First published in 1942, this timeless novel of the American West is one of the most significant in modern times regarding Native Americans, despite the fact that it was written by an outsider, albeit one who spent a lifetime studying the various peoples who inhabit the region. It's surprising that, despite its renown, there are so few readers, as seen by the paucity of ratings and comments found here. This is especially curious, considering that the book has apparently been continuously in print for 75 years. The yellowed, well-worn copy I have is about a half-century old, but it's one of my most cherished books. I've read it several times, but I haven't rated or reviewed it here, so I thought I would rectify that omission.
The author's story is as colorful as the many novels he has written (twenty seven, I believe). Not surprisingly, he had much firsthand knowledge about his subjects and the harsh, unforgiving environments which serve as the backdrops for his stunning novels. Frank Waters was born in Colorado Springs in 1902, but he ranged far and wide, experiencing life in a myriad of contexts. he worked as a lineman at a telephone company, an information consultant at Los Alamos during the nuclear testing at the site, to the editor of a Taos bilingual newspaper. He dropped out of Colorado State University his senior year, preferring instead to travel extensively all over the Southwest. He was nominated multiple times for the Nobel Prize, and was eventually awarded multiple honorary doctoral degrees from Colorado universities. Waters's father was of Cheyenne ancestry, and as a youth, he accompanied him to local tribal ceremonies and dances, where he first learned about the beliefs of the Cheyenne people. It was in the 1930s when Waters purchased an old adobe cabin adjacent to the Taos Pueblo in Arroyo Seco, in New Mexico, where he lived for the rest of his life.
This beautifully-written novel tells the story of a man, but also his entire community, trapped between worlds. It was reportedly inspired by a real event: author Frank Waters was apparently in a tribal courtroom when a young man was on trial for killing a deer out of season. There, he witnessed firsthand the travesty of the young man's harsh reality and the impossibility of negotiating tribal law and US federal law. Martiniano is a young Pueblo Indian, educated in a government school, who kills a deer in a National Forest and is subsequently arrested. He is found guilty and is fined, but his transgression is paid for by Rodolfo Byers, a white man who runs a "trading post" in the town. This single act essentially triggers a domino effect, which leads to young Martiniano's undoing: his marriage unravels, he becomes involved with a "peyote cult," which only exacerbates his legal troubles, and he becomes increasingly despondent. Caught between his forced, "white" upbringing and his native culture, he is essentially the perpetual outsider, although not an immigrant: it is doubly tragic that this young man, who doesn't believe that he fits in anywhere, is indigenous, and, as such, has the greatest claim on the land inhabited by a diverse array of peoples, native and immigrants alike.
The story takes something of a turn when Martiniano begins to clear mountain land left to him by his father. He fights off a shepherd who attempts to appropriate his property for his own use, and, unlike previously, his tribal council supports him. Many have asserted that this event is a substitute for the general encroachment onto Indian lands by outsiders, as a primary focus of the novel is the battle over Dawn Lake, a sacred site which the Pueblo have been fighting to have returned to them, as they consider the lake to be their "tribal church." Spoiler alert: Martiniano redeems himself by coming to the aid of another member of his tribe, by engaging in the rituals and cultural practices which soothe his troubled soul and bind him to his community once again, and Congress passes a bill to compensate the tribe for the confiscated land, but thirty thousand acres of national forest is also returned to them, including Dawn Lake.
The primary thread throughout the novel is the notion of disassociation with one's own culture, and the lack of belonging to either community or place. This was, of course, a well-attested, concerted effort on the part of the US government - to destroy any ties to native language, culture and community. Native children were essentially abducted, starting in the late nineteenth century, and taken to "boarding schools," which were, in essence, nothing less than concentration camps (my relatives have told me stories of my Native American ancestor and their distant relations' experiences with these "schools," recounted firsthand by my Cherokee great-great-Grandmother). Under the guise of "converting" Native peoples to "Christianity," the Bureau of Indian Affairs partnered with these groups and conspired to remove children from their families in order to "Americanize" (!) them. They were then beaten, starved, tortured and sometimes even killed for so much as speaking their native languages or expressing any element of their culture, or individuality. These facilities operated from the nineteenth century until the 1960s, so the effects are still far-reaching, even more than a half-century later. Although is now (thankfully) a movement to attempt to reverse the damage, by teaching native languages and culture in local schools on reservations, in many cases, what was lost (songs, stories, dress, spiritual practices and ceremonies, and even cooking methods and cuisine) can simply never be recovered.
It's tragic to see that in the near-century since this book was first published, little has changed (that is to say, improved) for native peoples living on reservations. Poverty is still rife, as it was then, owing primarily to a lack of funding and even resources: the land allotted to native people was considered the most useless in terms of agriculture, and was essentially the land which no one wanted. A third of Indian homes on reservations still do not have electricity or even running water... in the twenty-first century. The sense of hopelessness that pervades his novels is still experienced today, owing to the pervasive lack of health care, quality food, and quality education, which results in rampant alcoholism, drug abuse, and, even more tragically, suicide.
The young protagonist, Martiniano, was separated as a child from his parents and community, taken to one of these facilities, and, hence, has no memory or attachment to his tribe's traditions and values. Although Martiniano never fully assimilated to the "white" way of living, neither does he follow the customs of the people he left behind: he refuses to remove the heels from his shoes, or to follow other cultural practices, which would make him a more included member of the community. As such, the native Pueblo where he resides also ostracize him, believing that tribal members who were removed and raised elsewhere as children were irredeemably "tainted" by "white" values and thinking, and can never be reabsorbed back into their native communities.
The novel in general has both strengths and weaknesses: some reviewers have noted that it "starts off slow," but that's not a criticism to me. The story unfolds slowly, enveloping the reader in time and space, revealing its content in a thoughtful and gradual way, inviting the reader to meditate on the material in more than a superficial way. The prose is highly visual, and reflects a deep knowledge of and familiarity with the subject matter. Although generally respectful, there are some stereotypes which I have some difficulty with. For example, Waters portrays (perhaps over-simplistically) the tribal council, and, by extension, the entire community, for example, as a single "hive mind," which almost entirely subverts the individual to the community. This is expressed particularly in the admittedly beautiful description of the value of *silence*, which Waters claims, to an Indian, speaks louder than words. The slow speech, where no one interrupts, but simply listens, digests, meditates , is certainly worthy of reflection, and introspection, but the over-generalization also risks the application of racial and cultural stereotypes.
That said, this is a highly influential and revealing book, which touches on many complex issues surrounding native peoples in the US. For that reason alone, it's highly recommended.
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The child born by woman out of the formless mystery of everlasting life into the narrow confines of human flesh, linked to the boundless universe with the first breath he draws, but constricted for awhile within the personal, individual being. The child born by ceremonial out of the long initiate wherein he has been awakened out of the narrow world of the flesh into the greater world of the spirit, into that conception of his oneness with the cosmic whole, the breathing deer, all that life which has gone before and will follow after, and which exists at once in one perpetual time.
And the one reborn, as man is ever reborn out of their dead selves, by life itself. For as there are many faiths and many conceptions of the one paradox by which man exists as transient flesh and enduring spirit, all these faiths stem from the one faith, the one wonder and the mystery of which we are an inseparable part. Let each man, though bereft of teacher, priest and perceptor, depend on this faith, and so be reborn by this life itself into the greater whole. And so see before him at last, through the cycles of his widening perception, the one road which is his to tread with all.
