The Moccasin Maker

Emily Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake)Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.6

Word count: 307K words
Chapters: 31

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Moccasin Maker by E. Pauline JohnsonAuthor: Johnson, E. Pauline, 1861-1913,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jun 24, 2004

Editor's review

The Moccasin Maker is a collection of short works by Mohawk writer E. Pauline Johnson (pen name Tekahionwake), centered on women's experience at the boundary between Indigenous and white society. Johnson was known for her poetry and stage recitals, and this work continues her attention to identity, lineage, and dignity: everyday details such as shoemaking, clothing, and domestic labor become threads carrying cultural memory. The prose has the lyrical cadence of late-nineteenth-century Canadian English, and the characters are often pulled between tradition and modernity, giving the work both warmth and the marks of its era. For readers interested in North American Indigenous literature, gendered writing, and the roots of Canadian literature, this is an early text worth reading. It is short and suits course excerpts or as a starting point for comparative reading. Note that its narrative perspective and wording carry the social limitations of the time; read with historical context in mind.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in North American Indigenous literature and women's writing
Students and teachers studying the early development of Canadian English literature
Readers who enjoy short fiction focused on character emotion and identity
General readers wanting to understand Indigenous daily life through literature

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting full-length plots or strong dramatic conflict
Beginners who need extensive historical annotation to read smoothly
Readers who find late-nineteenth-century racial and gender language hard to tolerate

Reading tips

Read one piece first to get the narrative tone, then return to sort out characters' identities and family relations.
Note how objects such as shoes, clothing, and handwork carry culture and emotion; keep brief notes.
Read alongside Johnson's Mohawk background and the historical context, avoiding treating characters as representatives of a people.
Read against contemporary Canadian women's writing to compare themes and language.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What is the author's background?

E. Pauline Johnson (1861–1913) was a Canadian poet and performer, daughter of a Mohawk father and an English mother. She toured and recited under the name Tekahionwake, and her work often deals with relations between Indigenous people and colonial society.

What is this book mainly about?

It centers on women's lives at the boundary between Indigenous and white society, presenting themes of identity, tradition, and dignity through handwork, family, and everyday scenes; it is not a plot-driven novel.

Is the original English hard to read?

The language has a late-nineteenth-century lyrical style, with longish sentences but not obscure vocabulary. University-level English is enough; background material will help.

Is it suitable for classroom use?

It suits short excerpts in courses on North American Indigenous literature or Canadian literature, but teachers should supply historical and author background to help students recognize the era's limitations.

Comments

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About the author

Emily Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) Author · Canadian · 1861–1913

Emily Pauline Johnson (Mohawk name Tekahionwake, 1861–1913) was a Canadian poet and writer. Born on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, she was the daughter of a Mohawk chief and an English mother, and thus of mixed Indigenous and British heritage. She was renowned for her touring poetry recitals, often appearing in Indigenous dress and combining recitation with dramatic performance, which made her a distinctive figure in Canadian English-language literature. Her work spans poetry and stories: the collections The White Wampum and Flint and Feather treat nature, Indigenous life, and cross-cultural identity in lyrical verse, while Legends of Vancouver retells Indigenous oral traditions, and The Moccasin Maker and The Shagganappi present short stories about the intertwined experiences of Indigenous and settler society. Her writings form an important part of early Indigenous English-language literature in Canada and are still read and studied today.