I Heard The Owl Call My Name

2 Pages 400 Words

The quote in question 1 reflects Mark’s status in the tribe well. As the quote states Mark eventually became part of the village and the villages became his family.

This however was not an easy accomplishment, for most of Mark’s early period among the villages the villagers were cautious of him and kept their distance from him. This was until one afternoon when returning to the village Mark and Jim stopped the boat to see a run of salmon swimming upriver to spawn in the clear water.

Mark then recited a few lines of prayer about the salmon which the Indians spoke about with great respect to Jim. The salmon in Indian myth is referred to as the swimmer. The salmon prayer is symbolic of the continuous cycle of life and death.

After being in the village for a period Mark begins to realise time has lost its defining contours. When Mark first arrived in the village the future loomed huge, then the present had consumed him, however toward the end Mark states “...like the raven or bald eagle flying high over the village, must see part of the river that had passed the village that had not yet reached the village one and the same.”(p 123).

Mark has learnt enough of the meaning of life to be ready to die, he has done this by living in the village where sadness, richness and the tragic poignancy of life’s inevitability were accepted and not hidden behind a smoke screen like the way typical westernised humans deal with lives tragedies.

In the novel the indians are not portrayed as emotional people. They do not let let their actions become blinded by emotion. The indians in this novel are logical and rational. This is aparent after the death of the weesa-bedó, the only people showing emotions were professional mourners who wailed in shifts for three days and three nights (p 15).

It is apparent after Marks Death that his impact on the village was as much physical as it was emotional. This is proven when Keetah walks in o...