"Primitive" discourse : aspects of contemporary North American Indian representations of the Irish and of contemporary Irish representations of North American Indians

Porter; Porter, Joy

Abstract

This article contrasts a number of contemporary incidences of Irish representation of and engagement with Native Americans and their history with two Native American novels and their depictions of Ireland and the Irish, LeAnne Howe’s 2001 book Shellshaker and Leslie Marmon Silko’s 1999 book Gardens in the Dunes. It argues that Ireland’s relationship with Native Americans and Native America’s relationship with Ireland, particularly at the level of imagery and representation, is more complex than contemporary creative and critical work has tended to suggest. While the voices from Native America or Ireland that represent or refer to each other are small in number, their articulation is often powerful. Furthermore, they unlock a series of representational issues that are important to how each national entity or in the American Indian context, group of sovereign national entities, views itself within the postcolonial world. I present evidence to show that both Irish cultures and American Indian cultures have tended routinely to see each other through a cracked mirror, one reflective of colonial stereotype rather than the historical record. For interesting reasons, voices from each side have chosen to perpetuate ossified myths rather than the changing historical realities that have developed within each set of communities across time. What is needed at this juncture is for a new critical and creative relationship to be forged between Ireland and Native America, one that moves beyond stereotype and misrepresentation and instead engages the rich histories and contemporary cultures of each group of peoples. Today, as Ireland’s artists and critics examine 6 Joy Porter the full texture of postcolonial Ireland and set about placing its stories in rich transnational context, it is more appropriate than ever that they begin to comprehend more fully the American Indian nations whose territory, in the realm of imagination, they continue to invade. Correspondingly, as American Indian artists and critics continue to engage with Ireland, it is important that they also move beyond reiteration of the most pervasive stereotypes about it and instead adopt a more nuanced understanding of the colonizing processes that both sets of peoples have shared. True freedom from colonial ways of thinking requires not only that we dispense with the colonizers’ stereotypes about ourselves, but also that we recognize stereotypes applied to others. It is only by moving beyond the partial and telescoped version of history such stereotypes represent that dialogue can begin, a dialogue whose potential to open up new avenues of postcolonial analysis in the twenty-first century could be profound. Failure to dispense with respective stereotype and misrepresentation on either the Irish or American Indian side will hinder understanding of the shared aspects of the Irish and American Indian history of colonialism and perpetuate colonial representational ideas that have always served interests other than those of indigenous communities.

Citation

Porter, & Porter, J. (2008). "Primitive" discourse : aspects of contemporary North American Indian representations of the Irish and of contemporary Irish representations of North American Indians. American Studies, 49(3-4), 63-85. https://doi.org/10.1353/ams.2010.0020

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2008
• Deposit Date: Nov 13, 2014
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 13, 2014
• Journal: American studies
• Print ISSN: 0026-3079
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 49
• Issue: 3-4
• Pages: 63-85
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ams.2010.0020
• Keywords: Native Americans in literature; Irish in literature
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/467779
• Publisher URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_studies/v049/49.3-4.porter.html
• Additional Information: Copy of article first published in: American studies, 2008, v.49, issue 3/4