Callahan's Wynema: A Child of the Forest (1891), a loosely constructed romantic novel, presents the story of a Creek girl named Wynema Harjo and her Methodist teacher, Genevieve Weir. As Weir learns about Creek life, the reader is introduced to American Indian traditions such as the Green Corn Festival and burial practices and to foods such as sofkey and blue dumplings. Woven into the work are contemporary issues ranging from women's rights to Indian land allotment and the massacre at Wounded Knee. By writing the novel she hoped to bring attention to the plight of all American Indians.
Callahan planned to finish her studies in Virginia and open her own school in the Creek Nation. However, on January 7, 1894, at age twenty-six she died of pleurisy.
Callahan's Wynema: A Child of the Forest (1891), a loosely constructed romantic novel, presents the story of a Creek girl named Wynema Harjo and her Methodist teacher, Genevieve Weir. As Weir learns about Creek life, the reader is introduced to American Indian traditions such as the Green Corn Festival and burial practices and to foods such as sofkey and blue dumplings. Woven into the work are contemporary issues ranging from women's rights to Indian land allotment and the massacre at Wounded Knee. By writing the novel she hoped to bring attention to the plight of all American Indians.
Callahan planned to finish her studies in Virginia and open her own school in the Creek Nation. However, on January 7, 1894, at age twenty-six she died of pleurisy.
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