Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
PRE- AND EARLY COLONIAL LITERATURE
especially the necromancers, were displeased. They did not like it that the coming
of the foreigners should have been intimated to this young girl and not to them.
Had an enemy of the Indian tribes, with whom they were at war, been about about
to make a descent upon them they could have foreseen and foretold it by th epoer
of their magic. But of the coming of this teacher of a new religion they could know
nothing. The new teacher was gradually received into favor, though the magicians
opposed him. The ep[;e received his instructions and submitted to the rite of
baptism. The priest learned their tongue, and gave them the prayer-book written
in what they call Abotlovegsk—ornamental mark-writing, a mark standing
for a word, and rendering it so dicult to learn that it may be said to be impossible.
And this was manifestly done for the purpose of keeping the Indians in ignorance.
Had their language been reduced to writing in the ordinary way, the Indians would
have learned the use of writing an reading, and would have so advanced knowledge
as to have been able to cope with their more enlightened invaders, and it would
have been a more dicult matter for the latter to have cheated them out of their
lands, etc.
Such was Josiah’s story. Whatever were the motives of the priests who gave
them their pictorial writing, it is one of the grossest literary blunders that was
ever perpetrated. it is bad enough for the Chinese, who language is said to be
monosyllabic and unchanged by grammatical inection. But Micmac is partly
syllabic, “endless,” in its compounds and grammatical changes, and utterly
incapable of being represented by signs.
1.3.9 Reading and Review Questions
1. In the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), Cherokee, and uni Origin Tales,
what values of their respective tribes emerge in each tale? How?
2. In the Trickster Cycle, what is the cause of/who causes disruptions?
Why? To what eect?
3. What concept of justice, if any, does “Origin of Disease and Medicine”
illustrate? How?
4. What do you think is the overall message or purpose of the “Thanksgiving
Address?” How does its refrain contribute to this message or purpose?
Why?
5. What do “The Arrival of the Whites” and “The Coming of the Whiteman
Revealed” suggest the Lenape (Delaware) and the Micmac clearly
understood about the meaning of the white man’s arrival? What, if
anything, about the white man’s arrival, is not understood? How do you
know?
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