THE SPIRITUAL DESTINY OF THE ANTELOPE PEOPLE IN THE NATIVE AMERICAN LITERARY UNIVERSE
THE SPIRITUAL DESTINY OF THE ANTELOPE PEOPLE IN THE NATIVE AMERICAN LITERARY UNIVERSE

Summary/Abstract: The present study analyzes the role of the antelope people in Louise Erdrich’s novel entitled ”The Antelope Wife”, which shifts the focus to the urban Minneapolis, where the Native American spiritual world haunts the present and the extended family members’ acts echo back to the past. In traditional life, religion had a constant presence. Stones, plants, animals and the land as well as the sky were all home to spirits. During the post-Civil War era, white settlers in the region slaughtered the buffalo and antelope, which overlapped with the US administration attempt to undermine Native American people’s subsistence base and send them to reservations. Throughout the novel this spiritual destiny that the land and its people had is presented in the actions of Sweetheart Calico, the antelope wife.

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