Cedar In Future Home Of The Living God Summary

The second authorizing principle for the narrators of LeadFeather and Future Home of the Living God is their experience of History. When Vizenor says in Manifest Manners that the “historicism of tribal cultures and the indispensable linear representations of time are …simulations of manifest manners”, he points out the native perception of history is rather cyclical, interconnected and recurring (Vizenor 61). With this claim, Vizenor not only rejects the linearity but also condemns the progressive western view of history. Both Stephen Graham Jones and Louise Erdrich allow their narrators to experience this fluctuating, ever-changing, recurring character of history. In Future Home of the Living God, Louise Erdrich places Cedar into an uncertain,

In many ways, when he arrives at the reservation of the Blackfeet, Francis experiences reverse colonization. In an environment where he does not speak the language, is unfamiliar with the culture and the people, just as the natives, he faces an alternate reality. He not only faces the feeling of loneliness and isolation, but also experiences the same poverty, hunger, and helplessness as the Blackfeet on the reservation. After he holds back the portions of winter meat in hope of proving his agency to Collins and soldiers, his arising guilt condemns Francis to isolation and loss of his identity. In hope of redemption, he assumes he must become an Indian:

“Heaven and Hell were to be excluded in this Pagan landscape, as he suspected they would be, then perhaps the fitting equivalent to Hell for a white man would simply be to be forced to live life as one of his subjects” (

Although Francis and Cedar are far from the being a native, they earn the scepter of narration trough their connection through language, view of history and inner struggle. On the other hand, since the Gordian Knot of native identity is so complex that even the most skilled ethnographer would fail to define what does it mean to be a “true” native american. Therefore, claiming that there is only one reliable native perspective not only seems oversimplistic and exclusionary. As in the Case of and Francis, the interaction with a native culture not only provides sufficient authority to share the story but also provides the reader with a revolutionary perspective. A perspective that shines a new light on the jewels of the literary treasure box, and helps to value and appreciate the native culture from a different viewpoint. It helps the rather realizes, that “native perspective” not necessarily have to be nationalized or politicised. That true native works of literature, authentic treasure boxes, can be valuable in