The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky

by Jane Johnston Schoolcraft

Introducing a dramatic new chapter to American Indian literary history, this book brings to the public for the first time the complete writings of the first-known American Indian literary writer, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (her English name) or Bamewawagezhikaquay (her Ojibwe name), Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky (1800-1842). Beginning as early as 1815, Schoolcraft wrote poems and traditional stories while also translating songs and other Ojibwe texts into English. Her stories were published in adapted, unattributed versions by her husband, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, a founding figure in American anthropology and folklore, and they became a key source for Longfellow's sensationally popular "The Song of Hiawatha."As this remarkably original volume shows, what little has been known about Schoolcraft's writing and life only scratches the surface of her legacy. Most of the works have been edited from manuscripts and appear in print here for the first time. "The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky" presents a collection of all Schoolcraft's known writings along with a cultural and biographical history. Robert Dale Parker's deeply researched account places her writings in relation to American Indian and American literary history and the history of anthropology, offering the story of Schoolcraft, her world, and her fascinating family as reinterpreted through her newly uncovered writing. This book makes available a startling new episode in the history of American culture and literature.Robert Dale Parker is Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of several books, including "The Invention of Native American Literature"

Genres: Poetry, Indigenous, Nonfiction, School, Biography, Womens Studies, History

Unknown Binding

First published March 1, 2007

About the author

Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, also known as Bamewawagezhikaquay (January 31, 1800 – May 22, 1842) is the first known American Indian literary writer. She was of Ojibwa and Scots-Irish ancestry. Her Ojibwa name can also be written as O-bah-bahm-wawa-ge-zhe-go-qua (Obabaamwewe-giizhigokwe in modern spelling), meaning "Woman of the Sound [that the stars make] Rushing Through the Sky." She lived most of her life in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Ashley Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful writing. If you're at all interested in poetry or history, this is an excellent book. The introduction and appendices are extensive, as are the endnotes to each piece. Poetry, short stories and Ojibwe/Chippewa legends, songs, and other small fragments are all collected in this book.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

SUPER interesting, and I'm just gobsmacked that I had never heard of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft before. If you have any interest in indigenous American history, women's history, poetry, or early nineteenth-century U.S. history, you must look at this volume. Her story is so important, and her writing impactful. Plus, the writing and editing by Robert Dale Parker are also amply impressive, and they give a sense of how important a scholarly edition can be.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

“By the time of her death, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft had already made her mark on American Literature. It’s just that no one realized it.” ~ Bidwell Hollow

To A FRIEND ASLEEP

Awake my friend! the morning's fine,
Waste not in sleep the day divine,
Nature is clad in best array,
The woods, the fields, the flowers are gay;
The sun is up, and speeds his march,
O'er heaven's high aerial arch,
His golden beams with lustre fall,
On lake and river, cot and hall;
The dews are sparkling on each spray,
The birds are chirping sweet and gay,
The violet shows its beauteous head,
Within its narrow, figured bed;
The air is pure, the earth bedight,
With trees and flowers, life and light,
All - all inspires a joyful gleam,
More pleasing than a fairy dream.
Awake ! the sweet refreshing scene,
Invites us forth to tread the green,
With joyful hearts, and pious lays,
To join the glorious Maker's praise,
The wond'rous works the paschal lamb,
The holy, high, and just I Am.

*Bame-wa-wa-ge-zhik-a-quay
[*Jane Johnston Schoolcraft]
1800–1842

When I read “To A Friend Asleep” as a tender goodbye in Dennis Cuesta’s book “Stuck in Manistique” I knew I wanted to learn more about Jane Johnston Schoolcraft.

The English translation of her Ojibwe birth name *Bame-wa-wa-ge-zhik-a-quay is ~ Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky.

Editor Robert Dale Parker’s in-depth research and commentary in this extraordinary book of The Writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft is that of a literary scholar. In other words, he knows his stuff! His writings are a bit over my head, yet I was fascinated and gained new insights into the life and work of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft.

• the first Native American literary writer
• the first known Native American woman writer
• the first known Native American poet
• the first known poet to write poems in a Native American language
• The woman who inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Hiawatha”
• The woman who wrote down Ojibwe legends such as The Corn Story (The Origin of Corn) and translated them into English
• And as is quite common in the history of American Women absolutely NOT the first woman whose husband took all the credit

I deeply appreciate Robert Dale Parker’s respect for Jane Johnston Schoolcraft’s literary accomplishments. He has brought her the long overdue attention she deserves.

Live readings of The Poetry of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft can be found on YouTube

[Sarah Rigg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was especially interested a few years back in adding to my "to read" list authors who are not only Native American but are from the Great Lakes region specifically, since that's where I live and it's the Native culture I'm most familiar with. This book is a gem in that regard: the complete writings of the first known American Indian literary writer, who was raised in Sault Ste. Marie.

JJS was the daughter of an American Indian - specifically Ojibwe - mother and an Irish-American father, married to Henry Schoolcraft, an early Michigan politician. She's writing in the early 1800s, approximately around the same time the Bronte sisters were writing their novels, maybe a little earlier. Robert Dale Parker provides an 80-ish page introduction that includes a mini-biography of JJS and her family and some analysis of her place in literary history.

To be honest, I liked the mini-biography and the folk stories she translated from Ojibwe better than most of her poetry. A lot of the verse is rhyming doggerel, though I really liked a handful of her poems, including "To the Pine Tree" and a couple poems she wrote about her son William who died when he was a toddler. Also, it's not every day you run across a poem written to console a family who has lost a son to cannibalism! This was an interesting chapter in history and I'm really glad I read it.

[Bianca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful stories and poetry that has been ignored for far too long. It is surprising to read such eloquent literature that is a mix of many worlds. I recommend this to anyone who wants to see US history and the Native American history through a new and very underrepresented perspective.

[Brian Mikołajczyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

The complete writings of the first known American-Indian literary writer, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (her English name) or Bamewawagezhikaquay (her Ojibwe name), Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky is a compilation of her works from 1800-1842 with a fantastic historical introduction by Richard Dale Parker to set the times of her life in northern (now) Michigan.
A fantastic read!

[Fallon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Used this anthology for my master's thesis and the story of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft's work being published will always make me teary-eyed. So glad her husband loved her enough to save her work after her death as all of her work is phenomenal, from her work in English to her work in Anishinaabeemowin.

[Libby Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I checked out this hard-to-find book for the Native American poetry and got so much more! A lesson in Native American literature and culture and Ojibway language. Learning how prose and poetry was structured was fascinating but hard to read at times.

[Tamatha Picolla · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a research dissertation, I give it 5 stars. However, there is so much research it distracts from the poetry and folk tales. I wish this was two volumes. The poetry offers an insight into the Ojibwe culture and the way of life when Jane Johnson Schoolcraft lived.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is so exciting to read poems that spent so much time hidden in time.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the way that she writes and I love the themes, this was a really great introduction to Native American poetry and I can’t wait to read more.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible effort to save some of America's first indigenous poetry (in written English) and to wrest it back from her white husbands pen. Worth a read!

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The editor went a bit overboard on the feminist theory in the introduction and short biography of Schoolcraft's life, but I really enjoyed seeing a little bit of what life was like. It was so wild to think about the community and the time period and Schoolcraft reading "The Merchant of Venice". Her poetry is interesting. There really isn't that much of it though.

[Allyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

"To the Pine Tree"

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really excellent introduction to the works of a previously little-known poet. This gave me a lot to build on for a lesson on Schoolcraft from the Norton Anthology (which also draws from this book).