Eighteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

In Linda Hogan’s novels Power and Mean Spirit, the author explores the roles indigenous people play in natural and social ecosystems struggling to resist white colonial violence. In Power the coastal Florida landscape in which Omishto lives participates in the story she tells. Mean Spirit centers around a population of Osage Nation peoples and their preservation of indigenous tradition despite violent colonial forces. A devastating hurricane and the killing of an endangered Florida panther form the plot of Power; during the hurricane Omishto has taken up residence with her wayward aunt Ama. In Mean Spirit the murder of Grace Blanket sets the stage for a series of brutal systematic killings of land-owning Osage at the hands of white developers. The careful characterization of Omishto’s aunt Ama portrays her unique and revealing relationship to the ecosystem in which she lives. While Ama does not seem part of indigenous or white society, Michael Horse, a central character in Mean Spirit occupies a pivotal tribal role by tending a sacred fire handed down through generations of Osage. Omishto is both attracted and repulsed by Ama’s isolation and disinterest with ‘fitting in’ just as the sacred fire Michael Horse tends is juxtaposed against the fallen statue of Grace Blanket’s grave. One is a fallen monument of European, white, and Christian sensibility and the other burns on as a force, a form of life, and a relationship requiring constant tending and stewardship.