Emily Pauline Johnson (10 March 1861 – 7 March 1913), also known by her Mohawk stage name Tekahionwake (pronounced dageh-eeon-wageh, ),"Tekahionwake: an Indian Poetess in London," Pauline Johnson Archive: Tekahionwake. Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University. Retrieved 15 November 2009. was a Canadian poet, author, and performer who was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her father was a hereditary Mohawk chief, and her mother was an English immigrant.Rose, Marilyn J. 2003. "Johnson, Emily Pauline." Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14. University of Toronto and Université Laval.
Johnson's poetry was published in Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. She was among a generation of widely-read writers who began to define Canadian literature. She was a key figure in the construction of the field as an institution and has made an indelible mark on Indigenous women's literature and theater.
Johnson was notable for her poems, short stories, and performances that celebrated her mixed-race heritage, drawing from both Indigenous and English influences. She is most known for her books of poetry The White Wampum (1895), Canadian Born (1903), and Flint and Feather (1912); and her collections of stories Legends of Vancouver (1911), The Shagganappi (1913), and The Moccasin Maker (1913). While her literary reputation declined after her death, since the late 20th century there has been a renewed interest in her life and works. In 2002, a complete collection of her known poetry was published, entitled E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake: Collected Poems and Selected Prose.
Personal life
Early life Emily Pauline Johnson was born on 10 March 1861 at Chiefswood, her family home on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ontario. She was the youngest of four children of Emily Susanna Howells Johnson, an English immigrant, and George Henry Martin Johnson, a Mohawk hereditary clan chief.Rose, Marilyn J. "Johnson, Emily Pauline." Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14. University of Toronto/Université Laval.
Her father worked as an interpreter, acting as a link between Mohawk communities, British officials, and representatives of the Canadian government.Gray, Charlotte. Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake. Toronto: HarperFlamingo Canada, 2002. ISBN 0-00-200065-2. Because of this, the Johnson family held a prominent social position. Their home at Chiefswood received notable visitors, including the Governor General of Canada and inventor Alexander Graham Bell.Gray, Charlotte. (2002) Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake (1st ed.). Toronto: HarperFlamingo Canada. ISBN 0-00-200065-2.
Johnson grew up in a household shaped by both Mohawk and Victorian English traditions. Her mother emphasized discipline, manners, and social presentation, while her father encouraged his children to understand and navigate both their Mohawk and English heritage.
Her early life was also shaped by differing systems of identity. Under Canadian law, the Johnson children were considered Mohawk and wards of the Crown. However, in Mohawk society, identity and clan membership were passed through the mother. As a result, Johnson and her siblings did not belong to a Mohawk clan and were excluded from some aspects of community and ceremonial life.
Early education
A sickly child, Johnson did not attend Brantford's Mohawk Institute, a residential school established in 1834. Her education was mostly at home and informal, derived from her mother, a series of non-Native governesses, a few years at the small school on the reserve, and self-guided reading in her family's expansive library. She read deeply in the works of Byron, Tennyson, Keats, Browning and Milton, and enjoyed reading tales about Indigenous people such as Longfellow's epic poem The Song of Hiawatha and John Richardson's Wacousta. These informed her own literary and theatrical work.Jackel, David. (1983) "Johnson, Pauline." In The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, edited by W. Toye. Toronto: Oxford University Press. .
Her paternal grandfather John Smoke Johnson was a respected authority figure for Johnson and her siblings. He educated them by traditional Indigenous oral storytelling before his death in 1886. Johnson taught his life lessons and stories in Mohawk; the children understood it but were not fluent in speaking it.Gray, Charlotte. (2002) Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake (1st ed.). Toronto: HarperFlamingo Canada. ISBN 0-00-200065-2. Smoke Johnson's dramatic talents as a storyteller were absorbed by Pauline, who became known for her talent for elocution and her stage performances. Later in her life, Johnson expressed regret for not learning more of her grandfather's Mohawk heritage and language.Johnston, Sheila M.F. (1997) Buckskin & Broadclot: A Celebration of E. Pauline Johnson Tekahionwake, 1861–1913. Toronto: Natural Heritage, Natural History. .
At the age of 14, Johnson went to Brantford Central Collegiate with her brother Allen. She graduated in 1877.
Romantic life
Johnson attracted many potential suitors, and her sister recalled more than half a dozen marriage proposals from Euro-Canadians in her lifetime. Though the number of official romantic interests remains unknown, two later romances were identified as Charles R. L. Drayton in 1890 and Charles Wuerz in 1900.Strong-Boag, Veronica, and Carole Gerson. (2000) Paddling Her Own Canoe: The Times and Texts of E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. . But, Johnson never married nor remained in relationships for very long. She was said to have flirted with boys in Grand River. Later she wrote what was described as "intensely erotic poetry." Due to her career, she was unwilling to set aside her racial heritage and adapt to placate partners or in-laws. Despite everything, Johnson consistently had a strong network of supportive female friends and attested to the importance they had in her life.
Johnson said:
Stage career
During the 1880s, Johnson wrote and performed in amateur theatre productions. She enjoyed the Canadian outdoors, where she travelled by canoe. Shortly after her father's death in 1884, the family rented out Chiefswood. Johnson moved with her widowed mother and sister to a modest home in Brantford. She worked to support them all, and found that her stage performances enabled her to make a living. Johnson supported her mother until her death in 1898.Lyon, George W. (1990) "Pauline Johnson: A Reconsideration." Studies in Canadian Literature 15(2):136–59.
The Young Men's Liberal Association invited Johnson to a Canadian authors evening in 1892 at the Toronto Art School Gallery. The only woman at the event, she read to an overflow crowd, along with poets including William Douw Lighthall, William Wilfred Campbell, and Duncan Campbell Scott. "The poise and grace of this beautiful young woman standing before them captivated the audience even before she began to recite—not read, as the others had done"—her "Cry from an Indian Wife". She was the only author to be called back for an encore. "She had scored a personal triumph and saved the evening from turning into a disaster."Adams, John Coldwell (2007) Pauline Johnson. Confederation Voices: Seven Canadian Poets. Canadian Poetry Press. Retrieved 30 April 2011. The success of this performance began the poet's 15-year stage career.
Johnson was signed up by Frank Yeigh, who had organized the Liberal event. He gave her the headline for her first show on 19 February 1892, where she made her debut with a new poem written for the event, "The Song My Paddle Sings".
At 31 years old, Johnson was perceived as a young and exotic Native beauty. After her first recital season, she decided to emphasize the Native aspects of her public persona in her theatrical performances. Johnson created a two-part act that would confound the dichotomy of her European and Indigenous background. In act one, Johnson would appear as Tekahionwake, the Mohawk name of her great-grandfather, wearing a costume that served as a pastiche and assemblage of generic "Indian" objects that did not belong to one single nation. But, her costume from 1892 to 1895 included items she had received from Mohawk and other sources, such as scalps inherited from her grandfather that hung from her wampum belt, spiritual masks, and other paraphernalia.Gerson, Carole (1998). "The Most Canadian of all Canadian Poets': Pauline Johnson and the Construction of a National Literature". Canadian Literature. 158: 90–107. During this act she would recite dramatic "Indian" lyrics.
At intermission, she changed into fashionable English dress. In act two, she came out as a pro-North West Mounted Police (now known as the RCMP) Victorian English woman to recite her "English" verse. Many of the items on her native dress were sold to museums such as the Ontario Provincial Museum, or to collectors such as the prominent American George Gustav Heye.Hamilton, Michelle A. (2010), Collections and Objections: Aboriginal Material Culture in Southern Ontario. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. Upon her death she willed her "Indian" costume to the Museum of Vancouver.
There are many interpretations of Johnson's performances. The artist is quoted saying "I may act till the world grows wild and tense". Her shows were tremendously popular. She toured all across North America with her friend and fellow performer, and later business manager, Walter MacRaye. Her popularity was part of the immense interest by European Americans and Europeans in Indigenous peoples throughout the 19th century; the 1890s were also the period of popularity of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and ethnological aboriginal exhibits.
Literary career
In 1883 Johnson published her first full-length poem, "My Little Jean", in the New York magazine Gems of Poetry. She began to increase the pace of her writing and publishing afterwards.
In 1885, poet Charles G. D. Roberts published Johnson's "A Cry from an Indian Wife" in The Week, Goldwin Smith's Toronto magazine. She based it on events of the battle of Cut Knife Creek during the Riel Rebellion. Roberts and Johnson became lifelong friends."Pauline Johnson Biography," Famous Biographies, QuotesQuotations.com, Web, 30 April 2011. Johnson promoted her identity as a Mohawk, but as an adult spent little time with people of that culture. In 1885, Johnson travelled to Buffalo, New York, to attend a ceremony honouring the Haudenosaunee leader Sagoyewatha, also known as Red Jacket. She wrote a poem expressing admiration for him and a plea for reconciliation between British and Native peoples.
In 1886, Johnson was commissioned to write a poem to mark the unveiling in Brantford of a statue honouring Joseph Brant, the important Mohawk leader who was allied with the British during and after the American Revolutionary War. Her "Ode to Brant" was read at a 13 October ceremony before "the largest crowd the little city had ever seen". It called for brotherhood between Native and white Canadians under British imperial authority. The poem sparked a long article in the Toronto Globe, and increased interest in Johnson's poetry and heritage. The Brantford businessman William Foster Cockshutt read the poem at the ceremony, as Johnson was reportedly too shy.