''Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles'' is a 1990 novel by

Gerald Vizenor Gerald is a male Germanic given name meaning "rule of the spear" from the prefix ''ger-'' ("spear") and suffix ''-wald'' ("rule"). Variants include the English given name Jerrold, the feminine nickname Jeri and the Welsh language Gerallt and ...

; it is a revised version of his 1978

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

''Darkness in Saint Louis Bearheart''. The novel is a part of the

Native American Renaissance The Native American Renaissance is a term originally coined by critic Kenneth Lincoln in the 1983 book ''Native American Renaissance'' to categorise the significant increase in production of literary works by Native Americans in the United States in ...

and is considered one of the first Native American novels to introduce a

trickster In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story ( god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwi ...

figure into a contemporary setting, even as he drew on trickster traditions from various Native American tribes, such as

Nanabozho In Anishinaabe ''aadizookaan'' (traditional storytelling), particularly among the Ojibwe, Nanabozho (in syllabics: , ), also known as Nanabush, is a spirit, and figures prominently in their storytelling, including the story of the world's creat ...

(Anishinaabe) and

Kachina A kachina (; also katchina, katcina, or katsina; Hopi: ''katsina'' , plural ''katsinim'' ) is a spirit being in the religious beliefs of the Pueblo peoples, Native American cultures located in the south-western part of the United States. In th ...

(Pueblo)."Gerald Vizenor", ''Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature'', by Jennifer McClinton-Temple and Alan R. Velie, Facts on File, 2007, pp.376-378"Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles", ''Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature'', by Jennifer McClinton-Temple and Alan R. Velie, Facts on File, 2007, pp.50-51. The novel follows the adventures of Proude Cedarfair as he leads a group of mixedbloods on a pilgrimage across a postapocalyptic, postindustrial United States that has run out of gas.''Mixedblood messages: literature, film, family, place'', by Louis Owens, University of Oklahoma Press, 2001, pp.83ff. This novel demonstrates several of Vizenor's key concepts: his use of trickster figures; his use of mixedblood (or "crossblood") Indian characters in a non-tragic way; his version of

magical realism Magical is the adjective for magic. It may also refer to: * Magical (horse) Magical (foaled 18 May 2015) is an Irish Thoroughbred racehorse who excelled over middle distances and was rated in the top twenty racehorses in the world in 2018 and ...

—what he calls "mythic verism"; and his conception of "postindian" identity; and his use of parody, as in the way the novel parodies both Chaucer's '' The Canterbury Tales'' and Frederick Jackson Turner's " Frontier Thesis".

References

1990 American novels 1978 American novels Novels by Gerald Vizenor Native American novels Novels set in Minnesota Novels set in New Mexico 1978 debut novels {{1990s-novel-stub