First of all, you don't appear to know much about the history of literature. The  novel is not European. The earliest written literature dates from about 2600 BC. Sumerian - not European. The first novel was The Tale of Genji (Murasaki Shikibu, 1021). Japanese. The first European novel was Don Quixote of La Mancha (Miguel de Cervantes, 1605). Spanish. Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe, 1719) was the first English novel. 700 years after the Japanese novel.

Second, how is a literary tradition relevant to the question of Boyden's writing or that of Indigenous writers? Boyden has written one good book and several mediocre books. For that he became the darling of the CanLit crowd and the go-to guy on the subject of Indigenous culture. Indigenous writers - real Indigenous writers - continue to be ignored.

Boyden can write about Indigenous people and their stories all he likes provided he acknowledges that he's not Indigenous. Otherwise, he's a fraud.