The Falcon

Rating:
Summary: The Best and Most Complete Indian Captivity Narrative
Review: "The Falcon" is the autobiography of Shaw-Shaw-Wa Be-Na-Se or John Tanner, a White Indian captured by the Shawnee along the Ohio River in 1789 and later sold to an Ojibwa family in northern Michigan. He went on to live a long and fascinating life among the Indians of the Old Northwest working as a trapper for the Hudson Bay Company and serving as the interpreter at the trading post at Sault St. Marie. He spent some time searching out his white family in Kentucky before returning to Michigan to be with his Indian children, forever spurning the white way of life. He went on to write this narrative in 1830 shortly before becoming a murder suspect and disappearing into the north woods forever.

Tanner's narrative is truly amazing for it's matter-of-fact style and the wealth of information it contains on every facet of Indian life in the late 18th and early 19th century including hunting, family life, Indian-white relations, foodways, views on war and murder, even attitudes toward sexual orientation. Tanner tells a story from the point of view of a man who has lived a hard life but is determined to live it as well as he is able. He makes no romantic notions about the Indians nor does he have sentimental longings for his white family. Unlike other famous captivity narratives like those of Mary Rowlandson, James Smith, or Oliver Spencer, this story is of the unredeemed captive who willingly chooses to embrace the neo-lithic lifestyle and the hardships that such a life entails, but makes no regrets of his life choices.

The historical and ethnographical information contained here alone makes it worthwhile reading, but the pure human content the author puts into this work makes it truly great.

Rating:
Summary: a harsh written pictorial of life as it was in the wildernes
Review: Tanner tells with no embelishment to himself or others what life in the mid-north was really like in the turn of the 18th century. He gives one of the few narratives without pulling punches that at times makes him look foolish, meanhearted, and scared yet meeting those opposite traits with courage. Tanner tells of the good times and the bad, the problems of living in a dual culture and accepted by neither. Tanner explains what it was to sustain a indigenous family he had adopted and the suffering from nature and white cultures

Rating:
Summary: The Falcon, by John Tanner
Review: The Falcon, by John Tanner, is simply one of the most incredible
books I have ever read, and must be considered a classic.
It was utterly enthralling. I found myself wondering how he
ever wrote the book, since it is very well written, but he had
little knowledge of English until later life. Found out on the
web that back in Sault Ste Marie, he narrated his life to a doctor, who wrote it all down, and later published it.

Rating:
Summary: This book is listed as out of print.
Review: This appears to be a reprint of the original text published by Ross & Haines in 1956. There were only two thousand copies originally printed.

Rating:
Summary: Freud and Rousseau should have read this book
Review: This is an unsentimental account of a hunting-gathering life. Even with guns and metal knives, the Falcon faced starvation so frequently that it seemed practically routine. One of the saddest sentences is a simple, somewhat relieved declarative about a fever sweeping the area: "Only one of my children died."

The writing is intense, and builds slowly. Tanner is anything but dramatic, but the events of his life command respect. This is a book that no author could have created artficially: its power is natural.

Nonetheless, I would have liked to learn something about where, when, and by whom the book was written. I suspect my Penguin paperback may be missing something. Page 228 refers me to a note at the end of the volume, but it is not there.

Generally, I do not care for Introductions. However, the Introduction by Louise Erdrich is worth reading carefully, before and after reading the narrative.