Arysteides Turpana: A Nation by The Sea

Abstract

Aiban Wagua, a Dule scholar, writer and historian, affirms that in Dule society, literature is life. Moreover, Beth Brant, a Kanien’kehaka scholar, asserts, “writing is done with a community consciousness”. Following Wagua’s and Brant’s positions, these viewpoints are evident in the writings of Arysteides Turpana. Turpana’s poems reflect not the thoughts of a Dule poet as an individual; rather as from a nation. Audience members’ experiences of his works will differ when reading the poems themselves. A non-Dule reader may understand them as representing the thoughts and words of the individual poet alone. A Dule reader, on the other hand, may read them and see the collective thoughts and words of both the poet and his community. In this analysis, I focus on Arysteides Turpana’s poem, Archipiélago, which exemplify Dule way of life, Dule intellectual knowledge, and artistry, all of which demonstrate an enduring existence of the Dule nation, Gunayala, and Indigenous Abiayala.