Ta-na-e-ka questions and answers

Ta-na-e-ka story
Ta-na-e-ka by mary whitebird
Ta-na-e-ka by mary whitebird pdf

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Who is Mary Whitebird?

A post to LM_NET prompted my search to see what I could find out about Mary Whitebird and a story called "Ta-Na-E-Ka." The person using that name (Mary Whitebird) wrote the story. From what I am able to determine, the story was first published in 1972 in Scholastic Voices. Since then, the short story has been published in reading textbooks for use in schools. I've found many references to the story.

For example, Carl A. Grant and Christine E. Sleeter reference it in their Turning on Learning: Five Approaches for Multicultural Teaching Plans for Race, Class, Gender and Disability, published in 2006. At the end of chapter six, "Multicultural and Social Justice Education" is a list of suggested procedures. The first item reads "Choose multicultural selections from the literature text Elements of Literature (Anderson, 2005) that highlight issues of social class and power in the United States--for example, Ta-Na-E-Ka, by Mary Whitebird" (p. 280). Later in the paragraph, they write "Each week throughout the quarter, the students will read, discuss, and ex

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Mary Whitebird

Mary Whitebird is the pseudonym of a writer who has long had an interest in the life of the States in the late 20th century. His famous short story "Ta-Na-E-Ka" was published in the early 1970s. In reality, Mary Whitebird is a very private writer and film-maker who was born in Arizona and died on October 2010 "Ever since I could remember, I've been interested in the American Indian. " I went to high school with a number of Seneca and Onondaga Indians, who lived in Rochester, New York. While I was in the army I was stationed in west Texas. I was the editor of the post newspaper, and had more free time than most soldiers- and more access on and off the military base. One of my friends was a Sac and Fox Indian from Oklahoma. With him, we drove to all the neighboring reservations (mostly Apache) and I saw firsthand some of the injustices (this was in the early 50s) accorded the Indians. I wrote some letters about it to the local newspaper. Since the army did not look kindly toward soldiers getting involved in controversial public issues, I signed my letters M. Whi

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Mary WhitebirdComment: These notes may be the only clues in existence about Whitebird's true identity. All the typos are in the Wikipedia entry, which presumably is a direct quote of Whitebird's text.

Let's reiterate that Whitebird is a white male pretending to be an Indian woman. His "privacy" conveniently lets him defraud the public about the authenticity of his famous story. Unless readers come across the above notes, they'll think he's a genuine Indian woman writing a genuine Indian story.

Not particularly authentic

Here's educator Debbie Reese's summary of Ta-Na-E-Kain American Indians in Children's Literature, 9/12/09:This issue is important because Ta-Na-E-Kaappears in anthologies of multicultural stories used in schools. Many teachers have taught many students about Indians using this story.

Reese summarizes Whitebird's flimsy credentials to write a story about Kaw Indians:

He went to high school with Seneca and Onondaga students.
One of his friends (while in the army) was Sac and Fox.
He and his Sac and Fox friend visited Apache reservations.
He met a Navajo