Indi'n Humor: Bicultural Play in Native AmericaDrawing on history, psychology, folklore, linguistics, anthropology, and the arts, this book challenges "wooden Indian" stereotypes to redefine negative attitudes and humorless approaches to Native American peoples. Moving from tribal culture to interethnic literature, Lincoln explores such topics as the traditional Trickster of origin myths, historical ironies, Euroamericans "playing Indian", feminist Indian humor at home, contemporary painters and playwrights reinventing Coyote, popular mixed-blood music, and Red English. Lincoln turns to the texts of Native American authors including Louise Erdrich, James Welch, and N. Scott Momaday, to illustrate the rich tradition of Native American humor: a tradition that evolved as the result of and has survived in spite of a history of unconscionable suffering and sadness during the course of which ninety-seven percent of the native populations were destroyed. A study of the literary humor of poets like Paula Gunn Allen, Diane Burns, and Linda Hogan provides further evidence of the importance of the role of humor in Native American culture. Indi'n Humor documents and interprets the contexts of laughter among Native Americans, as they see and are seen by the rest of the world. The study comes to focus comically on the poets, visual artists, playwrights, and novelists who make up the cultural renaissance of the past twenty years. Focusing on ethnic humor, from jokes in bars and powwows, to intercultural politics, to literature, Indi'n Humor will enlighten and entertain readers interested in Native American culture, as well as scholars of Amen can and Ethnic Studies, and humor theorists. |
Contents
Preamble | 3 |
1 RedWhite American | 21 |
2 Historical Slippage | 58 |
3 Playing Indian | 89 |
4 Old Tricks New Twists | 120 |
5 Feminist Indins | 171 |
Louise Erdrich | 205 |
James Welch | 254 |
Coda | 309 |
Reservation Jokes | 315 |
Teaching Indin Humor | 323 |
Interview with Hanay Geiogamah | 326 |
Notes | 339 |
Selected Bibliography | 351 |
A Bibliography | 374 |
377 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Allen American Indian Angeles Anglo animal Apache artist Beet Queen bisociative Black Elk Blood Books cartoon ceremonial Chippewa clown comedy comic context Coyote Coyote's coyotess Cree cultural Dakota dance dark dark comic Deloria English ethnic Euroamerican father feminist fiction fool Freud funny Geiogamah Gerald Vizenor Harry Fonseca heyoka Hopi Huizinga human Indi'n humor intercultural John joke Kashpaw Kiowa Lakota Lame Deer language laugh laughter Lipsha Literature live Louise Erdrich Love Medicine Lulu Mary Momaday Momaday's mother mythic myths Nanapush narrative Native American Native American Renaissance Navajo Nector non-Indian North novel Oklahoma pain Paula Paula Gunn Allen play Pueblo ritual sacred says Scott Momaday seems shaman Silko Sioux spirit story survival talk tell things tion Tosamah traditional Translated tribal tribes Trickster University Press vision warrior Welch Western wild Winter woman women word writing York