The sound the stars make rushing through the sky : the writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft
Product Description: Introducing a dramatic new chapter to American Indian literary history, this book brings to the public for the first time the complete writings of the first known American Indian literary writer, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (her English name) or Bamewawagezhikaquay (her Ojibwe name), Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky (1800-1842). Beginning as early as 1815, Schoolcraft wrote poems and traditional stories while also translating songs and other Ojibwe texts into English. Her stories were published in adapted, unattributed versions by her husband, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, a founding figure in American anthropology and folklore, and they became a key source for Longfellow's sensationally popular The Song of Hiawatha. As this volume shows, what little has been known about Schoolcraft's writing and life only scratches the surface of her legacy. Most of the works have been edited from manuscripts and appear in print here for the first time. The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky presents a collection of all Schoolcraft's extant writings along with a cultural and biographical history. Robert Dale Parker's deeply researched account places her writings in relation to American Indian and American literary history and the history of anthropology, offering the story of Schoolcraft, her world, and her fascinating family as reinterpreted through her newly uncovered writing. This book makes available a startling new episode in the history of American culture and literature
Print Book, English, ©2007
University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, ©2007
xv, 292 pages : illustrations, map, music ; 25 cm
9780812239812, 9780812219692, 0812239814, 0812219694
77333770
Introduction: World And Writings Of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft
Cultural world of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft
Personal world
Literary writings: poetry, stories, Translations
Final years
Literary legacy
Notes to introduction
Abbreviations
Writings
To the pine tree on first seeing it on returning from Europe
To the miscoded
Lines written at Castle Island, Lake Superior
On the Doric Rock, Lake Superior: to a friend
My humble present is a purse
Invocation: To my maternal grand-father on hearing his descent from Chippewa ancestors misrepresented
Invocation to my maternal grandfather, Wabojeeg [shorter draft]
Invocation to my maternal grandfather, Wabojeeg [longer draft]
To a bird, seen under my window in the garden
Lines to a friend asleep
By an Ojibwa female pen: invitation to sisters to a walk in the garden, after a shower
Pensive hours
Pensive lines
Contrast, a splenetic effusion, March, 1983-
Contrast
On Henry's birthday
Absence
Nindahwaymau
Neezhicka
Neenawbame
Ningwisis
Amid the still retreat of Elmwood's shade
Resignation [1]
Resignation [2]
Lines written under affliction
Relief
Metrical Jeu d'esprit, designed as an invitation to a whist party
Response
Elegy: On the death of my son William Henry, at St Mary's
Sonnet
To my ever beloved and lamented son William Henry
Sweet Willy
Lines written under severe pain and sickness
On leaving my children John and Jane at school, in the Atlantic states, and preparing to return to the interior
Answer, to a remonstrance on my being melancholy, by a gentleman, who, sometimes had a little pleasing touch of melancholy himself
Language divine!
As watchful spirits in the night
On medication
Welcome, welcome to my arms
Psalm, or supplication for mercy, and confession of sin, addressed to the author of life, in the Odjibway-Algonquin tongue
On reading Miss Hannah Moore's Christian morals and practical piety
Stanzas
My heart is gone with him afar
Acrostic
My ear-rings
When the stormy winds do blow, after Thomas Campbell
Elegy on the death of my aunt Mrs Kearny of Kilgobbin Glebe Dublin, Ireland
Spirit of peace
Let prayer alone our thoughts engage
Origin of the robin
Moowis, the Indian coquette
Mishosha, or the magician and his daughters: a Chippewa tale or legend
Forsaken brother: a Chippewa tale
Origin of the miscodeed, or the maid of Taquimenon
Corn story (or the origin of corn)
Three cranberries
Little spirit, or boy-man: an Odjibwa tale
Waish-kee, alias Iawba Wadick
La Renne
Peboan and Seegwun (winter and spring): a Chippewa allegory
O-jib-way maid
Song for a lover killed in battle
Two songs
Mother's lament for the absence of a child
Naw! Nin daun, nin dau niss ance
Oh my daughter-my little daughter
My lover is tall and handsome
High heav'd my breast
Song of the Okogis, or frog in spring
Kaugig ahnahmeauwin/ever let piety
Character of aboriginal historical tradition: to the editor of the Muzzinyegun
Dying speech
Appendix 1: Sources and editorial procedures
Appendix 2: Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, "an introduction to the poetry of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft"
Appendix 3: Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, "Dawn of literary composition by educated natives of the aboriginal tribes
Appendix 4: Misattributions and potential misattributions
Appendix 5: List of less substantive variants
Works cited
Index
Acknowledgments
Selected writings have Ojibwa original and English translation