The Shagganappi

In this collection of Indian folklore the reader is transported back in time to when the Indian was a brave and noble race roaming freely across the plains. Pauline Johnson was a Canadian author and performer. She wrote poems and performed celebrating her aboriginal heritage. The Moccasin Maker is composed of selected stories which Johnson wrote on a number of sentimental, didactic, and biographical topics. Johnson was the daughter of an Englishwoman and a Mohawk chief. When she performed her poetry she was billed as "The Mohawk Princess." In her introduction the author says, "Oh, why have your people forced on me the name of Pauline Johnson?" she said. "Was not my Indian name good enough? Do you think you help us by bidding us forget our blood? by teaching us to cast off all memory of our high ideals and our glorious past? I am an Indian. My pen and my life I devote to the memory of my own people. Forget that I was Pauline Johnson, but remember always that I was Tekahionwake, the Mohawk that humbly aspired to be the saga singer of her people, the bard of the noblest folk the world has ever seen, the sad historian of her own heroic race