Comment

This is the first book I've read twice this year. It was an enjoyable and very relevant memoir, especially for someone not too much younger and as an indigenous person living in Southern Arizona. The book opens (and ends) with Leslie Marmon Silko, one of my favorite authors, especially in dealing with her ceremonial writings in the aptly named Ceremony. The author Deborah Jackson Taffa, is part of the same tribe that Silko is from, which makes that connection even more interesting. I love the discussion on how ceremony evolves, it has to evolve, as people and times change. I have a deep family history in Yuma, AZ, putting my family in what we call "Baja Arizona" before it was the United States. I read this after reading Wandering Stars which was a perfect companion book as both of these books by indigenous authors talk about their family history, historical trauma from slavery and boarding schools and racism in the US, and of course, sadly, alcohol. But we need to have these conversations! I love how this book goes off on historical tangents which coincided with my partner who is working on her AIS degree and reading similar books recently, including Sarah Winnemuca, and all Taffa's stories were also a great companion to what one learns en route to getting studying American Indian Studies. The next book I'm re-reading is Wandering Stars and the reason I'm re-reading these two books is because there is so much knowledge contained within and the first time through you just want to go with the flow of the story. I'm grateful to be living in an age when such indigenous stories are being written by great masters of American Literature.