Yellow Woman

people’s interactions with the antelope, or as she calls them, The Antelope People, and the way her people hunted them. A reader takes away not only a feeling of deep respect, which the Laguna Pueblo people had for their fellow Earth inhabitants, but also a feeling of unity like there really was or is no difference between the hunter and the hunted, just their roles, given to them by chance and instinct. This reverence for animal life reflects a much deeper world view held by Leslie Marmon Silko, an outlook of respect for the Earth itself. In her book, Silko goes on to tell her people’s tale of the Earth’s origin. The Laguna Pueblo people have a more personal relationship with their planet than most. Perhaps it is the fantastic nature of their origin, or the way the myth was kept through word of mouth, from trusted elder to younger generations, whatever the reason, it is clear that Silko has inherited this unity with the earth and is hurt by the way it and it’s inhabitants are treated both man and animal.
In the section of Silko’s book titled: Interior and Exterior Landscapes: The Pueblo Migration Stories, the author describes the Laguna Pueblo people’s relationship with the hunted but more than that, without obviously doing so, she compares the hunting of the animals to the plight of her own people in the modern world. The native people of the Laguna Pueblo used resources sustainably and did so by maintaing a respect for all things, living and dead. Early in the section Leslie Marmon Silko speaks of her people’s burial traditions; she writes “Archaeologists have remarked over formal burials complete with elaborate funerary objects excavated in trash middens of abandoned rooms." (Silko 26) The Laguna Pueblo people buried their dead with possessions and often laid them to rest under rooms in their own houses. The Laguna Pueblo had a respect for the dead like many other cultures, but unlike many cultures the passing of a tribe member did not mean a total absence