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A review by roaming_enn
The Tao of Raven: An Alaska Native Memoir by Ernestine Hayes
5.0
You wouldn't know Hayes was referring to The Art of War unless you were already familiar with Sunzi's work, or unless you had already read the blurb for this book. This is one example of how Hayes characterizes Raven's story:
This, of course, is just one treat you get with this book.
Unlike the 'prequel,' The Blonde Indian, this book wasn't so much a memoir as a book of meditations. Hayes considers all of the ways Native Alaskans have been mistreated in their own land. She speaks of her own experience as a college student in her 50's, and then as a professor. In the end, she remarks how ridiculous it is that the university that hired her had had a white person with no experience with Native peoples or even Native literature teaching a course called, "Alaska Literature: Native and Non-Native Perspectives," a course that was eventually given to Hayes after the professor suddenly quit in favor of another position.
Unlike the 'prequel,' The Blonde Indian, this book focuses more on the women in Old Tom's family: Lucille (mother of Young Tom's daughter), Patricia (daughter of Young Tom and Lucille), and Mabel (white caretaker of Patricia and wife? of Young Tom). The story begins with Young Tom still alive, vowing to get sober, going through his accidental drowning, and finally Lucille journey to earning visiting rights (not officially) with her daughter and grandchildren. Unlike the prequel, it doesn't end with a death, but with Old Tom going to this party after having sobered up.
As much as Hayes criticizes Christianity in her work, it is striking that she uses an iconic image in Christianity in order to end Old Tom's story: Old Tom, who has become something of a hero in his community, invites the partygoers to bread and fish when they realized that they didn't have much. "Let everyone just sit down, Old Tom tells them. Let them sit on the logs and on the sand and on the grass. I have frybread here from last week. I have dryfish I've been saving for just such a day as this. There's enough for everyone, he assures them."
I am sure I missed SO much because of HOW much is packed into these less-than-two-hundred pages. But the struggle is so worth it. I hope to reread it someday in order fully digest it.
Do you see the water at the top of the creek, at the top of the mountain that holds our town in the palm of its hand and seeks the shoreline that our own front doors face? Be like that water.
Be yielding like water.
Go along the easiest way always, always willing to go around something. Offer no resistance. Go the easy way. That's the best way to get where you're going. Remember that all things begin and end in water, just as rivers begin and flow into the sea. When forces oppose, victory will be kind to the one who crafts herself like water, to the one whose power allows her to yield.
Take Raven.
When he wanted the Box of Daylight, he didn't invade a village. He didn't storm a house. He found the easy way. He used water. He made himself small so he could get close to daylight with the least effort. This is what Raven did to achieve his goal.
This, of course, is just one treat you get with this book.
Unlike the 'prequel,' The Blonde Indian, this book wasn't so much a memoir as a book of meditations. Hayes considers all of the ways Native Alaskans have been mistreated in their own land. She speaks of her own experience as a college student in her 50's, and then as a professor. In the end, she remarks how ridiculous it is that the university that hired her had had a white person with no experience with Native peoples or even Native literature teaching a course called, "Alaska Literature: Native and Non-Native Perspectives," a course that was eventually given to Hayes after the professor suddenly quit in favor of another position.
Unlike the 'prequel,' The Blonde Indian, this book focuses more on the women in Old Tom's family: Lucille (mother of Young Tom's daughter), Patricia (daughter of Young Tom and Lucille), and Mabel (white caretaker of Patricia and wife? of Young Tom). The story begins with Young Tom still alive, vowing to get sober, going through his accidental drowning, and finally Lucille journey to earning visiting rights (not officially) with her daughter and grandchildren. Unlike the prequel, it doesn't end with a death, but with Old Tom going to this party after having sobered up.
As much as Hayes criticizes Christianity in her work, it is striking that she uses an iconic image in Christianity in order to end Old Tom's story: Old Tom, who has become something of a hero in his community, invites the partygoers to bread and fish when they realized that they didn't have much. "Let everyone just sit down, Old Tom tells them. Let them sit on the logs and on the sand and on the grass. I have frybread here from last week. I have dryfish I've been saving for just such a day as this. There's enough for everyone, he assures them."
I am sure I missed SO much because of HOW much is packed into these less-than-two-hundred pages. But the struggle is so worth it. I hope to reread it someday in order fully digest it.