Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

STUDIES - Bruce J. Degi: Braiding the New Native American Narrative: Michael Dorrié Yellow Raft in Blue Water.

the most part, have generally understood what Dorris is about with the novel. European reviews, interestingly, have not. And the difference is significant. Publisher's Weekly, for example, sees the fusion of two critical problems in the central character of Rayona, who like Dorris ... is part Native American

—in her case "not black, not Indian"

—an outsider who offers a unique perspective on a fringe society. ... Rayona, Christine, and Aunt Ida are mothers and daughters bonded by blood, secrets, a destiny to chart their lives to please or spite their parents, and the strength to transcend grief and despair. ... Dorris vivifies ... the mercurialness and immortality of maternal love. (70) The review correctly draws a focus in the novel on the complexity of the relationships between the three generations of women, compounded by the fact that they also represent three physically different definitions of the native American community. The mixed-race Rayona (her father is a Black American), unlike Father Hurlburt who can not help being an outsider, initially chooses to be an outsider, but is forced back into the community through the inescapable bonds of maternal braiding

—through the inescapable strength of both pain and pleasure found in maternal love through time. The same holds true for her own mother, Christine. The mothers thus create both content and form of the story. "I tell my story the way I remember, the way I want," (297) says Aunt Ida at the beginning of the final section of the novel. "I use the words that shaped my construction of events as they happened, the words that followed my thought, the words that gave me power. My recollections are not tied to white paper. They have the depth of time" (297). Relationships and identity, both personal and communal, arise from this "depth of time" in the novel. By working the women's' history backward, Dorris takes advantage of the inexhaustible "depth" in retelling the history from multiple perspectives. Aunt Ida's recollections are not tied to "white paper." Nor are they tied to "white history." It is 27