Te Ata

I saw this biopic about Te Ata, the Chickasaw storyteller who helped bridge cultural barriers. It's a lovely, moving story, and in contrast to the grim murder drama Wind River, this movie felt refreshingly uplifting and mystical. Though life on the reservation is indeed hard and oppressive, it's not totally bleak and hopeless, because people still have love and support from the community. It also revels in the beauty and wonder of nature.

The story begins when Mary Frances Thompson is a child, learning stories from her father and longing to be included in a ceremony of Elders. She grows up in the Chickasaw Nation, before Oklahoma became a state in 1907. Mary's uncle is the Governor of the Chickasaw Nation, and her father is the newly appointed Treasurer. The Governor journeys to Washington D.C. trying to get some money released, but the federal officials lecture him that his people need to assimilate and give up the "mumbo-jumbo" rituals and beliefs of their culture. This becomes a theme of the movie, how the Indian Offenses Act outlaws traditional songs and dances, denying the Indians the right to practice their heritage.


Her spirit unbroken, Mary Frances grows up and goes to college, where at first she is a social outcast, but after the drama teacher Mrs. Davis befriends her, Mary begins performing monologues of Chickasaw myths and stories. Even her once-distant roommate begins to accompany her on piano and befriends her. After Mary graduates, Mrs. Davis arranges for her to join a Chautauqua touring show for the summer, so she can earn money to go to drama school at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh. Her father is reluctant to let her go, wishing her to stay home where he can protect her, but eventually he comes round, and Mary takes the stage name of Te Ata. As she tours, she meets Indians from other tribes who ask her to perform their stories too, in hopes to educate the public and foster greater understanding.

Then she attends Carnegie Tech and eventually moves to New York to become a Broadway actress. She is unsuccessful at first, and Mrs. Davis arranges private performances so she can earn rent money. At one of these shows, she meets Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the Governor of New York, as well as an enthusiastic, awkward professor who admires her greatly. (I was a bit bothered that the actress playing Mrs. Roosevelt didn't really resemble her.) Soon the friendship with Clyde Fisher grows into a romance, and Mary finally achieves some success in her career, but she feels somewhat empty, and keeps seeing a white dog (a spiritual guide that she has intermittently seen before). Clyde knows how to cheer her up, by suggesting that she perform as Te Ata for children at a camp he knows of. He also proposes to her, and she accepts, but wants to return to Oklahoma to get her parents' blessing. This is the first time I realize that Clyde is supposed to be significantly older than her, for I mistook his white hair for blond; Clyde says he's 17 years older than Mary, though he still protests that his hair turned white early.

Mary's father at first really wants them to stay in Oklahoma and his daughter to give up performing altogether, but Clyde knows that it would be impossible to make Mary give up her career or do anything against her will. Mrs. Davis arranges a local performance and reassures Te Ata that she is doing what she is meant to do, for the sake of the next generation of children. Eventually Mary's father also realizes how important her work is, and gives his blessing to the marriage. Even better, Mary gets invited to perform at the White House for FDR's first state dinner, and this is important in getting the Indian Offenses Act pulled, so that all tribes are free to worship as they wish.

I really enjoyed the movie, and there were a couple of beautiful songs in it.