Medicine Bundle : Indian Sacred Performance and American Literature, 1824-1932 / Joshua David Bellin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bellin, Joshua David, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Indians of North America--Religion.

Indians of North America.

Indians of North America--Medicine.

Indians of North America--Rites and ceremonies.

American literature--Indian authors--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--White authors--History and criticism.

American literature--History and criticism.

Indians in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (274 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

From the 1820s to the 1930s, Christian missionaries and federal agents launched a continent-wide assault against Indian sacred dance, song, ceremony, and healing ritual in an attempt to transform Indian peoples into American citizens. In spite of this century-long religious persecution, Native peoples continued to perform their sacred traditions and resist the foreign religions imposed on them, as well as to develop new practices that partook of both. At the same time, some whites began to explore Indian performance with interest, and even to promote Indian sacred traditions as a source of power for their own society. The varieties of Indian performance played a formative role in American culture and identity during a critical phase in the nation's development.In Medicine Bundle, Joshua David Bellin examines the complex issues surrounding Indian sacred performance in its manifold and intimate relationships with texts and images by both Indians and whites. From the paintings of George Catlin, the traveling showman who exploited Indian ceremonies for the entertainment of white audiences, to the autobiography of Black Elk, the Lakota holy man whose long life included stints as a dancer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, a supplicant in the Ghost Dance movement, and a catechist in the Catholic Church, Bellin reframes American literature, culture, and identity as products of encounter with diverse performance traditions. Like the traditional medicine bundle of sacred objects bound together for ritual purposes, Indian performance and the performance of Indianness by whites and Indians alike are joined in a powerful intercultural knot.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1. George Catlin, Te-ho-pe-nee Wash-ee

Chapter 2. Being and Becoming "Indian"

Chapter 3. The Acts of the Prophets

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9780812292343

0812292340

OCLC:

905920020