Joseph Bruchac
Joseph Bruchac
Joseph Bruchacis a writer of books relating to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a particular focus on northeastern Native American and Anglo-American lives and folklore. He has published poetry, novels, and short stories. Bruchac is from Saratoga Springs, New York, and is of Abenaki, English, and Slovak ethnicity. Among his works are the novel Dawn Landand its sequel, Long River, which feature a young Abenaki man before European contact...
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth16 October 1942
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At a time when Europeans already had a long history of violent contact with Native people, Lewis and Clark made most of their journey in peace.
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I often find myself unsatisfied with books 'about' Indians because they are written from the viewpoint of non-Indians.
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I don't recall exactly when I first began reading about Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery, but I suspect that it was in fourth grade.
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Over the years, I found myself traveling parts of the Lewis and Clark Trail, putting my hands in the river where they set out from St. Louis, viewing the Great Falls of Montana, standing by the same Pacific Ocean they saw with such joy.
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From my teenage years on, I sought out Native elders from many tribal nations and listened to their words. I also started a small press, The Greenfield Review Press, and became very involved with publishing the work of other American Indian authors, especially books of poetry.
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My own special knowledge is about the Abenaki people and, to some degree, my Iroquois neighbors. But whenever I write anything about another tribal nation, I always get a lot of help. Not just from books, but from people who belong to that tribal nation.
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I think I always knew I would be a writer some day, but it wasn't until I was grown and had children of my own that I turned to telling Native American stories.
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It is amazing to me that so little is still known about the Trail of Tears or the lives of the Cherokees themselves.
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I think every writer will tell you that their characters are always partially themselves: who I am and what I've experienced. It's always there in part of my characters.
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Guilt can make you doubt yourself at the very moment when you need to proceed with certainty.
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When the Lakota leader Sitting Bull was asked by a white reporter why his people loved and respected him, Sitting Bull replied by asking if it was not true that among white people a man is respected because he has many horses, many houses? When the reporter replied that was indeed true, Sitting Bull then said that his people respected him because he kept nothing for himself.
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Do we make ourselves into what we become or is it built into our genes, into the fate spun for us by whatever shapes events?
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As long as we can remember them, our families will always be with us.
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Another of the hard things about being in a war, grandchildren, is that although there are times of quiet when the fighting has stopped, you know you will soon be fighting again. Those quiet times give you the chance to think about what has happened. Some of it you would rather not think about, as you remember the pain and the sorrow. You also have time to worry about what will happen when you go into battle again.