The Inconvenient Indian:
A Curious Account of Native People in North America
By Thomas King
$34.95 Doubleday Canada
Here is a great book about native people — it is well written, (probably) factual and certainly entertaining.
Thomas King is qualified on the subject, being an native himself, but he usually writes novels. Funny novels.
He says, “writing a novel is like buttering warm toast, while writing history is herding porcupines with your elbows.”
Everyone has an opinion about natives and King admits that any discussion of native people in North America is going to conjure up “a certain amount of rage.”
But this book might change your perspective. If even the most opinionated reader were to crack open his or her mind for just 270 pages, they might be surprised by the other side of the story. It’s possible that in many cases white men did indeed speak with forked tongue.
History, says the author, is the stories we tell about the past. How we choose which stories to tell is very important.
In this telling, there are some exciting and bloody stories that we’ve always known (what with watching movies and all). But was it history?
Discredited stories make us squirm, or they should anyway. But King says, after 158 pages, “let’s not talk about the past, let’s put it behind us. How about a new beginning ... say 1985. We’ll put everything before that on the discard pile.”
Then he goes on to tell us briefly what makes up that pile. There’s lots to talk about.
But never mind that, we are moving on. To Meech Lake Accord and Charlottetown or the land claim dispute in Caledonia, where the government paid out $20 million in settlement, to white people, even though the land was Mohawk land.
Well that was then and this is now.
Thomas King was born in America, but is very conversant with native affairs on both sides of the border.
Part of the problem is the head count. What is a native? In America, the names of the people who belong to various tribes are recorded. If you aren’t on the list, you aren’t a native.
In Canada, we have: status Indians, non-status Indians and treaty Indians.
In Canada the “First Nations” people are defined by the Indian Act. Status is only by birth.
The question of how to make a living on reserves is discussed here. In America, some poor reserves allowed landfills on their land, for the storage of urban waste. The environmentalists, who had no better idea, lectured natives on traditional beliefs and ethical standards.
This story is far from over and the main theme stays the same. It’s all about land. It may be native land but that can be subject to change.
Integration is, to some people, the only answer, but that subject needs much discussion.
“Native cultures have already proven themselves to be remarkably tenacious and resilient,” says Thomas King.
This a very good and timely book, which every Canadian should read.
Peggy Freeman is a local freelance books reviewer.