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Ignatia Broker

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Ignatia Broker (1919–1987) was an Ojibwe writer and community leader from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is best known for the novel Night Flying Woman, published in 1983, which tells the story of Broker's great-great-grandmother and her family's life before and after contact with white explorers. She was an enrolled member of the Ojibwe tribe and the Ottertail Pillager Band.

Early and personal life

Broker was born on February 14, 1919 on White Earth Indian Reservation in northwestern Minnesota. She received her early education at Wahpeton Indian School in North Dakota, a federal Indian boarding school, and Haskell Institute in Kansas.[1] In 1941 she moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. There, she attended night classes and worked at a defense plant during World War II. She later described the war years as "unstable" and wrote about the racial discrimination the Ojibwe community in Minneapolis faced. After the war, she met and married a veteran. They had two children together, and lived in St. Paul, Minnesota. Broker's husband went back into military service, and died in the Korean War. The death of her husband together with the discrimination she often faced, Broker wrote, prompted her to become involved with various Native American social advocacy groups, including the American Indian Center of Minneapolis.[2]

Work

Night Flying Woman, Broker's only novel, was published in 1983. In the preface, Broker writes that her motivation for the novel came partly from her own children, who wished to know more about the past experiences of the Ojibwe people. The theme of keeping the past alive through passing down stories in the oral tradition is important in the book. After opening the book with some details of Broker's own life, the story mostly focuses on the experiences of Broker's great-great-grandmother, Ni-bo-wi-se-gwa,or Oona, who lived from the 1860s to the 1940s. During that time, cultural contact with Euro-American society created various devastating changes, including removal from her tribe's traditional lands to the White Earth Indian Reservation, and the introduction of guns, alcohol, steel, missionaries, and smallpox, among many other alterations to traditional life. The book was considered notable, since the story was related by an Ojibwe storyteller and not a white historian[3].

Death

Broker died of lung cancer on June 23, 1987[4].

Awards

1984 Wonder Woman Award[5]

References

  1. ^ Doerfler, Jill (2013). Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. p. 178. ISBN 9781609173531.
  2. ^ Broker, Ignatia (1983). Night Flying Woman: An Ojibwe Narrative. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press. pp. xiv, 3–4. ISBN 9780873516860.
  3. ^ Bataille, Gretchen M. (1985). "Review of "Night Flying Woman: An Ojibway Narrative" by Ignatia Broker" (PDF). American Indian Quarterly. 9: 92–93 – via JSTOR.
  4. ^ O’Gara, Katie; Curtright, Lauren (24 August 2004). "Biography of Ignatia Broker" (PDF). conservancy.umn.edu. University of Minnesota. Retrieved 4 March 2017. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  5. ^ Klemesrud, Judy (15 November 1984). "14 WOMEN HONORED FOR ACHIEVEMENTS". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 4 March 2017.

Further reading

  • "The Art of Remembering, an Interview with Ignatia Broker". Emphasis Magazine. 1984.
  • Author Ignatia Broker Dies at 68 (Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 1987).
  • Ignatia Broker papers, 1906-1987. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society. OCLC 122509469.
  • Danforth, Pauline Brunette. Night Flying Woman: Sacred Stories of the Ojibway (Dissertation Abstracts International, 2002).
  • Dixon, Rebecca D. ed. Book Review of Night Flying Woman (Choice Magazine, 1984).
  • Hirschfelder, Arlene, ed. (1995). "Ignatia Broker". Native heritage: personal accounts by American Indians, 1790 to the present. New York, NY: Macmillan. pp. 161, 188. ISBN 9780028600901. OCLC 31434236.
  • Ignatia Broker: Helping Children to Understand (White Earth Reservation, 1985).
  • Indian Women Share Histories to Improve the Futur” (Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 1987).
  • Leno, M. John. Book Review of Night Flying Woman (North Dakota History: Journal of the Northern Plains, 1984).
  • Oandasan, William, ed. Review of Night Flying Woman (American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 1985).


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