Summary
The novel opens with a prologue featuring a creation scene. An unnamed narrator speaks with Coyote, who has been asleep and dreaming. One of Coyote's dreams takes on a personified shape and asserts its importance and intelligence, eventually reversing its name from Dog (the name Coyote had given it) to God. The presence of water surrounding the three figures leads the narrator to begin telling a story.
Each of the novel's volumes is titled with a color and direction, presented in the Cherokee syllabary (a set of written symbols developed in the early nineteenth century so that the Cherokee language could be written down). Volume 1 is titled "East/Red."
The narrative of the novel is presented in a non-linear way, with short scenes alternating between different intersecting storylines. In the first volume, several key storylines are established. First, readers are introduced to Lionel and his aunt Norma having a discussion about a new carpet she is planning to install, which Lionel is pessimistic about. Next, the focus shifts to a group of four individuals later identified as Indian elders: Hawkeye, Lone Ranger, Ishmael, and Robinson Crusoe. They debate different ways of beginning a story, finally settling on a traditional Cherokee introduction to a storytelling ceremony.
Readers are next introduced to Dr. Hovaugh, who works in a mental hospital. He is informed by his nurse, Mary, that "the Indians" (the four elders who have been previously introduced) have escaped again. The scene then shifts to a classroom where Alberta Frank, a professor, is presenting a lecture on the history of North American Indians to a group of disinterested college students.
The escaped Indian elders make their way to Canada. Meanwhile, a police detective named Seargent Cereno tries to interview a caretaker at the hospital, whose name is Babo Jones. He is not able to learn very much information, other than that Babo claims she arrived one morning for her shift to find the Indians gone.
Analysis
The structure of the novel serves to immediately push a reader out of his or her comfort zone. Western European narratives tend to follow a pattern of beginning, middle, and end in which events unfold in a linear, chronological way, with a clear focus on a protagonist or group of central characters. The opening of the novel is disorienting in that there is rapid movement between different stories that seem to have nothing to do with one another. There is also the gap between events that seem realistic, totally unrealistic, and somewhere in-between. The scenes focusing on Norma, Lionel, and Alberta are clearly set in a contemporary time and involve plausible events and actions. The interactions between Coyote and the narrator, on the other hand, seem magical and supernatural, and are presented in a way that it is clear that the rules of time and space are not operating normally.
This unsettling structure forces readers to confront their unconscious assumptions about how stories and information should be conveyed. By staging a debate about how best to begin a story, the elders suggest that there is no one right way to do so. This subtly begins to develop a core theme of the novel, which is that as one cultural tradition becomes dominant, others either get forgotten or begin to be perceived as wrong or "backwards." A non-linear or fragmented way of telling a story is just as valid, and within aboriginal cultures, it has a long lineage, but this tradition is often seen as flawed due to cultural expectations.
The idea of certain individuals being silenced or marginalized is raised from the very beginning of the story as well. Coyote's dream very quickly turns power hungry and begins to argue for its importance in a way that mirrors how one individual or culture might decide it is superior to others. By calling itself God, a link is created between Christianity as a system with the potential for social oppression, because believers believe they have access to a truth that is more "right" than other belief systems. At the same time, this scene deflates some of the power and authority of Christianity by making it clear that it is a tradition that is much younger than Native mythology and spiritual beliefs. The figure of Coyote is traditionally a powerful spiritual figure who can be both a trickster and a guide, and showing that Coyote existed before, and is wiser than the God/dog figure, reverses the traditional hierarchy of seeing Native spiritual traditions as somehow primitive and less sophisticated than Christianity.
This section also sets up the novel's interest in creation myths. Virtually all cultures create stories to explain the origin of the world, and these accounts are often revealing of different values and philosophies. By making it clear that these stories can be told differently, and that there is no single model of explanation, King introduces the idea of cultural pluralism. As Jenny Kerber explains, "Instead of merely substituting the biblical creation story with a Native one, he puts the two forms of creation story into dialogue with one another" (165). The focus on creation stories also highlights the importance of the past. Without knowing one's history, one cannot understand where one comes from. The discussion of creation also plays with the idea of a story's "beginning" by asking a reader to think about what a "beginning" means. One can always go further back, and attempts to start at the beginning are not as simple as they might seem.
Finally, this section weaves together allusions from different traditions, both European and Native. Coyote and God highlight how two different spiritual traditions are put into conversation with one another. The name Dr. Joseph Hovaugh sounds like Jehovah, an Old Testament name for the Judeo-Christian God. His interest in his garden further aligns him with the creation story of the Garden of Eden. The various students in Alberta's classroom have names borrowed from historical figures who played roles in the history of interactions between Indians and white settlers in North America. The names of Babo Jones and Sergeant Cereno also allude to Herman Melville's short story "Benito Cereno" in which a black slave leads a revolt on board a ship. This allusion suggests the way in which the history of North America is inextricably linked to violence and oppression towards non-white cultures, including but not limited to Aboriginal peoples. More generally, the heavy use of allusions throughout the novel suggests how stories are interlinked and connected to one another. By telling stories, people create culture, and that culture then creates assumptions which largely determine how individuals see the world.
