Hybrid mythologies: identity and heritage in the poetry of Louise Erdrich

Abstract

This article analyzes the presence of aboriginal and classical myths in the poetry of Louise Erdrich, tokens of her double cultural heritage –Native American and German-American– and examples of her perception of identity. The aim of this article is to research the symbolic connotations attached to Western and aboriginal myths, and to study Erdrich’s appropriation of such stories. By doing so, she creates a hybrid mythology that contrasts with a contemporary background. Her poetry is an exercise of self-ethnography that empowers her hybrid heritage instead of relying in an artificial reconstruction of an ideal or mythological past, while denouncing the environmental and psychological consequences of colonization.