Research Guide to American Literature

the old.” In addition to the writings of Momaday, Lincoln discussed those of
James Welch (Blackfoot/Gros Ventre), Simon J. Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo), Wendy
Rose (Hopi/Miwok), and Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo). Although not
treated in Native American Renaissance, the Paiute poet Adrian Louis and the
Pueblo scholar and poet Paula Gunn Allen may also be considered early voices
in the Native American Renaissance. Lincoln also noted several anthologies of
Native American literature that had been published in the 1970s and early 1980s
and the contemporaneous establishment of journals focused on Native American
studies, including SAIL: Studies in American Indian Literature (1977), the Ameri-
can Indian Quarterly (1977), and the Wíazo Ša Review (1985).
Lincoln added a preface to the 1985 paperback edition of his text in which he
discussed the Ojibwa (also known as Anishinaabe or Chippewa) Louise Erdrich’s
Love Medicine, which had been published the previous year; his excitement about
the novel is palpable. As the first best seller by an American Indian, it ushered in a
second generation of writers to follow those Lincoln had recognized. In addition
to Erdrich, this generation includes Joy Harjo (Creek), Michael Dorris (Modoc),
Linda Hogan (Chickasaw), Greg Sarris (Coastal Miwok/Pomo), Luci Tapahonso
(Navajo), Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d’Alene), Susan Power (Sioux), and
David Treuer (Ojibwa).
Momaday commands virtually unanimous respect among American Indian
writers as the founder of the Native American Renaissance. House Made of Dawn
combines the spiritual beliefs of the Kiowa with the conditions faced by a young
Kiowa veteran after World War II. Its depiction of the characters’ relationships
to the land and their tribal heritage, as well its blending of oral and written tra-
ditions, inspired methods and themes in many later works. Momaday followed
House Made of Dawn with The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) and The Names: A
Memoir (1976), volumes that weave together memoir, illustrations, photographs,
and poetry in an innovative, highly structured form. The Names directly influ-
enced Silko’s Storyteller (1981), a combination of family photographs, family
history, tribal stories, fiction, and poetry. Readers will also find Momaday’s col-
lection The Man Made of Words: Essays, Stories, Passages (1997) a rich selection of
ruminations on language and voice, land ethics, hatred of American Indians, place
and the sacred, and storytelling and storytellers.
Like the fiction of Momaday and Silko, Welch’s novels Winter in the Blood
(1974) and The Death of Jim Loney (1979) explore traditional spiritual beliefs and
rituals within a harsh landscape of contemporary Blackfoot problems of poverty
and lack of regard by the majority community. Welch’s fiction highlights a fea-
ture that is also prominent in the work of many later American Indian writers:
a strong, if dark, sense of humor. Many consider his greatest work to be Fools
Crow (1986), a historical novel set in the 1870s, when the Blackfeet were facing
extinction because of smallpox and attacks by U.S. troops. Like the fiction writ-
ers, the prominent poets of the early years of the Native American Renaissance,
Rose (who was an AIM activist in the 1970s) and Ortiz combine an interest in
traditional native spirituality with attentiveness to social issues and problems
facing contemporary Native Americans. Ortiz, in particular, demonstrates a deep
awareness of geography and its interrelationship with history. Both poets have a

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