"To Put the Sun Back in the Sky:" Nurturing Kinship Ties and Recovering the Ancestors in D'Arcy McNickle's Wind from an Enemy Sky
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2014.i4.518Keywords:
American studies, native american studies, American literature, D'Arcy McNickleAbstract
Native American cultures have always devoted a great deal of attention to the memory of the ancestors and the importance such memory assumes in perpetuating a specific tribal identity across different generations. This may seem to be quite an obvious statement, given the frequency with which such phrases or notions as ‘respect for the ancestors,’ ‘ancestral wisdom,’ ‘ancestral worship,’ ‘legacy of the ancestors,’ and so on have come up in serious and less serious accounts of American Indian cultural traditions—ranging from biographies to collections of myths and folktales. This notion, however, has also become easy prey to oversimplifications and misappropriations on the part of non-Indian subjects, especially with respect to the complex mechanisms of knowledge production oriented toward a Western audience fascinated with ‘remote’ or ‘exotic’ cultures. In American fiction and popular culture, all of this can be seen in the persistence of stereotypes like that of the old Indian shaman, and in the popularity of narrative schemes where the discovery of Indian ancestry or the proximity to Indian elders provide a (usually white or mixed-blood) character with a regenerative, even mystical experience that grants a privileged access to the secrets of life.References
Bergland, Renée L. The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects. Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 2000.
Bosco, Stefano. “La memoria degli antenati nella letteratura nativo-americana contemporanea.” Percorsi incrociati sulla memoria. Ricordo, scrittura, rappresentazione. Ed. Juliette Ferdinand, Enrico Valseriati, Francesca Vitali. Verona: QuiEdit, 2014. 163-181.
Dippie, Brian. The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy. Lawrence: University Press
of Kansas, 1991.
Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. New York: Modern Library, 1993.
Fiedler, Leslie. The Return of the Vanishing American. New York: Stein and Day, 1969.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Nick Adams Stories. New York: Bantam, 1973.
Kent, Alicia. African, Native, and Jewish American Literature and the Reshaping of Modernism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Keresztesi, Rita. Strangers at Home: American Ethnic Modernism Between the World Wars. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
Lawrence, David H. Studies in Classic American Literature. New York: Penguin, 1977.
McNickle, D’Arcy. Wind from an Enemy Sky. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003.
Melling, Philip. “‘There Were Many Indians in the Story’: Hidden History in Hemingway’s ‘Big Two-Hearted River’.” The Hemingway Review 28.2 (2009): 45-65.
Michaels, Walter Benn. Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Pluralism. Durham: Duke University Press,
1997.
Moore, David L. That Dream Shall Have a Name: Native Americans Rewriting America. Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 2013.
Owens, Louis. Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1992.
Purdy, John. Word Ways: The Novels of D’Arcy McNickle. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1990.
Bosco, Stefano. “La memoria degli antenati nella letteratura nativo-americana contemporanea.” Percorsi incrociati sulla memoria. Ricordo, scrittura, rappresentazione. Ed. Juliette Ferdinand, Enrico Valseriati, Francesca Vitali. Verona: QuiEdit, 2014. 163-181.
Dippie, Brian. The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy. Lawrence: University Press
of Kansas, 1991.
Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. New York: Modern Library, 1993.
Fiedler, Leslie. The Return of the Vanishing American. New York: Stein and Day, 1969.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Nick Adams Stories. New York: Bantam, 1973.
Kent, Alicia. African, Native, and Jewish American Literature and the Reshaping of Modernism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Keresztesi, Rita. Strangers at Home: American Ethnic Modernism Between the World Wars. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
Lawrence, David H. Studies in Classic American Literature. New York: Penguin, 1977.
McNickle, D’Arcy. Wind from an Enemy Sky. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003.
Melling, Philip. “‘There Were Many Indians in the Story’: Hidden History in Hemingway’s ‘Big Two-Hearted River’.” The Hemingway Review 28.2 (2009): 45-65.
Michaels, Walter Benn. Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Pluralism. Durham: Duke University Press,
1997.
Moore, David L. That Dream Shall Have a Name: Native Americans Rewriting America. Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 2013.
Owens, Louis. Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1992.
Purdy, John. Word Ways: The Novels of D’Arcy McNickle. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1990.
Downloads
Published
2014-12-01
Issue
Section
Articles: Special Section
License
Copyright (c) 2019 Stefano Bosco
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Iperstoria is an Open Access journal.- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 BY-NC License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of their work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. We require authors to inform us of any instances of re-publication.
