Wynema: A Child of the Forest by Sophia Alice Callahan

My review on Goodreads

Wynema:  A Child of the Forest is a book that I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to read. 

This book is very challenging to read, and I don't recommend it for everyone.  The author has a very specific, conflicted perspective.  While this is a very important book, and I'm glad that I read it, I think most indigenous people should probably skip it.  This is specifically the story of domestic violence, a Native woman who is married to a Confederate soldier while one half of her family kills the other half.  So Native Americans won't learn anything.  And her language use is horrifying.  But for me, as a white person whose family did not directly participate in the atrocities described herein, I really learned a lot.

Wynema (which I believe is pronounced WIN-e-ma based on the nickname Winnie in the book) is said to be the first known work written by a Native woman. 

In order to read this book, you must prepare yourself mentally for the blunt, internalized racism, which begins on the first page:  the Native men are referred to as "bucks," as though they were wild animals.  And Wynema herself (to whom Callahan obviously relates) is referred to as "the little savage" even by the narrator who clearly loves her very much.  It wasn't clear to me until well into the story, almost the end, how aware the author was of this self-loathing.  But she has excellent insight if you give her book a chance.  Callahan gives very much voice to the Native people before it's all said and done.

I've been to many, many powwows.  And I've never heard anyone use the word "savage" to refer to the Native American Indian community.  I've heard all three of those words used many times.  Nobody has ever used the word "buck" or "s__w," other than to tell me the latter is considered vulgar in some of their languages, like C-U- Next Tuesday.  But I've literally  never heard any Native person use the word s__w to refer to Native women, and Callahan does it in Wynema.

Wynema:  A Child of the Forest is a short read, really two books in one.  It's partly a "novel of manners" about a young Methodist schoolteacher from Mobile, Alabama named Genevieve Weir who goes to live among the Muscogee in "Indian Territory," what will later become Oklahoma.  She has been invited by Choe Harjo, the father of Wynema, a young girl who is fascinated with Christianity and English literature.

It's also about the changing lives and times for the Native people all around Genevieve, especially her primary charge, Wynema.  This in particular is both fascinating and heartbreaking, as Wynema was born at an especially painful place and time, of harsh oppression by American forces.

All of the white missionaries in this book are sincere Christians who are welcome among the Natives.  Genevieve has been invited because Wynema needs a tutor.  Choe and his family live in a teepee village, too far from the mission school for Wynema to study.  So they request a teacher, and Genevieve answers the call.   She and Wynema become lifelong friends. 

Genevieve starts out being sincere enough in her White Savior Complex, but having no genuine respect for the Indians at all.  She truly believes everything about her culture and way of life is better.  It's refreshing that she does have a character arc in the book.  Genevieve eventually gets over herself and learns some respect, I don't think that's a real spoiler.

I do wish Wynema was required reading for American teens.  It's not discussed in the book, but the Muscogee were originally from Alabama until Andrew Jackson so brutally drove them to Oklahoma, where this book takes place, in "Indian Territory."  So it's a little rich when Ms. Genevieve arrives from Mobile like she's doing them some big favor.

It's interesting to me to note how few hard feelings there seem to be on the author's part, so close to the forced removal from their ancestral lands and during a time when there were boarding schools kidnapping Native children away and forcing them into assimilation.  

"Sophia Alice Callahan (1868–1894) was born to parents of Muscogee and European ancestry in Sulphur Springs, Texas. At the Wesleyan Female Institute in Virginia, Callahan studied history, languages, the arts, science, geography, mathematics, and religion. She subsequently taught at Wealaka Mission School and Harrell Institute in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. Callahan was also editor of the Methodist Native American journal Our Brother in Red and, in 1891, published her only novel, Wymena: A Child of the Forest."

Later the novel discusses how exactly the land grabs were done, basically by paying off certain key people within the Native communities.  A group of delegates would be sent to Washington to negotiate for everyone.  And people would be ready to kill them when they got back.  But a secret meeting would be called, and it was understood that the right people were paid off, and it was never spoken of again.

One might suggest the name Pleasant Porter, who is buried in the Wealaka cemetery, the last president of the Muscogee.  He fought for General Custer.  Sophia Callahan had gone to teach at his school.  So you can see for yourself what a tangled web she was in. 

This book was written six months after the massacre at Wounded Knee.  I believe the intended audience was her Confederate sorority sisters back in Alabama.  In that case, I think she did a splendid job.  I struggle to imagine the cognitive dissonance of having one foot in each of the two worlds that she did, while these crimes against humanity were unfolding in real time.

There is significant discussion of "allotment," the way the communities were divided and pitted against each other by taking communal properties and separating them into individual plots.  All of this was designed to reward those who went along with the Americans and punish those who attempted to cling to the old ways even after having been displaced to Oklahoma.

Callahan has compelling descriptions of all of this -- though I encourage readers to do their own research prior to reading in order to better understand the discussions in the novel.  But she amply displays how people are pitted against each other in what may seem to be unlikely ways.  It's easy when you apply starvation and brute force.

Callahan's intimate, eyewitness description of Wounded Knee, and the way the Ghost Dancers were pursued and persecuted, was especially telling.   I would love to see this book being used to initiate a discussion of the murder of Sitting Bull in American high schools.  Just as we deserve a proper teaching of African-American history, I feel like our kids are owed this reality check, too.  Although Native students should be allowed to opt out simply because the language is so abusive.

There is a story in the book that closely mirrors the history of Pleasant Porter's grandfather, wherein one of the missionaries attempts to negotiate a surrender by the Indians in order to avert a massacre.  However this is not successful in Wynema as it was in real life.

There is also no hint within Wynema of a man named Crazy Snake, the opposition leader who fought against Pleasant Porter's contingent in a sort of civil war within the Muscogee.  The majority of Muscogee fought with and for the Confederates.  But the minority who fought for the Union were against allotment and got shafted in the allotment process.  I found a video on YouTube showing a Pleasant Porter allotment for sale around 2015.  It didn't say a price, but it was a beautiful parcel of land, 150-acre cattle ranch with four ponds and a pecan grove.  Seemed to be situated along a river. 

This is a beautifully written (if painful) book that will only take you an afternoon to read.  Sophia Callahan obviously loved reading Tennyson, just like Wynema does in the narrative.  She only lived to be 26 years old. And she found a way to bear witness to some of the most horrifying human rights abuses imaginable -- and also some very important cultural elements of her community.

Don't let me forget to mention that.  Contained within Wynema are descriptions of the green corn ceremony and other important cultural understandings that are really valuable for anyone who is interested in getting to know the true story of America through the eyes of one young woman who found a way to make her voice known. 

I find something about that really magical, that she loved books as much as she did.  She was in the middle of such an awful, compelling point in history.  She found a way to put it out there.  And her book is just siting there, available for me to read for free.

I promise that if you give her a chance, Sophia Alice Callahan will show you a robust understanding of what it felt like to be pitted against both sides of yourself, the part that wanted to bear witness to the people of the forest, and the part that wanted to have everything that books can give you.  This is a truly humanizing novel and well worth your effort.