Painted Turtle by Clarence Major

First published: 1988

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Experimental

Time of work: 1930’s-1980’s

Locale: Arizona; Colorado; New Mexico

Principal Characters:

• Painted Turtle, a Zuni woman singer and guitar player
• Baldwin (Baldy) Saiyataca, the narrator, Painted Turtle’s lover and musical partner
• Old Gchachu, the father of Painted Turtle’s clan
• Grandma Wilhelmina, Painted Turtle’s grandmother
• Waldo Etawa, Painted Turtle’s father
• Marelda Etawa, Painted Turtle’s mother

The Novel

Painted Turtle: Woman with Guitar is an experimental novel in the fable tradition that traces the moral, personal, psychological, and spiritual development of Clarence Major’s principal character, Mary Etawa, called “Painted Turtle.” Born into a traditional Zuni family on December 17, 1938, Painted Turtle gets her nickname because she crawls on all fours and raises her head like a turtle. In some ways, this name comes to define her position to everyone and for everything outside her own life. She tries to shut out the traditions of her family and the realities of her ancestry, much like a turtle in its shell. She exists in a place between actual reality, dreams, mystical experiences, and the construction of her autobiography, as told through the “voice” of her lover, Baldy. In many ways, this story is a poetic statement on alienation and transformation, the misunderstanding inherent in the dynamics of multicultural interaction, pride and prejudice, sexism and racism, and the known and unknown spaces that exist between the traditional roles of men and women.

The novel begins with Baldy’s explanation of how he came to know Painted Turtle. It ends with their riding through the barren landscapes of the Southwest as a committed team in both music and love. In between is the story of many people who inhabit Painted Turtle’s world as children, ghosts, parents, relations, relatives, and spirits. All these relationships are complicated by the demands of tradition fighting against Painted Turtle’s desire for identity and independence. Painted Turtle’s life is difficult and confusing because she defies traditional mores and dares to disagree with authority. As if unconscious and in a trance, Painted Turtle wanders through her life as much an observer as an active participant. She does what she wants to do, needs to do, has to do, not quite knowing why or how. She knows that the “old ways” keep her in a state of agitation, and therefore she rebels against what appears to be a fixed position in life. She does not fit into the social and cultural systems of the reservation, nor does she accept the demands of motherhood. Her defiance, as well as her rape and bearing of twins, makes her an unacceptable bride; her lack of conventionality forces her to leave the Zuni reservation to escape its restrictions. Moreover, her desire to go beyond the ordinary means that her life cannot be like that of her mother, who by making pottery out of clay follows the traditional static path of females.

After attempting to drown the twins, Painted Turtle is placed in the Gallup Indian Medical Center. Released after a few months, she returns to the reservation but soon realizes that she can no longer live there. This begins her quest for identity. She takes a few odd jobs; after being arrested for prostitution, she finally picks up her guitar again and finds the space where her life has meaning. In a series of trips away from the reservation and on visits back to bury the dead and observe rituals, she discovers that she is more fulfilled, even as a very proud and conscious Zuni, away from the reservation. Thus, time on the cantina circuit takes on a life of its own; she meets Baldy and allows him to travel with her. Familiarity grows into love and mutual respect into a partnership. The story ends as they ride to their first job together.

The Characters

Painted Turtle’s alienation from her culture allows her to transcend reality through her music. Early in her life, she yearns to be a boy and experience the freedom of her father’s sphere; however, she must learn the confining ways of the worlds of her mother and grandmother. When she is raped at age thirteen and gives birth to twins, most of the Zuni interpret this as a curse, and their attitude gives meaning to the lifelong distance and discomfort she always feels for the demands and expectations placed upon her by gender and culture. To escape, she goes to a mental hospital and later becomes an unsuccessful barmaid and prostitute; eventually, she becomes a nightclub performer. She finally realizes that her childhood guitar can offer her not only an escape from reality but also an escape from a dreaded life on the reservation. Thus, she travels to third-rate clubs, bars, and hotels, singing for tips while sleeping in flophouses and hour-rated motels, until she meets Baldy.

Baldy, the narrator in the story, peers into Painted Turtle’s life across actual time and mythic distance; his own story becomes woven into hers. He initially meets Painted Turtle on “the grimy cantina circuit” when he is sent to hear her perform by their mutual agent, Peter Inkpen. Baldy’s task is to transform Painted Turtle into a more commercially appealing singer by suggesting that she switch to the electric guitar; instead, she unwittingly transforms him, and he joins her act when he trades in his prized electric guitar for an acoustic one. Being the son of a Hopi mother and a Navajo father makes him emblematic of the story; he, like Painted Turtle, must walk between two worlds. He represents the historic conflict that has always existed between different people. Throughout the novel, Baldy remains a distant figure and a stilted voice, telling little of Painted Turtle’s life and even less about his own. He is seen through her eyes as the narrative reveals her life to the world.

Old Gchachu, the father of the clan, is the human incarnation of the old ways. The collective memory—culture, custom, folklore, and history—is represented in his being; while she is in his presence, Painted Turtle is never sure if her experiences are dreams or reality. He prophesies when she is young that she will marry a wise priest, become famous for her traditional cooking skills, and become legendary for her love of children and family. When these beliefs do not come true, he reminds her that the soul of a Zuni dies if it strays too far from home.

Grandma Wilhelmina, Painted Turtle’s grandmother, represents both the sanctity of the past, as she embodies the traditional female role of healer and caretaker, and the options of the future, as she produces fine jewelry and sells it in stores all over the Southwest. Without saying much, she validates Painted Turtle’s independent spirit and sanctions her movement away from the traditional life.

Waldo Etawa, Painted Turtle’s father, symbolizes both the traditional father figure and the erosion of the Native American way of life. On one hand, he drinks; on the other, he teaches his daughter male tasks and helps her develop skills usually not taught to women. He fuels her independence by treating her like a son. Though successful, he lets the family’s material and social status slip as he fails to keep white society and modernization from altering the “old ways.”

Marelda Etawa, Painted Turtle’s mother, represents the stability of hearth and home and the probability of continuation. She remains at home, caretaker to both an older and younger generation as well as keeper of the family lore, its customs, and traditions; she rears the two grandsons in Painted Turtle’s absence.

Critical Context

Painted Turtle is a continuation of Major’s incursion into what is called experimental fable. This short book examines the birth, childhood, and adult life of a character, Painted Turtle, whom Major first introduced as an older woman in My Amputations (1986). It continues his interest in metafictional characters and issues that transcend both time and space. Indeed, reality and mysticism are as prominent in this work as they are in the interesting and engaging Such Was the Season (1987) and his long poem “Observations of a Stranger at Zuni in the Latter Part of the Twentieth Century” (1990). Some critics suggest that this is one of Major’s most accessible works, and it represents a significant model for the emerging genre of multicultural literature in the United States. In some ways, Painted Turtle allows Major to break completely away from the self-consciousness of his earlier work and to demonstrate that the spaces that exist between class, ethnicity, gender, and race do not prevent serious writers from transcending their own realities to delve in interesting and respectful ways into those of others. The frequent use of undefined or unexplained terms in the Zuni, Hopi, Navajo, and Spanish languages lends a certain distance and intrigue to this work. It is there on the printed page but slightly inaccessible; it is readable but somewhat incomprehensible. The barrier of language becomes a metaphor for the barriers of difference. In this short novel, Major presents an example of a new aesthetic devoid of the personal social reality that is common among black writers. To accomplish this, he uses random allusions, incomplete textual development, lyrical poetry, and disjointed rhythms in an attempt to step beyond himself to create a new direction in fiction.

Bibliography

Bell, Bernard W. “Modernism and Postmodernism.” In The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987. Places Major in the postmodern tradition of experimentation with language and form.

Cagidemetrio, Alide. “The Real Thing: Notes on an American Strategy.” In Critical Angles: European Views of Contemporary American Literature, edited by Marc Chénetier. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986. Discusses Major’s writing as a response to the need and desire to break away from the confines of race-specific literature. Notes that some of Major’s earlier themes that find ultimate expression in Painted Turtle reflect a style that is deliberately disjointed, random, and confused.

Johnson, Charles. The Dark and Feeling: Black American Writers and Their Work. New York: Third Press, 1974. Includes an important essay by Major on the “Black Aesthetic” and several interviews, including a self-interview.

Johnson, Charles. “Necessary Distance: Afterthoughts on Becoming a Writer.” Black American Literature Forum 23 (Summer, 1989): 197-212. Asks whether or not the writer can separate the literary from the personal and to what extent all writing is somewhat autobiographical. Major reflects on innovation and on time and space in the process of writing. He notes that writing Painted Turtle caused him to go beyond the narrow confines of experience and to delve into mysticism.

Martin, Reginald. Ishmael Reed and the New Black Aesthetic Critics. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. Identifies Major as one of the writers who has done much to translate the metaphysical nature of blackness into a major literary genre. Martin looks at Major, Reed, and others as having found and utilized the revolutionary potential of black literature.