Writing As Witness: Essay and Talk

by Beth Brant

In Writing as Essay and Talk, Brant hopes to convey the message that words are sacred. Belonging to a people whose foremost way of communicating is through an oral tradition, she chooses her words carefully, aware of their significance, truth and beauty.

Genres: Nonfiction, Indigenous, LGBT, Poetry, Feminism, Essays, Native American

126 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1994

About the author

Beth E. Brant (Indian: Degonwadonti) (born 1941 Melvindale, Michigan or in the Tyendinaga reservation in Ontario) is a Mohawk writer. She is known as a theorist ("writing as witness") who has had a profound effect on literary activism in the Americas, as the producer of a substantial body of work in short fiction, nonfiction and poetry, and as editor of groundbreaking anthologies.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beth Brant's book is a gem. A series of essays on being a Native American mixed race lesbian writer and what that means. Native Americans come from an oral tradition, so their writing is a translation. She explains this better that I can.

One of my favorite essays is "Grandmothers of a New World" where she writes the truth about Pocahontas and Nancy Ward, two Native American Indians who made the choice to bond with white men for the sake of their people. She broadens the story we think we know about these women. She understands their roots and weaves the thread of connection as to their motives for these bondings. In a world where we have a president who when talking to Native Americans says the word Pocahontas totally out of context, it is important to read and know the truth. For it is us, the white people, who colonized and exterminated a race of people. They subcomed to the diseases we brought them.

About Nancy Ward, and also about Pocahontas, she writes, "Because she maintained this balance and peace, "Nanye'hi has been seen by some of her descendants as a traitor and lackey to the British. But this story is old and familiar. Take strong Nationalist women and turn them into pale myth. Make our own people believe the lies. This is what oppression is—the enforcement of amnesia—to make us forget the glory and story of our own history."

Beth Brant's Native heritage is Mohawk. She started writing when she was 40, back in the early 80s during the time of a feminist uprising. I remember this time, there were bookstores stocked totally with books written by women. She was a guest editor for the journal Sinister Wisdom, founded by Adrienne Rich and Michelle Cliff, she curated the works of other Native American women. The book that came from that first is A Gathering of Spirit, a classic that gave opportunities for Native women's voices to be heard. By that time she was fully in her two-spirit, and had left an abusive marriage she had stayed in for 14 years.

She writes, "Writing was/is Medicine." It is the only thing I know that brings complete wholeness while it is making a visitation." She goes on to compare it to an orgasm, both a spiritual communication.

[Anwen Hayward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really just a privilege to be able to read this one. So much of what Brant has to say feels like you're being actively gifted with insight.

Despite being written decades ago, everything in here feels like it could have been written this week. The chapter on New Age religion in particular was surprisingly still timely - Brant was discussing the rise of New Age religion as it was in the late '90s, but it all applies so accurately to the TikTok crystal girlies as well - you know the type, the white girls who 'smudge' with sage and buy crystals on Etsy to purify their auras. I loved her insights on the commodification of spirituality and the issue of de-contextualising spiritual and religious practices, making them devoid of meaning.

I was surprised at just how much I liked this one; a lot of feminist works from this period haven't aged well, but this isn't one of them. It's a pity that Brant's work is quite difficult to access these days, having mostly fallen out of print. I really hope that a publisher can pick them up and re-print them, because what she had to say still needs to be heard.

[Three O'Clock Press]

In Writing as Witness: Essay and Talk, Brant hopes to convey the message that words are sacred. Belonging to a people whose foremost way of communicating is through an oral tradition, she chooses her words carefully, aware of their significance, truth and beauty.

[Brady · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked "Grandmothers of a New World" and "Writing Life." The other essays were far too embittered for my taste. I did learn some interesting things about First Nations culture and thought, but these bits of insight were buried in long and repetitive tirades against the white man and Christianity.