Off
the Reservation : Reflections on Boundary-Busting, Border-Crossing
Loose Canons by
Paula Gunn Allen
Off the Reservation gives us the best of Allen's
political essays, literary criticism, and personal reflections. In
section one, "Haggles/gynosophies" (haggles being a
persuasive speech in which a hag engages), Allen offers powerful
critiques of the Western social constructs of proprietorship,
literacy, individualism, and "rape culture" contrasted
with the communal and spiritual connection to the earth that
characterizes native societies. "Wyrds/orthographies"
presents some of the best analysis of Native American literature
of the late twentieth century, including the work of N. Scott
Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Mary Tallmountain.
After creation and emergence, the first two
major themes of the sacred lore of the Keres Pueblo, comes
migration, the tradition to which Native American feminist scholar
Allen claims allegiance. Her own legacy embraces three migration
strands: Maronite Lebanese and Celtic Scots as well as Laguna
Pueblo. Standing at these ethnic crossroads, refusing to be
confined to any reservation, literal or figurative, Allen views
the boundary where Native American cultures and Western
civilization meet. In a series of essays that explore this
boundary from a female-centered perspective, she proclaims the
frontier a site of spiritual conflict and challenges; takes on the
issue of how Native Americans assert themselves in an Indian
country engulfed by white culture; and depicts Indians as plural
and pervasive--" like the goddesses and gods." In other
essays, she explores Native American literature and reflects on
her personal "un-bounded" relation to the world.
Intelligent critique from a renegade spirit who can inspire us all
to see what the global prospects are "off the
reservation." -- Philip Herbst -- From Booklist
