The Inner Struggle In Erdrich's Tracks

In her novel Tracks, Erdrich portrays the twentieth-century Native American life especially that of Ojibwa in and around Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. All the characters in the novel are in a midst of struggling. They are between life and death, home and exile, native and white identity and mixed breed. Native are struggle to survive in a changing situation and climate. The novel is “lauded as Erdrich’s most ‘Indian’ novels in respect to both historical and tribal issues” (Wilson 17). It clearly depicts the historical circumstances in which the main characters are survivors of the cultural crisis. Erdrich once shares in an interview:
I think each of (my) books is political in its own ways. I hope so. But Tracks, by virtue of its setting, was bound to be more political. There’s no way to speak about Indian history without it being a political statement. You can’t describe a people’s suffering without implying that somebody’s at fault. . . There’s no way around it. I just don’t want to be polemical. That’s the big difference. (Erdrich 23)

Ojibwa has a high cultural tradition. They are highly spiritual and traditional. Their main livelihood (/main source of income) is from hunting, fishing, growing crops etc. They depend on land for food and shelter. They are strongly believed in the bond of family, relationship with nature. They are in a continuous struggle to keep up their cultural identity in the cultural invasions periods. Several missionaries landed where Ojibwa lives and try to influence the natives’ mind. Many Ojibwas converts to Christianity and the missionaries corrupt the Ojibwa way of life. In short, the European Americans make the Ojibwas adopt their culture. For that, they create a reservation land for Ojibwa, a boarding school for children, western education. The Ojibwas unknowingly pull down in the deceptive ways of