Synopses & Reviews
Peter J. Seymour was a Salish storyteller. He carried forward earlier tales of elders along with his own experiences as fewer and fewer native speakers were sharing the Colville-Okanagan language and oral literature. To thwart the demise of this language, over the course of a decade he passed along Salish stories not only to his family but also to linguist Anthony Mattina.
and#160;The Complete Seymour: Colville Storyteller includes Seymourand#8217;s tales collected in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before his death. It documents Seymourand#8217;s rich storytelling and includes detailed morphological analyses and translations of this endangered language. This collection is an important addition to the canon of Native American narratives and literature and an essential volume for anyone studying Salish languages and linguistics.
and#160;and#160;
Review
andquot;This collection is an important addition to the canon of Native American narratives and literature and an essential volume for anyone studying Salish languages and linguistics.andquot;andmdash;SSILA
Review
andldquo;For nearly half a century Tony Mattina has been one of those extremely rare scholars to stick with the narrative legacy of a single mysterious, master storyteller, whose genius and wisdom he serves up in this career-culminating book. Working in close auspices with the Colville-Okanagan communities of Washington State and British Columbia, Mattina [has] . . . produced this stunning and original anthology of their collective imagination, as filtered through the old, old stories of the now-deceased sage, Peter Seymour. [It is] one of those quiet triumphs that took one humanistic spirit from academia to unearth, translate, and contextualize the genius of another humanistic spirit from another cultural world.andrdquo;andmdash;Peter Nabokov, author ofand#160;Where the Lightning Strikes: The Lives of American Indian Sacred Placesand#160; and#160;and#160;
Synopsis
New England Indians created the multitribal Brothertown and Stockbridge communities during the eighteenth century with the intent of using Christianity and civilized reforms to cope with white expansion. In Red Brethren, David J. Silverman considers the stories of these communities and argues that Indians in early America were racial thinkers in their own right and that indigenous people rallied together as Indians not only in the context of violent resistance but also in campaigns to adjust peacefully to white dominion. All too often, the Indians discovered that their many concessions to white demands earned them no relief.
In the era of the American Revolution, the pressure of white settlements forced the Brothertowns and Stockbridges from New England to Oneida country in upstate New York. During the early nineteenth century, whites forced these Indians from Oneida country, too, until they finally wound up in Wisconsin. Tired of moving, in the 1830s and 1840s, the Brothertowns and Stockbridges became some of the first Indians to accept U.S. citizenship, which they called "becoming white," in the hope that this status would enable them to remain as Indians in Wisconsin. Even then, whites would not leave them alone.
Red Brethren traces the evolution of Indian ideas about race under this relentless pressure. In the early seventeenth century, indigenous people did not conceive of themselves as Indian. They sharpened their sense of Indian identity as they realized that Christianity would not bridge their many differences with whites, and as they fought to keep blacks out of their communities. The stories of Brothertown and Stockbridge shed light on the dynamism of Indians' own racial history and the place of Indians in the racial history of early America.
About the Author
Peter J. Seymour was a farmer, family man, hunter, jockey, and storyteller. Anthony Mattina is a professor of linguistics, emeritus, at the University of Montanaand#8211;Missoula. He is the author of
Colville-Okanagan Dictionary and the editor and co-translator (with Madeline DeSautel) of
The Golden Woman: The Colville Narrative of Peter J. Seymour. Madeline DeSautel (1888and#8211;1979) was a native speaker of Colville-Okanagan. She and Anthony Mattina have co-translated two publications.