SOURCE: "Weaving the Line of the Spirit," in The Bloomsbury Review, Vol. 12, No. 6, September, 1992, p. 7.

In the following excerpt, Bankston remarks on the storyline of Black Eagle Child, noting Young Bear's focus on the importance of "bearing tribal heritage and personal experience through a despoiled cultural and physical environment."

At the opening of The Aeneid, the hero makes his appearance fleeing from the burning city of Troy, carrying his lame father and household goods on his back and leading his small son by the hand. Contemporary American Indian writers find themselves in a situation similar to that of Aeneas: Around them lies an occupied homeland being destroyed by foreign invaders. As the voices of their people, they carry the salvaged traditions of the past into an uncertain future. As modern writers they move toward this future grasping the materials used by other contemporary artists—mainstream literary techniques, formal...