Amy Hill Hearth
Author

This new oral history demolishes the stereotype of the Native American woman as shy or passive. The mother of a Lenni-Lenape Chief, Marion "Strong Medicine" Gould, 85 years old, shares her life story, opinions, and perspective in this rare, groundbreaking oral history.

PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY
March 31, 2008

Hearth, best known for her oral history of the Delany sisters Having Our Say, captures the voice of 83-year-old tribe matriarch Marion “Strong Medicine” Gould as she looks back on her life as a Lenni-Lenape Indian. A once-powerful tribe ranging across New Jersey and parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, the arrival of Europeans would eventually turn the Lenape into “a hidden people”: says Gould, “We kept quiet in order to survive.” With great care, Gould describes the challenges of 20th and 21st century Native Americans and her significant role in her southern New Jersey tribe’s transforming way of life. In many ways, Native Americans’ modern struggle is for a public identity, especially apparent during the civil rights movement: “[A]ll of a sudden, we aren’t dark enough…. Indian was not black. We were totally left out in the cold.” Gould locates the source of her strength and the tribe’s—the Indian way—in the extended family, and suggests that many people’s problems today stem from a lack of “kinfolk to lean on.” Poignant moments of love and loss bookend the tale, and in between Hearth works almost invisibly to craft a graceful, sustained look into the quiet struggles of contemporary Native Americans.

BOOKLIST
February 1,2008

The author of Having Our Say (1993), the moving story of two elderly African American sisters, here offers the history of the Lenni-Lenape tribe of southern New Jersey in the words of one of its elders, 84-year-old Strong Medicine, Intrigued by the discovery of a Lenni-Lenape ancestor in her own family, Hearth delves into the tribe's origins, with Strong Medicine, mother of the chief, providing information on tribal culture, the bigotry experienced by tribe members in the past, and ongoing efforts to preserve their culture by involving young people in traditional ceremonies. In chapters alternating between Strong Medicine's reminiscences and historical background provided by Hearth, the reader gains a sense of all that these "tenacious survivors" have been through for the last 400 years, since the arrival of white people in their secluded territory—a familiar litany of displacement, confiscation of tribal lands, and the prejudice they experienced for being neither black nor white. The chronicle ends on a hopeful note as the tribe eschews gambling opportunities in favor of sustained efforts at cultural preservation.
—Deborah Donovan

KIRKUS REVIEW
DECEMBER 15, 2007

Summary:
The centenarian Delany sisters' amanuensis (Having Our Say, 1997, etc.) acts as interlocutor for another tenacious woman of color.

Marion "Strong Medicine" Gould is a member of the Lenni-Lenape tribe, the Native Americans who surrendered Manhattan Island for that fabled $24. The 84-year-old speaks candidly, without complaint, of her hardscrabble life in rural New Jersey, the region her people have inhabited for countless generations. Strong Medicine toiled successively at a Birds Eye factory (counting peas to be frozen), in a laundry (evading customers' bedbugs) and in a sewing factory (prevailing over racial prejudice). Life was good with husband Wilbur, a World War II hero, and their extended family. Other proud moms may brag of a doctor or lawyer, but few can boast, like Strong Medicine, of her son the Indian Chief. ("Indian" is a term she uses with pride throughout the book.) It was Chief Mark "Quiet Hawk" Gould who, adhering to the old traditions, gave his mother her Indian name when she was in her 50s; she agrees it's a good one. The matriarch is an avid cook, especially of succotash and macaroni and cheese. She discourses on homeopathic pharmacopoeia, evoking her heritage in herbal medicine. Her faith seems to be a Native American branch of Christianity, paying particular heed to the Creator. The Lenni-Lenape eschew easy wealth associated with gambling. Be helpful, watch the kids, respect the Elders and leave the important doings to the women: "It's the Indian way," says the Chief's mother. As she describes it, life in Hearth's Bridgeton, N.J., seems reminiscent of the rural idyll Thornton Wilder painted in Our Town. Maybe that's the point, for as Elder Strong Medicine says, "It's very pleasant to lead a simple life." Pertinent life lessons that go down easily.

From 'STRONG MEDICINE' SPEAKS
Copyright 2008 by Amy Hill Hearth

On modern life:
"I don't have any money, and I never have, but I am perfectly happy living in my little bungalow. Sometimes I just feel totally out of sync with the world around me. I look around and I'm thinking, hey, why are people building these huge houses? Why do they live the way they do?"

On modern medicine:
"A lot of the old-timey ways do work, and I prefer to use them. I haven't had much exposure to modern medicine. I'd rather mess around with my plants and weeds. Some Indians are ashamed to say they eat weeds, but I'm not! Why should I be?"

On global warming:
"I wonder what it will take for some people to believe that there's global warming, and to do something about it? I guess some day they'll wake up and there'll be a polar bear sitting on their front step. I guess that's when they'll believe it."

On her son, the Chief of the tribe:
"My role in the tribe, as one of the Elders, is to be part of the backbone, so to speak. Of course, if I really disagree with my son, he'll be hearing about it. He may be the Chief, but I'm still his mother!"

As a young bride, when her husband was missing in action during the Battle of the Bulge in World War Two:
"When I couldn't stand it anymore, I went for long walks in the middle of the night, if the moon was shining. I needed to sort things out in my mind, the way I have always done, the Indian way - by breathing the fresh air and being alone with nature."

On being an American:
"I've been a good citizen all my life. I pay my taxes, and I vote in elections. On Memorial Day, I've got my American flag flying outside my porch, just like everybody else. I'm proud to be an American. But I'm proud to be Indian, too."

On her childhood:
"We had a big old cookstove in the kitchen and every night after supper, we put bricks in the oven. Each one of us had our own brick. And what we'd do is, we'd take that brick when it was hot and wrap it up in newspaper so we didn't get burned. Then we'd take it upstairs and put it in that nice cold bed. Then we'd jump in the bed! Let me tell you, somewhere during the night, that old brick cools off and you go back to sleep because there's not a thing you can do about it."

On becoming a mother - childbirth at home:
"My husband went out in the field behind our house during all the excitement. There I am lying in the bed, bringing our son Billy into the world, and my husband is as far away as he can get. That's the way it was in those days. Frankly, that was fine with me. I had four experienced women there. What good's a man in a situation like that?"

On the resurgence of Indian tribes and the national "Native Pride" movement:
"When I was a child, people were ashamed to be Indian. It amazes me that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren celebrate their heritage instead of hiding it."