American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Mourning Dove’s Cogewea, the Half-Blood: A Depiction of the Great Montana Cattle Range (1927) is one of the first pieces of fiction written by a Native American woman. Although scholars have discussed Cogewea and its author, Mourning Dove, they have not commented on the fact that this novel also contains some of the first literary criticism by a Native American. I am referring especially to chapter 10, where the title character reads a novel called The Brand and angrily denounces it. As Cogewea reads the book, she becomes ”absorbed with rage” (Cogewea, 88). Her “fury” increases as she reads (Cogewea, 89-90), and, later, she throws “the hateful volume’’ to the floor (Cogewea, 90). At the very end of the chapter, she finds “solace in consigning the maligning volumn [sic] to the kitchen stove’’ (Cogewea, 96). Although Cogewea does not identify the author or the date of the novel she finds so offensive, the book can be no other than Therese Broderick‘s The Brand: A Tale of the Flathead Reservation (1909). I am not the first to identify the novel or to suggest that there was a connection between it and Cogewea? but, before now, no one has explored either that novel or that connection in any detail. After summarizing the central events in The Brand, I will first discuss the identity of the critic who denounces the novel; second, I will consider the similarities and differences between The Brand and Cogewea; third, I will uncover the principle of literary criticism implicit in Cogewea’s denunciation of The Brand; fourth, I will determine how fair that denunciation is; and, fifth, I will suggest that Mourning Dove has Cogewea misread The Brand in order to characterize her and to warn other Indians about the dangers of refusing to take to heart the implications of stories. If I am right, then Cogewea is a far subtler book than has previously been assumed.