Beth Piatote

The Beadworkers is a collection of short stories, poetry, and drama by Beth Piatote (Nez Perce) which explores ideas of Native identity, belonging, and heritage language loss and reclamation. Summarising the book like that no doubt makes it sound very dry and worthy, but Piatote's writing is shot-through with lyricism and a bone-dry humour that I appreciated. I found the first few stories the weakest, though I'm not sure if it's that I just lacked the cultural context to grasp the point that Piatote might have been making. The collection grew in strength as I read, though, and I thought the closing reworking of the Classical Greek tragedy Antigone as "Antíkoni" was pointed and powerful.… (mehr)

This collection of writing includes a poem, a play, and 9 short stories dealing with life as a native person in current times. While some of them mention Nez Perce peoples (the tribe of the author's enrollment), other tribal affiliations are involved. I didn't notice any "fantastical" elements another reader mentioned, but there were some stories which showed the attention paid to the animals and world around them.
"Falling Crows" is an intense story, told in brief snatches, showing the return of a maimed soldier from war, the caring feelings of his family, the strength gained from recordings of grandparents speaking their own language.
The play is a spinoff of Antigone, and I imagine it is addressing her feelings about the new National Museum of the American Indian which still (?) holds items in a manner that could be considered disrespectful of the spirits of the people from whom they were taken, and creates a conflict within the native community. In "wIndin!", a board game is described as a woman creates it for an installation artwork. I'd like to play it!
I wish the book had included at least a pronunciation guide to the Nez Perce words scattered throughout as not all the letters are in the english alphabet, so it is impossible to guess their sound.… (mehr)