Bibliography and the Sociology of American Indian Texts

The recovery of American Indian texts demands that editors attend to those specific contexts of textual production that make many Native texts unique and sometimes resistant to traditional bibliographic techniques. Such an approach involves recognizing the fundamentally "““landed"”” nature of indigenous writing and coming to terms with the distinctive aspects of Native textual circulation that involve both colonial power structures and familial, clan, and tribal social relationships. Moreover, any bibliographic description of Native texts must acknowledge their "““preoccupation with juxtaposing oral and graphic forms of expression"”” (Teuton) and explore how Native writers manipulate both traditional tribal semiotics and those of the codex to inaugurate a new material practice from within their own national literary traditions.