The Heirs of Columbus

by Gerald Vizenor

If you must read a book on Columbus," declared the Los Angeles Times in its review of The Heirs of Columbus, "this is the one."

Gerald Vizenor's novel reclaims the story of Christopher Columbus on behalf of Native Americans by declaring the explorer himself to be a descendent of early Mayans and follows the adventures of his modern-day, mixed-blood heirs as they create a fantastic tribal nation.

The genetic heirs of Christopher Columbus meet annually at the Stone Tavern at the headwaters of the Mississippi to remember their "stories in the blood" and plan their tribal nation. They are inspired by the late-night talk radio discourses of Stone Columbus, a trickster healer who became rich as the captain of the sovereign bingo barge Santa Maria Casino, anchored in the international waters of the Lake of the Woods. The heirs' plan to reclaim their heritage enrages the government and inspires the tribal nations in a comic tale of mythic proportions.

Vizenor is a mixed-blood Chippewa who writes fiction in the trickster mode of Native American tradition, using humor to challenge received ideas and subvert the status quo. In The Heirs of Columbus, he "reveals not only how Indians have staved off the tidal wave of assimilation," noted the San Francisco Chronicle, "but also how, through humor and persistence, they sometimes reverse the direction of cultural appropriation and, in the process, transform the alien values imposed on them."

"Vizenor understands the wilder, irrational, half-mad parts of the Discoverer's soul as few people ever have," noted Kirkpatrick Sale in the Nation; "Columbus is appropriated here in an entirely new way, made to be an Indian in service to his Indian descendants." And the Voice Literary Supplement said, "Even more rousing than Vizenor's deconstruction of Columbus, though, is his alternative vision of an American identity."

Genres: Fiction, Native American, Historical Fiction, Magical Realism, Indigenous, Historical, Science Fiction

198 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 1991

About the author

Gerald Robert Vizenor is an Anishinaabe writer and scholar, and an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation. Vizenor also taught for many years at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was Director of Native American Studies. With more than 30 books published, Vizenor is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico.

Reviews

[Christy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just don't dig Gerald Vizenor. I really disliked Bearheart and, though I didn't actively dislike The Heirs of Columbus, neither did I enjoy it. I am not yet able to put my finger on specifically what isn't working for me in Vizenor's work. A large part of it, I think, is my inability to connect with any of the characters or to get a concrete sense of the place in which the story is happening. As a trickster tale, a novel of ideas, The Heirs of Columbus foregoes realism in favor of playfulness, and realism (not verisimilitude, but realistic characters and situations) is apparently a key element in my emotional engagement in and enjoyment of literature.

As in Bearheart, Vizenor's work here is theoretically interesting, though. In this book, he refigures Columbus as a Native ancestor, a crossblood, more complex than a conqueror of Native peoples. In doing so, Vizenor the trickster complicates ideas about tribal identity and American-ness.

Stone Columbus, one of the heirs of Columbus on whom the book focuses, complicates these ideas explicitly. It is reported that "Stone resists the notion of blood quantums, racial identification, and tribal enrollment. The heir is a crossblood, to be sure, but there is more to his position than mere envy of unbroken tribal blood. Indians, he said, are 'forever divided by the racist arithmetic measures of tribal blood.' He would accept anyone who wanted to be tribal, 'no blood attached or scratched,' he once said on talk radio. . . . His point is to make the world tribal, a universal identity, and return to other values as measures of human worth, such as the dedication to heal rather than steal tribal cultures" (162). This is a fascinating idea, one that is tempting in its appeal and in its dangers. The "racist arithmetic measures of tribal blood," as he describes it, may be limiting and may even function to reinforce divisions between white and Indian and between various tribal groups (relying on the old divide and conquer bit), but these measures also protect tribal groups from specific forms of appropriation. If "Germans, at last, could b genetic Sioux, and thousands of coastal blondes bored with being white could become shadow tribes of Hopi, or Chippewa, with gene therapies" (162), what does this say about the specificity of tribal identity and experience?

Even more than being about racial identity, The Heirs of Columbus is about trickster stories and their function. Judge Lord, trying to understand their significance, says, "Stories, then, are at the core of tribal realities, not original sin, for instance, or service missions." She is corroborated and corrected in this by Lappet Browne, a Native witness in court, who says, "Stories and imagination, your honor, but of a certain condition that prescinds discoveries and translations. . . . Comic situations rather than the tragic conclusions of an individual separated from culture, lost and lonesome in a wilderness" (80). Lappet continues, saying, "The comic mode is as much an imposed idea as the tragic; the comic is communal nonetheless, and celebrates chance as a condition of experience, over linear prevision, but at the same time myths, rituals, and stories must summon a spiritual balance, an imaginative negotiation in a very dangerous natural world" (81). This works as a defense of the kind of story Vizenor tells here. The comic trickster tale he tells is about chance, community, and spiritual balance. It is, in fact, liberatory in its re-imagining of historical figures and in its ability to question everything. The conversation between Judge Lord and Lappet continues:

"Even languages must have rules," said Lord.
"The languages we understand are games," said Lappet.
"Language can be a prison," said Lord.
"Trickster stories liberate the mind in language games," said Lappet.
"Touche," said the judge.

Vizenor's story is an attempt to liberate the mind, to liberate history and culture, through language games.

[Michelle Boyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vizenor reinvents history by reclaiming Christopher Columbus as a man of Mayan heritage. This allows for new inventions of storytelling involving trickster figures, satire, mythopoetic motifs, magical realism, and enchantments. But mainly--it involves satire. I cannot say that I "loved" this novel. In fact, I found it hard to get through once I was about halfway through because of how "new-history" it becomes. If you don't know anything about Columbus or Native American history, you might not follow all of the elements of the novel (including lots of the satirical elements) and therefore I must admit the novel is not very inclusive.

Here are all of the highlights that I found though, in case you're ever tasked with having to read this for a course in the future:

Comments about Columbus
--Columbus described as "the explorer has become a trickster healer in the stories told by his tribal heirs at the headwaters of the great river" (p3) and he is also an "obscure crossblood" (p3)
--Ships are reimagined and one is a casino, one a restaurant, one a market (p6)
--Columbus described as Mayan (p9)
--Columbus had erectile problems that pained him (p31)
--"Overnight his discoveries reduced tribal cultures to the status of slaves" (p41)
--identity issues (p48)
--discussions of Pocahontas (p105-106) and the noble savage (p108)

Sacred History/Oral Tradition
--Naanabozho is a "tribal trickster" but this is actually accurate for Ojibwe culture (p5)
--Oral stories change; "'Columbus is ever on the move in our stories'" (p11)
--Wiindigoo and the Moccasin Game first discussed (p20)
--finishing the Moccasin Game (p177)

Comments about Museums, Art, Anthropology, Etc.
--"The House of Life is on the descent to the headwaters, the burial ground for the lost and lonesome bones that were liberated by the heirs from museums." (p5)
--Anthropologists steal things/NAGPRA (p14)(p83)
--Ownership is discussed (p75) according to Indigenous knowledge
--Museum crime (p77)
--Native Arts and Crafts Act and protections (p161)

Comments about Literature
--"signature of survivance" (p6)
--story as significant (p80)
--other authors mentioned and Krupat v. Momaday discussion (p110-111)
--flag representing survivance (p123)

Sovereignty and Policy
--"fortune on sovereign bingo" (p6)
--commentary on Native American gaming (p7)
--recognizing tribal sovereignty (p7) including definitions of sovereignty as "tribal connection to sovereignty as a homestead, mineral rights, the sacred cedar, and the nest of a bald eagle"
--NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) discussed (p8, 14, 63)
--further sovereignty discussions and heir issues (p78)
--blood quantum issues and "causative binaries" (p82)
--blood quantum "creeds" (p132)(p162)
--Welfare agencies and supposed child abuse allegations (p153, 155)

[Ai Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I will say going into this that it took me like 2 months to finish this book because I got behind on other reading, so on top of it being a kind of magical realism-style that I already find confusing (but not a turn off!) I was confused. This is a book I would have loved to read in a class, as I just don't feel smart enough to approach everything that's going on in it--the conversations around blood quantum are like on a level I can't even approach, and the NAGPRA conversation. There's SO MUCH packed into this little book, and I really feel like I barely scratched the surface in my reading, but I'd need a reading buddy to get more out of it.

[Dixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book enlightened my sense of exposition & sensibility, not to mention my approach to Native American culture. I can't really put into words how this book changed my perception of things. To call the ideas in this book holistic would not fully describe the beauty of its conceptualization. Right-Brain thinkers must read this.

[Matteo · Rating 3 out of 5]

We read this book as part of our book club at work. Reading it as a white person, i shared the reaction of several other people: this must be (at least a small taste of) what it's like to be a Native person navigating mainstream society's alien culture - and perhaps that 's part of the author's point. It was funny and interesting, very clever, but hard to follow.

[Delia · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first, this is a hard read. Not because of language but because it takes a while to start up. Once you've read the whole thing through, you have to read the first chapter again to understand the story.

[James Pullman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible novel. Enough said.

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book that’s for sure. Very obviously written by an academic. Not sure I needed that description of Columbus’ massive cock though.

[Nahrin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently joined a book club at my workplace, Northwest Indian College. The club is intended for instructors, who are new to the Native community, to deepen their understanding of Native American cultures and experiences.

This book is written by a prof who teaches Native American Literature at UC Berkeley. He blends history, with fantasy and science fiction. But the author does expect the reader to already be very knowledgeable about Native American history. Not many context clues to figure out all of the references. Therefore, not the best choice, in my opinion, for my book club to select as our first book.

The book does bring to light fascinating ideas, such as the difference between ownership and possession. I'll most likely have re-read this one (once I've read other more beginner-friendly books on Native Americans) in order to fully understand its meaning and implications.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lambent blue star shaman healing time loop. One of the best novels I have ever read. One the few novels that gives me hope for a better world.

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

[Mell]

I was supposed to read this in a college class for my undergrad degree. But I didn't. I rarely skipped assigned reading, and this was a class within my major and with my favorite instructor. Due to both a time crunch and the weird writing, I just never manged to complete this novel. I might have read the fist two pages?

And I've never returned to it.