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Essay On Waterlily

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When analyzing the book Waterlily, by Ella Cara Deloria, it is important to recognize the vital relationship she illustrates between the Dakota Sioux tribe and their values of kinship. The book both incorporates the complex nature of kinship, but also constructs a comprehensive timeline of the traditional lives of the Dakota Sioux and how the interact within their society. Deloria strives at epitomizing how important kinship is in everyday life for the Dakota Sioux; and how it keeps them organized into one exhaustive, organized society, thus allowing them to stand together in solidarity. The entire idea of how vital kinship is for the Dakota Sioux tribe is exemplified in the beginning of Waterlily, when Blue Bird and her grandmother leave the camp in order to gather food for the merciless winter which was ahead of them. After returning to their camp they were shocked to find that the camp had been ravaged, with the inhabitants of it either missing or slain. (Deloria, 10) After this event they were forced to relocate and join the Dakota tribe, which kindly took them in after their unfortunate circumstances. This was the beginning of Blue Bird’s experience with kinship and how it shaped and affected her and her grandmother’s lives. Had the Dakota tribe not been so welcoming the two could have been presented with a much greater problem, with the potential of them not even having a place to live or belong. …show more content…

For example, if an outsider of the tribe were to kill one of the tribe’s members, the person accused of committing the murder would be inducted into the Dakota Sioux tribe in order to replace the member which they had killed. The members of the tribe would even go as far as giving the new member who murdered their tribe members gifts and tokens as a gesture of candor and

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