Blood Indian plans to sue writer over book

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When the book, The Miss Hobbema Pageant written by W.P. Kinsella hit the bookstores last year, it opened would causing cries of prejudice from Hobbema residents.

Many residents called the book 'racist' and demeaning to Indians although Kinsella maintained it was strictly fiction.

Now David Small Face, an Indian from the Blood Reserve in southern Alberta, is protesting against another book of Kinsella fictional writing by suing him.

Small Face, 31, an unemployed resident of Penticton BC, plans to sue Kinsella and his publisher Oberon Press for $10,000 and a ban on further publication of Scars, a 1978 publication.

Small Face believes Kensella wrote a slanderous portrayal of himself in a character from the story, 'The Rattlesnake Express'.

The fictional character Dave Smallface is described as a tall, well-built man who has done some boxing. David Small Face, the man, is both tall, well-built and has boxed.

Except Kinsella didn't get the description quite accurate.

The fictional character has a beard and mustache. David Small Face has a mustache and small goatee.

The character is portrayed as a drug dealer who would not back down from murdering a white man.

David Small Face, the man, has insisted this is slanderous.

Oberon Press, which published Kinsella's earlier work of which "The Rattlesmake Express" is a part of, plans to fight the court action.

"We hot a letter, we though it was a Joke! Mr. Kinsella has assured us he doesn't know these people, that they come out of his head," said Ann Hardy, spokesperson for Oberon Press.

"We're certainly not going to pay money to Mr. Small Face without going to court over it," said Hardy, who added that Kinsell's 1978 book has sold very well.

W.P. Kinsella's latest publishers are Harper & Collins Publishers Limited of Toronto.

Darrel Wildcat, director of Hobbema's 4-Winds Theatre Group thinks it's time Native people tell non-Native academic people about their community and background.

He believes Kinsella's style of fictional writing has triggered support amongst Native people to create more awareness about their culture and history.

"These types of fictional books will continue until the dominant culture wakes up to our culture. We, as Native people, have to continue to speak and tell our own stories to our people.

"As a society we have to suppport and correct our writers. That's how we'll combat the insensitivity, so people will understand us as humans rather than as the stereotype," said Wildcat.