The Shagganappi

by E. Pauline Johnson

Emily Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) (1861-1913), was a Canadian writer and performer. She is often remembered for her poems that celebrate her aboriginal heritage. The Shagganappi (1913) and The Moccasin Maker (1913), posthumous publications, are collections of selected periodical stories Johnson penned on a number of sentimental, didactic, and biographical topics.

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1913

About the author

Emily Pauline Johnson (also known in Mohawk as Tekahionwake), commonly known as E. Pauline Johnson or just Pauline Johnson, was a Canadian writer and performer popular in the late 19th century. Johnson was notable for her poems and performances that celebrated her First Nations heritage; her father was a Mohawk chief of mixed ancestry, and her mother an English immigrant. One such poem is the frequently anthologized "The Song My Paddle Sings". Her poetry was published in Canada, the United States and Great Britain. Johnson was one of a generation of widely read writers who began to define a Canadian literature. While her literary reputation declined after her death, since the later 20th century, there has been renewed interest in her life and works.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

My final title by Johnson, this collection of 22 short stories was published in 1913 (the year she died of cancer). There is a moving introduction by Ernest Thompson Seton, a friend of hers for many years. I would like to quote part of it before I go further. She had asked him to say something important.
I am charged with a message from Tekahionwake herself. "Never let anyone call me a white woman," she said. "There are those who think they pay me a compliment in saying that I am just like a white woman. My aim, my joy, my pride is to sing the glories of my own people. Ours was the race that gave the world its measure of heroism, its standard of physical prowess. Ours was the race that taught the world that avarice veiled by any name is crime. Ours were the people of the blue air and the green woods, and ours the faith that taught men to live without greed and to die without fear. Ours were the fighting men that, man to man—yes, one to three—could meet and win against the world. But for our few numbers, our simple faith that others were as true as we to keep their honor bright and hold as bond inviolable their plighted word, we should have owned America to-day."

These stories are geared for young men and while they are excellent, they did not quite hold my attention the way some of Johnson's other work had. Very dramatic and moving, and one brought me to tears, but the lessons tend to slap the reader upside the head and for an adult it can be a little too obvious. A younger reader in search of guidance might not mind so much, I suppose.

And there is definitely guidance here. From how to behave towards people who are different from yourself, to how to take responsibility for your own behavior and actions. The stories all feature boys of anywhere from nine to nineteen. Each one faces a situation that will either help him along the path to true maturity or break him; and each boy must decide his own fate.

I won't be reading any other titles by Johnson, unless more show up someday at Project Gutenberg. I have read all they have and I have enjoyed my time with her. She was proud of her Self, proud to share what she could of her heritage, and proud to be a Canadian. As always, I wish I could have seen her perform onstage, but at least I have the memory of her poetry and will be able to visit Gutenberg any time I feel the need of a dose of her strong character and lovely way with words.

Thank you, Tekahionwake!

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I would’ve given this 4 stars, but some of the stories left me pretty conflicted.

I wikipedia’d her name and, take this with a grain of salt, it said that one of her main concerns was to see Anglo-Saxons and Native Americans be reconciled to each other.

That is a goal we should all have in this world (all peoples), that we would be reconciled to each other (and I would add also to God).

But it seemed, in some of these stories, that this goal of reconciliation led her to, maybe, sacrifice authenticity for sentimentality.

Unfortunately, sentimentality can create stereotyped characters, because in the desire to arouse feeling it often will create characters that are innocuous, almost unreal in their subservience or lack of emotional depth/conflict.

In order to try to make the reader see the dignity of his fellow man, the writer actually erases some of the character’s dignity. A whole/healthy person with dignity (image of God) will always chafe against the prejudice or unlove shown to him.

This chafing needn’t always be explicitly shown in characters, but should be implied or if not implied then it should in some way be communicated to the reader that something is not right with the character’s responses, lack of response.

I’m not sure she always successfully created whole characters, characters with dignity, as opposed to simple stereotypes. Or that when these characters were missing from her stories that she was able to convey that there was something amiss.

I think that’s because she wasn’t necessarily aware of how sentimentality can actually remove dignity even when it’s being used in an attempt to restore dignity to real people.

It’s possible, for example, to use stereotyped characters in a story (or characters who are not wholly aware of the wrongness being done to them), but unless we actually reveal this wrongness through some other feature in the story, then the dignity of the characters is removed or lessened. They become objects of pity, not flesh and blood people written in the image of God.

Nevertheless, I appreciate many of these stories. And I appreciate her desire to promote reconciliation, and to extol virtue. And, if I’m honest, I like stories with happy endings, most of these (all?) have happy endings.

[Buck · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting collection of turn of the century stories from rural and urban Canada. Many feature the problems a mixed-race (First Nation / Caucasian) child or teen went through. Quite interesting as a glimpse of history in its own right.

[Clivemichael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historical perspective, entertaining