Adapting as Survivance

I found Janna Knittel's "Leonard Peltier's Prison Writings" to be an effective and interesting rhetorical analysis. The rhetoric of innocence is a particularly compelling topic, as it calls upon our very humanity as readers. However, I'm curious about the slight mention Knittel makes about adaptability, and wonder if this value can be extended to some of Peltier's rhetorical moves beyond his use of historical analogies.

Knittel discusses adaptability in reference to the historical analogies Peltier draws between Wounded Knee, the Vietnam War, and World War II. She quotes Elizabeth Rich, noting, "an important Lakota value that was evident in the Ghost Dance Movement, which was adaptability. The Lakota adapted spiritual beliefs to suit a political aim" (117). I'm not very familiar with adaptability as a Lakota value, however I can see, based upon our discussions on American Indian survivance, how adaptability would be an important value to natives in the modern world, as it is with adaptation that they are able to survive. For an example, we've seen this with trickster discourse as an adaption from resistance toward playing the part of Indian as a form of survivance.

I think two of Peltier's strategies also exemplify this adaptability as a form of survivance. First, consider Peltier's use of the Sun Dance as a tool to talk about his own prison sentence. While Knittel notes the places Peltier uses the Sun Dance either literally or metaphorically, I think we can really call it literal every time. As a metaphor, Peltier draws the similarities between the Sun Dance and his own time in prison, which can be interpreted as a way of adapting the traditional Sun Dance to fit a more contemporary situation. In this way, the Sun Dance is a literal description of his time in prison. This gives Peltier a form of native survivance, as he is adapting native religion to fit his situation in a place where certain freedoms like participating in the Sun Dance would never be allowed.

We see adaptability emerge again in Knittel's discussion of rhetorical inclusion, as applied to direct audience addresses. The "you" Peltier addresses in his writings changes from context to context, thus Peltier adapts his technique to meet his aims. This becomes of form of survivance when we consider the context of Peltier's addresses. He acknowledges his audience, drawing together differing groups of individuals to include natives and nonnatives, adapting his acknowledgement in order to better connect with a specific or larger audience depending on the particular instance.

It seems to me, the use of the Sun Dance and differing audience addresses are good examples of adaptation as a means to achieve survivance, and while I think Knittel approaches this, it is interesting to me that she does not clearly state this in discussing either rhetorical move.