Power: A Novel

“This is the place where clouds are born and I am floating. Last night, before I fell asleep in my boat, the earth was bleeding. The red light that began at the edge of the earth moved upward until all the sky was red. Mama calls it stormlight.”

The personification of the earth as bleeding reflects the Indigenous view of nature as a living entity. The violent imagery of blood heightens the urgency of the imminent threat of the storm and foreshadows the rising conflict of cultures. The clouds “floating” metaphorically portray Omishto’s isolation.

“I know some of the things that live in there. I’ve seen their eyes shining through the dark nights. But there are things in shadows I don’t know, things that might leap at me or reach out and take a hold of me. I don’t want to look, but I’m half-minded about this because I don’t want to turn my back on it either.”

The contrast between “shining eyes” and “dark nights” highlights Omishto’s connection to living things and their role as spiritual guides through difficult times. The ominous mood is increased by the shadows, which signify the unknown. Omishto is “half-minded,” wanting knowledge of the world but afraid of the dangers of experience.

“Just barely, though, we just barely survived the tide of history, and even at that, sometimes I look at myself or the other Taiga people and I think maybe the only things that remain of us, just like with the mastodon and sabertooth cats, are bones and teeth. We barely have a thing, a bit of land, a few stories, and the old people who live up above Kili Swamp.”

The metaphor of history as an ocean that wipes away civilizations conveys colonialism as a powerful destructive force. The comparison of the Taiga people to extinct species increases the urgency of their dwindling numbers, also emphasized through the repetition of “barely.”