKÁLA-ŠÁ AND JOY HARJO
• Zitkála-Šá, also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, is the author of
American Indian Stories and was a Dakota Sioux Native American. The stories
included in American Indian Stories talks about her life living on a reservation
as a young Indian child, and the changes she experienced once attending
American school.
• Joy Harjo is a member of the Mvskoke Nation located in Tulsa Oklahoma.
She is a musician, author, and poet and is known for her book of poems
titled A Map to the Next World. In this book she shares her thoughts,
memories, and tales of Indigenous peoples, mainly of the Mvskoke Nation.

5. THE USE OF NATURE AND SPIRITS
• Zitkála-Šá:
• Mentions of ‘The Great Spirit’, an all-knowing being to the Sioux people.
She relies and prays heavily upon the Great Spirit throughout her
experiences.
• Nature can be seen as signs from spirits, and the balance in nature is
important.
• Relies on the warning and signs from nature, “Now, as I recall it, I wonder
how I could have dared to disregard nature's warning with such
recklessness” (82).
• Once she attends school, the scenery there is different from what she is
used to and she feels frightened in this new place.

6. THE USE OF NATURE AND SPIRITS
• Joy Harjo:
• The use of metaphors using nature, such as the Milky Way. Milky Way
may be a representation of the future.
• Constantly refers to her ‘spirit’ when she is troubled, frightened, or
excited.
• A few tales that she tells involve natural elements or animals, such as ‘the
crow and the snake’.
• The use of crows or currents in her stories can represent a sense of
permanency or stability that seems to comfort indigenous people.

7. COLONIALISM & ASSIMILATION
• Zitkála-Šá
• Zitkála-Šá is living on a reservation where she and her people were placed after settlers
forced them away from their original home.
• In the first few chapters of her book American Indian Stories Zitkála-Šá tells how white
missionaries visited her village to bring Indian boys and girls to school in the east.
• At the school they taught the children English and punished them for speaking their
native languages. This often caused conflict when the students would return home and
could speak very little to their family because they no longer remembered the language.
• Their long hair was cut in order for them to “fit in” with the standards of the school.
• Their original clothing was thrown away and they were given more Americanized
clothing to wear instead.
• Whatever pieces of home that they had brought with them were confiscated.

8. COLONIALISM & ASSIMILATION
• Joy Harjo
• Discusses how “the enemy” took land from indigenous people. “But it was
the land he was after—this beautiful land of harbor and sweet grass, of
palm tree and oak, of black earth of red--…He took the land and moved
all of his relatives in. And when other immigrants arrived from other lands
he denied them what he had wanted for himself” (79).
• She explains that Los Angeles leads to the Milky Way (the next world)
because of the multiple layers of colonization and mixtures of cultures
present there.
• Also the act of story telling is important to their people, but if future
generation can’t speak or learn the language, the stories will be lost and
memories will be forgotten.

9. IDENTITY
• Zitkála-Šá
• As previously mentioned, when in school Zitkála-Šá and the other Indians
had to cut their hair and assimilate to the views of their schools. This
shows the loss of their identity and disconnection with her people.
• Once coming home, she felt different from those around her.
• “Even nature seemed to have no place for me. I was neither a wee girl nor
a tall one; neither a wild Indian nor a tame one. This deplorable situation
was the effect of my brief course in the East…”
• In a sense she was too Indian to be American, and too American to be
Indian.

10. IDENTITY
• Joy Harjo
• Her references to maps can serve as metaphors for indigenous people
trying to find their way back to their homelands.
• Indigenous people aren’t lost, but displaced. They have lost their sense of
home.
• Descendants of the native peoples will not fully know where they came
from. A part of them will remain unknown.

11. CONCLUSION
• The few published pieces of indigenous people’s works have common themes and
share similar experiences.
• Although these two pieces were written in different time periods, their message and
subject are related and can still be applied today.
• While reading other literature pieces from indigenous people, keep in mind the
works of these two authors and be aware of connections and similarities.