Janet Campbell Hale
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Janet Campbell Hale (January 11, 1946 – November 23, 2021) was a Native American writer and professor. She was Coeur d'Alene and of
Ktunaxa The Kutenai ( ), also known as the Ktunaxa ( ; ), Ksanka ( ), Kootenay (in Canada) and Kootenai (in the United States), are an indigenous people of Canada and the United States. Kutenai bands live in southeastern British Columbia, northern ...
and Cree descent. In a sparse style that has been compared to
Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fi ...
, Hale's work often explored issues of Native American identity and discusses poverty, abuse, and the condition of women in society. She wrote ''Bloodlines: Odyssey of a Native Daughter'' (1993), which includes a discussion of the Native American experience as well as stories from her own life. She also wrote ''The Owl's Song'' (1974), '' The Jailing of Cecelia Capture'' (which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1985), ''Women on the Run'' (1999), and ''Custer Lives in Humboldt County & Other Poems'' (1978).


Early life

Janet Campbell Hale was born on January 11, 1946, in
Riverside, California Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States, in the Inland Empire metropolitan area. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. It is the most populous city in the Inland Empire an ...
. Her father, Nicholas Patrick Campbell, was a Coeur d'Alene Indian who became an American citizen after his service in the U.S. Army in the first world war, and Margaret Sullivan Campbell, a Canadian with an Irish-Canadian father and a
Kootenay Kootenay, Kootenai, and Kutenai may refer to: Ethnic groups *The Kutenai, also known as the Ktunaxa, Kootenai, or Kootenay, an indigenous people of the United States and Canada **Kutenai language, the traditional language of the Kutenai **Ktunaxa ...
/ Cree mother. The family lived on the Coeur D'Alene reservation; while her siblings had been born on the reservation, a brother born the previous winter had only lived a few hours, so to avoid hazardous winter weather, the family temporarily relocated to southern California for Janet's birth and returned to northern Idaho in June 1946. They lived on the reservation until 1956. Hale attended high school in Wapato, Washington, before transferring to the
Institute of American Indian Arts The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic S ...
in Santa Fe, New Mexico.


Early writing

Hale won the Vincent Price Poetry Competition in 1963 and a New York Poetry Day award in 1964. She contributed the poems "Red Eagle" and "Nespelim Man (a song)" to ''The'' ''Whispering Wind: poetry by young American Indians'', in 1972. In 1974, she published ''The Owl's Song,'' a book for young adults telling the story of fourteen year old Billy White Hawk, who leaves his alcoholic father and moves from an Idaho reservation to live with his sister in California. He encounters prejudice from his fellow students and finds support from an art teacher and a tribal elder, who explains that for many tribes, the owl is the bringer of death and its song is despair; the title of the book comes from the elder's declaration "There is little left of what once was. The time is coming when even this will be gone, taken away. And we will be no more. The time is coming when the owl's song will be for our race."


Themes

''Capture'' is a major theme in Janet Campbell Hale's writing. The name of the protagonist in the eponymous ''Jailing of Cecelia Capture'' is named for ''capture,'' but is also both literally and figuratively captured at different points in the narrative. Part of the dynamics of ''Bloodlines'' is to invert the white narratives about the capture of white people by Native Americans, into an account of capture of Native peoples by European-descended people. Escape and transformation of capture figure in several of her works.


Teaching

Janet Campbell Hale taught at Northwest Indian College,
Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the ...
, College of Illinois, and
University of California at Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge o ...
, and has served as resident writer at
University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...
and
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
.


Death

Hale died from complications associated with
COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
in
Coeur d' Alene, Idaho Coeur d'Alene ( ; french: Cœur d'Alène, lit=Heart of an Awl ) is a city and the county seat of Kootenai County, Idaho, United States. It is the largest city in North Idaho and the principal city of the Coeur d'Alene Metropolitan Statistical ...
, on November 23, 2021, at the age of 75.


See also

*
List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas This is a list of notable writers who are Indigenous peoples of the Americas. This list includes authors who are Alaskan Native, American Indian, First Nations, Inuit, Métis, and Indigenous peoples of Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, ...


Notes


References

*Kratzert, M. "Native American Literature: Expanding the Canon", ''Collection Building'', volume 17/1 (1998), page 4 *Dennis, Helen M. ''Native American Literature: Towards a Spatialized Reading''. London, Routledge Publ., (2006), pp. 90–103


External links


Janet Campbell Hale
at NativeWiki *

(excerpt from her novel, ''Dora Lee'')
Biography by Maria-Theresia Holub, at University of Minnesota
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hale, Janet Campbell 1946 births 2021 deaths 20th-century Native Americans 21st-century Native Americans American children's writers American women children's writers American Book Award winners American people of Irish descent Coeur d'Alene people Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Idaho Native American children's writers Native American women writers People from Benewah County, Idaho Writers from Idaho Writers from Riverside, California 20th-century Native American women 21st-century Native American women Native American people from California