Oyate - Avoid Brother Eagle, Sister Sky

Susan Jeffers has, over the years, produced a number of beautifully illustrated books for young children. For her 1991 title, Brother Eagle, Sister Sky, she chose to illustrate the speech attributed to "Seattle," and generally called "How Can One Sell the Air?" The Suquamish/Duwamish "chief," Seeathl, has, because of this speech, become a sort of new-age icon—a thing that he might regard with a certain amount of irony. Since, as Jeffers points out in the afterword of her book, nobody knows for sure what Seeathl really said, she has felt free to further adapt "Chief Seattle's message."

It does seem to be agreed that the man said something. In an article entitled "Chief Seattle's Speech(es): American Origins and European Reception," Rudolf Kaiser examines four versions of the speech, with a view to determining which, if any, might be the most accurate. In this work, he points out that "[t]wo short speeches by Seattle that are recorded in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., bear no resemblance to the texts of the speech popularized under Seattle's name," and that "the first published version of the now-famous speech was presented to the public by a Dr. H.A. Smith in 1887, more than 30 years after the chief is said to have delivered it." (Swann and Krupat, 1987)) Kaiser further states that, while we can "take it for granted that there is at least a core, a nucleus of authentic thinking and, possibly, language in the text, as Dr. Smith was able to base his version of the speech on 'extended notes' in his diary, taken on the occasion of the delivery of the speech," it is also impossible to determine "the degree of authenticity of this text, as Dr. Smith's notebook has not been found." (Swann and Krupat, 1987) This article extends to more than 35 pages, and is well worth the reading.

In any case, this speech was not, as Hornbook (1992) would have it, a "beautifully environmental statement," but an elegy. Seeathl was speaking at a time when all life, as he had known it, seemed to be close to an ending, and his words carry a clear warning: When Seeathl says "We may be brothers after all. We shall see," he is not talking about brotherly love—or the environment.

Make a "beautiful environmental statement" out of that, if you can. Not particularly suitable material for a picture-book, either, one would think. Jeffers' take on this?

When the last Red Man and Woman have vanished with their wilderness, and their memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will the shores and forest still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left? My ancestors said to me, This we know: The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth.

Although Brother Eagle, Sister Sky has been a children's bestseller for years—it had, as of November 1999, sold almost 500,000 copies—the book did not come out to the universal praise. Patricia Dooley, reviewing in School Library Journal (September 1991), said, in part: "Alas her entire stock of characters appears to have come from the Sioux Central casting," and notes that the text is

…not well served by images that ignore the rich diversity of Amerindian cultures [even Seealth's own Northwest people] in favor of cigar-store redskins in feathers and fringe. Where Jeffers' book is used, it should be supplemented with others more sensitive to Native American heritage.

As she has changed the words to suit herself, so Jeffers has drawn pictures that, with the exception of what may possibly be a carved canoe on the title page, have nothing at all to do with any aspect of Northwest coast life. In a letter of reply to Dooley's review (School Library Journal, November 1991), Jeffers indignantly states that her research for the book was "extensive," and that "Mag La Que, Miyaca, Mahto-Topah and Bear Woman—all Lakota Sioux—edited the text and sat for portraits."

Native nations are not interchangeable. All the research in the world doesn't mean squat, if it isn't about the right people!

We know, of course, that the Plains warrior is the image of "Indians" for most Americans. One can surmise that it seemed logical to Jeffers to buy into that ready-made romantic imagery, rather than to do the work necessary to accurately portray the culture of the man whose words she was using. But even granting Jeffers her "research," what are we to make of the California poppies that appear here? And the painting of the Trail of Tears? And the man and woman riding up through birch trees? (This one is amazingly reminiscent of the work of Bev Doolittle, a well-known painter of Native subjects.) And the approximately-Great-Lakes-style canoe floating on a lily pond?

Having heard about this book before seeing it, my sense of shock was great when confronted with the cover illustration—not of Seeathl, but of Two Moons, Cheyenne. (Some very small print opposite the title page says only that the jacket art is "based on a photograph by Edward Curtis.") A photograph of Seeathl does exist. In it, he seems to be small; he is undeniably old. He is seated, plainly dressed, turned in upon himself. One can see how that picture wouldn't have fitted very well with these words:

With a commanding presence and eyes that mirrored the great soul that lived within, the chief rose to speak to the gathering in a resounding voice...

Throughout the book, in both text and illustrations, it seems to have been Jeffers' intention to portray Native people as gone:

In a time so long ago that nearly all traces of it are lost in the prairie dust, an ancient people were a part of the land that we love and call America.

Well, for one thing, Seeathl lived several hundred miles west of any prairie; for another, this is 1854 we're talking about, not 40,000 years ago. And for yet another, Seeathl's people are still living, right where they have always lived, although in greatly reduced territory. And they deal with clear-cutting of their forests, pollution of their waters, and battles for fishing rights, along with the struggles they share with all the rest of us for a bare decent life, the well-being of our children, and survival as Native nations.

In many of the pictures, the people are translucent, ghostly presences. On the jacket, we see the stripes of the boy's shirt through Two Moons' hands. On the endpapers, the Native man is spirit, but the animals are "real." The canoe floats, not in the lily pond, but above it. In the water itself float two disembodied faces. A double-page spread is literally a bunch of ghost riders in the sky. (And it's hard to say what the bird painted on one shield is supposed to be, but it looks like a pigeon...)

The last picture in the book is extraordinarily disturbing. A ghostly, nuclear Native family looks on benevolently at the family—white, of course—that has replanted the denuded land with little trees. The Indian man's hand is raised in blessing. The woman holds a cradleboard—in which there is no baby.

For people who so loved—and still do—the land to which they belonged and fought so long and hard—and still do—to protect, this book is an insult. If Jeffers had given one thought to how Brother Eagle, Sister Sky would affect Native people, she must surely have dismissed it as unimportant. Could she possibly not have known that the government would not have been "buying" anything from Seeathl or his people? Does she know that, although Seeathl had a city named for him, Native people were not allowed within its boundaries? Had she cared to, Susan Jeffers could have done a book that was also beautiful within its heart, one that dealt more honestly with the realities of Native life and history, one that would have had some meaning for our children as well. We would have honored her for that. Of course, it probably wouldn't have made so much money...

I have heard, although I do not know of any personally, that some Native parents have given this book to their children, because at least the people in it are beautifully drawn, and as human beings. I find it tragic that we should have to reach after such cold comfort.

*Note: For the purposes of this review, I have chosen to use the first version of the speech, since there is some evidence that this is as close as anyone will ever get to what was really said.

Rudolph Kaiser, "Chief Seattle's Speech(es): American Origins and European Reception," in Brian Swann and Arnold Krupat, eds., Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.