The White Wampum

The White Wampum (1895) is the debut poetry collection of E. Pauline Johnson. Originally published in London, The White Wampum launched her career as one of Canada’s most distinguished artists. Revered as one the foremost indigenous poets of her time, Johnson was a prolific writer whose works explored her Mohawk heritage while shedding light on the racism and persecution faced by indigenous peoples across North America. The White Wampum captures Johnson’s range as a poet in tune with the Romantic tradition without erasing her dualistic sense of identity as a woman of Mohawk and English heritage. Choosing to emphasize the former, Johnson, who also went by Tekahionwake, her great-grandfather’s name, adopts the persona of a Mohawk wife devoted to her husband, a powerful warrior: “I am Ojistoh, I am she, the wife / Of him whose name breathes bravery and life / And courage to the tribe that calls him chief. / I am Ojistoh, his white star, and he / Is land, and lake, and sky—and soul to me.” When members of the rival Huron tribe capture Ojistoh, their plan for retribution fails to account for her own strength and willpower. Outnumbered and unarmed, she remains certain she will return to her husband alive. In “The Camper,” Johnson invokes the beauty and simplicity of life on the plains, erasing for a moment all distinction between man and god, heaven and earth: “Night neath the northern skies, lone, black, and grim: / Nought but the starlight lies twixt heaven, and him. / Of man no need has he, of God, no prayer; / He and his Deity are brothers there.” This edition of E. Pauline Johnson’s The White Wampum is a classic of Canadian literature reimagined for modern readers.

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