Family Matters, Tribal AffairsCarter Revard was born in the Osage Indian Agency town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma. One of seven children, he completed his first eight grades in a one-room country school, working as a janitor, farmhand, and greyhound trainer through high school. He won a radio quiz scholarship to the University of Tulsa, was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, and in 1952 was given his Osage name by his grandmother and the tribal elders. How his family coped with the dizzying extremes of the Great Depression and the Osage Oil Boom and with small-town life in the Osage hills is the subject of this book. It is about how Revard came to be a writer and a scholar, how his Osage roots have remained alive, about the alienation of being an Indian who "didn't look Indian," and about finding community, even far from home. It is also an exploration of how he and other American Indian writers are, with words, making places to live--in poems, novels, and essays, as well as on reservations and in cities. Above all, this is a book about identity, about an Osage son who grew up to find that the world is neither Indian nor white but many colors in between Told with grace and wit, Family Matters, Tribal Affairs is a moving memoir by one of our most accomplished Native American poets. Like N. Scott Momaday's The Names or Leslie Marmon Silko's Storyteller, this is a story--told in a rich variety of vignettes and voices--about a family, about one man, about many people. "Like that mockingbird," Revard writes, "I have more than one song, but they are all our songs. It seems to me that no one else will sing them unless I do." |
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Page 107
Carter Revard. Making a Name It's human names we think about , of course , when anyone first speaks of " naming . " But everything we refer to has ... human language - an authority given and confirmed by God himself , so that if Making a ...
Carter Revard. Making a Name It's human names we think about , of course , when anyone first speaks of " naming . " But everything we refer to has ... human language - an authority given and confirmed by God himself , so that if Making a ...
Page 127
Carter Revard. so allowing humans to live and thrive . But the Dragon continually came down and devoured human children , until one year a son of the Rainstorm was born to the woman , and she hid her son away until he grew up to fight ...
Carter Revard. so allowing humans to live and thrive . But the Dragon continually came down and devoured human children , until one year a son of the Rainstorm was born to the woman , and she hid her son away until he grew up to fight ...
Page 173
... human being has given the whole world a hidden reservoir of partly human , partly animal music . ' Erd- rich's is a poem about sexual confrontation as well as the conflicts in American culture between human and animal , technological ...
... human being has given the whole world a hidden reservoir of partly human , partly animal music . ' Erd- rich's is a poem about sexual confrontation as well as the conflicts in American culture between human and animal , technological ...
Contents
Buck Creek Community | 27 |
Going to College | 57 |
Repossessing Europe | 76 |
Copyright | |
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Addison American Indian Amherst Antwine Apache Aunt Jewell autobiography Bartlesville Betzinez birds brother Buck Creek Buck Creek School called Carter Revard ceremonies Columbus Coyote Creation Story dance drove Eagle earth Eastman Europeans Flesche Frost Gambler Geronimo go to college grade Grandpa human Jacklight kids killed knew Lakota language live look Louis Maxine miles Milton Missouri mother mounds Navajo never Oklahoma Old English Olympos once Ortiz Osage County Osage Language Osage Naming Osage Nation Pawhuska Pawnee poem poet Ponca Porky remember Robert Frost Santee seems Simon Ortiz sing song speak stars stepfather talk teachers tell things Toby town trees tribal tribes Tulsa turned twin sister Uncle Woody University University of Tulsa walked War Dancers Wendy Rose woman women words