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“Red Leaves” describes a brief eventful period in a tribe of Chickasaws who inhabit north Mississippi in the early part of the nineteenth cen-tury. The Chief, Issetibbeha, has died, perhaps poisoned by his son, Moketubbe, and the tribe’s ritual requires that the dead chief be buried with his horse, his dog, and his African American body servant. The body servant, however, has no wish to be sacrificed with his chief, so he escapes into the swampy bottom between the tribal village and the river. The tribe pursues him, nominally led by the obese and indolent Moketubbe, himself almost immobilized by the pain of wearing of a pair of red Parisian slippers acquired by Issetibbeha on an earlier trip to Paris with the equivocal Chevalier Sœur Blonde de Vitry. On an important level, the story provides a subtle and detailed account of the politics of succession. “Doom,” Issetibbeha’s father, was originally a subchief, but on the New Orleans riverboats he was able to pass himself off as the hereditary landowner, the “Man,” the Chief of the tribe. Also in New Orleans he impregnated the daughter of a “fairly well-to-do West Indian family” (318), and Issetibbeha was the product of this union. Between the pregnancy and the marriage, Doom also actually became chief, presum-ably by murdering his uncle and cousin. Issetibbeha succeeded Doom, and Moketubbe, as “Red Leaves” opens, is preparing to succeed his father, though he seems monstrously unfit for leadership. Moketubbe’s moral and physical opposite, the body servant is strong, intelligent, and knowledgeable, but, “since there was nowhere for him to go” (332), he is eventually captured and returned to the village for execution.

Readers have generally agreed on the significance of the pursuit, capture, and execution of the body servant. For Edmond Volpe, his is

“a terrifying existential confrontation with the reality of death” (146), and Hans Skei agrees that “we understand fully why he does not want to die and even, as he himself comes to realize, why his desire to live is so strong, so deep, so intense” (Reading 144). In the fourth section of the story, says James Ferguson, “We are with the slave all the time, inside him, identifying intensely with him until at the end of the section, when the moccasin strikes him and he hails the beast, [‘Olé, grandfa-ther’], we acknowledge with him our kinship with all of life, our sense of mortality, and our fierce desire to live” (93). The slave, surely among the most admirable of all of Faulkner’s unnamed characters, possesses the classical attributes of the hero. His courage, dignity, determination, and perseverance earn him the admiration of even his captors, yet it is precisely this heroism in a slave of “the Man” that cause them to chase, capture, and ultimately kill him.

While the body servant’s desperate and unsuccessful struggle to avoid his doom provides the immediate narrative focus for the story,

“Red Leaves” also presents an extensive and intricate meditation on the relations among Native American, African, and Anglo-European cultures. Briefly, the Native Americans, in imitation of the whites, have begun to acquire slaves and clear the land, not to plant cotton, but to raise food for the slaves themselves, thus aggrandizing the system of chattel slavery in service of a capitalist economy, the essential product of which is not cotton, or corn, or grain, but more slaves. In addition to slavery and the capitalist economy, the tribal leaders have imported many artifacts from the white culture: a steamboat, an enameled snuff-box, “a gilt bed, a pair of girandoles” (320), a frock coat, a beaver hat, a broadcloth coat, linen underwear, an oriental fan, a mother-of-pearl lorgnon, dungaree pants, “stiff European finery” (331), shirts, trousers, and straw hats, and most especially the pair of patent-leather slippers with red heels. In addition to these manufactured articles, the Native Americans, having enslaved the Africans, have assumed the habits and language of racial and ethnic stereotyping. With such methods Faulkner not only contrasts Native American, African, and white cultures but also combines and so hybridizes them.

Not surprisingly, then, for many years the criticism of “Red Leaves”

has concerned itself with what Diane Brown Jones calls “cultural impingement” (330), especially the ways in which the white culture

changed both African and Native American culture for the worse. By tak-ing up chattel slavery and its concomitant racial and ethnic prejudices and stereotypes, the Native Americans create insoluble problems for themselves, in addition to the horrors they perpetrate on the enslaved, of whom Faulkner’s depiction of the body servant is eloquently repre-sentative. Some would have it that prior to the white man’s “impinge-ment,” the Native Americans were Noble Savages, living as they did “in the center of ten thousand acres of matchless parklike forest where deer grazed like domestic cattle” (318). Many readers point to the white man’s steamboat, his red slippers, his enameled snuffbox, his Parisian bed, and ornamental candlesticks as evidence of the corruption of the traditional culture. Robert Woods Sayre, for example, writing of the stories of “The Wilderness” section of Collected Stories, says, “These fictions embody, in symbolic/allegorical or legendary form, Faulkner’s romantic percep-tions of the nature of Indian versus white culture, and of the historical relationship between the two” (39). Others, however, point out that the “Noble Savage” reading itself depends on a radically limiting and demeaning stereotype, implying that the Native Americans are essen-tially weak and helpless against the white man’s degrading influence;

and still others even assume that Faulkner in “Red Leaves” juxtaposed the bravery and dignity of the body servant and the “progenitive vital-ity” of the black people with the decadent and compromised Native Americans who have enslaved them. Gene M. Moore suggests that “the slaves have preserved a far more natural and unified culture than the borrowed and degraded cultural trappings of their masters” (“ ‘European Finery’ ” 265).

Moore also observes that “Faulkner’s ‘Indians’ are often found to be historically inaccurate” (“Faulkner’s Incorrect” 3; see also Dabney). That Faulkner was not especially knowledgeable about the Mississippi “Indians”

(or, at the very least, not punctilious in representing them) has been long known, intermittently documented, and variously explained. Calvin Brown’s mother, for example, a local Oxford historian, once asked him

“where his Indians came from, and he frankly and simply replied, ‘Mrs.

Brown, I made them up’ ” (5). His early failure to distinguish clearly between the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes drew queries from many readers, and fifteen years after “Red Leaves” was published, he answered Malcolm Cowley’s question on the subject by saying “the Indians actually

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were Chickasaws, or they may so be from now on” (SL 197). Although Chickasaws were known to have enslaved other Native Americans after battle, Patricia Galloway informs us that “the Chickasaws were not notably involved in enslaving Indians for sale afterwards,” and “it is not clear to what degree the Chickasaws had actually begun to think of Indian slaves traded to the British as commodities by the time the trade ceased” (22). Galloway also points out that “There is no verifiable record at all of Chickasaws’ having killed black slaves to accompany them to the other world, and only a little evidence to suggest that they may on occa-sion have killed dogs or their much-prized Chickasaw ponies for this pur-pose” (21). Cannibalism “was not,” as Peter Mallios puts it, “socially practiced by the Choctaws and Chickasaws of antebellum Mississippi as a matter of history” (148) but was instead a part of the general stereotype of the “Indian,” dating back to Montaigne’s essay, which served as the source for basic stereotypes of the Native American. So Faulkner, in the end, sought neither historical accuracy nor simplistic politics in this story.

Instead, as Charles A. Peek insists, “By transferring the institution of ery to another culture, Faulkner gains a hearing for his exposure of slav-ery’s effect on the slaveholder; by making that culture one in which ritual is given its due, he can explore universals regarding the passages of life” (315).

The precise date of the original composition of “Red Leaves” is uncertain. Some believe that the story may have been written as early as 1927, or perhaps in 1929. The story certainly existed by 24 July 1930, when Faulkner submitted it to the Saturday Evening Post. The Post accepted the story—only the second time it had chosen to publish Faulkner—and “Red Leaves” appeared in the October 25 issue.

Faulkner revised the story for inclusion in These 13 (1931). This revision was included in Collected Stories and it appears as the first story in “The Wilderness” section. Portions of this version were reworked for Big Woods (1955). Cowley included “Red Leaves” in the first section of The Portable Faulkner (1946). Although there have been many differences of opinion over what Annette Trefzer identifies as “historical accuracy, ethnographical authenticity, and political correctness” (69), “Red Leaves”

remains one of Faulkner’s most frequently anthologized stories, con-tinuing to receive detailed critical attention, and almost universally regarded as one of his very finest.

3 1 3 : 1 – 2 The two Indians crossed the plantation toward the slave quarters Both the plantation system and slavery are white institu-tions adopted by the Indians, so this first sentence introduces all three cultures concerned in the story (see Skei, Reading 140).

3 1 3 : 2 baked soft brick clay soil and water mixed and shaped into bricks, then baked in the sun

3 1 3 : 1 0 – 1 1 chinked and plastered chimneys flues or chimneys that have had the cracks (chinks) filled in and plastered over

3 1 3 : 1 3 _{the Man} hereditary term of honor for the male patriarch of a tribe (see 317:30–318:1)

3 1 3 : 1 9 – 2 0 like carved heads on a ruined wall in Siam or Sumatra In Indochina, which includes Thailand (Siam) and Sumatra Island, many Buddha images are carved in rock walls on cliffs, mountains, and other areas where large rocks are found.

3 1 3 : 2 2 like sedge grass on burnt-over land like dried grass

3 1 3 : 2 3 an enameled snuffbox According to Brown, “the snuff-box is a pocket-sized, round tin box in which snuff is sold, not an elab-orate or permanent possession. [This one] is an exception, obvi-ously being a European eighteenth-century one” (182).

3 1 4 : 4 them who prefer sweating the slaves 3 1 4 : 5 _{They the slaves}

3 1 4 : 7 – 8 They are worse than the white people The Indians con-sistently attribute to the blacks the same stereotyped faults which the white man attributes to Indian and black alike; furthermore, because the Indians perceive the slaves to be more “beasts of bur-den” than men, they feel the slaves must be even worse than the white men they know. See Mallios on how the story examines the

“triangulation” of the process of racial stereotyping (174–75).

3 1 4 : 1 5 man was not made to sweat evidence that the Indians in this, too, imitate the white man, by repudiating “sweat” or manual labor and leaving it to slaves, not “man”

3 1 4 : 1 7 It has a bitter taste, too Although Three Basket refers to eating the flesh of slaves, there seems to be no evidence of canni-balistic practices among the Choctaw, Chickasaw, or other related tribes. Cannibalism may be a myth regarding the Indian culture adapted by Faulkner, or his invention consistent with white igno-rance of Indian customs (see Cushman, Mallios, Swanton).

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3 1 4 : 2 6 fetish-shaped objects small objects believed to have magi-cal or spiritual power

3 1 4 : 2 7 patinaed doorsteps with sheen, in this case from long use by many feet

3 1 4 : 3 3 – 3 4 where at certain phases of the moon the Negroes would gather to begin their ceremonies native African traditions and rit-uals, in this case performed according to certain celestial events.

Many such traditions were brought by captive slaves from Africa and perpetuated (see Cole).

3 1 5 : 3 – 4 the ceremonial records which consisted of sticks daubed with red clay in symbols attempts by the slaves to preserve their cultural heritage. Sticks daubed with clay represent African tribal linguists’ staffs. The inscribed clay at the end of the staff contains symbols or figures that represent proverbial sayings to remind the holder of the staff of tribal or personal morals and values.

3 1 5 : 8 _{abashless relentless}

3 1 5 : 1 4 – 1 5 That is black man’s fear which you smell. It does not smell as ours does see 314:7–8

3 1 5 : 2 1 rank twilight odorous fading daylight; a synesthetic image 3 1 5 : 2 4 He whom we seek is gone? a rhetorical question

3 1 5 : 3 1 You know our errand an indication that everyone, slave and Indian, knows the clan’s customs

3 1 5 : 3 2 thinking something we are not their friends

3 1 5 : 3 4 knowing something we are not their friends; we mean to kill one of their own

3 1 6 : 5 – 8 I see my horse and my dog. But I do not see my slave. What have you done with him that you will not permit me to lie quiet?

This passage, as many others in this story, suggests the slave, the horse, and the dog of the deceased chief were to be buried with him to ensure his safe passage to or comfort in a future life.

In recorded Native American and European accounts, there are no such instances of burial; indeed, Choctaw and Chickasaw leaders were typically elected and given no special treatment or burial upon death (Swanton). In attributing these customs to the Yoknapatawpha Indians, Faulkner is not seeking a historically accurate rendering but instead calling attention to the horrors of slavery.

3 1 6 : 1 0 – 1 1 A people without honor and without decorum see 314:7–8

3 1 6 : 1 5 But then, they are savages; they cannot be expected to regard usage see 314:7–8

3 1 6 : 2 7 – 2 8 He can wear the shoes with the red heels all the time now Because his father is dead, Moketubbe is now the Man and can do as he pleases, and he pleases to wear the slippers.

3 1 7 : 6 – 7 then Issetibbeha became dead, who was not old a hint that Moketubbe killed his father

3 1 7 : 9 – 1 1 “I don’t think about it,” Basket said. “Do you?” “No, the second said. “Good,” Basket said. “You are wise” Neither man wishes to acknowledge that Issetibbeha might have been mur-dered, which would be to question the legitimacy of Moketubbe’s succession. Should he hear that they had articulated such suspi-cion, they too might die. Faulkner thus elliptically challenges the system of hereditary monarchy, another custom that this tribe may have imitated from the white culture. See 317:22–23.

3 1 7 : 1 3 – 1 4 the deck house of a steamboat which had gone ashore the large structure from the upper deck of a grounded steamboat 3 1 7 : 1 6 cypress rollers in this case, cypress trees cut down and

smoothed to form primitive rollers on which an object, such as the steamboat, could be placed. By removing the rollers from behind and placing them in front of it as it moved forward, the slaves could move the steamboat over the uncompromising terrain.

3 1 7 : 2 1 jalousied doors finished with blinds or shutters

3 1 7 : 2 2 – 2 3 merely a subchief, a Mingo, one of three children on the mother’s side of the family either a member of a separate north-ern tribe, the Mingo, who occasionally lived among the Choctaws;

or a term used to refer to a lower-echelon leader of a local Choctaw community or clan; therefore, of lesser status. Also, the current tribe is patriarchal, which was not the rule in the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations (see Cushman, Reeves, Swanton).

3 1 7 : 2 4 – 2 5 New Orleans was a European city Founded by the French in 1718, New Orleans was one of the only ports, and cer-tainly the largest, in the Gulf of Mexico at the turn of the nine-teenth century. A “European city” until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the city boasted a great deal of trade, traffic, and European

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influence; hence, Ikkemotubbe’s journey from his tribal village to New Orleans was culturally vast, if not geographically.

3 1 7 : 2 6 – 2 7 the Chevalier Sœur Blonde de Vitry literally, “Knight Blonde Sister from Vitry.” A “chevalier” is a French nobleman of the lowest rank, though his claim to such a title may be completely spurious.

3 1 8 : 2 du homme, and hence Doom The Chevalier’s French is bad, but Faulkner’s wasn’t. The French word for “man” is l’homme, and coupled with the preposition meaning “of” or “from” to denote ori-gin, is de l’homme. Du homme (“Doo-um”) is incorrect, which Malcolm Cowley pointed out to Faulkner when he was editing the Viking Portable Faulkner. Faulkner replied, “I know it’s de l’homme. I made it incorrect mainly because I decided no one would care especially.

That is, it seemed righter to me that Ikke., knowing little of French or English either, should have an easy transition to the apt name he gave himself in English, than that the French should be consistent.

Maybe [the Frenchman who named him] deliberately warped his own tongue so Doom could discover his English name” (Cowley 43).

3 1 8 : 5 _Carondelet Baron Francisco Luis Hector De Carondelet

XV (1747–1807), the French-born Spanish governor of Spanish Louisiana from 1791 to 1797; a great planner and governor who forged many treaties with the native peoples of Mississippi and Louisiana and was thought of as an ally to many of them

3 1 8 : 6 General Wilkinson James Wilkinson (1757–1825), a colorful and possibly traitorous character whose career as a Brigadier General in the U.S. Army took him to the Louisiana Territory in 1791. He made secret treaties with the Spanish in exchange for large sums of money and plotted with Aaron Burr to invade Mexico and form his own country. He had a close relationship with Carondelet (see 318:5), who compensated him well for various “services” rendered. That the Chevalier knows both Carondelet and Wilkinson suggests that he understands both legitimate and sub rosa power structures.

3 1 8 : 1 5 the St. Louis packet a steamboat usually carrying mail or freight rather than passengers

3 1 8 : 2 0 – 2 2 He never told her how he had accomplished it, save his uncle and cousin had died suddenly a hint that Doom mur-dered them

3 1 8 : 2 9 – 3 0 combination itinerant minister and slave trader who arrived on a mule trader doubling as a minister and likely another official as needed; common on the frontier

3 1 9 : 1 – 2 coursed them with dogs used them as quarry for his hounds

3 1 9 : 7 – 8 gathered in squatting conclave met in tribal council 3 1 9 : 8 the Negro question that is, what to do with the newly

acquired slaves; also a powerful echo of the issue of freed slaves in the post-Reconstruction American South

3 1 9 : 1 1 We cannot eat them see 314:17 and Mallios

3 1 9 : 2 4 – 2 5 We must do as the white men do Having adopted the ways of the white man, the tribe now lacks any other models for behavior, even that of common sense.

3 2 0 : 1 0 _quarters slave quarters like those on the white man’s plan-tations

3 2 0 : 1 2 _{forty head} 40 slaves; another metaphor invoking beasts 3 2 0 : 1 8 – 1 9 in return he introduced him into certain circles

per-haps the “equivocal haunts” of corrupt Parisian society that he fre-quented with Doom (318:7–8)

3 2 0 : 2 1 – 2 2 Pompadour arranged her hair while Louis smirked Madame de Pompadour was the mistress of King Louis XV of France from 1745 to 1750 and remained his close confidante thereafter.

Politically astute and involved in the arts as well as in politics, she served as an important political advisor until her death in 1764 (see Lever). As Ikkemotubbe did before him, Issetibbeha chooses artifacts representing the wretched excess of corrupt models (Rhodes 73).

Politically astute and involved in the arts as well as in politics, she served as an important political advisor until her death in 1764 (see Lever). As Ikkemotubbe did before him, Issetibbeha chooses artifacts representing the wretched excess of corrupt models (Rhodes 73).