I had intended this post to provide some historical background on the tribe to which the main character in Power belongs, but I have discovered that it is a fictional tribe- not even a wikipedia entry on it!
That being said, I will now discuss one of the general native American beliefs that have been included in the first section of the novel: the importance of animals.
To Indians, animals weren't just cute and cuddly pets, they served a purpose. The buffalo was a sacred animal on the plains and when the Spanish introduced the horse to the tribes, it revolutionized their way of life.
In Power, Omishto speaks about Aunt Ama and how she believes that the cat was born when she was and is with her for protection. Our narrator wishes she could have been born at the time when animals were 'assigned' to a person. She believes that even if there was an animal with her, it hadn't done her much good. This is a testimony of how she feels split between the world she lives in and the world she came from- the Taiga tribe, where animals weren't just twinkling eyes in the darkness, but sacred protectors of humans.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Kelly--
ReplyDeleteI know you couldn't find anything on a "Taiga tribe," but there IS a Wikipedia article about the Taiga biome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga), which I'm sure you probably stumbled across in your search for one on the Taiga tribe. Do you see any connections between the description of the biome and the tribe in the novel? I was browsing through some of the animals that typically live in the Taiga area, and interestingly found that panthers weren't listed.
Hey Sam,
ReplyDeleteI checked out the wikipedia article, and surprisingly, the Taiga tribe and the taiga biome are very different. The foremost being the tribe lives in Florida (which is more of a wetland biome) and the biome is known for coniferous forests such as those found in the extreme northern areas of North America. Although a similarity is that both are threatened, areas of the biome by harvesting and the Taiga people by the influences of the modern world.