“the blessed hybridity” in vizenor's utopian point of assinika: dismantling the notion of the 'invented indian' in the heirs of columbus

Abstract EN

Native American written Literature which dates back in history to the end of the 19^th century witnessed its 'Renaissance' in the mid-20^th century, tackling issues of identity and self-actualization.

Among the most well-known literary figures of the time stands Gerald Vizenor, an author and a theoretician, whose literary oeuvre has enriched both mainstream and ethnic American canon and whose novel The Heirs of Columbus (1991) is the focus of this paper.

In this novel Vizenor re-imagines the history of discovering America from the perspective of the indigenous.

He wrote it contemporaneous with the quincentenary of Columbus's arrival to the New Land.

The author inverts the historical records and presents Columbus as a returning descendant of the Mayan tribe implementing his own theory of 'survivance' and the 'invented indian' and deconstructing the stereotypical representations of the colonizer and the natives.

This paper is a reading that attempts to scrutinize the novel in the light of Homi Bhabha's concept of the "Blessed Hybridity", as well as Vizenor's theories of "survivance" and the "invented indian" in which he maintains that sovereignty and actualization can only happen through realizing and acknowledging the hybrid or what he calls the "mixedblood" or "crossblood" not only of the natives, but of all human beings.

Therefore, the novel presents the heirs as a 'new' product of the two cultures who exist to challenge all previous Western representations of the Native Indians, hence facilitating their 'survivance' and actualization.

The 'heirs' here are the grand children of Columbus who not only claim their rights as heirs, but also claim having a curing gene in their DNA, since they carry the Mayan gene that previously cured Columbus himself.