Editor's note, 3-22-2014, 7:13AM: Rosanne Parry submitted a comment to this review. I pasted her comment and my response to her comment beneath the review for your convenience (both are also visible in the comment section).
In the late 1990s, one of the big stories circulating amongst Native people was what was happening with the Makah Nation in the state of Washington. For the first time in decades, they were going to go whaling. Choosing to hunt again was their choice. It was the exercise of their sovereignty.
They had stopped whaling in the 1920s because commercial whaling had overwhelmed the gray whale, such that it was placed on the endangered animals list. When the gray whale was removed from that status, the Makah nation's leaders declared their intent to resume their whale hunt. Their desire to do so was challenged by groups that did not want them to hunt and it ended up in court. The Makah won the case. Environmentalists were furious. There was intense media coverage (see this article from the LA Times). Protesters carried signs that said "Save a Whale, Hunt a Makah." The school received bomb threats. The hunt took place in May of 1999.
That knowledge is what I brought to my reading of Written In Stone. It'll help, before I begin, to say that the structure for Parry's book is Pearl (the protagonist) in 1999, then in 1923, and then back in 1999 again.
Pearl - the "old woman" who opens/closes Written In Stone
Rosanne Parry's book, Written In Stone, opens with Pearl, an "old woman" (on page 181 Parry describes her as an old woman) headed to the beach for that 1999 whale hunt. Reporters are all around, but there are no clues that this was a contested moment. Pearl reflects back on her childhood, to 1923 when she was thirteen, and was waiting for her father to return from a hunt. That remembering is the bulk of the story Parry tells. The last part of the story returns to Pearl in 1999. As she walks to the beach, she hears the click and whir of cameras.
Parry does not reference the media frenzy or anti-Makah activity anywhere. Pearl, if she was a real person, would definitely have been enduring it. Parry's Pearl doesn't reference the antagonism at all. As I read the story, though, Parry created Pearl as an activist (more on that later). Not having Pearl note the anti-Makah activities as she walks to the whale they've hunted doesn't ring true. And--Parry calling her an "old woman" doesn't work for me personally. Pearl would be called an elder.
The Author's Note
Parry divided her Author's Note into several sections. She begins with "Connections" on page 177, where she tells us that:
The "About Chief Lelooska" page at the website for the Lelooska Foundation says that "Lelooska" is a Nez Perce name, given to Smith when the Nez Perce adopted him when he was 12 years old. In the second paragraph, we read that he was later adopted by a Kwakiutl man named James Sewid, and that the adoption came hereditary rights to Sewid's family heritage. In short, Lelooska can do what Sewid did, which is to perform Kwakiutl stories. Later on that page, we read that Lelooska is an authority on Indians of North America.
Smith's story is quite familiar. There are many people who were taken with Native artifacts and started making and selling them. When actual tribal peoples are called in to look over the items supposed to be authentic, they're found to be little more than craft work of hobbyists. There are critical reviews of Lelooska. Friday alludes to his problematic identity (and to Sewid's controversial activities, too), and so do others, but I gather Parry is unaware of them. In her Resources section, she lists the Lelooska Foundation and two of his books as resources for young readers.
In the Connections section, Parry writes about teaching 5th graders at Taholah Elementary School on the Quinault reservation. Specifically, she writes about a discussion they had about story, and that a student asked "Why is the story never about us?" (p. 178). Another student said "I guess nothing is going to change unless somebody here grows up and writes that book" (p. 179). Then she writes "I did not imagine I would be the one to grow up and write the book" that is Written In Stone. She dedicates the book to those students, who, "asked for a book of their own. I never forgot, and after all these years, this story is for you and all of your children and even someday your grandchildren."
We can look at Parry's decision to write that book as a wonderful decision. She wrote it, I'm guessing, a decade or so after she left there. She doesn't tell us how long she taught at Taholah. My overall sense is that she was was deeply moved by teaching there, which makes me wonder why she left. Memories, though, lingered such that she decided to write the book.
Problems in Pearl as a 13 year old
A quick overview of the main points of the story of Pearl as a 13 year old:
As I read the story of thirteen-year-old Pearl, I kept getting a sense of writing that was more influenced by Chief Lelooska and somewhat romantic ideas of Native people, past and present, than by the Makah students Parry taught.
For example, when we meet the thirteen-year-old Pearl, she says she is a princess, and that her mother was a Tlingit princess. Where, I wonder, did Parry find support for so boldly proclaiming that identity for Pearl?
In various places, we read that Pearl is the one who is going to remember the songs, dances, and stories. She will commit them to memory, and she will write them down. She is the one who will save all those aspects of their culture for the tribe. Her grandmother gives her a journal to write in, and a fancy pen, too, but later, Pearl wonders if there's a rule against women writing, so some of this thread has gaps that creep in, I think, as Parry tries to tease out (inject?!) some feminist ideas about what women can/cannot do.
Another inconsistency is that her father didn't burn her mother's loom. He was supposed to burn everything, and burning everything is such a dramatic moment early on in the story, that when I got to that part--with a blanket partly intact on the loom--it didn't make sense to me. Maybe I was supposed to fill in a gap that her mother's weaving was so important that her father would refuse to burn it, but, her grandmother went on at one point about how her dad had to burn everything in order to survive the pain of losing his wife.
In several places, Pearl talks about a "robe of power." Her dad had one, and her mom had one, and she wants one, too. Her dad was going to make one for her, but his death put an end to that process. The ways she talks of that "robe of power" feel odd to me. Some articles of clothing do have significance, so I do understand that. I think it was just over-used in the story.
When Pearl is afraid her family may sell her father's regalia to the collector, she makes a plan to steal her father's things and move away to live amongst white people, where she imagines that the "bread-loaf brown faded from my skin" (p. 123) when she'll be pale like a weevil. As someone with brown skin, I can tell you that it never fades to the pale tones of a weevil.
Back to 1999
Back in 1999, Pearl recounts having written a thousand letters to tribes, governors, senators, and presidents. The became the editor of an Indian newspaper, and one of the authors of the Quinault and Makah dictionaries. She wrote a book about medicinal plants, and made sound recordings of the old songs. Earlier, I said she became an activist. This recitation of all her activities is evidence of that activist identity and is why it doesn't make sense to me that Pearl doesn't mention the whaling controversy when the book opens, or here, either. Maybe we are meant to think she's beyond or above that controversy, but all of these things Pearl did just makes me think of Don "Chief Lelooska" Smith again. By that, I mean, that the man had a huge ego, and, so does Pearl.
As I noted on opening this review, the Makah decision to whale again was a decision to exercise their rights as a sovereign nation. It was preceded by activism of the 1960s and 1970s when the tribal nations of the northwest coast won a major case in the Supreme Court, again, over the rights stated in the treaty they signed with the U.S. Government in 1855.
Parry demonstrates some understanding of political battles. Her reference to the exploitation of collectors is one example. She wanted to write a book that would reflect the lives of her Makah students, and, perhaps, the Makah's long-standing activism to protect their rights. Pearl's effort to keep items from the collector is a gesture in that direction, but that isn't what that collector--or Parry--was focused on. Instead, Parry makes up two things. In the Author's Notehe tells us she made these up:
There are other things that are jarring to me, that I wonder if they, like the petroglyphs and cove, are made up:
My bottom line?
As a Native reader, I find made-up stuff all the time. It is troublesome, but in this case, it is worse because Parry deliberately set out to write a book for those kids in Taholah, who--I imagine--are dealing with made up stuff all the time, too. If I was a writer, I wouldn't add to that pile of made-up-stuff. It'd be hard to imagine myself doing it and then handing it to the kids.
In the end, I can't recommend this book.
A couple of tips to writers: keep in mind that Native people already have a huge pile of made-up stuff to deal with. I don't think we need to add to it. And, check your sources! Check the knowledge you bring to your project! I think if Parry had let go of her memories of Chief Lelooska and done some background research on him, she'd have written a different book. [One more tip, added an hour after this review went live as I started shutting down all the windows I had open while working on my review: Read Native journals! There's an excellent article in American Indian Quarterly (volume 29 #1 and 2) about the Makah museum and working with staff there. Titled "Forging Indigenous Methodologies on Cape Flatterly" it provides insights on how tribal peoples work with people who are not tribal members so that projects fit within the frame of native nation building (which I've written about before) that are mutually beneficial.]
I invite your comments on my review.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rosanne Parry's comment, posted on Friday, March 21, 2014, at 11:55 AM
Debbie, thank you for your thoughtful and lengthy review of Written in Stone. It's unusual for any reviewer to go to the depth you have and I appreciate the concerns you've raised in this blog post. Writing a novel, in my experience, is mostly about taking things out, so I'm grateful for the opportunity to discuss the ideas in the story and elements of the Quinault and Makah culture in more detail--elements that would have been didactic within the book but are great fuel for conversation around the book. I have reasons for all the story choices I've made and I'm always glad to discuss them.
I don't want to clog up your blog with lengthy comments, so I'll respond to your concerns on my own blog over the next month or so. Please don't construe my remarks as disapproval of what you've said. I'm just happy to have a conversation on a topic we both care about.
I will comment briefly on the choice of old woman vs. elder as a description for Pearl as a great-grandmother. I'm not entirely happy with that word choice myself. Elder would be the expected word and my editor asked me why I didn't choose it in this passage. But in my time in Taholah I never remember hearing the older generation referred to as elders. Seniors is the term I always heard. When I was invited back to Taholah for a celebration of Written in Stone this May I was asked to speak to the seniors in the afternoon before the evening event. So in earlier drafts I used the word senior. The trouble is most readers of this book will be in fourth grade (when Native cultures of the Pacific northwest are studied in Oregon and Washington). Kids this age tend to associate the word senior with 17 year old high school students--not an image I want to evoke.
This is a word choice I'd gladly reconsider. And fortunately we have a window of opportunity right now before the book goes to paperback to make a different choice. Do you have another word that you think would work better? I hate it when one word in a book rings false to me and takes me out the story. I'm sorry you had that experience with old woman as a description of Pearl. I'll have to go back and look up the Quinault word for grandmother. That might be the best solution. But I am in earnest in asking you for your opinion. There probably is a better choice to make, and both I and my publisher are committed to putting out the best version of this story possible. They've always been supportive of this in the past and I'm sure they will be now.
Thanks again for your review. I'm always looking for good stories set among the tribes of the northwest and in particular ones by a Native American author. I'm very interested in encouraging a more diverse group of writers for children, and I'm glad to have you here championing their work.
Debbie's response to Parry, Saturday, March 22, 2014 at 7:00 AM
Rosanne,
I am replying to your question about the use of "old woman" but there is a lot more that pulled me out of the story.
You call Pearl an "old woman" in your author's note. That is what I was referring to (I included a page number). That is who she is in your mind.
Personally, the phrase that comes to my mind when I think of older women at home is elder. If I was writing that author note as the author, I would think "elder" and not "old woman." I would have written "with Pearl as an elder" rather than "with Pearl as an old woman". It isn't wrong for you to say "old woman." That is who she is to you. More than being right/wrong, I think it demonstrates outsider perspective.
You use "old woman" when Jeremiah speaks to the white agent (when the agent thinks Pearl should go away to school). That was fine. In that context, "old woman" works.
Later, when Susi tells Pearl to write everything down, Pearl worries that she might get something wrong. The text reads "I imagined the whole row of old women who sit in the honored positions at all the feasts. I imagined them shaking their heads and clucking to each other about that pathetic Pearl Carver, a girl who didn't know her own stories properly." Your use of "old women" there--you can ask your contacts what they would use. At that moment Pearl sure isn't thinking well of her elders, is she, thinking they'd "cluck." I'd run that by your contacts, too. Though that phrase "cluck" or "clucking" has been around a very long time among English speaking people, its use by a Makah girl in the 1920s feels odd, and, it is more like what an adult, not a child, would say.
We use "seniors" at Nambe, too, by the way, but the contextual use is different and related to the community projects in place to care and support them. My sister might say "the seniors are having a..." and I'd know she was talking about the senior citizens. My sister's kids would know what she meant, too. You're right, though. Non-Native kids, or Native kids who aren't living in a tight Native community would read "seniors" and think of students in a high school. You heard "seniors" because that is the context of your interaction with the students and community.
I'll be out in Washington doing some workshops with librarians in April. I'll ask them about some of this, too.
That said, those are words. They could be changed but the overall sense I have in reading the story doesn't ring true. What I get in reading your book is more of an outsider perspective.
Please don't worry about clogging up my site. I welcome the conversation, too.
In the late 1990s, one of the big stories circulating amongst Native people was what was happening with the Makah Nation in the state of Washington. For the first time in decades, they were going to go whaling. Choosing to hunt again was their choice. It was the exercise of their sovereignty.
They had stopped whaling in the 1920s because commercial whaling had overwhelmed the gray whale, such that it was placed on the endangered animals list. When the gray whale was removed from that status, the Makah nation's leaders declared their intent to resume their whale hunt. Their desire to do so was challenged by groups that did not want them to hunt and it ended up in court. The Makah won the case. Environmentalists were furious. There was intense media coverage (see this article from the LA Times). Protesters carried signs that said "Save a Whale, Hunt a Makah." The school received bomb threats. The hunt took place in May of 1999.
That knowledge is what I brought to my reading of Written In Stone. It'll help, before I begin, to say that the structure for Parry's book is Pearl (the protagonist) in 1999, then in 1923, and then back in 1999 again.
Pearl - the "old woman" who opens/closes Written In Stone
Rosanne Parry's book, Written In Stone, opens with Pearl, an "old woman" (on page 181 Parry describes her as an old woman) headed to the beach for that 1999 whale hunt. Reporters are all around, but there are no clues that this was a contested moment. Pearl reflects back on her childhood, to 1923 when she was thirteen, and was waiting for her father to return from a hunt. That remembering is the bulk of the story Parry tells. The last part of the story returns to Pearl in 1999. As she walks to the beach, she hears the click and whir of cameras.
Parry does not reference the media frenzy or anti-Makah activity anywhere. Pearl, if she was a real person, would definitely have been enduring it. Parry's Pearl doesn't reference the antagonism at all. As I read the story, though, Parry created Pearl as an activist (more on that later). Not having Pearl note the anti-Makah activities as she walks to the whale they've hunted doesn't ring true. And--Parry calling her an "old woman" doesn't work for me personally. Pearl would be called an elder.
The Author's Note
Parry divided her Author's Note into several sections. She begins with "Connections" on page 177, where she tells us that:
"As a fifth grader, I saw the Raven stories told and danced by Chief Lelooska and his family at their longhouse in Ariel, Washington. When the dancer pulled the hidden string that split the mask open to reveal the sun it seemed as magical to me in the firelight as any movie special effect."Reading how taken she was with Lelooska gave me pause. The place Parry visited was/is a performance space that is not affiliated with any of the tribes in that area. The person who went by "Chief Lelooska" is a man named Don Smith. In Chris Friday's Lelooska: The Life of a Northwest Coast Artist (University of Washington Press, 2011), we read that he was born in Sonoma, California to a woman who was 3/4 Cherokee but not raised or enrolled with the Cherokee Nation.
The "About Chief Lelooska" page at the website for the Lelooska Foundation says that "Lelooska" is a Nez Perce name, given to Smith when the Nez Perce adopted him when he was 12 years old. In the second paragraph, we read that he was later adopted by a Kwakiutl man named James Sewid, and that the adoption came hereditary rights to Sewid's family heritage. In short, Lelooska can do what Sewid did, which is to perform Kwakiutl stories. Later on that page, we read that Lelooska is an authority on Indians of North America.
Smith's story is quite familiar. There are many people who were taken with Native artifacts and started making and selling them. When actual tribal peoples are called in to look over the items supposed to be authentic, they're found to be little more than craft work of hobbyists. There are critical reviews of Lelooska. Friday alludes to his problematic identity (and to Sewid's controversial activities, too), and so do others, but I gather Parry is unaware of them. In her Resources section, she lists the Lelooska Foundation and two of his books as resources for young readers.
In the Connections section, Parry writes about teaching 5th graders at Taholah Elementary School on the Quinault reservation. Specifically, she writes about a discussion they had about story, and that a student asked "Why is the story never about us?" (p. 178). Another student said "I guess nothing is going to change unless somebody here grows up and writes that book" (p. 179). Then she writes "I did not imagine I would be the one to grow up and write the book" that is Written In Stone. She dedicates the book to those students, who, "asked for a book of their own. I never forgot, and after all these years, this story is for you and all of your children and even someday your grandchildren."
We can look at Parry's decision to write that book as a wonderful decision. She wrote it, I'm guessing, a decade or so after she left there. She doesn't tell us how long she taught at Taholah. My overall sense is that she was was deeply moved by teaching there, which makes me wonder why she left. Memories, though, lingered such that she decided to write the book.
Problems in Pearl as a 13 year old
A quick overview of the main points of the story of Pearl as a 13 year old:
- Her father is killed on a whale hunt; her mother has been dead for 5 years, of influenza
- Without a whale, Pearl's extended family is worried about survival
- Her grandfather gets a letter from a collector; if they work with him, it could be a source of badly needed income
- Pearl plans to steal her father's regalia so her family won't sell it, but on her way to do it, gets hurt and spends a couple of days on a part of the shore where she finds petroglyphs and decides not to go through with her plan
- Back with her family, Pearl figures out the collector's real agenda is to get them drunk and get their signatures on documents signing away mineral rights to coal and oil in "Shipwreck Cove."
- Pearl undermines the collector/speculator's activities by writing letters to other tribes along the coast
As I read the story of thirteen-year-old Pearl, I kept getting a sense of writing that was more influenced by Chief Lelooska and somewhat romantic ideas of Native people, past and present, than by the Makah students Parry taught.
For example, when we meet the thirteen-year-old Pearl, she says she is a princess, and that her mother was a Tlingit princess. Where, I wonder, did Parry find support for so boldly proclaiming that identity for Pearl?
In various places, we read that Pearl is the one who is going to remember the songs, dances, and stories. She will commit them to memory, and she will write them down. She is the one who will save all those aspects of their culture for the tribe. Her grandmother gives her a journal to write in, and a fancy pen, too, but later, Pearl wonders if there's a rule against women writing, so some of this thread has gaps that creep in, I think, as Parry tries to tease out (inject?!) some feminist ideas about what women can/cannot do.
Another inconsistency is that her father didn't burn her mother's loom. He was supposed to burn everything, and burning everything is such a dramatic moment early on in the story, that when I got to that part--with a blanket partly intact on the loom--it didn't make sense to me. Maybe I was supposed to fill in a gap that her mother's weaving was so important that her father would refuse to burn it, but, her grandmother went on at one point about how her dad had to burn everything in order to survive the pain of losing his wife.
In several places, Pearl talks about a "robe of power." Her dad had one, and her mom had one, and she wants one, too. Her dad was going to make one for her, but his death put an end to that process. The ways she talks of that "robe of power" feel odd to me. Some articles of clothing do have significance, so I do understand that. I think it was just over-used in the story.
When Pearl is afraid her family may sell her father's regalia to the collector, she makes a plan to steal her father's things and move away to live amongst white people, where she imagines that the "bread-loaf brown faded from my skin" (p. 123) when she'll be pale like a weevil. As someone with brown skin, I can tell you that it never fades to the pale tones of a weevil.
Back to 1999
Back in 1999, Pearl recounts having written a thousand letters to tribes, governors, senators, and presidents. The became the editor of an Indian newspaper, and one of the authors of the Quinault and Makah dictionaries. She wrote a book about medicinal plants, and made sound recordings of the old songs. Earlier, I said she became an activist. This recitation of all her activities is evidence of that activist identity and is why it doesn't make sense to me that Pearl doesn't mention the whaling controversy when the book opens, or here, either. Maybe we are meant to think she's beyond or above that controversy, but all of these things Pearl did just makes me think of Don "Chief Lelooska" Smith again. By that, I mean, that the man had a huge ego, and, so does Pearl.
As I noted on opening this review, the Makah decision to whale again was a decision to exercise their rights as a sovereign nation. It was preceded by activism of the 1960s and 1970s when the tribal nations of the northwest coast won a major case in the Supreme Court, again, over the rights stated in the treaty they signed with the U.S. Government in 1855.
Parry demonstrates some understanding of political battles. Her reference to the exploitation of collectors is one example. She wanted to write a book that would reflect the lives of her Makah students, and, perhaps, the Makah's long-standing activism to protect their rights. Pearl's effort to keep items from the collector is a gesture in that direction, but that isn't what that collector--or Parry--was focused on. Instead, Parry makes up two things. In the Author's Notehe tells us she made these up:
- First is the petroglyphs. She says that there are, in fact, petroglyphs are around that area, but that she made up the ones in her book--the ones that are so pivotal in what Pearl does.
- Second, she made up the cove and the coal and oil that are in that cove, and she shrouds that cove with Makah stories about monsters that keep kids away from there. In doing that, she's making up tribal stories, too.
There are other things that are jarring to me, that I wonder if they, like the petroglyphs and cove, are made up:
- Having Pearl play "Pirates and Indians" made me go "huh?" I would love to see Parry's source for that.
- I'm also wondering about a source for the part of the story where the Indian Agent makes her father burn all of her mother's things, AND her mother's body, and the baby, too when she dies of influenza. It was the Influenza epidemic of 1918. I haven't found support for burning of bodies, whether they were Native or not.
My bottom line?
As a Native reader, I find made-up stuff all the time. It is troublesome, but in this case, it is worse because Parry deliberately set out to write a book for those kids in Taholah, who--I imagine--are dealing with made up stuff all the time, too. If I was a writer, I wouldn't add to that pile of made-up-stuff. It'd be hard to imagine myself doing it and then handing it to the kids.
In the end, I can't recommend this book.
A couple of tips to writers: keep in mind that Native people already have a huge pile of made-up stuff to deal with. I don't think we need to add to it. And, check your sources! Check the knowledge you bring to your project! I think if Parry had let go of her memories of Chief Lelooska and done some background research on him, she'd have written a different book. [One more tip, added an hour after this review went live as I started shutting down all the windows I had open while working on my review: Read Native journals! There's an excellent article in American Indian Quarterly (volume 29 #1 and 2) about the Makah museum and working with staff there. Titled "Forging Indigenous Methodologies on Cape Flatterly" it provides insights on how tribal peoples work with people who are not tribal members so that projects fit within the frame of native nation building (which I've written about before) that are mutually beneficial.]
I invite your comments on my review.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rosanne Parry's comment, posted on Friday, March 21, 2014, at 11:55 AM
Debbie, thank you for your thoughtful and lengthy review of Written in Stone. It's unusual for any reviewer to go to the depth you have and I appreciate the concerns you've raised in this blog post. Writing a novel, in my experience, is mostly about taking things out, so I'm grateful for the opportunity to discuss the ideas in the story and elements of the Quinault and Makah culture in more detail--elements that would have been didactic within the book but are great fuel for conversation around the book. I have reasons for all the story choices I've made and I'm always glad to discuss them.
I don't want to clog up your blog with lengthy comments, so I'll respond to your concerns on my own blog over the next month or so. Please don't construe my remarks as disapproval of what you've said. I'm just happy to have a conversation on a topic we both care about.
I will comment briefly on the choice of old woman vs. elder as a description for Pearl as a great-grandmother. I'm not entirely happy with that word choice myself. Elder would be the expected word and my editor asked me why I didn't choose it in this passage. But in my time in Taholah I never remember hearing the older generation referred to as elders. Seniors is the term I always heard. When I was invited back to Taholah for a celebration of Written in Stone this May I was asked to speak to the seniors in the afternoon before the evening event. So in earlier drafts I used the word senior. The trouble is most readers of this book will be in fourth grade (when Native cultures of the Pacific northwest are studied in Oregon and Washington). Kids this age tend to associate the word senior with 17 year old high school students--not an image I want to evoke.
This is a word choice I'd gladly reconsider. And fortunately we have a window of opportunity right now before the book goes to paperback to make a different choice. Do you have another word that you think would work better? I hate it when one word in a book rings false to me and takes me out the story. I'm sorry you had that experience with old woman as a description of Pearl. I'll have to go back and look up the Quinault word for grandmother. That might be the best solution. But I am in earnest in asking you for your opinion. There probably is a better choice to make, and both I and my publisher are committed to putting out the best version of this story possible. They've always been supportive of this in the past and I'm sure they will be now.
Thanks again for your review. I'm always looking for good stories set among the tribes of the northwest and in particular ones by a Native American author. I'm very interested in encouraging a more diverse group of writers for children, and I'm glad to have you here championing their work.
Debbie's response to Parry, Saturday, March 22, 2014 at 7:00 AM
Rosanne,
I am replying to your question about the use of "old woman" but there is a lot more that pulled me out of the story.
You call Pearl an "old woman" in your author's note. That is what I was referring to (I included a page number). That is who she is in your mind.
Personally, the phrase that comes to my mind when I think of older women at home is elder. If I was writing that author note as the author, I would think "elder" and not "old woman." I would have written "with Pearl as an elder" rather than "with Pearl as an old woman". It isn't wrong for you to say "old woman." That is who she is to you. More than being right/wrong, I think it demonstrates outsider perspective.
You use "old woman" when Jeremiah speaks to the white agent (when the agent thinks Pearl should go away to school). That was fine. In that context, "old woman" works.
Later, when Susi tells Pearl to write everything down, Pearl worries that she might get something wrong. The text reads "I imagined the whole row of old women who sit in the honored positions at all the feasts. I imagined them shaking their heads and clucking to each other about that pathetic Pearl Carver, a girl who didn't know her own stories properly." Your use of "old women" there--you can ask your contacts what they would use. At that moment Pearl sure isn't thinking well of her elders, is she, thinking they'd "cluck." I'd run that by your contacts, too. Though that phrase "cluck" or "clucking" has been around a very long time among English speaking people, its use by a Makah girl in the 1920s feels odd, and, it is more like what an adult, not a child, would say.
We use "seniors" at Nambe, too, by the way, but the contextual use is different and related to the community projects in place to care and support them. My sister might say "the seniors are having a..." and I'd know she was talking about the senior citizens. My sister's kids would know what she meant, too. You're right, though. Non-Native kids, or Native kids who aren't living in a tight Native community would read "seniors" and think of students in a high school. You heard "seniors" because that is the context of your interaction with the students and community.
I'll be out in Washington doing some workshops with librarians in April. I'll ask them about some of this, too.
That said, those are words. They could be changed but the overall sense I have in reading the story doesn't ring true. What I get in reading your book is more of an outsider perspective.
Please don't worry about clogging up my site. I welcome the conversation, too.