John Joseph Mathews Criticism
John Joseph Mathews (1894–1979) was a prominent American author known for his insightful portrayal of Native American experiences, particularly those of the Osage tribe. His most acclaimed work, Sundown (1934), explores themes of alienation and cultural identity through the character of Challenge Windzer, a young mixed-blood Osage who grapples with his heritage amidst the pressures of assimilation into white society. As highlighted by Oliver La Farge, Mathews’s nuanced depiction of Native Americans reveals the complexities of cultural dislocation.
Mathews, who was deeply connected to his Osage heritage despite being only one-eighth Osage, was born into an influential family in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. His background included significant contributions from ancestors like his great-grandfather, a missionary who translated the Bible into Osage. Mathews’s education spanned institutions such as Oxford University and the University of Geneva, and he was actively involved in Osage affairs, securing natural resource rights and establishing the Osage Museum.
Beyond Sundown, Mathews wrote significant nonfiction works about Osage history and culture. Wah'kon-tah (1932) details interactions between the Osage and the U.S. government, while Life and Death of an Oilman (1951) and The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (1961) offer deep dives into regional and tribal histories. His reflective work, Talking to the Moon (1945), as praised by Martha Royce Blaine and Reginald and Gladys Laubin, captures his communion with nature, reminiscent of Thoreau's Walden.
Mathews's legacy is marked by his pioneering role in conveying the complexities of Native American life through literature. He was among the first Native American authors to bring these narratives to a broader audience, blending anthropological insight with literary artistry, as noted by Lavonne Brown Ruoff.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Essays
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The Indian's Burden
(summary)
In the review below, Kaufman provides a highly favorable assessment of Sundown. No figure in the American scene is more inherently tragic than that of the young Indian who realizes fully the loss of his fathers' material and spiritual heritage, but who is unable to adjust himself to white civilization. Such a one is Chal Windzer, son of a mixed blood Osage father and of a full blood Osage mother, born about the turn of the century, when the Osages, Chal's father among them, were eagerly looking forward to the exploitation of their reservation in northern Oklahoma. He is molded by his heroic, tender, loyal mother and the old warriors into a typical little Indian boy.
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The Realistic Story of an Indian Youth
(summary)
In the review of Sundown below, he praises Mathews's realistic and sensitive portrayal of Native Americans. Mr. Mathews, himself part Osage and reared on the Osage Reservation, gave good evidence in Wah 'Kon-Tah that he could do that rare thing, write about Indians from the inside, and furthermore could make an interesting book of it with real literary value. One waited to see how he would follow up his first successful venture. In the present book [Sundown] he has taken up about where the other left off, a novel of the young Indian with some white blood, fundamentally Osage, bewildered by false values and caught in the devastating flood of gold which swept that mighty nation into the gutter.
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An Educated Indian
(summary)
In the following, the critic offers a mixed review of Sundown.
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Black Gold and Roses
(summary)
Dobie was an American educator, critic, and editor who frequently wrote about Southwestern history and folklore. In the review below, he favorably assesses Life and Death of an Oilman.
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Tribal Tribute
(summary)
In the following review, he praises the literary qualities of The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters, a sympathetic history of the Osage tribe written by John Joseph Mathews, who ingeniously fits together the Indians' oral traditions and various writings while accounting for the prejudices and fragmentary knowledge of white men.
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Assimilation: Estrangement from the Land
(summary)
Larson discusses the themes of estrangement and assimilation in Sundown.
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Talking to the Moon
(summary)
In the following, Blaine praises Mathews's treatment of nature in Talking to the Moon.
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The Protagonist as a Mixed-Blood in John Joseph Mathews' Novel: Sundown
(summary)
In the essay below, Hunter discusses Mathews's treatment of the theme of the 'assimilated or mixed-blood Indian as an alienated character' in Sundown. John Joseph Mathews' novel, Sundown, recreates as its setting Osage history from the period prior to the allotment of Osage Indian land in 1906 through the oil boom of the 1920s. It also traces the search for cultural identity of Challenge Windzer, a young mixed-blood from a wealthy Osage family. Sundown, initially published in 1934, is one of the earliest novels by an Indian author to present the theme of the assimilated or mixed-blood Indian as an alienated character.
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Talking to the Moon
(summary)
American critics, Reginald and Gladys Laubin have produced numerous films and works on Native American art and culture. In the following, they offer a positive assessment of Talking to the Moon. John Joseph Mathew's Talking to the Moon is a timely book, beautifully written, and one that can be enjoyed just for its flow of beautiful English. It reminds one of the writings of Thoreau with its down-to-earth philosophy, keen and intimate observation of nature. But it is also full of native American comparisons, cowboy reflections and humor, and personal experiences.
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John Joseph Mathews's Talking to the Moon: Literary and Osage Contexts
(summary)
In the following excerpt, she offers a stylistic and thematic analysis of Talking to the Moon, examining its relationship to other Native American autobiographies, its focus on Osage culture, and its similarities to Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1854) and John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra (1911).
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Maps of the Mind: John Joseph Mathews and D'Arcy McNickle
(summary)
In the following excerpt, he provides an overview of Sundown, concluding that the novel "depicts starkly the consequences of oil and acculturation for the Osage while simultaneously refusing to accept the familiar pattern of simple doom for the Indian."
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The Indian's Burden
(summary)
- Further Reading