Presentation by Katie Sluiter

Tim Tingle

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• 70-year old Oklahoma Choctaw author and storyteller
• 15+ published works
• Took Tingle 15 years to write House of Purple Cedar
• Has won the American Indian Youth Literature Award Twice (How I Became a Ghost and House of Purple Cedar)
• Has completed 8 speaking tours for the U.S. Department of Defense.

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The Setting:

Indian Territory Oklahoma, 1896

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Skullyville

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Choctaw Community overrun with white settlers.

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The Characters

Rose - recounting the story as an old woman in 1967.

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Amafo - Rose’s grandfather

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Pokoni - Rose’s grandmother

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Roberta Jean - Rose’s best friend

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Marshal Hardwicke - mean, drunk “law” of Spiro, Indian Territory,

The Nahullo people of Spiro

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The Choctaw people of Skullyville

The Plot

Rose begins the narration in 1967: “The hour has come to speak of troubled times” (7).

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She begins the story as the year 1896 begins and she has returned to her all girls boarding school which is burnt down in the night, killing many Choctaw children.

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In April of 1896, Rose and her brother, Jamey, go with Amafo to Spiro where Amafo is attacked by the racist Marshall.

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The rest of the novel weaves its way through the stories of many of those in town, connecting Choctaw and Nahulo alike.

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The story finishes in November 1897.

Indigenous Futurism:

• Slipstream
• First Contact
• Indigenous Sustainability
• Native Apocalypse

(from Walking the Clouds edited by Grace L Dillon)

Comparatively, House of Purple Cedar:

• Choctaw mysticism
• Storytelling to preserve tradition and history
• Not told linearly

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source

Teaching Ideas - Pre-reading

Students contribute in pairs to a collaborative Google Slideshow, each with a different small concept, history lesson, or vocabulary to teach the class (possible: Choctaw, Indian Territory, “Nahullo,” Skullyville, Trail of Tears, Indian Removal, Spiro, gravehouses, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Agent, etc)

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Students should become familiar with cedar - the color, texture, and smell as well as what cedars might symbolize (prayer, healing, dreams, protection)

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Students should discuss the color purple and what it has come to symbolize throughout history (power, mystery, magic)

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Students should discuss the symbolism of panthers (supernatural associated with death/destruction and warfare.

Teaching Ideas - Guiding Ideas

Students participate in a “four corner” activity before reading and revisit their stances after reading.

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1. If people were more patient, there would be less conflict.
2. You can know a person better by quietly observing than asking a lot of questions.
3. Kindness is always the best choice.
4. Forgiveness is more difficult than revenge.
5. We are all connected by something bigger than ourselves.
6. Violence brings more violence.
7. It is more powerful to say less than more.

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Questions for discussion while reading using collaborative norms and question/response stems found here.

Teaching Ideas - Telling Our Stories

House of Purple Cedar centers storytelling and could definitely be used as a part of a narrative writing unit.

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Students would study Tingle’s narrative techniques and practice their own. Quotes to consider:

• “Chipisa lachi,” they seemed to say. See you in the future.” (32) - use of native language
• “Like gravy on a well-fired stove, the plot thickened.” (103) - creative simile
• “Or so the story went” (numerous pages) - repetition
• “While the family slept, the spider went to work, crissing and crossing an intricate weave, wrapping her web, like gossamer armor, around the fate of the old man Amafo” (114) - imagery and comparison/simile/metaphor

Teaching Ideas - Opportunities for Extension

As a way to extend learning and bring Amafo’s idea of peaceful resistance full circle, students could become informed of various current Indigenous issues.

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They would then decide a purpose (inform or persuade--or both), and decide on a peaceful way to resist and seek justice on those issues.

Possible Topics

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• Mass incarceration
• Poverty
• Land
• Exploitation of Natural Resources
• Violence against women and children
• Education
• Housing

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• Lack of financial resources
• Voting rights
• Youth suicide
• Loss of Native Languages
• Native Rights
• Mascots
• Appropriation
• Healthcare

source

“Nor gun, nor knife, nor stone can ever touch the living serpent.

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“But something can, and it lies dormant too, within us all. It is the heaviest of all to wield, it falls so clumsily, so foreign to our thinking. Knowing is this. Forgiveness slays the serpent. It withers in the Light.” (326)