What do you think?
Rate this book
That the People Might Live: Native American Literatures and Native American Community
Loyalty to the community is the highest value in Native American cultures, argues Jace Weaver. In That the People Might Live , he explores a wide range of Native American literature from 1768 to the present, taking this sense of community as both a starting point and a lens.
Weaver considers some of the best known Native American writers, such as Leslie Marmon Silko, Gerald Vizenor, and Vine Deloria, as well as many others who are receiving critical attention here for the first time. He contends that the single thing that most defines these authors' writings, and makes them deserving of study as a literature separate from the national literature of the United States, is their commitment to Native community and its survival. He terms this commitment "communitism"--a fusion of "community" and "activism." The Native American authors are engaged in an ongoing quest for community and write out of a passionate commitment to it. They write, literally, "that the People might live."
Drawing upon the best Native and non-Native scholarship (including the emerging postcolonial discourse), as well as a close reading of the writings themselves, Weaver adds his own provocative insights to help readers to a richer understanding of these too often neglected texts. A scholar of religion, he also sets this literature in the context of Native cultures and religious traditions, and explores the tensions between these traditions and Christianity.
Weaver considers some of the best known Native American writers, such as Leslie Marmon Silko, Gerald Vizenor, and Vine Deloria, as well as many others who are receiving critical attention here for the first time. He contends that the single thing that most defines these authors' writings, and makes them deserving of study as a literature separate from the national literature of the United States, is their commitment to Native community and its survival. He terms this commitment "communitism"--a fusion of "community" and "activism." The Native American authors are engaged in an ongoing quest for community and write out of a passionate commitment to it. They write, literally, "that the People might live."
Drawing upon the best Native and non-Native scholarship (including the emerging postcolonial discourse), as well as a close reading of the writings themselves, Weaver adds his own provocative insights to help readers to a richer understanding of these too often neglected texts. A scholar of religion, he also sets this literature in the context of Native cultures and religious traditions, and explores the tensions between these traditions and Christianity.
256 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1997
3 people are currently reading
60 people want to read
About the author
Jace Weaver
17 books5 followersJace Weaver is Franklin Professor of Native American Studies and Religion at the University of Georgia. He is the author of The Red Atlantic: American Indigenes and the Making of the Modern World, 1000–1927.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 12, 2008
Jace Weaver's study of Native American literature is a fascinating but flawed analysis of what sets Native American literature apart, what makes it Native. That the People Might Live “examines what, if anything, distinguishes written product by Native from that of non-natives. . . . It is my hypothesis that Native literature both reflects and shapes contemporary Native identity and community and that what distinguishes it and makes it a valuable resource is what I term in this study ‘communitism’” (ix).
Because communitism is his own neologism, he provides a definition:
“Communitism is related to Vizenor’s ‘survivance,’ Warrior’s ‘intellectual sovereignty,’ and Georges Sioui’s ‘autohistory.’ Its coining, however, is nevertheless necessary because none of these terms from Native intellectuals nor any word from the Latin root communitas carries the exact sense implied by this neologism. It is formed by a combination of the words ‘community’ and ‘activism.’ Literature is communitist to the extent that it has a proactive commitment to Native community, including what I term the ‘wider community’ of Creation itself. In communities that have too often been fractured and rendered dysfunctional by the effects of more than 500 years of colonialism, to promote communitist values means to participate in the healing of the grief and sense of exile felt by Native communities and the pained individuals in them” (xiii).
This idea of reading Native American literature as that which is written by Indians for the benefit of Indian culture and community is an interesting and useful one. It places Native American literature in the realm of political literature; all Native American literature that is to be considered authentic must then, it seems, address this issue, whether implicitly or explicitly. This leaves little room for Native American authors who identify as Native American but who do not write toward this sense of community. Of course, if they are truly Indian, Weaver, might counter, they will not be able to avoid incorporating this sense of community in their works. He indicates that there is a possibility that Native American writers may not do this, but the consequences are dire: “Not to be committed to Native American community, affirming the tribes, the people, the values, is tantamount to psychic suicide. It is to lose the self in the dominant mass humanity, either ceasing to be or persisting merely as another ethnic minority, drifting with no place, no relations, no real people” (43)
Ultimately, according to Weaver, “American Indian writers help Native readers imagine and re-imagine themselves as Indian from the inside rather than as defined by the dominant society” (5). Indian writers have a responsibility to their people, to their worldview: “Any Native scholarship or intellectual work must . . . take the ongoing and continual healing of this grief [as a result of colonization and domination] . . . as both a goal and a starting point. It must expand the definition of liberation to include survival. Natives engaged in literary production participate in this healing process” (34).
Although I am fascinated by this way of defining Indian-ness and American Indian literature, moving away from essentialist ideas based on blood alone and toward a broader sense of Indian-ness as cultural, this has its drawbacks in its tendency to become too broad and inclusive. Weaver writes,
“In this shared quest, Native writers may not always agree on either the means or meaning of communitism. Community is a primary value, but today we exist in many different kinds of community—reservation, rural, urban, tribal, pan-Indian, traditional, Christian. Many move back and forth between a variety of these communities. Our different locations, physical, mental, and spiritual, will inevitably lead to different conceptions of what survival, liberation, and communitism require” (45).
If all of these things lack clear definition, where does that leave the quest, the writers who take part in it, and the field of Native American literature? He does try to answer this question and clarify what holds the quest, the writers, and the literature together:
“It is clear that Native literatures differ from dominant discourse in their commitment to community. This includes a shared sense of story, the orature that first served to define and shape tribal realities. The play of language becomes a common bond. In some fashion, works by Native writers, though often highly Western in form, may mimic, perhaps even unconsciously, the tribal stories their authors heard as children” (163).
He returns here to the oral tradition as the common bond, or at least the source of a common bond, the source of the community that Native American literature must dedicate itself to protecting and encouraging. However, this highlights one of the inconsistencies of this book. In an early chapter, Weaver harshly criticizes those literary critics who claim Native American orature as the primary source of authentic Native American culture/literature, but here, in his final attempts to show what makes this focus on community and on liberation unique to Native Americans, he falls back on the oral tradition.
Ultimately, then, although Weaver provides incisive critiques of earlier literary critics and interesting readings of many texts (including less familiar ones), this book falls short of its ambitious goal. I am not convinced by this text that the qualities Weaver identifies as Native American are specific to Native American literature because he is unable to provide more than a general sense of the values that bring Native American literature and culture together. This is perhaps not his fault; it is not as if Native American culture is a unified, homogenous structure. It is far more diverse than Euroamerican or African American cultures and so does not lend itself as well to broad theorizing of this sort. As a general concept or a starting point, Weaver's idea of communitism is great, but as a definition of what counts as Native American literature, it doesn't really work for me.
Because communitism is his own neologism, he provides a definition:
“Communitism is related to Vizenor’s ‘survivance,’ Warrior’s ‘intellectual sovereignty,’ and Georges Sioui’s ‘autohistory.’ Its coining, however, is nevertheless necessary because none of these terms from Native intellectuals nor any word from the Latin root communitas carries the exact sense implied by this neologism. It is formed by a combination of the words ‘community’ and ‘activism.’ Literature is communitist to the extent that it has a proactive commitment to Native community, including what I term the ‘wider community’ of Creation itself. In communities that have too often been fractured and rendered dysfunctional by the effects of more than 500 years of colonialism, to promote communitist values means to participate in the healing of the grief and sense of exile felt by Native communities and the pained individuals in them” (xiii).
This idea of reading Native American literature as that which is written by Indians for the benefit of Indian culture and community is an interesting and useful one. It places Native American literature in the realm of political literature; all Native American literature that is to be considered authentic must then, it seems, address this issue, whether implicitly or explicitly. This leaves little room for Native American authors who identify as Native American but who do not write toward this sense of community. Of course, if they are truly Indian, Weaver, might counter, they will not be able to avoid incorporating this sense of community in their works. He indicates that there is a possibility that Native American writers may not do this, but the consequences are dire: “Not to be committed to Native American community, affirming the tribes, the people, the values, is tantamount to psychic suicide. It is to lose the self in the dominant mass humanity, either ceasing to be or persisting merely as another ethnic minority, drifting with no place, no relations, no real people” (43)
Ultimately, according to Weaver, “American Indian writers help Native readers imagine and re-imagine themselves as Indian from the inside rather than as defined by the dominant society” (5). Indian writers have a responsibility to their people, to their worldview: “Any Native scholarship or intellectual work must . . . take the ongoing and continual healing of this grief [as a result of colonization and domination] . . . as both a goal and a starting point. It must expand the definition of liberation to include survival. Natives engaged in literary production participate in this healing process” (34).
Although I am fascinated by this way of defining Indian-ness and American Indian literature, moving away from essentialist ideas based on blood alone and toward a broader sense of Indian-ness as cultural, this has its drawbacks in its tendency to become too broad and inclusive. Weaver writes,
“In this shared quest, Native writers may not always agree on either the means or meaning of communitism. Community is a primary value, but today we exist in many different kinds of community—reservation, rural, urban, tribal, pan-Indian, traditional, Christian. Many move back and forth between a variety of these communities. Our different locations, physical, mental, and spiritual, will inevitably lead to different conceptions of what survival, liberation, and communitism require” (45).
If all of these things lack clear definition, where does that leave the quest, the writers who take part in it, and the field of Native American literature? He does try to answer this question and clarify what holds the quest, the writers, and the literature together:
“It is clear that Native literatures differ from dominant discourse in their commitment to community. This includes a shared sense of story, the orature that first served to define and shape tribal realities. The play of language becomes a common bond. In some fashion, works by Native writers, though often highly Western in form, may mimic, perhaps even unconsciously, the tribal stories their authors heard as children” (163).
He returns here to the oral tradition as the common bond, or at least the source of a common bond, the source of the community that Native American literature must dedicate itself to protecting and encouraging. However, this highlights one of the inconsistencies of this book. In an early chapter, Weaver harshly criticizes those literary critics who claim Native American orature as the primary source of authentic Native American culture/literature, but here, in his final attempts to show what makes this focus on community and on liberation unique to Native Americans, he falls back on the oral tradition.
Ultimately, then, although Weaver provides incisive critiques of earlier literary critics and interesting readings of many texts (including less familiar ones), this book falls short of its ambitious goal. I am not convinced by this text that the qualities Weaver identifies as Native American are specific to Native American literature because he is unable to provide more than a general sense of the values that bring Native American literature and culture together. This is perhaps not his fault; it is not as if Native American culture is a unified, homogenous structure. It is far more diverse than Euroamerican or African American cultures and so does not lend itself as well to broad theorizing of this sort. As a general concept or a starting point, Weaver's idea of communitism is great, but as a definition of what counts as Native American literature, it doesn't really work for me.
dictionaries-refrences
February 5, 2009about Native American Lietrature
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews