I was intrigued by Linda Hogan’s powerful method of intertwining the complicated dynamics of race, power, the environment, and culture in her novel Power. In one of my other classes, an Ethics class, we have spoken a lot about what it means for a population to be culturally devastated; we read a book Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation about the Crow and the loss of their influential tribal Chief and how the implications of the buffalo going away resulted in a paradox for the future of the Crow culture. This book was on my mind a lot when reading Power, as Ama makes a decision in the name of her culture, and to save it, and Omishto works throughout the novel to discover what the Taiga culture means to her personally.
In Radical Hope, Jonathan Lear explains that the Crow faced three choices with what to do with the Sun Dance when the Crow could no longer fight, when their culture began to be devastated. The first choice was to keep dancing, even with a lost meaning of why the Sun Dance is danced. The second was to invent a new meaning behind the dance. The third, was to give up the dance entirely. These three options are ones nobody would ideally pick; it is a loss in every situation. I considered these three choices when contemplating Ama’s decision to kill the panther. The panther has a similar cultural significance as the buffalo does to the Crow, although the animals are seen very differently in both cultures. Ama didn’t necessarily choose any of the three choices outlined by Lear when her culture was facing devastation, yet she made a bold choice to violate some of the deepest beliefs in Taiga culture. The closest option Ama’s actions reflect is the second one, as her effort was one to preemptively avoid cultural devastation and spark rejuvenation for the community and for Omishto. While she didn’t necessarily encourage a new meaning behind the panther, she re-inspired conversation about the Taiga culture. She lost her acceptance in the community as a result of this action, which I believe makes it somewhat more heroic and even more of an act of activism for the environment and for her culture.
Hogan, Linda. Power, W.W. Norton and Company, 1999.
Lear, Jonathan. Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. Harvard University Press, 2008.
