IN HER FIRST BOOK, Blonde Indian, Ernestine Hayes powerfully recounted her return to Juneau and to her Tlingit home after years of wandering.
The Tao of Raven takes up the next, less explored question: once the exile
returns, then what?
Using the story of Raven and the Box of Daylight (and relating it to Sun Tzu's equally timeless The Art of War) to deepen her reflection, Hayes denounces the obstacles and prejudices still facing Alaska Natives in their own land, while also recounting her own story of completing college in her fifties and becoming a professor and writer. Interweaving strands of memoir, contemplation, and fiction, she articulates an Indigenous worldview in which all things are connected intergenerational trauma creates many hardships, and yet transformation is still possible. Now a grandmother, mindful of future generations, Hayes voices her own narrative alongside powerful thoughts about the resilience and complications of her Native community.