The encounter between European and native peoples in the Americas is often portrayed as a conflict between literate civilization and illiterate savagery. That perception ignores the many indigenous forms of writing that were not alphabet-based, such as Mayan pictoglyphs, Iroquois wampum, Ojibwe birch-bark scrolls, and Incan quipus. Queequeg's Coffin offers a new definition of writing that comprehends the dazzling diversity of literature in the Americas before and after European arrivals. This groundbreaking study recovers previously overlooked moments of textual reciprocity in the colonial sphere, from a 1645 French-Haudenosaunee Peace Council to Herman Melville's youthful encounters with Polynesian hieroglyphics.
By recovering the literatures and textual practices that were indigenous to the Americas, Birgit Brander Rasmussen reimagines the colonial conflict as one organized by alternative but equally rich forms of literacy. From central Mexico to the northeastern shores of North America, in the Andes and across the American continents, indigenous peoples and European newcomers engaged each other in dialogues about ways of writing and recording knowledge. In Queequeg's Coffin , such exchanges become the foundation for a new kind of early American literary studies.

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zlib/Society, Politics & Philosophy/Ethnography/Birgit Brander Rasmussen/Queequeg's Coffin: Indigenous Literacies and Early American Literature_23619021.pdf

Brander Rasmussen, Birgit

United States, United States of America

Durham, North Carolina, 2012

{"isbns":["082234954X","9780822349549"],"last_page":224,"publisher":"Duke University Press"}

Includes bibliographical references (p. [145]-200) and index.

"The encounter between European and native peoples in the Americas is often portrayed as a conflict between literate civilization and illiterate savagery. That perception ignores the many indigenous forms of writing that were not alphabet-based, such as Mayan pictoglyphs, Iroquois wampum, Ojibwe birch-bark scrolls, and Incan quipus. Queequeg's Coffin offers a new definition of writing that comprehends the dazzling diversity of literature in the Americas before and after European arrivals. This groundbreaking study recovers previously overlooked moments of textual reciprocity in the colonial sphere, from a 1645 French-Haudenosaunee Peace Council to Herman Melville's youthful encounters with Polynesian hieroglyphics. By recovering the literatures and textual practices that were indigenous to the Americas, Birgit Brander Rasmussen reimagines the colonial conflict as one organized by alternative but equally rich forms of literacy. From central Mexico to the northeastern shores of North America, in the Andes and across the American continents, indigenous peoples and European newcomers engaged each other in dialogues about ways of writing and recording knowledge. In Queequeg's Coffin, such exchanges become the foundation for a new kind of early American literary studies."--

The confrontation between European and native peoples in the Americas is often portrayed as a conflict between literate civilization and illiterate savages. That perception ignores the many indigenous forms of writing that were not alphabet-based, like Mayan pictoglyphs, Iroquois wampum, Ojibwe birchbark scrolls, and Incan quipus. Queequeg's Coffin offers a new definition of writing that comprehends the dazzling diversity of literature in the Americas before and after European arrivals. From a 1645 French-Haudenosaunee Peace Council to Herman Melville's youthful encounters with Polynesian "hieroglyphics," this groundbreaking study recovers previously overlooked moments of textual reciprocity in the colonial sphere. By recovering the literatures and textual practices that were indigenous to the Americas, Brigit Brander Rasmussen re-imagines the colonial conflict as one organized by alternative but equally rich forms of literacy. From Central Mexico to the Northeastern shores, in the Andes and across the American continents, indigenous people and European newcomers engaged each other in dialogues about ways of writing and recording knowledge. In Queequeg's Coffin, such exchanges become the foundation for a new kind of early American literary studies

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: ‘‘A New World Still in the Making’’
1 Writing and Colonial Conflict
2 Negotiating Peace, Negotiating Literacies: The Undetermined Encounter and Early American Literature
3 Writing In The Conflict Zone: Don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno
4 Indigenous Literacies, Moby-Dick, and the Promise of Queequeg’s Co≈n
Afterword
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Introduction: "A new world still in the making"
Writing and colonial conflict
Negotiating peace, negotiating literacies : the undetermined encounter and early American literature
Writing in the conflict zone : Don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala's el Primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno
Indigenous literacies, Moby-Dick, and the promise of Queequeg's coffin.

Rather than seeing American literature as beginning with the writings of English or Spanish colonists, Brander Rasmussen points to the wide variety of indigenous writing in the Americas prior to colonization. The study looks at writing between 1524 and the mid-19th century work of Herman Melville.

2022-11-13