Though each of the above readings offer tenable access to Silko's text, the reading that may be the most useful and the most provocative is a reading that acknowledges the ever-important motif of survival. Over the past 40 years, one of the most pervasive and most critical themes of American Indian expression is the ability of Native American peoples to survive. Despite government orders of removal, the Trail of Tears, the smallpox blankets that killed thousands, the massacres of women and children, and the government bounty on Native American heads, American Indians have managed not only to endure but to endure with dignity, authenticity and cultural relevancy. It might be suggested that in "Four Mountain Wolves" Silko aligns the wolves with the station of contemporary American Indians. Like the wolf, Native Americans often find themselves cut off from the "America," yet, through spiritual and natural renewal and through...