Tricksters: Iktomi and the Buzzard

As you've seen, the theme for this week is Paul Goble's Iktomi books, and here's another one to add to the collection so far this week: Iktomi and the Buzzard.

Today's story even has a bit of music (click on the image for a larger view):

You can see there how Goble weaves his commentary on Iktomi right into the story, using a different font style and color; I really like how he does that.

This time, Iktomi is trying to take advantage of Buzzard's kindness, but Buzzard eventually realizes that Iktomi is not a good friend. Long story short, Iktomi ends up inside a tree, and I love this illustration done from Iktomi's point of view, showing the woodpeckers on the outside of the tree looking in:

Goble includes his sources as usual, along with advice for the readers, plus the usual jesting where he uses Iktomi to make fun of his own position as a white writer retelling these stories. There's no easy answer to the question of appropriation, and there are plenty of people who reject strongly the authors like Goble who profit commercially from their books of Native American stories. I understand those objections, and if I were a buyer for a library, I would prefer books by Native authors every time. But if you are browsing for books at the Internet Archive, you can do worse than Goble's books, and his joking acknowledgment of his racial position is, in my opinion, better than pretending the problem doesn't exist at all. He does something like this in each of the books, where Iktomi complains about the author:

To read more about the objections to Goble in particular, and to white writers in general, see this very useful website and the post about Goble (with people agreeing and disagreeing in the comments): American Indians in Children's Literature by Deb Reese, a tireless advocate for Native authors, citing important work by Native scholars Elizabeth Cook-Lynn and Doris Seale. Doris Seale is one of the editors of A Broke Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children, which is, thankfully, available at the Internet Archive, as it is rather expensive to purchase, even used.

Meanwhile, on the spectrum of books by white writers, just speaking for myself, I would say that Goble's books are better than most which is why I am blogging about his books here. His attentiveness to Native art traditions (like the Ledger art style he uses to depict Iktomi), his citation of his sources, his sense of humor, his awareness of living Native culture: those factors make him a good choice, if you are choosing among books by white writers. But that's something everyone has to ponder on their own based on their own priorities, and the choice is certainly more acute if you are actually buying books as opposed to borrowing them from the library. If you are spending money to buy books, I would urge you to buy first from Native writers, and the AICL website is a great place to look for those books.

Meanwhile, here is a link to today's story about Iktomi, which is just a click away at the Internet Archive:

Iktomi and the Buzzard:

A Plains Indian Story

by Paul Goble