Recording the village elder's life stories should be routine.
Always on the outside of village life, looking in.
Terra's rocked babies, cooked meals, written memories.
Nothing more.
Until now.
Saving stories in a village of people lost between cultures interrupts her search for belonging. Their fragmented stream of life threatens all Terra knows of her own past, and future. She must tame the stream back into its banks to create a home she never dreamed existed.
When I wrote Kin Strife, I was struggling. It took about a year to write. I thought I had reached full novel length at about 40,000 words.
Most of this story had been with me for over two decades. At the time Kin Strife was written, I did not yet know of the controversy about people searching for their Native American ancestors. Not sure how I would write this novella now, only that this is the story it was meant to be, or very close to it. I did change the location and cultural mix from the two decades of dreams. I always wanted to know who my ancestors were. It was easy for me to write a story based on an adult looking for their past to find their future. I knew that as part of the "Family" I grew up around was the whispered belief, that should never be spoken aloud, that several of our ancestors were Native Americans. I was never allowed to know from which cultural background, or even their names. I honestly think they would have been more likely to name a bank robber as a family member.
First, I do not know if they were really my family. They were the people I grew up around. They seemed to think non-living ancestors should be forgotten and never spoken of.
Second, the fact they were so ashamed of their ancestors spoke volumes to me. The need to hide them, led to the loss of the very culture Terra strove to protect and bring back to life. She would eventually go looking for more lost women and children. Another story for another time.
Do I have Native American ancestors? There is no way to know. I would like to think that if I did, they would be proud that wrote this story about finding self and finding home.
Regardless of whether or not my ancestors are Native Americans, there are thousands, potentially tens of thousands, who do not know who their ancestors are. In part to Native American slaves, later boarding schools, and Native American children being adopted by European American families, often as infants, and never told they were even adopted, or which culture some of the ancestors belonged to. I hope this novella reaches, and helps bring lost people to some communities that will welcome them. Some forgotten, some whose parents, or grandparents, were removed from their culture unknowingly, and with no regard for their future.
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