http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/6071 Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:26:27 GMT 2026-04-29T11:26:27Z http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/6072 Reclaiming native culture and identity a study of select works of leslie marmon silko Devi, Babita Leslie Marmon Silko is an important Native American writer who writes to revive and preserve the Native American culture. Silko’s works highlight the distinguishing characteristics of the Native American culture and endorse it as a preferable alternative to the Western culture. Her fiction offers quasi-ethnographic accounts of the indigenous communities native to America. The present study undertakes an analysis of Silko’s narratives to demonstrate how these texts counter the Western discourse that undermines the indigenous way of life and denigrates the Indian traditions. Silko’s novels and stories partake of the oral traditions and even rely on beliefs, rituals and symbols patent to the indigenous communities. The study finds that Silko’s fiction is able to effectively contest the stereotypes and misconceptions touted through ‘historical’ accounts sanctioned by colonial discourse and upheld by colonial regimes. Employing a distinctive narrative inspired by Pueblo and other indigenous traditions, Silko offers counteracting pictures to the mainstream Western discourse. First, she points out that while the ‘White culture’ espouses the merits of individualism, for the Natives, the wealth and property belong to the whole community since the whole tribe acts like an extended family. Second, the Whites seek to dominate Nature and believe that human beings are the most superior creation, while the Natives seek to live with nature and believe that man is just a part of the ’sacred hoop,’ which involves all other creatures as well. Silko asserts through her narratives that man is not in any way privileged in this culture that values co-existence. Silko’s fiction suggests that the White philosophy has led to extinction of species while the Natives have tried to preserve them. Third, Silko’s works draw attention to the limitations of the Enlightenment ideals and the misuse of Darwinian theory of evolution in support of imperial quests and formulation of the modern racial myth as people of the West became self-declared champions and sole owners of ‘reason’ and the rational faculty. The notions, ideas and learning of the West were recognised as ’knowledge’ and premium was placed on what mattered to the West to the exclusion of others. Silko, in her works, projects an alternate reality. In her novels, she makes clear that ‘White epistemology’ or knowledge possessed and valued by the White man is not the only valid form of knowledge, rather, the knowledge created by her Native American Pueblo Indian ancestors remains equally valid. Silko clarifies that a recognition of the value of the indigenous knowledge is an essential part of the ’decolonisation’ of the native way of thinking and living that is ultimately more desirable since it is in harmony with nature. In the works of Silko, the limitations of ’androcentric’ and ’anthropocentric’ Western discourse become visible. Silko effectively conveys that the contemporary environmental crisis is the outcome of the relegation of wholesome native knowledge. Through her writings, Silko has made considerable contribution to narrative and discourse belonging to the niche space of indigeneity that has been carved out from and many ways even against the original domain of postcolonial literature. The indigenous fiction of Native America where Silko prominently features, emphasises the continuation of Settler colonialism and attendant issues that continue to operate as a consequence of that reality. Silko’s narrative is an important and significant intervention into the colonial discourse. Silko’s fiction is representative of indigenous concerns and offer an effective critique of the dominant Western discourse. Dr. DIVYAJYOTI SINGH and Dr. SATINDER K. VERMA Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/6072 2025-04-01T00:00:00Z