| Summary: | 博士 === 淡江大學 === 英文學系博士班 === 98 === In this dissertation, I look at three American Indian novels—N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, James Welch’s Fools Crow, and Louise Erdrich’s Tracks and examine the colonial predicament of the three tribes—the Pueblos, Pikunis, and Ojibwes. I study these three novels because they carry a same theme: their resistance of colonialism and their solution resorting to ecology. After the arrival of the white colonizers, numerous American Indians lose their lives, land and culture. Tribal survival thus arouses collective awareness of many indigenous writers from different tribes—Kiowa, Blackfeet, Anishinaabe, etc. These native authors seek to find back their tribal identity and preserve their tribal culture as a resistance to mainstream Euroamerican society’s forced assimilation and better circumstances for their people.
In Chapter One, “Identity Loss and Identity Recovery in House Made of Dawn,” I focus on identity loss and recovery of the Jemez Pueblo protagonist Abel in N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn. This story is about an Indian youth’s quest for his lost identity. With the help of his Indian roommate Ben Benally in Los Angeles and his tribal ceremonies, Abel gives up his life in the mainstream American world, realizes the significance of his tribal culture, decides to go home, and finally regains his identity as an Indian in his own homeland.
In Chapter Two, “Tribal Welfare and Tribal Future in James Welch’s Fools Crow,” I will explore how Pikunis deal with their predicament of colonialism in the face of crisis from the loss of their population, culture, and land. I start with the comparison among three Pikuni youths—White Man’s Dog, Running Fisher, and Fast Horse—as a way to emphasize the values and wisdom of the Blackfeet. The novel portrays Blackfeet’s early contact with Europeans and Pikunis’ struggle against smallpox and the white men’s encroachment. It is an era during which the Blackfeet are threatened by political and cultural conflicts between themselves and Euroamericans. When the fatal disease causes the death of more than half of Pikuni population Fools Crow undertakes his vision quest for the future of his tribal people. When he meets Feather Woman, he learns that there is still hope for his tribe only if Pikunis can successfully pass down their stories.
In Chapter Three, “Speaking for the Land in Louise Erdrich’s Tracks,” I will discuss the Chippewa’s predicament such as the starvation during the winter of 1918-1919, the destruction of the ecological balance in North Dakota, the epidemic of consumption disease among the Chippewas, Pauline Puyat’s adoration of Western culture and her fanatic religious behavior, the auction of Fleur’s land and her reluctant decision to send Lulu to boarding school.
In the Conclusion, I discuss Native Americans’ solution to their colonial predicament—“ecology as healing.” With their tribal knowledge about nature, the Pueblos, Pikunis, and Chippewas get to preserve their land and culture.
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