Tim Kessler's When God Made the Dakotas
[Note: This review is used by permission of its authors. It may not be
published elsewhere without written permission from the authors.]
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Kessler, Tim, When God Made the Dakotas, illustrated by Paul Morin.
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2006. Unpaginated, color
illustrations, grades 2-4, Dakota
Published by a Christian book house and written and illustrated by
cultural outsiders, When God Made the Dakotas is a mishmash of
Christian creation mythology and invented Dakota cosmology, replete
with misplaced Dakota symbols and words (some of which are
misspelled).
According to the jacket copy, "Tim Kessler's creation story, framed as
a Native American legend, reminds readers to find beauty and joy in
what surrounds them." In order to create a picture book about the
Dakota landscape, one wonders why it was seen as necessary to make up
a creation story about the Dakota people, since we've already got our
own.
After Wakantanka/Great Spirit/Creator has made the rest of the world,
he arrives at the world's edge, where he is greeted by a Dakota
medicine man named Woksape (wisdom). After each request from Woksape
about what kind of land he wishes for the Dakota people, Wakantanka
answers that he has already given that land to someone else. Finally,
Woksape says he will take what's left and Wakantanka, pleased with the
medicine man's humility, fashions for the Dakota people the wondrous
Dakota land.
The depiction of Wakantanka as an elderly Indian guy--with white hair,
face paint, and three goose feathers stuck in his hair--is more
reflective of the Judeo-Christian ethos than it is to ours. In the
belief system to which the author apparently ascribes, God is said to
have created man in his own image. In our belief system, however, the
Creator's presence is manifest in all things, and does not appear
simply in human form.
Further, no informed Dakota would give the Creator a detailed
description of what kind of land he'd like his people to inhabit; this
would be an insult to the Creator. To us, all creation is beautiful
and a great mystery. From the beginning, we have developed a complex,
symbiotic and reverent relationship with the land. We are not above
the earth but are a part of it and our belief in creation and by
extension our Creator stresses this relationship.
There are many other troubling aspects to this book. Here, Dakota
people have to settle for the prairies that pale in comparison to the
abundant lands that have already been given away. (Kessler's God acts
much like the white men in this way). This seems to diminish both the
austere beauty and abundance of the plains, and the importance of the
Dakota people. And, by the way, the Dakota live mostly in the
woodlands further east. It is the Lakota who inhabit the plains.
That one "medicine man" speaks for a nation is not reflective of the
Native value for the collective participation of the group, and of the
respected elders, men and women, within the tribe. Finally, a promise
by God that the plains will be forever pristine and depopulated belies
the white people's past and present economic and environmental roles
in dramatically altering the face of the land to make it uninhabitable
for humans, the buffalo and other living beings.
And when in the scheme of creation is this story supposed to have
taken place? It seems odd, for example, that the Creator would have
created the Pendleton blankets upon which the two are sitting before
"he" finished creating the world. "He" creates Tatanka, the buffalo,
out of his medicine bag; he creates Maga, the goose, out of two goose
feathers. Which came first, something made out of animal hide, or the
animal itself? Which came first, the feathers or the geese? It would
seem pretty strange in a Christian creation story for God to apologize
to Adam for not having enough material to fashion Eden to Adam's
specifications. Why, then, is it seen as acceptable for
Wakantanka/Creator/Great Spirit to continually apologize to Woksape?
That this may be "only a children's book" is where the most damage
lies. Who, if not the children, are we more responsible to for
instilling honest representations of peoples, an informed respect for
the land, and an understanding that man's heavy hand has much to do
with both? If Kessler wanted to extol the beauty of the plains, he
could have written what he knows, perhaps about the plains ecosystems,
for he certainly doesn't know the people.
Since everything else of ours has already been stolen, we could at
least be left our creation stories. The final page of When God Made
the Dakotas closes with the summation, "And it was good." Pity that
from this indigenous perspective, I can close only with the simple
conclusion, "No, it is bad."
---Janeen Antoine (Sicangu Lakota), with Beverly Slapin, Oyate
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