A study of American Indian literature, literature by Indians, as opposed to literature about Indians. Three kinds of literature will be included: traditional (composed in an Indian language for an Indian audience at a time when tribal cultures were intact and contact with whites was minimal), transitional (represented by translations of great Indian orators of the 19th Century and memoirs of the Indian translations of the Indian experience in relation to white dominance), and modern (including novels, short stories, and poetry written in English by Indian people, many of whom speak no other language).