Okla Hannali
(R.A. Lafferty)
Write your abstract
here.
The Choctaw Mingo Okla Hannali is born at an
idyllic
time that is already passing. (Of course he is not
a
Mingo
yet, he will not be recognized as one until middle
age.
A
Mingo is not easily defined; most, but not all,
Choctaw
chiefs have been Mingos, but not all Mingos have
been
chiefs. If you're a Choctaw, you know one when you
see
one.)
With intermittent exceptions, the Choctaw have
lived
at peace as long as anyone can remember with the
other
Indian nations of the plains, and with the new pale
visitors from the East. A civilization of great
humour,
imagination and tolerance is starting to mingle
with
transplants from Europe's civilization, to the
enrichment
of both.
(The Choctaw by the way are for the most part
Catholic
as
well as Indian. Okla Hannali's father is named
Hannali
Innominee.)
The catastrophe that definitively overturns this
dream
is
Andrew Jackson's presidency. Not that there hadn't
been
men
in high office before him who hated all Indians
indiscriminately, and at least despised the
majority of
their white fellow citizens---those who lacked the
moral
fortitude to fatten on others' goods and plump out
rich-
--
but Andrew Jackson was unique in the concerted fury
and
openly genocidal intent of his actions. He would
not be
for
long, as his example wakened the pride and ambition
of
competitors.
A great civilization finely balanced on its roots
dies
by
stages, even under the repeated hammerblows of a
barbarian
horde. It takes the span of Okla Hannali's life (96
years)
for depopulation to abridge his people's
civilization
to a
ghost of itself, and sordid pride and gluttony to
eat
up
and vomit as unneeded excess the values with which
the
white civilization of America began. In the
meantime he
lives, loves, fights desperate battles (a warrior
you
can
unreservedly admire, since he never rides out to
conquer,
only to defend, usually against near-hopeless odds)
and
on
his deathbed wracks his brains for a witty way to
die.
Now
even if you're not a Choctaw, you should know what
a
Mingo
is.
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