February 14, 2007

First Indian literary writer

Robert Parker's The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky:  The Writings of Jane Johnston SchoolcraftFor those of you who know about Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Jane was his wife. She was Ojibwe. Her Ojibwe name name was Bamewawagezhikaquay. This title of the book is her name, translated into English.

She died in 1842, and, according to the book, she was the first known American Indian literary writer, the first known American Indian poet, and the first to write out traditional American Indian stories.
(Excerpted from Debbie Reese's American Indians in Children's Literature, 2/12/07.)

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