Contenu du sommaire : L'indianité : contextes et perspectives.

North American Indians, although (or because) we have distorted views about them, have made us dream about them more than most people on earth. They have inspired many books over the last decades, both in the States and in Europe. Yves Berger explores this fascination and the myth on which it is based.

In his introduction, Wilcomb Wasburn points out that, in spite of the popular interest towards the First Americans, the unusual status of US Indians is rarely understood. He underlies the importance of the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934, which transformed the earlier relationship between Indians and the US Government, and he stresses that the history and future of the American Indian continue to be freely debated in the United States.

In this article Vine Deloria provides the reader with an overview of the successive changes that have affected the American Indian status in the United States. Through an evaluation of major reforms and recent legislation he demonstrates how the federal bureaucracy can still exercise « an almost complete control over Indians » and how the backlash of the 80's has deprived Indians of the popular support they had enjoyed during the previous decades.

This essay studies the connection between visual arts and Indian identity. The author examines how some of the developments affecting native peoples in the 1970' s and 1980 s have been mirrored in the artistic field, taking into account the fact that the American Indian Renaissance in the last three decades has been marked by an increased awareness of both tribalism and Indianness.

This article deals with the survival of Coast Salish Spirit Dancing and the persistence of ceremonialism as an expression of Indian identity. Looking back to the Indian Reorganization Act, the author draws the reader's attention to unexpected or neglected aspects of tribalism, which go beyond John Collier's intention to preserve and protect the specific values of Indian cultures.

Maria Powers challenges the stereotypes of Native American Women, still prevalent in films and in literature ; according to her, over-generalization on the part of feminist writers has resulted in still another distorted view of the American Indian woman's place in their own culture. Referring to the Oglala she shows how women seem to have held up better than men under the stresses of reservation life and she points out that they often hold important positions without neglecting their maternal role.

The Winter Lady of Santa Clara explains her views on Christianity, traditional religion and spiritual life. She tells how she managed to remain faithful to her Indian village and her traditional values while living in an urban environment in Santa Fe. Conjuring up her past, she makes the reader share her vision and her spiritual quest.

D'Arcy McNickle was a remarkable man in many respects ; an administrator, historian, anthropologist and novelist, he left his mark in many different fields. Franco Meli presents McNickle's work as a novelist, stressing that in many Native American novels, the protagonist comes back home, returns to his Indian roots. Meli interprets McNickle's novels as depicting a tribal rather than an individual definition of « being ».

A native American author from Montana, James Welch writes about two men suffering from partly desired amnesia. Human beings, animals and the thunder help the narrator of Winter in the Blood to undergo the initiation rites which dispel the mist clouding his memory. The schizophrenic half-breed in The Death of Jim Loney receives visions which he can only decipher thanks to an Indian friend. The merging of their individual memories into the collective memory of their people frees these two anti-heroes from their existential non-being by forcing them to accept their identity as Indians.

In this text Scott Momaday, looking back to 1883, the year of the falling stars, when « one age ended and another began » provides us with a poetic and visionary interpretation of history. Within four years the Kiowas had to sign their first treaty with the US Government and Plains Indian culture had disappeared before the end of the nineteenth century. Momaday tells us how the ancient spirit can survive.

A native American author from Montana, James Welch writes about two men suffering from partly desired amnesia. Human beings, animals and the thunder help the narrator of Winter in the Blood to undergo the initiation rites which dispel the mist clouding his memory. The schizophrenic half-breed in The Death of Jim Loney receives visions which he can only decipher thanks to an Indian friend. The merging of their individual memories into the collective memory of their people frees these two anti-heroes from their existential non-being by forcing them to accept their identity as Indians.

Following the Amiens festival organized in November 1987, the author deals with Native American image on films, the new Native American cinema and the importance of memory and memory lapses in US history.

The author presents us with a vision of the Navaho universe, through the eyes of an author who wrote only one poem about Indians but who perceived the quest for harmony expressed in Navaho tradition. Géraldine Keams (Navaho) gives him an answer.