Baptists and Witches: Multiple Jurisdictions in a Muskogee Creek Story
Craig Womack, University of Oklahoma
Overview:
 |
Speaking at Emory University on
December 5th, 2006, Dr. Womack examines Muskogee Creek culture through
his reading of Durango Mendoza's short story "Summer Water
and Shirley," and his discussion of jurisdictional spaces in
the vicinity of the Thlewarle Indian Baptist Church. Location of Thlewarle Baptist Indian Church |
Presentation Sections:
Baptists and Witches | "Summer
Water and Shirley" | The Baptist Indian Church
| Recommended Resources
Baptists and Witches: Multiple Jurisdictions in a Muskogee
Creek Story:
|
Part 1: Introduction
(9:33 min.) |
Womack introduces the little-known,
but remarkable short story (first published in 1966) "Summer Water
and Shirley," and its author, the Creek-Mexican writer and visual
artist Durango Mendoza. Surprisingly, the site of the story, the
ceremonial grounds close by Thlewarle Indian Baptist Church in Oklahoma,
is also explored in a detailed 1970 article by congregation member
Sharon Fife, illustrated by her sister Jimmie Carole Fife. To set
the mood, Womack sings a well known Creek hymn. |
| Part 2: "Summer Water and Shirley"
(11:00 min.) |
Thlewarle Church (founded in 1858)
is one of the many centers of the Creek world connecting historic
events with everyday realities. Womack begins his interpretive reading
of "Summer Water and Shirley," a story in which a child's playfulness
in crossing boundaries leads to a life and death crisis. |
| Part 3: Fear and Kin in "Summer Water
and Shirley"
(13:09 min.) |
Why is the adults' medicine not
effective? How to understand the story's witchery? Sonny, Shirley's
brother, overcomes his fear and the adults' resignation as he tries
to save his sister. One transgression of tradition deserves another. |
| Part 4: Conclusion
(13:06 min.) |
Womack considers how Sharon Fife's
article on Thlewarle describes activities taking place in the church
and on the grounds during the time of "Summer Water and Shirley,"
and how Mendoza's story illuminates important tensions of spatial
jurisdictions in Creek culture. |
About Craig Womack:
Dr. Craig Womack is an Oklahoma Creek-Cherokee Native
American literary scholar, writer, and teacher. He received an MA in English
from South Dakota State University in 1991, and his PhD from the University
of Oklahoma in 1995. He is the author of Red on Red: Native American
Literary Separatism (1999), Drowning in Fire (2001), and
Reflections on Aesthetics (2008). He is co-author of American
Indian Literary Nationalism (2007) and Reasoning Together: The
Native Critics Collective (2008). At the time of this lecture, Prof.
Womack taught Native American literatures and gay and lesbian literatures
at the University of Oklahoma. He joined the English Department of Emory
University in the fall of 2007.
For another video lecture by Womack, visit "Aestheticizing a Political Debate: Can the Creek Confederacy Be Sung Back Together?"
For another video lecture by Womack, visit "Aestheticizing a Political Debate: Can the Creek Confederacy Be Sung Back Together?"
Presentation Sections:
Baptists and Witches | "Summer
Water and Shirley" | The Baptist Indian Church
| Recommended Resources
