Lucy Thompson & the Yurok People Today

Some thoughts on To The American Indian:

With its publication in 1916, To the American Indian stands as one of the first self-authored, self-published works by an American Indian woman. However, the text has received little scholarly attention when compared to contemporaneous texts by Nakota author Zitkala-Sa. This is in part due to the many years Thompson’s autobiography was out-of-print. However, even since its re-publication by Heyday Books in 1991, it has yet to generate a significant amount of scholarly interest. Thomas Buckley, an anthropologist working in the field of religious and spirituality studies, reviewed the 1991 re-publication for Ethnohistory, and he also includes a discussion of Thompson’s descriptions of religious ceremonies in his 2002 book, Standing Ground: Yurok Indian Spirituality, 1850-1990. Aside from Buckley’s attention, Thompson’s autobiography remains woefully under-examined.

Alfred Kroeber reviewed the text in 1921 for American Anthropologist, focusing primarily on the autobiography’s “definite scientific value” (Kroeber 220). His focus is understandable considering his review’s publication venue. Kroeber validates Thompson’s text by comparing it to other anthropological work stating that, “A comparison with Goddard’s ‘Life and Culture of the Hupa’ establishes agreements on hundreds of points, very few discrepancies, and many elaborations by Mrs. Thompson” (220). He continues, “Yurok sounds are difficult to render in modern English spelling, yet with the aid of Waterman’s recent ‘Yurok Geography’ virtually all of her proper names can be transformed into scientific orthography” (220). Here Kroeber suggests that the value of Thompson’s text lies in its corroboration of Euro-American knowledge of Northwestern California Indian culture. Kroeber dismisses the elements of the autobiography that do not match what he deems as authentic Yurok spirituality and tradition, saying of Thompson’s descriptions, “The mythology has not the same value as the remaining material: it is blended with Christian elements” (220). He praises the stories that do match his own collections and understandings of Yurok, calling them “purely native” (Kroeber 221). Though written over eighty-five years ago, this review remains relevant as an example of the on-going ways in which American Indian culture is perceived as existing within the Euro-American imagination instead of originating from American Indian people and their lived existence. Ironically, Kroeber perceives himself as evaluating Thompson’s work, yet To the American Indian constitutes a sharp and clear critique of his own project. Through her deft rhetorical moves, Thompson anticipates and subverts the prevailing cultural attitude that informs Kroeber’s review.

Thompson registers the possibility that at least some native informants have actively misled Euro-American collectors. Throughout her autobiography, she makes a clear distinction between Yurok tales and Yurok religion, defining the former as what Euro-Americans might consider fairy tales and the latter as a sacred thing, which no Yurok person would share openly with an outsider. Thompson narrates several of these fairy tales but she includes this caveat, “Any Indian will tell his white brother this story as a true part to their religion, as calmly and as seriously as if it was the truth, and perhaps some of the lower class really believe it. Yet it is only a fairy tale” (281). This statement, combined with the later image of the storyteller maintaining the “twinkle in his eye” works to deny projects such as Kroeber’s that claim objective discovery of a culture’s “truth.” Thompson suggests that the truth is a complicated entity and that at least some American Indian informants are willing to share a truth, but they are less inclined to reveal sacred cultural information, or the truth, that people such as Kroeber desire. While Thompson does not imply that the Yurok informants maliciously misguided the collectors, her account leaves space for Native people to refuse the continual Euro-American takeover of their existence by retaining certain cultural information. Statements such as Thompson’s reflect moments of resistance by Native Californian people at a time that written history asserts involved little more than the continual victimization of their lives and cultures. This alternative framework allows ways for Native Californians to conceive of themselves, and to be acknowledged, through their acts of survival rather than their moments of defeat.

Thompson’s autobiography further problematizes much of earlier anthropologists’ work by continually insisting on class differences among Yurok people and on the ways that these differences influence the knowledge that community members can and do share with outsiders. Many Euro-American perceptions of Native people and culture depend upon a monolithic idea of all American Indians. Views of a single tribe such as the Yurok are no doubt influenced by the assumption that their community is not a socially stratified group. By foregrounding the class distinctions of her people, Thompson contradicts such an assumption. Thompson’s claim to be “of the highest birth” influences her own perception of Yurok tribe members whom she would identify as lower class (xxix). She assesses the ways that class may influence the collection of knowledge about her people. For example, she writes:

Our traditions and religion are too sacred to be expounded upon before strangers of another race; therefore the white man has received most of his allegory from the lower classes of the Indians. This type of Indian readily gives the fairy tales of the tribe, such as mothers and grandmothers tell to the little children for their amusement; and these are the stories that the white man is made to believe as the true traditions and religion of the Indian. These stories are no more like the traditions and religion of the Indian than daylight is like the night. (Thompson 197)

In this passage Thompson indicts both the Yurok lower class and the Euro-American collector for the exchange of misinformation. It is possible that Thompson’s own prejudices color her appraisal of the situation, yet this does not negate the fact that the Euro-American researchers fail to register any significant differences among the people whom they study.

In another example of Euro-American’s lack of attention to cultural complexity, Thompson critiques the then current state of the White Deerskin Dance. Due to what she believes to be the lack of trained spiritual leaders called Talth, Thompson views this sacred ceremony as having been finished, or “closed,” for more than two years at her time of writing (144). She acknowledges that the dance was continuing but only, she says, in an imitation of its former spiritual significance. However, she asserts that, “the white man sees it and does not know the difference” (Thompson 144). Through this critique of the “white man’s” ability to see and know Yurok culture, Thompson calls into question the authority of Euro-American knowledge production that renders her people as monolithic, static entities whose ceremonies have not adapted over time in response to the enormous pressure of invasion.

Some links on the Yurok Language and Nation:

Yurok Language Project

Yurok Tribe