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As modern European empires expanded, written language was critical to articulations of imperial authority and justifications of conquest. For imperial administrators and thinkers, the non-literacy of "native" societies demonstrated their primitiveness and inability to change. Yet as the contributors to Indigenous Textual Cultures make clear through cases from the Pacific Islands, Australasia, North America, and Africa, indigenous communities were highly adaptive and created novel, dynamic literary practices that preserved indigenous knowledge traditions. The contributors illustrate how modern literacy operated alongside orality rather than replacing it. Reconstructing multiple traditions of indigenous literacy and textual production, the contributors focus attention on the often hidden, forgotten, neglected, and marginalized cultural innovators who read, wrote, and used texts in endlessly creative ways. This volume demonstrates how the work of these innovators played pivotal roles in reimagining indigenous epistemologies, challenging colonial domination, and envisioning radical new futures.
Contributors. Noelani Arista, Tony Ballantyne, Alban Bensa, Keith Thor Carlson, Evelyn Ellerman, Isabel Hofmeyr, Emma Hunter, Arini Loader, Adrian Muckle, Lachy Paterson, Laura Rademaker, Michael P. J. Reilly, Bruno Saura, Ivy T. Schweitzer, Angela Wanhalla
As modern European empires expanded, written language was critical to articulations of imperial authority and justifications of conquest. For imperial administrators and thinkers, the non-literacy of "native" societies demonstrated their primitiveness and inability to change. Yet as the contributors to Indigenous Textual Cultures make clear through cases from the Pacific Islands, Australasia, North America, and Africa, indigenous communities were highly adaptive and created novel, dynamic literary practices that preserved indigenous knowledge traditions. The contributors illustrate how modern literacy operated alongside orality rather than replacing it. Reconstructing multiple traditions of indigenous literacy and textual production, the contributors focus attention on the often hidden, forgotten, neglected, and marginalized cultural innovators who read, wrote, and used texts in endlessly creative ways. This volume demonstrates how the work of these innovators played pivotal roles in reimagining indigenous epistemologies, challenging colonial domination, and envisioning radical new futures.
Contributors. Noelani Arista, Tony Ballantyne, Alban Bensa, Keith Thor Carlson, Evelyn Ellerman, Isabel Hofmeyr, Emma Hunter, Arini Loader, Adrian Muckle, Lachy Paterson, Laura Rademaker, Michael P. J. Reilly, Bruno Saura, Ivy T. Schweitzer, Angela Wanhalla
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction. Indigenous Textual Cultures, the Politics of
Difference, and the Dynamism of Practice / Tony Ballantyne and
Lachy Paterson 1
Part I. Archives and Debates
1. Ka Waihona Palapala Māneleo: Research in a Time of Plenty.
Colonialism and the Hawaiian-Language Archives / Noelani
Arista 31
2. Kanak Writings and Written Tradition in the Archive of New
Caledonia's 1917 War / Alban Bensa and Adrian Muckle 60
3. Māori Lteracy Practices in Colonial New Zealand / Lachy
Paterson 80
Part II. Orality and Texts
4. "Don't Destroy the Writing": Time-and Space-Based Communication
and the Colonial Strategy of Mimicry in Nineteenth-Century
Salish-Missionary Relations on Canada's Pacific Coast / Keith Thor
Carlson
5. Talking Traditions: Orality, Ecology, and Spirituality in
Mangaia's Textual Culture / Michael P. J. Reilly 131
6. Polynesian Family Manuscripts (Puta Tuana) from the Society and
Austral Islands: Interior History, Formal Logic, and Social Uses /
Bruno Saura 154
Part III. Readers
7. Print Media, the Swahili Language, and Textual Cultures in
Twentieth-Century Tanzania, ca. 1923–1939 / Emma Hunter
175
8. Going Off Script: Aboriginal Rejection and Repurposing of
English Literacies / Laura Radmaker 195
9. "Read It, Don't Smoke It!": Developing and Maintaining Literacy
in Papua New Guinea / Evelyn Ellerman 216
Part IV. Writers
10. Colonial Copyright, Customs, and Indigenous Textualities:
Literary Authority and Textual Citizenship / Isabel Hofmeyr
245
11. He Pukapuka Tataku i ngā Mahi a Te Rauparaha Nui: Reading Te
Rauparaha through Time / Arini Loader 263
12. Writing and Beyond in Indigenous North America: The Occom
Network / Ivy Schweitzer 289
Bibliography 315
Contributors 345
Index
Tony Ballantyne is Pro-Vice-Chancellor in the Division of
Humanities at the University of Otago in New Zealand. His many
books include Entanglements of Empire: Missionaries, Māori, and the
Question of the Body, also published by Duke University Press.
Lachy Paterson is Professor at the University of Otago's Te Tumu:
School of Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies.
Angela Wanhalla is Associate Professor of History at the University
of Otago.
“Indigenous Textual Cultures is a cohesive, well-edited collection
of twelve articles written by an international community of experts
in indigenous cultures and colonialism. . . . These scholars bring
a fresh approach that focuses on using original-language indigenous
sources and interpreting this array of materials within their
proper cultural contexts.”
*RBM*
“Research that draws on decolonizing methodologies remains urgent
and necessary. This powerful, eloquent collection of new essays
sets innovative agendas for this research.”
*Australian Historical Studies*
“Each chapter offers well-written, engaging, and thoughtful
illustrations and analyses. . . . [Indigenous Textual Cultures] is
an important contribution to the role of communication in the
vicious and devastating struggles between colonial structures and
Indigenous communities.”
*Pacific Affairs*
“There is great value in this collection for historians of the
American West. . . . Each chapter brings much needed nuance to our
understanding of Indigenous responses to colonialism and forced
assimilation.”
*Western Historical Quarterly*
"The wide variety of topics covered and the discussion of so many
different Indigenous textual cultures have helped create a
collection that is an extremely important resource. In particular,
this book will appeal to researchers from a range of disciplines,
such as cultural studies, postcolonial studies, linguistics and
Indigenous studies and, more specifically, to anyone who is
interested in transcultural concepts. The coverage of various
theoretical and methodological approaches as well as the Indigenous
perspectives voiced are very impressive, sound and innovative."
*Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies*
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