Do literature and writing teachers ever retire? I don't think so. I am a retired high school English teacher who has worked on my first novel for a long time. Prior to publishing The Sikuma (Dove), the Mave (Snake), and the Kah-pet (Tortoise) Clans, I chose to learn about native Americans who live in areas where I currently live. Many of my former students have shared stories of their lives on the reservations of Arizona, and a lifelong interest in art, literature, and customs of the first peoples to inhabit these lands has persisted. I supported native students enrolled in a Shield success program in Mesa Public Schools at Westwood High School as part of Warrior Pride, and I currently serve in the Guild volunteers of the Heard Museum of Phoenix. Coincidentally, as it happens my three oldest grown children happen to have ancestry in the Tohono O'Oodham and Piipaash areas. They have not applied for tribal membership as of yet because we just recently found out about their native ancestry. We had heard stories in bits and pieces, but we did not have any specific proof for many years.
I became captivated with Jedediah Smith, a white hunter and explorer of the 1820s, while reading historical records after a visit to Wyoming where my husband's people trapped during the early 1900s. Upon obtaining copies of Jedediah Smith's journal of the Southwest Expedition, I marveled at references to the Aha Macav and Chemehuevi generosity towards the first few whites such as the Smith party who crossed their homelands. I wondered why the relationship took a tragic and violent turn, however. I believe history gives us that answer, but my conclusion is explained in my first historical fictional novel, The Sikuma (Dove), the Mave (Snake), and the Kah-pet (Tortoise) Clans.
Previously I have published pen-and-ink drawings in an Arizona college student publication called Colorado Crossing. I have an Associate's degree in Drawing and Painting from Arizona Western College in Yuma, but after transferring to Arizona State University, I graduated in Art History and Education. However, I am still drawing, and I am currently working on a graphic novel/coloring book which I will link to this first book in the series. I am also done with the research--at least that's what I anticipate--and have started writing the second book in this series.
My goal is to promote appreciation and understanding of the natives' experiences with the whites during the invasion into their homelands. As I told my father when I was a kid, "Dad, it was an armed invasion!" His jaw dropped. It was the first and last time I ever challenged him. My studies have only reaffirmed that initial deduction.
How do I learn about people and events although I was not alive then? Primarily, I do this by reading published interviews with natives. Secondly, I use vetted sources with close ties to various native peoples. One example are the ethnographers listed in the Works Cited at the end of the novel. Thirdly, I will use government records, but these are my least-often quoted sources.
“As the human geography of the region is upended, Akasii, Ccearekae, and Jed do what they can to survive. Allred’s prose alternates between third-person narration and the perspectives of her various characters, evoking their vernaculars and worldviews...An epic but episodic novel of 1820s California." Kirkus Reviews”
– Kirkus Reviews
HISTORICAL FICTION
THE SIKUMA (DOVE), THE MAVE (SNAKE), AND THE KAH-PET (TORTOISE) CLANS
BY Rebecca Allred • POSTED ON July 20, 2023
A mountain man and an Indigenous woman lead parallel lives in Allred’s historical novel, the first in a planned series.
In the 1820s, along the banks of what will one day be known as the Colorado River, Akasii, daughter of the chief of the Chemehuevi people, finds herself on the cusp of adulthood. She and her friends enjoy the proximity of their new neighbors, the Aha Macav; Akasii’s particularly interested in their chief’s son, Ccearekae, who’s just completed his first successful hunt. Though her father worries about the white trappers from the east and the Spanish missionaries in the west, Akasii is more concerned with her growing feelings for Ccearekae. Meanwhile, in Ohio, a restless young man named Jedediah Smith responds to an advertisement in the newspaper for the Rocky Mountain Company. As a fur trapper, Jed has the opportunity to explore the untamed wilderness west of the Mississippi—and all the dangers that come along with it. Jed and his companions venture farther and farther southwest, eventually stumbling across the camp of the Aha Macav. Jed means no harm to Akasii and her people—he’s just hoping to make it out to the Mission San Gabriel in California—but the same cannot be said for every white man who comes over the mountains. As the human geography of the region is upended, Akasii, Ccearekae, and Jed do what they can to survive. Allred’s prose alternates between third-person narration and the perspectives of her various characters, evoking their vernaculars and worldviews. Here the plainspoken Jed describes arriving in California: “The mountains led down to a lush treeless valley which was made more picturesque by the creeks with thick cedar on [their] banks. These creeks fed into the valley. Our horses had plenty of grass here, and we saw evidence of horses and herds of cattle.” Jed’s and Akasii’s storylines cross but are largely discrete, which makes the book feel a bit like two novels jammed together. The book has been deeply researched, but Allred’s fidelity to history often gets in the way of her storytelling.
An epic but episodic novel of 1820s California.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2023
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