Re-Counting Coup: Communicating Indigenous Vitality in the Age of Historical Trauma

Contemporary American Indians suffer from disproportionately high degrees of psychiatric distress. Mental health researchers and professionals, as well as American Indian community members, have consistently associated these disproportionate rates of distress with indigenous historical experiences of European and Euro-American colonization. This emphasis on the impact of colonization and associated historical consciousness within tribal communities has occasioned increasingly widespread professional consideration of “historical trauma” among indigenous peoples. In contrast to personal experiences of a traumatic nature, the discourse of historical trauma weds the concepts of “historical oppression” and “psychological trauma” to explain community-wide risk for adverse mental health outcomes originating from the depredations of past colonial subjugation through intergenerational transmission of vulnerability and risk. But is this discourse of historical trauma really the best way to describe, explain, and represent American Indian responses to historical oppression and ongoing disadvantage? In this presentation, Professor Gone will describe various historical functions of Aaniih-Gros Ventre war narratives or coup tales, including their role in conveying or communicating life or vitality. Through comparative consideration of the “trauma narrative” and the “coup tale,” an alternative framework for cultivating American Indian community resilience rather than vulnerability will be proposed on the basis of these fundamentally incompatible discursive practices.

RSVP HERE