ng with self-destructive anger accomplishes nothing. For Silko, “white promises” are simply part of the web of man’s experience and of the witchcraft, the essential evil within all men. In short, people need to come to understand that it is not race that binds behavior, because all men are capable of, and frequently do, aiding in evil and their own undoing. It is the “trickery of witchcraft” that allows Native Americans to “believe all evil resides with white people.” Once this is known, Betonie states that:“...then we will look no further to see what is really happening. They want us to separate from the white people, to be ignorant and helpless as we watch our own destruction. But white people are only tools that the witchery manipulates; and I tell you, we can deal with white people, with their machines and their beliefs. We can because we invented white people; it was Indian witchery that made the white people in the first place.” (Silko 133)This passage from the novel is revealing on several highly metaphorical levels, and it’s ideas are repeated through the poetry of the long tale that follows Betonie’s explanation. Native American self-destruction and also white self-blame are rejected by Silko. She seeks to stimulate and confirm the Native Americans’ ability to “deal with the white people” through a consciousness of what is really happening. If the “Indian” is a being invented by white people, then “white people” are “invented” by Indians. All such labels are products of the need to define and separate; the results of such needs may well be destructive of individual growth and collective consciousness. At the center of experience are human beings in interaction with their surroundings. In reaching that center of imaginative consciousness, Tayo will cease, like all who achieve such consciousness, ...
