Tekahionwake: E. Pauline Johnson’s Writings on Native North America

E. Pauline Johnson, also known as Tekahionwake, is remarkable as one of a very few early North American Indigenous poets and fiction writers. Most Indigenous writers of her time were men educated for the ministry who published religious, anthropological, autobiographical, political, and historical works, rather than poetry and fiction. More extraordinary still, she became both a canonical poet and a literary celebrity, performing on stage for fifteen years across Canada, in the US, and in London. Johnson is now seen as a central figure in the intellectual history of Canada and the United States, and as an important historical example of Indigenous feminism. This edition collects a diverse range of Johnson’s writings on what was then called the Indian question and on the question of her own complex Indigenous identity.

Six thematic sections gather Johnson’s poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, and a rich selection of historical appendices provide context for her public life and her work as a feminist and activist for Indigenous people.