Creating Native female characters is a joy for me. The protagonists of Blood Relay were a breeze to write because I know them. A central persona of Blood Relay, Perry Antelope, is a composite of resilient, intelligent, and accomplished Indigenous women whom I know and admire. Perry also embodies the courage and fortitude of my Choctaw ancestors, including a police chief of McAlester, a Choctaw Lighthorseman, a Moshulatubbee District and Sugarloaf County Sheriff and Judge, and a Native U.S. Deputy Marshall out of Fort Smith. Perry, her family, and her partner, the former Olympian Sophia Burns, and the Chahta Riders horse relay team also embody the power of resilience, love, and friendship.
Heroic female Native characters are hard to find but it’s no mystery as to why. Readers have expectations about American Indians/Native Americans because of what they have read in literature and seen on television and in movies. (Sidenote: It is an understatement to say that Percival Everett’s novel Erasure and the corresponding movie American Fiction resonates with some Native writers.) In the denouement of the HBO show True Detective: Night Country the Native women dispensed justice. This behavior shocked many viewers, but not us. Instead of being dazzled we were more along the lines of, “Of course they did.” We also appreciate the alien-killing Naru in Prey and the clever women in general in Reservation Dogs.
Historically, Native women held their societies together. Tribes such as the well-known Cherokees, Choctaws, and Iroquois were matrilineal and matrilocal societies, that is, the husband-father role was to sire children who belonged to their mother’s clan. The family lived in their mother’s family’s home and inherited her property. Chiefs were from the women’s side of the family. Among the Iroquois tribes, elder females known as Matrons chose tribal leaders, declared war, dictated the fate of prisoners, and controlled the economy. Even male-centered tribes (patrilocal, patrilinear) held women in high esteem. Among the Apache, Comanches, and Plains tribes, women quietly exerted a powerful influence by advising their husbands in private; the men then took “their” opinions to council. The power of colonialism, however, subsumed these important roles and delegated women to the background of history. I recall Wilma Mankiller telling me about the irony of facing down misogynistic men in her own traditionally matrilineal tribe when she ran for chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma because they did not believe that a woman could govern.
Readers have seen us portrayed as one-dimensional sidekicks, ex-wives, alcoholics, and as victims of dysfunctional families living on bleak reservations who depend upon handouts and white male saviors (like we see in the movie Wind River). To the contrary, we are community and tribal leaders, physicians, nurses, professors, scientists, business owners, artists, soldiers, athletes, pilots, mechanics, chefs, and lighthorsemen. Women are often the instigators of grassroots initiatives and are on the front lines of protests. Regardless of our socio-economic backgrounds, we can solve our own problems.
Twenty years ago while I was editor of the American Indian Quarterly I penned an op-ed about the importance of Native authors as educators. There are so few writers that are citizens of federally recognized tribes that I feel we have a responsibility to tell truthful stories. Sure, trauma is part of Native reality. I’ve written plenty of non-fiction books about the devastating impacts of colonization, but humor, success, and positivity are also our realities. We have plenty of real-life role models. What I do is create characters who are reflections of genuine Native women and men who exist all around us.
