Power: A Novel

Linda Hogan’s Power, published in 1998, is a coming-of-age literary fiction novel that explores racial and cultural identity of Indigenous Americans living in the modern-day Florida Gulf Coast wetlands. Poet and novelist Hogan is a member of the Chickasaw Nation who draws from the matrilineal and matrilocal oral history of the Chickasaw people in her writing. Power is Hogan’s second novel, and like her first novel, Mean Spirit (1990), it highlights Indigenous culture and practices.

This guide references the 1999 paperback edition by W.W. Norton & Company.

Content warning: This novel discusses domestic violence and references sexual assault.

Plot Summary

Deep in the Floridian Everglades, 16-year-old Omishto floats in her paddleboat, watching a large storm roll in across a red sky. She often sleeps on the boat in the swamp instead of at her mother’s house because she fears being attacked by her lecherous stepfather, Herman. Her real father left her family long ago for his secret second family, leaving Omishto with only his rowboat and her name, which means “One Who Watches” (4). From her boat, she feels something watch her from the trees, and she wonders if it might be a panther, the sacred symbol and ancestor of her dwindling tribe.

Omishto heads to the house of Aunt Ama, an older Taiga (the novel’s fictional tribe) woman who lives on the edge of tribal land. Omishto often spends time with Ama, learning the wilderness techniques and stories of her tribal heritage. She remembers that it is the anniversary of the death of Abraham Swallow, a violent man who was rumored to have been cursed to death by the old people of Kili Swamp, who live in the wilds behind Ama’s house. The people of the town fear and respect the old people’s power, just as they fear Ama, who is rumored to have lived with them and studied their ways before choosing to live closer to town between the traditional and modern way of life.

While Omishto is at Ama’s, the hurricane hits. Omishto is caught outside during the worst of the storm because she wanted to tie down her beloved boat. She is almost killed by the winds and her dress is torn off, and she sees an ancient tree, Methuselah, knocked over by the storm. She also sees Ama, who comes outside to look for Omishto, flung against the side of the house along with a snake, which has been hurled from the trees.

After the storm passes, Ama starts to act strangely, as if in a trance. She says that they must follow an injured deer deeper into the swamp. Omishto feels confused and wonders if she should check on her family in town, who would also have been hit by the storm. However, the roads are flooded and the phone lines are down, so she goes along, feeling that it is her destiny to go with Ama. They follow the deer until they finally come across a sickly endangered panther, which Omishto then realizes is the animal that Ama is really seeking.

It feels to Omishto as though Ama and the panther know each other. They follow the panther through the swamp and into the night, where Ama shoots it. It is dark, but Omishto thinks that she hears Ama strangling the last of its life from it. In shock and terrified of the consequences for Ama, whom she believes has doomed herself by shooting a sacred animal, Omishto falls asleep under a tree. The next day, she follows Ama, carrying the body of the panther in a bloody sack, back to her house. Ama makes her promise to tell the whole truth when people ask her about what happened, except for the fact the panther was weak and sickly, which Omishto does. Omishto sleeps again, only awakening when the police come and take Ama away. They ask Omishto what Ama did with the cat’s body, to which she answers truthfully that she doesn’t know because she was sleeping.

Omishto’s sister, Donna, picks Omishto up from Ama’s storm-ravished house, and they head back to Omishto’s mother’s modern house in town. Once there, Omishto’s mother tells her that the whole town knows what she and Ama did and that Omishto’s picture was in the newspaper. Her mother drags Omishto to church to be blessed and seek forgiveness for her sins. Omishto goes along with this despite not believing in her mother’s God. At school, the other kids write “killer” on her locker, and her best friend disowns her. Omishto decides not to return to school, instead returning to the refuge of Ama’s house.

At Ama’s trial, as the sole witness to the panther’s shooting, Omishto is called to the stand. She does not think that anyone will listen to her because her beliefs do not fit their view of what is factual and pertinent to the case. Ama is acquitted, which Omishto believes is because they don’t want to deal with the complexity of tribal law in the Western judicial system. She also believes that Ama wished to be found guilty. Then, Omishto is brought to the Kili Swamp to face the tribal court, whose judges are the Taiga elders. In the second trial, Omishto tells her full truth, except for the panther’s sickness. Nonetheless, Ama is banished, which is considered a death sentence in Taiga thinking. Alone and wishing for comfort, Omishto decides to live at Ama’s house instead of returning to her mother’s.

While Omishto stays at Ama’s, she is visited by her sister, her mother, her stepfather, and Annie Hide, one of the Taiga elders. They want her to return to her home and school in town, but Omishto refuses. When her sister and mother warn her that Herman is threatening to have her hospitalized against her will, Omishto starts to understand that it’s not safe for her to live halfway between the two worlds. She decides to move to her Taiga ancestral home in the swamp and lead a traditional life.