Five years in the making and well researched, Hawk Dancer is Joshua Seidl’s first published book. It’s
about the relationships of three cultures: Native, White and Métis in modern times.
This novel is centered in the Village of Birch Clump nestled at the shores of Green Bay (northern portion of Lake
Michigan) within the pristine wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The story’s time line is between 1934 and 1978 with a brief catch
up to 2003. It mingles Métis (mixed race) with Anishinabe (Native American) and Euro-American cultures. In a sense, it is a modern
Guadeloupian accounting of Los Tres Culturas of the 1530’s in Mexico.
There, as in Joshua’s books, the futures of three major cultures and their religious traditions are significantly
fused into a new society. Each group maintains what they can of their cultural inheritance amidst long term variance with each other while
realizing their fate will never permit them to ever again be separate of each other. Seekers of peace and justice rise up with supposed
solutions such as enculturation, assimilation, and segregation along with various movements that eventually evolve into the new theory
called inculturation that we have today.
What is inculturation? Is it the answer we need, can it work or will some other miracle of social
science eventually replace inculturation is anyone’s guess. The author, for now, attempts to present practical applications of inculturation
as the better course.
Dynamically driven, Hawk Dancer respects family moral values in reading, but without being soft, cuddly and syrupy
sweet. There are better moments of life, marriage, love and walks in the woods. Then there is the abrupt crack of flesh meeting flesh
provoking a fisted duel. There is a cross over the Chapel and the burned remains from a cross burning on the lawn. The Cure is the short story that spun into two novels encompassing dozens of people with nearly 800 pages between the two
books. The Cure, predicted to become a Christmas tradition occurred in a single night of December 23/24, 1957. The first of the two epic
novels that followed brings the readers through World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Civil rights Movement and culminates in the repeal of the
infamous American Indian Termination and Relocation era, (1948-1971,) and the passage of the American Indian Freedom of Religion Law passed
on August 11, 1978, more than 30 years ago.
Characters in the novel prove that Birch Clump is not just some obscure village as they observe or even participate in the taking of
Alcatraz, support the birth of the American Indian Movement (AIM), follow Martin Luther King, and develop the first ever American Indian
Order of Friars and Sisters, the main tool by which Brother Joshua demonstrates real and practical means of inculturation and the promotion
of Indigenous cultures within the main line Churches in America.
This experiment, or better put, experience is based on Number 72.1 of the Constitutions of the Society of St. Paul, of which Joshua
is a professed member that reads: "In those countries where circumstances warrant it our activity will promote indigenous culture as well."
The innovative, yet practical means by which Joshua conceptualizes that line from those constitutions and into
these books and his web sites
is such a bold and leading example of what Pope John Paul II advocated for the rights and dignity of Indigenous Peoples through inculturation
and drawing from Vatican II documents and other supporting documents from the Pontifical council on Justice and Peace and resolutions drafted
by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that there was a momentary movement to expel the author. He survived in good standing and
so does his books.
Fiction does not warrant or require an imprimatur; yet a number of respected theologians of moderate to conservative standing have
expressed their approvals and recommendations for these books.
_________________________
↓ below is Jig: the kid from surinam who moved to BC in 1968 or 69.
Highly Recommended:
† July 18, 2008 – I located the following quote from the minuets of Our Lady of the Angles Regional council Meeting,
November 28, 2005:
Bishop Clark also recommended that the Regional Council members read “Hawk Dancer”, a novel by Joshua Seidl which gives an
experience on the Native American culture in the Catholic community in this country. L.A. Archdiocese
We learn, for the first time in this part two book, the name of the Religious Order of Priests and Brothers and the Order for
Sisters invented for these novels. It is the Native American Franciscan Friars (or Sisters) of the Congregation of St. James; CSJ or
Jamians for short. Author Joshua Seidl, SSP even went so far as to set up a web site and post a practical Rule and Constitution for
the religious order that he had Jacob Gibwanasi (Hawk Dancer) lay the foundation for in his novels.
The author takes greater liberties to weave concepts from the speeches of Pope John Paul II and from other Church and modern
day social studies on cultural diversity into a more down to earth folk setting delivered by Job and by Jacob and his robed wizards.
Even the Baby Boomer Teens, Randy, Dean and others stylishly sporting long hair, tie-dyed t-shirts, hippy beads, sandals and testing the
durance of their skin-tight denim jeans,
advance the theological concepts in their own generational jabber and in what ever manner they are able to interpret these marvelously
new insights.
Grant and Teddy Roosevelt inspired St. Katherine Drexel to form and send out an order of missionary sisters to make the recently
conquered Native American Nations (late 1880’s) obey the USA government. Odd or unfortunate as that reasoning was, the word, study and
practice of inculturation had geminated by the time of her death in the 1950’s. This volume relives the desperate period of the American
Indian Termination and Relocation and how people survived or mortally succumbed to the government action to cut off food, medicine and
heating fuel from Reservations, and even terminated solemn treaty recognition of many Indigenous Tribal Nations without recourse to
lawfully mandated government to government negotiations.
Fifteen year old Randy ate a few too many oil soaked French fries and gallantly fainted while attempting to extend a hand to
Trudy as they disembarked from a Ferris Wheel at Michigan’s State Fair in Escanaba. A pair of bored pre-teens livens up a gloomy wake
service with their fists. Prayers of gratitude for our mosquito relatives bring about a few chuckles and need to be explained. A
prediction is given that soon the Condor and the Eagle will fly together and a great peace will come about. Taino Elder Xotchitil
and Sister Abigail sang: I’m Brown, Ancient and Proud.
Jacob delivered his famous Broken Tree Tips speech comparing the current condition of Tribal cultural identity with
that of a giant pine tree whose tip was snapped off in a thunderstorm. The parent tree lives, but does not grow, while the young tip
representing the younger generation falls to the ground, dries out, turns orange then brown and is dissolved into the soil. He points
out the new seedlings that fell from the growth stunted parent tree and acknowledges that as desperate as things might appear, there
is hope.
Will the shade of the other tall trees still growing permit enough light to peer through to the ancient virgin forest floor so these
new seedlings can grow?
Time will tell.
I produce two magazines, the Birch Clump Villager, and the Birch Clump Chronicle.
The BC Villager is an art and literary magazine. Most of the attention is given to country and small town living in the northern Great Lakes
region.
The BC Chronicle is an Indigenous Pastoral ministry magazine aimed at inculturation and the promotion of Native American cultures with regards
to Church ministry or pastoral endeavors.
Both magazines were temporarily suspended during the final quarter of 2011 while I re-vamped their scope, size and over all presentation. Starting with the
first two issues of 2012, (released in late December 2011), I mark the issues as V.1 or V.2 to indicate which issue or volume. They are no longer
scheduled to come out as bi-monthlies or as quarterlies. I up load a new issue as the materials are available.
V.1 for Birch Clump Chronicle features an article written by a Maya Elder concerning the Maya Calendar. It does not predict an end of the world.
V.1 of Birch Clump Villager features two of my short stories, The Cure, which eventually developed into my two novels. Tea is about a young teen's whimsical
observations of his Grand and Great Grandmother's antics, ser in the early/mid 1960s.
My third book: Birch Clump Portfolio Buyer beware:
This is a collection of poems and short stories. I am very hesitant to promote it at this time because of inconstancies and problems with the publisher,
Publish America. It is available if you want to order it from them. However, they have fluctuated the price a few
times. Sometimes they call it a PAperback
at $9.95 (or $9.99). Other times they call it a softcover for $24.95. Standard publishing companies consider paperback and softcover the same thing.
There is no difference in Publish America's PAperback or soft cover except the isbn number and price.
A year and so ago they offered bargain hard covers. They made a special deal with authors and then backed out. They failed to
remove the hard cover listing ($14.95) after discontinuing bargain hardback books. Instead, as told to me by a sales rep from P/A, they would attempt
to sell a customer a higher priced soft cover. Shortly after I called P/A on this their web site went into a tail spin for several days or weeks.
Their actions gave me the suspicion they were caught in a scam. They never offered an explanation for their web site disater
of late October through November 2010. Were they in a panic to cover up after I blew the whistle?
That's not how I do business. So, I do not recommend buying my 3rd book, B.C. Portfolio from them. They have ignored the majority of my inquiries and had
cut me off from marketing communications for over a year. That means, Publish America did not want me to promote this third book. And, it
means they were not interested in selling it to you either. Marketing emails suddenly resumed recently (Dec. 2011). The price is jacked up once
more. And, as of today, Jan 31, I read from them that they are attempting to resume hard back production - the very product that got them in trouble over a year ago.
I no longer trust Publish America.
← Purchase options
2nd Ed. Oct 13, 2011 
