셔만 알렉시의 『인디언 보호구역 블루스』: 블루스 음악을 통한 인디언 문화의 부활

Abstract

This thesis investigates strategies of how Native Americans try to recover their lost traditions and get competitive in contemporary American society in Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues. Traditionally it has been believed that Native Americans have sought a series of Messiahs after the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, when the Ghost Dance was regarded as their Messiah. Sherman Alexie suggests a couple of alternatives that might replace the lost Messiah in his work: basketball and blues music. The younger Indian generations have strong confidence in the power of blues music composed of modern blues rhythm and traditional Indian lyrics, while the older Indian ones practice basketball because of several similarities between basketball and their ancient wars. The latter Indians take their sport game as nothing more than entertainment even though they can find divine cultural heritage from the sport. The former Indians, however, take an advantage of blues music as a means of showing their pride in the long history of Native Americans as well as overcoming exclusive Indian culture on reservation. Then what makes Alexie think that the blues music can become contemporary Messiah to Indians? As Houston A. Baker insists, "the first blues artists took as their musical inspiration the train, which promised movement - representing the freedoms of physical and social/economic movement." It is the spirits of blues music like adventure, change, liberty, crossing boundaries, and hybridity that Alexie expects to achieve through Coyote Springs, a young Indian blues group.