Our next CanLit Rewind selection is actually a three-fer: Daniel Heath Justice’s The Way of the Thorn and Thunder fantasy series, which includes Kynship, Wyrwood, and Dreyd. Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee Nation) is Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture and Chair of the First Nations Studies Program at the University of British Columbia, unceded Musqueam territory, and has previously published a study of Cherokee literature, Our Fire Survives the Storm: A Cherokee Literary History. He was able to take all of his knowledge and create a very detailed and rich world for the series. Originally published from 2005 – 2007, the story takes place in Everland a thousand years after the world of Men and the world of the Folk collided in catastrophe. The seven nations of the Folk are preparing themselves for the growing storm of the ever-encroaching Humanity. Kegedonce’s managing editor, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, looks back on publishing the series and what it meant for the press and beyond.
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The Way of the Thorn and Thunder series is our only trilogy and our first foray into speculative fiction. We believe it is the first speculative fiction trilogy written by an Indigenous writer in North America, and, as far as we know, the world. I remember being completely astounded by the story when I read the manuscript. There were so many elements that were exciting and innovative and that resonated with me as an Indigenous reader: the powerful female warrior protagonist, the belief system underlying the Kyn, the subversion of the “boldly go where no man has gone before” tropes, the way that gender and sexuality are portrayed in such a natural and accepting way that is consistent with Indigenous cultural concepts, the power of the natural and supernatural. I felt validated and excited by all of that. I was also awed by the depth and magnitude of the world Daniel created in such incredible detail. It feels real and alive. When I finished reading it I remember thinking that it was why I started Kegedonce Press — to provide a stage for beautiful, inspiring, Indigenous literature that is grounded in Indigeneity, that decolonizes, and that is meticulously and lovingly crafted.
Throughout the entire process of publishing the three books that comprise the series, we learned a lot. The biggest revelation was that we were so far ahead of our time. Ten years ago the literary world simply wasn’t ready for Indigenous literature like this. We really believed that this trilogy would be embraced by everyone — speculative fiction readers, Indigenous lit readers … everyone. Because it was so unlike what we knew of, we were sure everyone was waiting for it. It was a shock to realize that, instead, it seemed that booksellers and book buyers didn’t quite know what to make of it or ignored it altogether. We had to work really hard to get attention for it. We were breaking trail and it was tough going and, at times, disheartening for us and for Daniel too. It should have won awards and developed a cult following and been made into a film! It’s that good. It has done very well in so many ways and has sold around the world, but there’s no doubt in my mind that if it were released today, it would get a much bigger reception.
All that being said, Kegedonce still tackles projects like Daniel’s series, books that challenge people’s notions of Indigenous literature. We’ve found ourselves again and again breaking trail. It can be daunting and difficult but it makes it that much easier for those who follow so it is worth the effort. Besides, it’s a sort of “extreme” publishing — we like the challenge because it’s exhilarating, and fun. You could say we’re the adrenaline junkies of publishing.
More importantly though, what we are doing matters. We are helping Indigenous voices be heard, we are helping Indigenous people see themselves and their cultures represented and reflected, we are empowering our stories, aesthetics, canons, arts, languages and cultural traditions. Honestly, I don’t really think of what we do as within “CanLit”. Our stories, songs, oratory, poetry came first and are literally grounded in this place — in the land and rocks and waters and beings and elements and supernatural of this place. All of that was here and alive and growing long before there was a “Canada” or “CanLit”.
Colorlines Spotlight by Daisy Hernandez (15 November 2006)
Some of us read fiction to get away from these dismal political times. But novelist Daniel Heath Justice gives us a better option: escape to an imaginary world where our rage can literally cause trees to uproot and strike the white men taking our community’s land.
Daniel Heath Justice’s trilogy The Way of Thorn and Thunder (Kegedonce Press)—the second book was published last month—offers the best in fantasy fiction, that genre of literature dealing with the supernatural. The Cherokee novelist creates a world called Everlands, a place inhabited by those called the Kyn, who were born from the Eternity Tree. The Kyn have three-fingered hands, green skin and sensory stalks that let them detect danger. The Kyn women are front and center in this first book: they’re warriors, lawmakers and healers. They have both female and male lovers.
The trilogy is loosely based on the Trail of Tears, the removal of the Cherokees from their lands. But Justice says the removal story is the least interesting part of the novel. “It’s how do people survive,” says Justice, a professor of Aboriginal literature at the University of Toronto and also the author of Our Fire Survives the Storm. He points out that fantasy literature gives marginalized people a way to explore options. “Hopefully they see how imagination can rewrite our histories.”
Interview with Katy Young (January 2006)
Katy Young : Our Fire Survives the Storm covers Cherokee literary history from the eighteenth through the twentieth century. Did you always conceive of the project in this large a scope? What do you feel is important about considering contemporary work in relation to earlier work? How does a project of this scope fit into your larger project of privileging a Cherokee-centric reading of these texts?
Daniel Heath Justice : A broader scope for the project seemed necessary from the beginning, but it’s undergone different permutations. As my dissertation, I’d had a more focused set of texts and considerations—primarily regarding metaphors and material realities of removal—but in rethinking the contours of the study as a book-length project, I wanted to track social and intellectual continuities of nationhood in Cherokee literature and expression from before the era of “civilization” (i.e., the Cherokee Republic), as this is an under-examined and really rich time of transformation and transition for Cherokees that speaks quite powerfully to our current time. To contextualize the literature in the social history is, to my mind, one way of understanding both the specificities of national Indigenous literatures and their connections with other literary traditions, so a broad-scope study that touches down on provocative historical moments seems to be a way of balancing the national with the international. Indeed, this is what the Beloved Path and Chickamaugan consciousness engage—the White town leadership dealing with domestic affairs, and the Red dealing with international relations. [Through the early nineteenth century, Cherokee political society was divided into two complementary spheres: Beloved Path/White towns governed during times of peace while Chickamauga/Red towns governed during times of war.]
KLY : From your writing, it seems that the Beloved Path/Chickamaugan consciousness pairing isn’t the only complementary pair in Cherokee sociopolitical and/or spiritual structures. Why choose this pairing in particular? What drew you to the structure of complementary principles?
DHJ : This comes again from a sadly-neglected pre-Republic social history that gets lost in the dominant narratives of John Ross, the Treaty Party, and the Trail of Tears. One can’t really understand those nineteenth-century figures and events without also understanding the historical and cultural contexts that shaped them, and these were the White/Red or Beloved/Chickamaugan complementarities that had been structuring Cherokee social and relational interaction for centuries. Much of the later history (and its literature) is more fascinating and provocative if we see it as continuing conversations, struggles, and balances that had been in action long before the rise of the Cherokee Republic, and which have continued to this day.
KLY : You include many personal reflections in your study—especially about your own childhood in Colorado and the stories you remember from growing up. In some ways, this reminds me of Craig Womack’s letters by “Jim Chibbo” in Red on Red (1999) or, more noticeably, Greg Sarris’s own stories written into Keeping Slug Woman Alive (1993). Was there any question about including your personal reflections, either in your own mind or in the mind of your publisher? Do you think there’s a conscious move by some Indigenous literary critics to not write solely in scholarly prose?
DHJ : This was, in a fundamental way, my own way of acknowledging that there are many different Cherokee histories, and my own family stories can’t be seen as authoritative, representative, or anomalous in relation to those of other Cherokees. It’s also an issue of accountability, especially given the criticism that some cosmopolitanist scholars level at literary nationalists. Shallow cosmopolitanist criticism claims that we’re essentialists who assert purity and untouched Indianness in our work. It’s a gross misreading of literary nationalism, but a common one. To acknowledge my own specificities—light-skinned, mixed-race, outland, Queer, etc.—and to see them as complementing my nationhood, not undermining it, is to give evidence of the dynamic and adaptive heart of Indigenous nationhood, which can change without losing itself. At its best, and in relevant moderation, acknowledging our subject positions keeps us accountable to our families, communities, colleagues, and discipline; at its worst, and in excess, such an approach can twist the literature toward self-aggrandizement and myopic self-indulgence. Besides which, these stories are part of what has shaped my own interests in the literature and the criticism, so those debts and influences should be acknowledged as honestly and fairly as possible, while also keeping them from dominating the discussion of other peoples’ stories.
KLY : In light of the way you use and articulate the definitions of Beloved Path and Chickamaugan consciousness in Our Fire Survives the Storm , where would you locate your own work, specifically this literary history, on this spectrum? Does it fit into this conception? My appreciation for the nuance and complexity of your readings of the authors in this study has been growing as I’ve been trying to figure this out; it’s tough to locate these dynamics in literature, never mind refusing to pigeonhole the writing on one side of the spectrum. I would see your work as both fierce and conciliatory, to some degree.
DHJ : I think you’re right—there are elements of both in the text, and I hope that it speaks to both. Maybe it’s in the middle of the spectrum, though a bit more toward the Red sphere. My heart, I think, is with the Chickamaugans, but the Beloved Path is a necessary caution against moving too far toward warfare; the White sphere seems a far more difficult place to seek balance, and because of that is vitally important to consider. Tsiyu Gansini [Dragging Canoe] and Nanye’hi [Nancy Ward] were both, at various times, gentle and fierce; it’s the ever-shifting balance of the two ways of being that seem to me to most strikingly characterize Cherokee survival.
KLY : How do you envision this book being used in classrooms? Did you think of the pedagogical implications of this study as you were writing? Would this book be solely for college classrooms or do you think it could appeal to a younger audience?
DHJ : The value of this text in teaching about Cherokee literature and social history was always part of my revision considerations; I hope that it’s relevant and useful not just in classrooms, but in communities and households beyond the academy. I’d love to hear that Cherokee folks and other interested readers are finding something good and significant in it, and that it opens up further interest in the intellectual and artistic dimensions of our histories and current lives.
KLY : Your first novel, Kynship: The Way of Thorn and Thunder (2005) recently came out. How does your creative writing influence your scholarly work and vice versa? Are there two different personae you inhabit or is there overlap and interchange between these two types of writing?
DHJ : There’s definitely a relationship between the two, as similar concerns of land, community, nation, and sovereignty shape both. Yet they’re still distinctive, in content as well as purpose, as I wrote the novel as a way of untangling some of the headier ethical and emotional issues that emerged from the scholarly study; it was my way to write back to removals in ways that didn’t obscure or misrepresent the lived histories of real human beings. I don’t think I’d ever write a Trail of Tears novel, as it would be too emotionally draining and exhausting, but I’ve found writing a fantasy epic about removal in an imaginary world to give me opportunities to transform those histories of oppression and rethink the past in new ways.
KLY : Do you have a next project in mind?
DHJ : My next big project is a study of “recognition” as it applies to Indigenous peoples, and the complicated relationship between Indigenous definitions and metaphors of belonging and those imposed and presumed by self-interested nation-states.