GERTRUDE BONNIN ON SEXUAL MORALITY
Vol.7, Issue 1, 2021, pp. 5-20 Full text
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.21.1.1
Web of Science: 000658797400002
Author:
Tadeusz Lewandowski https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9067-2403
Affiliation:
Institute of Literatures, University of Opole, Poland
Department of English and American Studies, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic
Abstract
This paper examines attitudes to sexual morality held by the Yankton Dakota author and activist Gertrude Bonnin (1876-1938), better known by her penname Zitkála-Šá (Red Bird in Lakota). Bonnin's concerns encompass several themes: the victimization of Indidan women, didintegration of Native courtship rituals, sexual threats posed by peyote use, and the predatory nature of Euro-American men. This critique as a whole - in which a 'white invasion', in her words, leads to a corruption of Native sexuality - sometimes produces inconsistencies, particularly regarding Bonnin's statements on the alleged sexual perils of peyote. Her investigations into the Oklahoma guardianship scandals of the 1920s, however, strongly buttress recent research by Sarah Deer (2015), whose study, The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America, highlights the tragic aspects of Native-white sexual relations under United States settler-colonialism.
Keywords: Gertrude Bonnin, Zitkála-Šá, Native American, Sarah Deer, sexual morality, settler-colonialism
Article history:
Submitted: 22 November 2020;
Reviewed: 6 December 2020;
Revised: 21 March 2021;
Accepted: 22 March 2021;
Published: 1 June 2021
Citation (APA):
Lewandowski, T. (2021). Gertrude Bonnin on Sexual Morality. English Studies at NBU, 7(1), 5-20. https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.21.1.1
Copyright © 2021 Tadeusz Lewandowski
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