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'Tracing Their Marks' reveals 'misunderstood' legacy of Native American art and literature

While it is only in recent years that Native American writers have gained a place for themselves in the nation's literary landscape, American Indian peoples have read and written both in their own language and in English since before the American Revolution. The history of those writings is explored in a new exhibit titled "Tracing Their Marks," opening on Friday, April 18, at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection.

Subtitled "American Indian Writing and Art from the Beinecke Library Collections," the display features published and unpublished writings, as well as drawings, paintings and prints by Native American authors and artists from the late 18th century to the present.

The exhibit seeks both to place contemporary Native American poetry, fiction, prose and art in historical context, and to suggest the range of investigative work that can be supported by the Beinecke Library's collections of Western Americana, American literature, and modern books and manuscripts, according to the show's organizer, George Miles, curator of the Western Americana Collection.

"The work of critically acclaimed, contemporary Indian authors such as N. Scott Momoday, Vine Deloria Jr., Leslie Marmon Silko and James Welch has often been seen as a unique, unprecedented flowering of Indian self-expression," says Mr. Miles. "It does not diminish the accomplishments of these modern Indian writers to suggest that many critics have misunderstood the historical roots of Indian literature and art. ...

"'Tracing Their Marks' is part of the Beinecke Library's efforts to document the roots as well as the current flower of Indian literature and, we hope, suggests the many rich subjects which can be investigated," he adds.

Among the items on display are:

• A copy of a 1772 sermon by Samson Occom, a Mohegan minister, which was written for the execution of Moses Paul, a fellow Mohegan, for murder. The sermon was printed in New Haven and went through some 19 editions by the early 19th century. Occom also published an "Indian Hymnal" and a historical account of the Montauk Indians, among whom he ministered for many years. These, too, are on view in "Tracing Their Marks."
• Works by such 19th-century Native American writers as Pequot William Apes, Cherokee Cornelius Boudinot, Missassaugua Peter Jones and Chippewa George Copway, who wrote moral fables, political tracts, personal memoirs and poetry.
• One of only two known extant copies of the first edition of "The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta," about California's famous Mexican "social bandit." The work was written by Cherokee author John Rollin Ridge, who moved to California during the Gold Rush to make his living as a professional journalist. Ridge owned or edited 10 different newspapers, including the San Francisco Herald, and published verse in numerous California literary periodicals.
• Plains Indian ledger art from the 19th century, and 20th- century prints and paintings by Pueblo and Navajo artists from New Mexico. "Ledger art grew from an indigenous tradition of hide painting," explains Mr. Miles. "The desire of Army officers and tourists alike to take home examples of Plain's art led to new traditions, and many young men wrote their memoirs in both words and pictures." Among the drawings on exhibit are a series created by Etahdleuh, a Kiowa warrior sent to prison at Fort Marion, Florida, and another series sent by American Horse, a Dakota Indian, to a young boy from Ohio, whose father he had befriended.
• A number of unpublished manuscripts, including: previously unknown drafts of Choctaw tribal constitutions dating from the late 1850s; correspondence by Choctaw delegates to Washington, D.C. describing their efforts to obtain from the federal government the compensation they'd been promised for signing the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek; the medical formulae and correspondence of various Cherokee people from the early 20th century, which are written in the Sequoyan syllabary; and the extensively revised, autograph memoir of Lucy Thompson, a Yurok woman of the early 20th century.
• Selections from the manuscripts of such modern writers as Blackfeet author James Welch, Laguna poet and storyteller Leslie Marmon Silko, and Abnaki poet, critic and publisher Joseph Bruchac.

"Tracing Their Marks: American Indian Writing and Art from the Beinecke Collection" will be on view through June 27. The Beinecke Library is located at 121 Wall St. Its exhibition area is open to the public free of charge 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, call 432-2977.

Author to read from 'Looking for Buffalo Bill'

A reading and discussion of the book "Looking for Buffalo Bill" by Blackfeet author James Welch will mark the opening of "Tracing Their Mark: American Indian Writing and Art from the Beinecke Collection."

The event, which is sponsored by the Yale Collection of Western Americana, will take place at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, April 18, in Sudler Hall of William L. Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St. (entrance on College Street). The event is free and open to the public.

"Looking for Buffalo Bill" is Mr. Welch's newest work. He is also the author of "Riding the Earthboy 40: Poems," "Winter in the Blood," "The Indian Lawyer" and "Killing Custer," the latter with Paul Stekler.

A public reception at the Beinecke Library will follow Mr. Welch's lecture.