Here's a book I recently read by Leslie Marmon Silko, 'Almanac of the Dead'. Silko is part Native American, and was excluded from ceremonies by the natives when she was younger because she was a half-breed, and that always gives you an interesting take if you can rise to it. Not fitting in, and what that can show you, is something I know quite well because of my own temperament.
Silko's first novel 'Ceremony' contained the message that native ways need to adapt to modern times and modern experiences, and how can you argue with that, unless you are some kind of romantic fundamentalist?
This later novel is a hell of a tome, and I'm not sure what to make of it. It's long and sprawling, and it's entertaining, full of interesting and quite dark characters who generally have some native blood in them. The central theme is the gathering of native peoples to re-take North America from the white people, based on an ancient prophecy that two part-indigenous sisters - one a drug dealer, the other a medium who helps the police find dead bodies - spend their later years translating. Of course its bonkers, and there are some characters who can see it is bonkers, but nevertheless there is no shortage of people who are prepared to believe it once it has some charismatic proponents. There is a magical realist flavour to this enterprise, and at 750 pages it takes a bit of reading, and though I was left hanging by the end, I'm glad I read it. It is enjoyable, and it is about real people, as well as being bizarre - but that just adds to the entertainment.
This may be a little relevant, hopefully. I've recently posted in the FB group about my experiences visiting the graves of a couple of ancestors. These experiences lead me to understand that the unexpressed grief of ancestors (or close friends?) can find an oulet through a descendant. The latest involved a gg grandmother who lost one daughter and then her husband in the space of two months in 1895, and then her only son in 1908, who died abroad in Madeira. I've ordered a copy of the daughter's death certificate which I intend to take with me when I visit her grave as a closer connection to her. Any suggestions how to approach this, her mother (who's maiden name I have been given as a middle name) was buried with her in 1923?
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