Ojibwe's Deep Ties to Their Ancestral Lands: Karen Louise Erdrich’s Four Souls

Abstract

Native American author Karen Louise Erdrich is interested in the Ojibwe people's hardships. Her books examine the Ojibwe people's history, the diversity of their language, and their ongoing fight for survival. The tragic evolution of the Ojibwe people and their tenacious spirit of survival on the North Dakota Reservation are depicted in her novels. Ojibwa and Western characteristics are both absorbed into America. The traditional beliefs of the Ojibwa do not align with those of the Westerners. The Ojibwe's existence was rooted out of their nativeness by the Whites' idea of a civilization. By imposing new rules, Christianity, and individualism, the white people exploited their dominance over the natives to eradicate the Ojibwe people's native identity. Presenting Native Americans' struggles to survive in a Western-encroaching world, it examines the fallout from the introduction of agriculture, the Ojibwe people's relocation, and the loss of their land. It also issues a warning to the Natives who have lost their ties to their land, families, culture, and language. Erdrich gives the Native Americans hope, continuity, and a sense of survival by recounting their hardships.