The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moccasin Maker, by E. Pauline Johnson

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Title: The Moccasin Maker

Author: E. Pauline Johnson

Release Date: June 24, 2004 [EBook #6600]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOCCASIN MAKER ***

Produced by Andrew Sly

This collection of prose written by Pauline Johnson was first
assembled and published shortly after her death in 1913.

THE MOCCASIN MAKER

By E. Pauline Johnson

With introduction by Sir Gilbert Parker and
appreciation by Charles Mair.

Dedicated to Sir Gilbert Parker, M.P.
Whose work in literature has brought honour to Canada

CONTENTS

Introduction
Pauline Johnson: An Appreciation
My Mother
Catharine of the "Crow's Nest"
A Red Girl's Reasoning
The Envoy Extraordinary
A Pagan in St. Paul's Cathedral
As It Was in the Beginning
The Legend of Lillooet Falls
Her Majesty's Guest
Mother o' the Men
The Nest Builder
The Tenas Klootchman
The Derelict

INTRODUCTION

The inducement to be sympathetic in writing a preface to a book like
this is naturally very great. The authoress was of Indian blood,
and lived the life of the Indian on the Iroquois Reserve with her
chieftain father and her white mother for many years; and though
she had white blood in her veins was insistently and determinedly
Indian to the end. She had the full pride of the aboriginal of pure
blood, and she was possessed of a vital joy in the legends, history
and language of the Indian race from which she came, crossed by
good white stock. But though the inducement to be sympathetic in
the case of so chivalrous a being who stood by the Indian blood
rather than by the white blood in her is great, there is, happily,
no necessity for generosity or magnanimity in the case of Pauline
Johnson. She was not great, but her work in verse in sure and
sincere; and it is alive with the true spirit of poetry. Her skill
in mere technique is good, her handling of narrative is notable,
and if there is no striking individuality--which might have been
expected from her Indian origin--if she was often reminiscent in her
manner, metre, form