In:Storytelling, Identity Formation, and Resistance in Indigenous Cultures in Canada and the United States
Edited by Kamelia Talebian Sedehi
[Studies in Narrative 28] 2025
► pp. 210–228
Chapter 11Plurality, synthesis, and collaboration in Haudenosaunee histories of reading, writing, and
publishing
Published online: 2 September 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.28.11kom
https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.28.11kom
Abstract
Conversations around orality and literacy often presume that practices of writing and reading in phonetic
codes create more sophisticated, objective, and precise ways of communicating ideas than Native North American oral
traditions. This framework creates a false opposition between writing and speaking. How Haudenosaunee writers have
adapted written text to support and maintain orality is discussed here by examining peritexts of seminal traditions
published by Haudenosaunee writers. I will respond to some scholarly interpretations of these texts by re-interpreting
the issue of orality and literacy in terms of how Haudenosaunee oral culture may have influenced Haudenosaunee textual
culture. At stake is the way that we imagine the relationship between orality and literacy: do these modes of
communication clash, or complement each other?
Keywords: orality, literacy, peritext, oral tradition, Haudenosaunee
Article outline
- Orality and literacy in Haudenosaunee communities
- David Cusick’s Sketches of the Ancient History of the Six Nations (1827)
- Arthur Parker’s “The Code of Handsome Lake, Seneca Prophet” (1912)
- John Mohawk’s Iroquois Creation Story: John Arthur Gibson and J. N. B. Hewitt’s Myth of the Earth Grasper (2005)
- Conclusion
Notes References
References (31)
Barreiro, J. (2010). Introduction. In J. Barreiro (Ed.), Thinking
in Indian: A John Mohawk
Reader (pp. xiii–xxvi). Fulcrum Publishing.
Brant, B. (1994). The
Good Red Road: Journeys of Homecoming in Native Women’s
Writing. In Writing as Witness: Essay and
Talk (pp. 5–24). Women’s Press.
Brydon, S. (1995). Ingenuity
in Art: The Early 19th Century Works of David and Dennis Cusick. American
Indian Art Magazine, 60–69.
Cusick, D. (1827). David
Cusick’s Sketches of the Ancient History of the Six Nations. (First
Edition). Printed for the Author.
(1828). David
Cusick’s Sketches of the Ancient History of the Six Nations. (Second
Edition). Printed for the Author.
(1848). David
Cusick’s Sketches of the Ancient History of the Six Nations. (Third
Edition). Turner and McCollum, Printers, Democrat Office.
Derrida, J. (1997). Of
Grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.; First
American Edition). Johns Hopkins University Press.
Fenton, W. N. (1968). Introduction. In W. N. Fenton (Ed.), Parker
on the
Iroquois (pp. 1–47). Syracuse University Press.
Haas, A. M. (2007). Wampum
as Hypertext: An American Indian Intellectual Tradition of Multimedia Theory and
Practice. Studies in American Indian
Literatures, 19(4), 77–100.
Hill, R., Sr. (2024, Feb 22–23). Around
Wampum: Histories and Perspectives, an international symposium. McCord Stewart Museum.
Holmes, E. (1903). Letters
of the Revered Elkanah Holmes from Fort Niagara in 1800: His work among the Tuscaroras, the Senecas, and in
Buffalo. In Publications of the Buffalo Historical
Society (Vol. 6, pp. 187–204). Buffalo Historical Society.
Johnston, J. (1997). Chapter
4: “Only a Traveller’s Tale”: Gendered Discourse in Professional
Travel-Writing. In Anna Jameson: Victorian, Feminist,
Woman of
Letters (pp. 100–123). Scolar Press.
Journal of
Contribute. (1840). Lives of the Indians: Nicholas Cusick
Chief of the Tuscarora Indians. The Boston Weekly
Magazine, 3(15), 116.
Kalter, S. (2002). Finding
a Place for David Cusick in Native American Literary
History. Melus, 27(3), 9–42.
Low, E. R. (1903). Narrative
of Esther Rutgers Low. Her Sojourn at the Tuscarora and Seneca Missions,
1819–20. In Publications of the Buffalo Historical
Society (Vol. 6, pp. 275–280). Buffalo Historical Society.
Lyons, O. (2010). Foreword. In J. Barreiro (Ed.), Thinking
in Indian: A John Mohawk
Reader (pp. ix–xi). Fulcrum Publishing.
Mohawk, J. (2005). Iroquois
Creation Story: John Arthur Gibson and J.N.B. Hewitt’s Myth of the Earth
Grasper. Mohawk Publications.
Porter, T. S. (2008). And
Grandma Said… Iroquois Teachings as passed down through oral tradition (L. Forrester, Ed.). Xlibris.
Radus, D. M. (2014). Printing
Native History in David Cusick’s Sketches of Ancient History of the Six
Nations. American
Literature, 86(2), 217–243.
Rafinesque, C. S. (1828,
July 30). To the editor of the Cherokee
Phœnix. Cherokee Phoenix, and Indians’
Advocate, 2–3.
Richardson, R. (2023,
May 13). Suckerfish Writing in the Archive. Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Conference, University of Toronto.
Sky, R. R. (2024). New
Directions in Indigenous Book History: Virtual Symposium. Early American
Literature, 59(1), 245–251.
Strong-Boag, V., & Gerson, C. (2020). Paddling
Her Own Canoe: The Times and Texts of E. Pauline Johnson
(Tekahionwake). University of Toronto Press.
Sturtevant, W. C. (2006). David
and Dennis Cusick: Early Iroquois Realist Artists. American Indian Art
Magazine, 31(2), 44–55, 95.