Xiv INTRODUCTION

Dove did agree with McWhorter that the value of the
novel lay in its expression of the Indian point of view.
- Unfortunately, McWhorter felt compelled to reaffirm
that point of view by constantly inserting into the nar-
rative innumerable didactic passages about the injus-
tices suffered by Indians at the hands of government
agencies, as well as historical facts about other tribes
that are hardly relevant to the story. The result is that
the narrative, which is very much within the tradition
of the western romance, with its stock characters and
melodrama, sags at times under the weight of vitupera-
tion.

Though Mourning Dove and McWhorter had finished
their collaboration on Cogewea by 1916, it was not pub-
lished for another eleven years. This delay created a
particularly difficult situation for Mourning Dove, who
had been interviewed in the spring of 1916 by the
Spokesman Review of Spokane and hailed as the first
American Indian novelist. Given such fanfare, it was
embarrassing to continually have to explain why the
book was not yet published, as she does in one letter to
the editor dated January 13, 1918: “This work has been
delayed in its publication because of the war, but will
now soon be placed before the public.”

Despite the war and the mood of the reading public,
the biggest obstacle that Mourning Dove and McWhor-
ter faced was finding a publisher for Cogewea. Appar-
ently, they had to guarantee sales and arrange partial
financing for the book before some publishers would
even agree to look at the manuscript. In his letters,
McWhorter tried to persuade publishers that advance
publicity would ensure sales, or that they should pub-
lish the book for moral reasons because, “coming from
the pen of an Indian,” it would serve to bring about
much needed reforms in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Eventually, McWhorter did find a publisher in Bos-
ton, the Four Seas, to agree to publish Cogewea, but only