Sunday Books & Culture - The Big Idea
At a time public discourse is at an all-time low, a classic look at how one writer struggled to connect with Indians can lead us to better understand one another.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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Our church bus loaded at 2 PM on a Saturday afternoon in 1973 to visit the local Jewish Synagogue. Our minister, Richard Davis (no relationship) had organized a program called Faith Explorers to help the 11- and 12-year-old students in our Southern Baptist church learn about and appreciate the depths and richness of other religious traditions.
When the opportunity for questions arose, I asked the rabbi what he thought of Jesus. I don’t recall the answer; I do remember being made to feel ashamed for asking the question.
Later, Rev. Davis asked me how I felt about the answer. I didn’t have the words or intellectual sophistication at 11 years of age to say. So I settled for this — “I wasn’t trying to challenge him, I was just genuinely curious.”
***
That curiosity has stayed with me my entire life. It’s why I studied history and comparative religion at university, and it’s why I found my way into journalism. My passion is trying to understand how others see the world, and what binds people of different perspectives in a society.
It’s also led me into various groups and organizations dedicated to promoting civil discourse. The vast majority of the time, these efforts have failed.
Turns out, talking about civil discourse is a lot easier than practicing civil discourse, especially when the conversations turn from things that everyone likes discussing, to the hard topics that fundamentally set us apart.
Over the decades, there has been an endless stream of books about civil discourse, many of them suffering from the same problem. They’re long on theory, and short on first-hand success.
So it was with great joy that while on vacation in Colorado last week, I found in a local used bookstore Kent Nerburn’s Neither Wolf nor Dog.
A longtime resident of Minnesota at the time he authored this work, Nerburn had established himself as a writer by building a bridge between whites and Indians through writing about their culture and the ways Europeans and Indians interact.
[Editor’s Note: Throughout this review, we use the word “Indian” to refer to those the AP Style Guide says should be called “Native American.” This is the word that is used throughout Nerburn’s book, and reflects the desire of his subjects.]
Neither Wolf nor Dog is his account of time spent with an aging Indian — Dan — who summoned him to the reservation to relay his story after reading some of Nerburn’s earlier works. Along the way, Nerburn and Dan (along with Dan’s friends Grover and Jumbo, Dan’s granddaughter Wenonah, and Dan’s dog Fatback) listen, talk, argue, break up, rejoin, and ultimately come to understanding.
In short, it’s as honest a look at what it means to engage in civil discourse one is likely to ever read.
Nerburn’s honesty about his experience with Dan is refreshing.
Frustrated with him after months of interviews and drafts that always seemed to fall short, Nerburn — when he realizes Dan has stood him up one day — exploded at Wenonah.
“I’m sick of this crap,” he said. “I have no right to be upset about anything, but you and he and Grover can be upset if I tie my shoelace wrong or use the wrong adverb. How come nothing that I think is important?”
Wenona responded, “You should be thankful he talks to you at all. It’s a privilege when an elder shares with you.”
Nerburn snaps. “I’ve had it with this honorific shit. I know it’s a privilege, and I appreciate it. But it’s a privilege for him to have someone care enough to do this thing, too.”
Wenona then pulls back the curtain on Dan’s life and the abuse he suffered at a boarding school designed to make Indians succeed in white America. A boarding school where the abuse almost killed Dan.
“You think you know everything, Nerburn,” she said. “But you don’t know anything.”
There is no moment of revelation for Nerburn at this moment, only more frustration, unable to process all that Wenonah has revealed.
This level of honesty is what sets the book apart from so many others on civil discourse. It’s raw, coarse, and at times outrageously funny.
When Nerburn tries to leave the reservation and his truck breaks down, he finds the only mechanic on the reservation — a grossly overweight Indian named Jumbo who examines Nerburn’s truck and proclaims simply, but in a way that Nerburn can’t argue: “Car’s f***ed.”
This book is not about a white man coming to terms with, or idolizing, Indian culture. It’s about learning to see and appreciate another’s culture in all its nuance. It takes nearly half of the book’s 334 pages to reach the point where Nerburn and Dan can begin to honestly discuss the synergy and conflict between their two cultures.
In an age where we expect answers now, Nerburn reminds us that when it comes to learning to get along, easy answers simply don’t exist.
More common are moments such as when Grover critiques Nerburn’s writing about Indians this way:
“Sometimes we’re sacred, sometimes we’re not. But we’re always Indians. If you write only the sacred stuff,” you mischaracterize who we are. “Just write it all.”
Eventually, Nerburn does. But at this point in the book, he still doesn’t fundamentally understand the difference between sacred and nonsacred. There’s far more work to be done.
In an age where we have come to believe that we can reduce people to a simple question — Are you Democrat or Republican? — and capture who they are, this classic study is a reminder of just how shortsighted and dangerous that approach is.
***
As Rev. Davis pondered my response — “I was just genuinely curious” — he said that while he felt the rabbi had been a bit harsh, he also suggested that I, too, had some responsibility to bear.
“The point was to learn about his world today,” he said.
Today, our American life desperately needs this reminder.
This book will be the second in the Advance’s new book club. It will be the subject of discussion in May. Sign-up now to discuss this book in May.
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