American travel writing and its criticism, both historical and contemporary, has included non-Indian perspectives of Native Americans. Indeed, the presence, current or past, real or imagined, of Indians associated with landscape has been an integral part of American self-identity. Even tourism required, and continues to require, the presence of the Indian: In Sacred Places, Clark has noted that in the 19th century, "in the imagination of the tourist, the Indian of fantasy displaced the actual Indian,"(1) and that such construction was an integral part of tourist attractions like Yellowstone and Yosemite. Today, the tourism program for the state of Oklahoma urges visitors to "Discover Oklahoma," dubbed "Native America."
The now-mythic retellings of travel adventures of the Pilgrims, John Smith, and Lewis and Clark have helped to shape and perpetuate the popularization of who Indians were, and are, and have contributed to the image of Indians as the "other." Missing from these travel sagas are the voices of Squanto, Pocahontas, and Sacajawea, who made their own journeys. Also missing in popular perceptions has been the reality of the Native American as a traveler in her or his own right, apart from the acceptable role of "companion" or "guide." Travel experiences for Native Americans assuredly predate the European presence on this continent, and Indian people have had their own concepts of what travel is and means. Travel for Indian people has been both voluntary and involuntary (examples of the latter being the removals of numerous tribes and the boarding school experiences), and has encompassed both group and individual experiences. Travel has also helped to mold Native perceptions of non-Native societies and individuals.
Arguably, it has been William Least Heat Moon's recounting of his journey in Blue Highways(2) that has provided for America's general readership a contemporary image of a Native traveler. But, Native Americans have always spoken, and often written, of their travel experiences. This presentation will provide a frame for the words of contemporary (post-World War II) Native Americans describing the types of travel they have undertaken and its meanings to them, to their families, and to their communities. These narratives will represent selections from autobiographical writings, both monographic and essay.(3)
Possible themes posed in these writings may include: What were the reasons for travel? Cook-Lynn has written "of the 'exile,' so pervasive in the writing of American Indians (for whom the journey theme is primary)"(4); how did travel experiences affect considerations of identity? How did travel experiences contribute to Native ideas of non-Indians? How were travel experiences shared with families and communities, and what were the reactions?
(1) John F. Sears, Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the
Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 155.
(2) William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways: A Journey into America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982).
(3) There are many examples of contemporary Native American narrative:
N. Scott Momaday, The Names: A Memoir (New York: Harper & Row, 1976); Emily Benedek, Beyond the Four Corners of the World: A Navajo Woman's Journey (New York: Knopf, 1995); writers collected in Joy Harjo, editor, Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Contemporary Native Women's Writing of North America (New York: Norton, 1997); etc., etc.
(4) Cook-Lynn, Elizabeth. Why I Can't Read Wallace Stegner and Other
Essays: A Tribal Voice (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), 82.
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