Iskwewak-kah'ki yaw ni wakhomakanak: Neither Indian Princesses Nor Easy Squaws

Beverly Rasporich is an associate professor in the Faculty of General
Studies at the University of Calgary and the author of Dance of the
Sexes: Art and Gender in the Fiction of Alice Munro.

This book addresses the neglected subject of indigenous women in
Canadian literature (both as writers and as fictional subjects). Acoose
argues that Native women in mainstream literature embody the racist and
sexist attitudes of the majoritarian culture, as evidenced by the Indian
princesses, loose squaws, and helpless victims who populate the fiction
of such celebrated authors as Margaret Laurence and W.P. Kinsella.

Acoose’s book is a remarkable expression of intercultural synthesis,
combining the conventions of Euro-Canadian academic study with the
imperatives of Native self-determination and personal growth. The
author’s tone is often angry and her posture ideological as she
attacks the white Christian patriarchy. In the autobiographical first
chapter, “Reclaiming Myself,” Acoose celebrates her ancestry and
traces her personal journey to self-empowerment.

Part autobiography, part academic analysis, and part ideological tract,
this book is valuable for the insights it provides into the clash of
cultures and for its insistence that Native women be treated as serious
subjects within literary criticism.