Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Reader's Edition 9780520964068

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Island of the Blue Dolphins The Complete Reader’s Edition

scott o’dell

Island of the Blue Dolphins The Complete Reader’s Edition

edited by

Sara L. Schwebel

university of california press

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2016 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: O’Dell, Scott, 1898–1989, author. | Schwebel, Sara L., editor. Title: Island of the blue dolphins : the complete reader’s edition / Scott O’Dell ; edited by Sara L. Schwebel. Description: [Complete reader’s edition]. | Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016022328 | isbn 9780520289376 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: lcsh: O’Dell, Scott, 1898–1989. Island of the blue dolphins. | O’Dell, Scott, 1898–1989— Criticism and interpretation. | Indians of North America—Juvenile fiction. | Indians of North America—Fiction. | Survival—Fiction. | Islands— Fiction. Classification: lcc ps3529.d434 I83 2016 | ddc 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022328

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Contents

Preface Introduction Composition of Island of the Blue Dolphins

vii 1 83

Text of the First Edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins

95

Chapters Excised from Island of the Blue Dolphins Drafts

195

Commentary and Contextualization

201

Archaeology, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island René L. Vellanoweth

203

A Counterstory of Native American Persistence Carole Goldberg

Index

219

229

Preface

The pages that follow offer the first scholarly edition of Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins, one of the most significant children’s books of the twentieth century. The introductory essay presents O’Dell, a handsome California newspaperman who stumbled into a new career at age sixty, that of world-renowned children’s author. It looks closely at the research O’Dell conducted for Island of the Blue Dolphins, asking: How did this white Californian learn so much about California islanders’ material culture, diet, and contact with Russian hunters and Spanish priests? And what effect did O’Dell’s nineteenth-century sources, including their contention that Indians were destined to disappear, have on the story he told about the Lone Woman, his historical model for Karana? Finally, the essay examines the factors that secured Island of the Blue Dolphins’ status as a classic: everything from listening to a friend’s helpful explanation (“You have written a children’s book!”) to ignoring the wildly misguided advice of an agent (“If you’re serious about this book, change Karana to a boy”) to producing a volume that children adore (“I had something like love at first sight”) and that teachers find ideally suited to their curriculum (“I have read Island of the Blue Dolphins to my class every year for thirteen years”).1 The introduction is followed by the complete first edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins, annotated with footnotes that address the novel’s composition history and the natural, cultural, and historical environment that formed Karana’s world. Included with this printing are two vii

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never-before published chapters, which were excised before the novel originally went to press. This volume also includes three short essays written from the perspectives of three different disciplines: literature, archaeology, and law. The first, written by the editor, Sara L. Schwebel, describes the composition history of Island of the Blue Dolphins, detailing broad trends in O’Dell’s revision process and providing technical information about the extant drafts. The second, written by archaeologist René L. Vellanoweth, traces the history of archaeology on San Nicolas Island and provides insight into the personal and professional excitement generated by the discovery of artifacts and a cave that will likely be associated with the Lone Woman. The third essay, written by legal scholar Carole Goldberg, explains why excavation on San Nicolas Island came to a halt shortly after Vellanoweth and his colleagues made their discoveries. Her piece explores the intersection of land rights, tribal sovereignty, and repatriation as related to the Nicoleños, their descendants, and culturally affiliated groups. This edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins is designed to enable new generations of readers—both children and adults—to encounter a beloved novel with fresh insights generated by twenty-first-century research.

acknowledgments Among the many reasons that Island of the Blue Dolphins continues to be widely taught in K–12 classrooms is its value for interdisciplinary instruction. The novel combines beautiful imagery with an environmental message and an actual historical figure, a Nicoleña who crossed paths with people from multiple Native American and European cultures during the mid-nineteenth century. That same combination of literature, science, and history makes producing a scholarly treatment of Island of the Blue Dolphins challenging; I am grateful to the many people who helped with the task. Four years ago, I was surprised to receive a phone call in response to a webform I had submitted to Channel Islands National Park (CINP). I had written—without much hope of hearing back—to ask if I might be connected to park staff who field classroom teachers’ questions about Island of the Blue Dolphins. That first phone call with Carol Peterson, the park’s education coordinator, changed everything. During one of my early visits to CINP’s headquarters in Ventura, California, Carol introduced me to a host of California scholars and museum

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educators, and Yvonne Menard, chief of interpretation and public information officer, welcomed me onto a team engaged in building an educational website centered on Island of the Blue Dolphins and the Lone Woman. That website (aimed especially at school-aged children, their teachers, and their families) and this volume are companion projects. I thank Carol, Yvonne, and Russell Galipeau, CINP’s superintendent, for the opportunity to engage in such meaningful, collaborative work. One of the most important connections Carol facilitated for me was with Susan Morris, researcher extraordinaire. Together with Steve Schwartz, she contributed to this volume a joint map of San Nicolas Island and the Island of the Blue Dolphins. But Susan’s acumen and Steve’s tremendous knowledge of the island and its archaeological record are evidenced on many other pages of this book. I am indebted to them for their assistance. Compiling the notes accompanying this reprinting of Island of the Blue Dolphins would not have been possible without the expertise of many scholars. I am deeply appreciative for the assistance of archaeologists Steve Schwartz (U.S. Navy, retired) and René Vellanoweth (California State University); ethnobotanist Jan Timbrook (Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History); and linguists Pamela Munro (UCLA) and Richard Applegate (Central Chumash languages revitalization). Of course, any errors and ambiguities remain my responsibility. For her invaluable assistance with the collation of Island of the Blue Dolphins typescripts, I thank my peerless research assistant Rachel Manuszak; she has been central to this project. Thanks also to Laura Marion, who, together with Rachel, cataloged the book collection at Stoneapple Farm, where O’Dell wrote Karana’s story. For research assistance in Boston and Los Angeles, I thank George Mills and Caleb Shelburne (Houghton Library) and Isaac Rooks (Cinematic Arts Library, University of Southern California). Both the vitality of a biography’s details and the pleasure of writing a life history are enriched by contact with the subject’s family. In creating this volume, I had the great pleasure of meeting Dorsa O’Dell’s niece, Gillian Gilhool, and her husband, Tom, and of being hosted at Stoneapple Farm, the cozy writers’ cottage the Gilhools have lovingly preserved. I am deeply indebted to their generosity in sharing several boxes of archival material previously unexamined by scholars as well as many touching, and at times hilarious, family stories about Aunt Jane and Uncle Scott. I am delighted to restore Dorsa to her rightful place in the history of Island of the Blue Dolphins’ creation.

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Preface

I am profoundly grateful to Elizabeth Hall, Scott O’Dell’s wife during the decades in which he was most prolific. As I completed this volume, Elizabeth relocated to North Carolina, which facilitated multiple visits between us. I thank her for sharing wonderful stories, for opening up her personal archive, and for making a wealth of Scott O’Dell materials available to scholars at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Most of all, I thank Elizabeth for permission to quote from O’Dell’s outlines, drafts, and correspondence, which has helped bring a beloved author and his work to life for readers in a new way. Thanks, too, to Lauren Gerber, Elizabeth’s granddaughter, for preparing photographs of O’Dell for this volume. Many librarians and curators helped to make this book possible. Thanks to Kris Kiesling, Caitlin Marineau, and Lisa Von Drasek at the Kerlan Collection (University of Minnesota Libraries); Leslie Morris at Houghton Library (Harvard); Susan Steinway at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s corporate archives; Christopher Brown at the Free Library of Philadelphia; Bruce Tabb at the University of Oregon Libraries; Sandra Garcia-Myers, Edward Comstock, and Bree Russell at the University of Southern California Libraries; Liza Posas of the Braun Research Library (Autry Museum of the American West); and Elizabeth Sudduth, Kate Boyd, Amber Cook, and Amie Freeman at the University of South Carolina Libraries. Copyright fees, combined with the far-flung distribution of papers on O’Dell and the Lone Woman, made creating this edition costly. Financial assistance came from many sources, including a University of South Carolina ASPIRE-I Innovation Grant; the office of the University of South Carolina College of Arts and Sciences’ dean, Mary Anne Fitzpatrick; the Daughters of the American Revolution Special Projects Grant; a University of South Carolina Walker Institute Faculty Research Grant; the University of Minnesota Libraries Elmer L. Andersen Research Scholars Program Grant; and the Children’s Literature Association Faculty Research Grant. I am extremely grateful for this support. Numerous colleagues strengthened this volume. I thank Peter Nelson for answering questions about the archaeology of persistence and for pointing me to a wealth of California scholarship, and Nick Tipon for sharing his work on the Sacred Sites Committee of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, and for mediating my visit to the Kunstkamera museum in Saint Petersburg. I’m grateful to Robin Joy (Fort Ross State Historic Park) for organizing a research and lecture trip to Russia and to all my traveling companions, from whom I learned much about

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the interactions of the Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo with Russians during the nineteenth century. Stateside, I thank Jerry Lassos for speaking with me openly and passionately about what archaeological work on San Nicolas Island means for him as a Tongva educator. I’m grateful to the Children’s Literature Association and its community of scholars; special thanks to the University of Florida contingent for helpful feedback during my 2015 visit to the university’s campus, and to the Children’s Literature Association’s International Committee for their tremendous assistance in connecting me to colleagues in Russia. The University of South Carolina Department of English offers a wonderfully nurturing environment for scholarship; thanks to all of my USC colleagues for ongoing support and especially to those who helped bring this project to fruition: Paula Feldman, Brian Glavey, David Greven, Dianne Johnson, Catherine Keyser, Nina Levine, Greta Little, Joel Myerson, and Bill Rivers. My thanks, too, to the staff of the University of South Carolina Center for Digital Humanities, especially to Colin Wilder and David Miller, and to the phenomenal group of University of South Carolina undergraduates who have assisted with the Lone Woman and Last Indians project for several years: Sydney Cowart, Tyler Encke, Eric Gonzalez, Paige Kuester, Elizabeth A. Matthews, Alexis Michalos, and Tyler Muehl. I thank Judy Kertész and Margot Minardi, friends from graduate school, who remain among the very best readers of my work. A heartfelt thank you to Carole Goldberg and René Vellanoweth for contributing essays that greatly enrich this volume, to Genevieve Thurston for expert copyediting, and to Niels Hooper, Bradley Depew, and Dore Brown at the University of California Press for bringing this book to publication.

notes 1. Quotations are from Betsy-Tacy author Maud Lovelace; Caroline Sauer at McIntosh and Otis; David Hubbard, a child in Utah; and Suzanne Turner, a teacher in Virginia. The first two quotations derive from oral accounts and are paraphrased. For the last two quotations, see Scott O’Dell Papers, 1957–2008 (hereafter referred to as “Kerlan”), Kerlan Collection of Children’s Literature, Children’s Literature Research Collection, University of Minnesota Libraries, box 3, folder 25.

Introduction

One month before Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins went on sale for the first time, on February 18, 1960, Houghton Mifflin’s Hardwick Moseley wrote to the author to wish him and his wife, Dorsa, a happy New Year: “I hope that you both enjoyed happy holidays, and that the sixties will be delightful, happy and prosperous. Maybe Houghton Mifflin Company will take care of the prosperity part. We shall try very hard.”1 As the tone of the letter suggests, O’Dell and Moseley were old friends. They had met because O’Dell was book columnist for the Los Angeles Mirror and book editor for the Los Angeles Daily News, and Moseley, Houghton Mifflin’s West Coast sales representative, had wanted his books to receive good press. A mutual delight in literature and frequent opportunities to socialize in Los Angeles solidified the men’s friendship. At the time, O’Dell had a number of publications to his name, including three novels, Woman of Spain: A Story of Old California (1934), Hill of the Hawk (1947), and The Sea Is Red (1958), as well as the nonfiction Man Alone (1953), written with William Doyle, and Country of the Sun: Southern California, an Informal History and Guide (1957). He had led an eclectic life as a former Hollywood man, veteran, journalist, novelist, and amateur historian— O’Dell was all these things during the 1940s and ’50s. But he was not a children’s author. Yet Moseley’s New Year’s greetings promised O’Dell that, “if the B.D.’s [Island of the Blue Dolphins] does as well as we expect you will 1

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be one of the best known writers in the children’s book world.”2 The words proved prophetic. O’Dell’s novel was a commercial success from the start, selling more copies than equivalent titles for child readers in the United States during its opening spring sales season. That fall, it captured the Newbery Medal, a coveted prize awarded by the American Library Association to “the most distinguished work of U.S. literature written for children.” A British edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins appeared in 1961, and the first translations of the book followed. Just a few years later, in 1964, children and their families in the United States and abroad watched O’Dell’s protagonist, Karana, come alive on the silver screen. By 1972, the novel’s international reputation was solidified when O’Dell won the Hans Christian Andersen Award, a prestigious prize presented to one living author “whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to children’s literature.” This biennial prize, granted by the International Board on Books for Young People, has been conferred on a U.S. author only five times since its inception in 1956. By any measure, then, Island of the Blue Dolphins ranks among the most important children’s books of the twentieth century. In 2015, there were more than 8.5 million copies of it in print in the United States.3 The novel has surpassed in sales all other Newbery Medal–winning books and all other children’s historical novels in the United States. But perhaps more importantly, Island of the Blue Dolphins has long been a staple of the K-12 classroom. Statistics are difficult to obtain, given the absence of a national curriculum in the United States, but one way to measure the novel’s reach is by examining the number of Island of the Blue Dolphins quizzes taken by students using Accelerated Reader, a popular commercial literacy program used in more than one-third of American schools and in sixty countries worldwide. In 2015, fifty-five years after its original publication, Island of the Blue Dolphins was selected as pleasure reading by students in every grade between first and twelfth who took Accelerated Reader quizzes, and it ranked as the seventeenth most frequently read work among fourth grade students using the program (fourth graders who took the quizzes collectively read more than 140,000 distinct titles). Accelerated Reader includes quizzes for a range of children’s books, including current bestselling series. According to the program’s staff, Island of the Blue Dolphins is one of a very small number of classics that students elect to read year after year.4 What explains the novel’s longevity and global reach? Island of the Blue Dolphins capitalizes on a true story that has long fascinated the public, a story that became the special province of chil-

Introduction | 3

dren only after the 1960 appearance of O’Dell’s novel. Island of the Blue Dolphins, readers will recall, narrates the life of Karana, the twelve-year-old daughter of Chowig, chief of Ghalas-at, the sole village on the Island of the Blue Dolphins (San Nicolas Island). The novel opens with the arrival of a ship with red sails, captained by a Russian and carrying Aleut sea otter hunters. Karana and her peers have never seen a large sailing vessel, but the adults have. Years previous, readers are told, they were tricked into hunting sea otter day and night for a demanding Russian captain. This time, the community knows to negotiate its terms. Nonetheless, disaster strikes. When the hunters attempt to leave without paying for their catch, Karana’s father moves to prevent their treachery. Twenty-seven men, Chief Chowig included, are killed, leaving only eight able-bodied males standing. The newly appointed chief ensures the community’s survival by instructing women to perform tasks traditionally reserved for men. Hunger is averted, but social tensions multiply to the extent that the chief realizes that another solution must be found. He sets off on a long journey to the mainland. Nearly a year later, a European ship arrives, captained by a man who informs the Ghalas-at people that their chief has sent for them. All climb aboard, hurrying to set sail before a storm materializes. Once on deck, however, Karana realizes that her younger brother is missing. When her pleas to return go unheeded, she flings herself into the sea. Karana expects the ship to return within weeks, but it never does. Long before she registers this fact, however, her brother is killed by wild dogs, and she is left alone. Mastering her fear and drawing on her strength as a Ghalas-at woman, she learns to construct and wield weapons to protect herself from danger. Animals provide her with companionship and purpose that enable her to survive eighteen years of solitude emotionally intact. When otter hunters and a Spanish priest appear nearly two decades later, Karana allows herself to be discovered. She misses the sound of human voices and longs to be reunited with her sister, even if it means leaving the home of her people and her ancestors. She climbs aboard the ship with the captain and crew and sails for Santa Barbara, bringing with her an otter cape, a cormorant skirt, a necklace of beads, three baskets, a cage holding her two young pet birds, and her dog, Rontu-Aru. The story of Karana is in essence the story of a nineteenth-century Nicoleña who posthumously became known as the Lone (or Lost) Woman of San Nicolas Island.5 In 1853, after spending eighteen solitary years on the most remote of California’s Channel Islands, the Lone

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Woman was brought to Santa Barbara, California, where she was conditionally baptized Juana María. But because the Lone Woman died after only seven weeks on the mainland, she was never able to tell her story, as no one who spoke her island tongue could be found during that short period. Nevertheless, accounts of her ordeal abound. The people of San Nicolas—the island was so named by Sebastián Vizcaíno, who sailed past it in 1602—had no direct contact with Europeans until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The island, twenty-two square miles in size, was at a sixty-mile remove from Spanish California and considerably farther from Russian California’s nearest settlement. But geographical distance shrank during the nineteenth century, when sailing ships began to dot the Pacific as people attempted to draw profit from the sea. As demand for otter furs rose and animal populations were depleted near the coasts of Alaska and Northern California, the Russian American Company (RAC) began sending its Alaska Native hunters, accompanied by Russian overseers, to California’s Channel Islands. At this time, archaeologist Steven J. Schwartz estimates, the population of San Nicolas Island probably numbered between two hundred and three hundred people.6 But by 1814, the community was devastated. An RAC ship, the Il’mena, deposited a group of Kodiak Islanders to hunt sea otter on the island.7 These Alaska Natives were conscripted workers laboring for the colonial power that controlled their homeland (the RAC was a private mercantile enterprise operating under royal oversight and was granted monopolistic rights to the fur trade in Russia’s North American possessions). Conflict between the Kodiak hunters and the Nicoleños erupted, and while the Alaska Natives were likely outnumbered, they were equipped with superior weapons. At the end of the skirmish, most of the Nicoleños were dead.8 This 1814 conflict is fictionalized in Island of the Blue Dolphins: Karana and her sister witness from the cliff the battle that kills their father, the chief, as well as most of the village’s other men. In O’Dell’s tale, the Ghalas-at community leaves for the California mainland approximately one year later. The historical record suggests that the Nicoleño population continued to decline after the massacre, undoubtedly as a result of exposure to new diseases (otter hunters continued to frequent the island). Just over twenty years after the 1814 catastrophe, a ship from Mexican California, the Peor es Nada, arrived at San Nicolas with the purpose of removing the much-diminished island population. The ship’s crew encountered a straggling community, likely numbering fewer than twenty individuals. The island Natives were brought on board and taken to San

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Pedro, Los Angeles’s port, where they were placed in the care of local, non-Native, Catholic families.9 For unknown reasons, however, one adult Nicoleña was left behind during this otherwise wholesale removal of the population to mainland California. Some accounts indicate that she was left on the island with a child (or two young children). The Lone Woman’s abandonment on the remote Channel Island was widely known along the California coast; newspapers reported the fact as early as the 1840s. Nonetheless, no effort was made to collect her. It was not until 1852 that a crew of European Americans and California Indians, led by George Nidever, set out to find the Lone Woman as a side task to their sea otter hunting. They eventually succeeded, bringing her to Santa Barbara in 1853, eighteen years after the rest of her community had been removed from the island. She was middle aged and in good health when she arrived, and she had with her a number of items of her manufacture, including clothing made of cormorant feathers, a necklace, needles, a fishhook, and a bone knife.10 The story of the Lone Woman’s eighteen years of solitary survival was so compelling to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century readers that it circulated in popular periodicals in the United States and beyond nearly continuously between 1847 and the 1920s; it then became a popular subject in amateur and academic scientific writings for many decades.11 In fact, the narrative of the Lone Woman’s extraordinary experience never faded completely from public view, particularly in California, where the story had always appeared with greatest frequency. As a newspaperman who lived and worked in Los Angeles, O’Dell would have encountered the story (or perhaps encountered it again) in the postwar years. In 1950, shortly before the hundredth anniversary of the Lone Woman’s arrival in Santa Barbara, the most influential account of her life was republished, locally, in booklet form. Emma Hardacre’s “Eighteen Years Alone,” which first appeared in Scribner’s Monthly in 1880, told the entire narrative of the Lone Woman’s life, from her people’s violent confrontation with Alaska Natives to her removal from the island, conditional baptism, and death in Santa Barbara. Shortly after Hardacre’s account was republished in Santa Barbara, the California Academy of Science’s natural history magazine, Pacific Discovery, featured an article on the Lone Woman’s people, written by archaeologist Clement W. Meighan. His essay about the Nicoleños retold the story of the Lone Woman but noted that “details of the woman’s life on the island can never be known” because she died before anyone who spoke her language could be found. Given the Nicoleña’s extraordinary life,

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Meighan observed, the Lone Woman “could no doubt have told a story which would eclipse Daniel Defoe’s tale of Robinson Crusoe.”12 O’Dell had a clear opening.13

scott o’dell’s sources O’Dell’s research on the Lone Woman actually predated his creative work on Island of the Blue Dolphins by several years. He first narrated the tale of her eighteen years of solitude in Country of the Sun: Southern California, an Informal History and Guide (1957). Ostensibly a history (an evidence-based narrative that strives for objectivity), Country of the Sun’s breezy narrative reads like the newspaperman’s account that it is. Yet a comparison of Country of the Sun and Island of the Blue Dolphins shows O’Dell’s concern for genre expectations: history should be objective and factual, whereas fiction can imagine beyond the confines of evidence. Country of the Sun’s two-and-a-half-page narration of the Lone Woman’s story thus adheres closely to the sources that O’Dell consulted: turn-ofthe-century accounts of the Lone Woman, such as the one written by Emma Hardacre. This doesn’t mean that everything in Country of the Sun’s narrative is true, however. Early accounts of the story published in periodicals offered some colorful details. For example, when O’Dell writes about the 1835 removal of the Nicoleños to San Pedro, on board the Peor es Nada, he notes that the Lone Woman “leaped into the sea and swam back to shore because her child had been left on the island.”14 This widely reported fact is almost certainly mythic, but it appeared consistently in historical accounts, and O’Dell likely assumed it was true. We can see this by the way he handled the detail in Island of the Blue Dolphins. When O’Dell moved from history writing to fiction, he felt free to invent details. In the novel, Karana flings herself overboard and swims ashore in order to find a forgotten younger brother, not her own child. This reason was more appropriate for young readers, and O’Dell felt strongly that a mother wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, forget her own offspring.15 If O’Dell was concerned about accuracy in his history writing, he was concerned about creativity in his fiction writing. He omits from Island of the Blue Dolphins but includes in Country of the Sun the fact that the American sea otter hunter George Nidever found footprints made by the Lone Woman in the San Nicolas sand in 1852, a sign that the rumors were correct: the island Native was still alive more than a decade and a half after her abandonment. This detail, repeated in many nineteenth-century accounts of the Lone Woman, echoes the similar

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discovery of footprints in the sand by Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe on his (supposedly) deserted island.16 O’Dell determined that including the footprints in Island of the Blue Dolphins would too obviously parallel Robinson Crusoe and thereby open him to accusations of literary derivation.17 So he decided that it was better to leave the detail out, even though it was true. O’Dell was concerned, then, with maintaining a reputation for accuracy (in his journalistic history writing) and creativity (in his literary fiction). Although a history, Country of the Sun contains no footnotes or bibliography, just a short list of books suggested for further reading. Island of the Blue Dolphins is more helpful in pointing to texts O’Dell may have consulted. Its author’s note mentions by name two historical sources, one historical person, and two museums with holdings from San Nicolas Island. Specifically listed are the “reports” of Captain Hubbard (a mariner) and the “records” of Captain Nidever (a sea otter hunter), as well as the individuals Father Gonzalez (one of three priests residing at Santa Barbara Mission in 1853), Bernice Eastman Johnston (a longtime docent and researcher at the Southwest Museum of the American Indian in Los Angeles), and Fletcher Carr (a retired curator who had worked at the San Diego Museum of Man).18 Unfortunately, none of O’Dell’s research notes or bibliographies have been found. Nonetheless, the above information, combined with textual details from Island of the Blue Dolphins and (admittedly inconsistent) interviews O’Dell granted after the book’s publication, provides a good indication of the author’s likely sources.19 Captain George Nidever, whose records O’Dell cites, was a frontiersman. Born in eastern Tennessee at the beginning of the nineteenth century, he moved gradually west, pursuing a range of economic activities including hunting, trapping, occasional Indian fighting, gold mining, and land speculation. He was born two generations after Daniel Boone, however, and his landscape was California rather than Kentucky. Nidever arrived in California in 1833, and he soon made otter hunting one of his central pursuits. It was during a trip to San Nicolas Island that he spotted traces of the Lone Woman’s presence, including footprints in the sand. On the third of three trips he made to the island between 1852 and 1853, Nidever organized a successful search for the Lone Woman and brought her to Santa Barbara, where he installed her in his home (and where she died seven weeks later). The Lone Woman became a news sensation upon her arrival, and Nidever became a sought-after interview subject.

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O’Dell doesn’t specify which of Nidever’s “records” he consulted, but the most important source on the pioneer is his life story, which he dictated to Edward F. Murray, a research assistant for the historian Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1878. Nidever’s dictation was later published in a popular memoir, The Life and Adventures of George Nidever: The Life Story of a Remarkable California Pioneer Told in His Own Words, and None Wasted (1937). Nidever describes at some length his search for, discovery of, and efforts to communicate with the Lone Woman. In his telling, the “old woman” was “always in good humor,” singing, dancing, and delighting in children and their pursuits.20 By the time Nidever met her, however, the Lone Woman had been severed from her community for nearly two decades. When she arrived in Santa Barbara, she must have experienced profound, renewed disappointment. None of the people who had been removed from her island eighteen years prior could be found, a failure that plunged the Lone Woman into continued cultural and linguistic isolation.21 Yet Nidever reads the Lone Woman’s emotional state as unaffected by these trials. She was happy, he contends. O’Dell is more attuned to the Lone Woman’s loneliness in Island of the Blue Dolphins. Yet the influence of Nidever’s reading can be seen in Karana’s resilience and in her internal dialogue. When she leaves her Island of the Blue Dolphins for the final time, for example, she contemplates “all the happy days” she spent alone with her animal friends (page 192). O’Dell may have learned about Nidever from Bernice Eastman Johnston of the Southwest Museum. Locally known as an expert on California Indians, Johnston had published a number of studies on the Gabrielino people, of which the Nicoleños are a part. She likely showed O’Dell a small collection of materials about the Lone Woman that had been donated to the museum in 1937: amateur anthropologist James Terry’s 1882 interviews of Nidever and of otter hunter Carl Dittman, a member of Nidever’s 1853 search party; “The Lost Woman of San Nicolas,” an unpublished manuscript written by California journalist Edwin M. Sheridan in 1925; and a summary of The Life and Adventures of George Nidever.22 These materials include a number of details that O’Dell incorporated into the final chapter of Island of the Blue Dolphins and its author’s note. When the Lone Woman was spied by the otter hunter search party, she was wearing a garment made of cormorant feathers and was in a domestic setting, sheltered from the wind. When she followed the hunters to their boat, she carried baskets filled with goods, stopping en route

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to bathe at a spring. After a member of the crew made her a new outfit of European cloth, she put it on. She explained, through signs, that her child had been eaten by wild dogs.23 Additionally, Sheridan’s account, although not the others, associates the report of violent wild dogs with a story the Lone Woman told, through signs, to crowds of visitors that included Father Gonzalez (whose name O’Dell spells with a final s).24 This is likely the source of the following statement that O’Dell included in his author’s note: “Father Gonzales of Santa Barbara Mission, who befriended her after her rescue, learned that her brother had been killed by wild dogs. He learned little else, for she spoke to him only in signs” (page 193). While Bernice Johnston probably connected O’Dell to texts about the Lone Woman, Fletcher Carr, the former curator of the San Diego Museum of Man, connected him to objects. Carr retired from museum work and moved to the small town of Julian, California, where O’Dell was living when he wrote Island of the Blue Dolphins. The curator would have known that the Museum of Man houses, in laboratory storage, hundreds of ethnographic objects and artifacts collected from San Nicolas Island in the early 1930s. Described or shown to O’Dell by Carr, this physical evidence may have shaped O’Dell’s description of Karana’s world: baskets, jewelry, boats, tools (fishhooks, knives, awls, etc.), and, perhaps, burial practices.25 O’Dell likely supplemented this concrete knowledge with the descriptive writing of anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, whose influential Handbook of the Indians of California (1925) was reissued in 1953, several years before the appearance of Country of the Sun and Island of the Blue Dolphins. Kroeber’s short description of “the San Nicoleño” suggests that the Chumash term for San Nicolas Island was Ghalas-at, a name O’Dell repurposes for Karana’s village. But as children’s literature critic Debbie Reese has demonstrated, O’Dell also used ethnographic research Kroeber and others conducted about other California tribes to develop the traditions of Karana’s people. In Island of the Blue Dolphins, select rituals and legends of the Cahuilla, Cupeño, and Luiseño people become the heritage of O’Dell’s Ghalas-at community.26 In the opening lines of the novel, for example, Karana describes the large ship approaching her island as being like “a gull with folded wings”; her brother Ramo later describes it as a “small cloud which sits on the stone” that is the sea (page 98). Both images can be found in the Cahuilla legend of the Lost Spanish Galleon.27 A number of chapters later, when Karana and Ramo are alone on the island, the rest of the tribe having departed for the

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mainland, Ramo informs his sister that he is now chief. Karana attempts to restrain her younger brother’s self-importance by reminding him that he is not yet a man. Her description of the tribe’s male initiation rite echoes Kroeber’s description of “The Ant Ordeal” practiced by the Luiseños. Finally, Karana’s retelling of her people’s origin story, a quarrel between the gods Tumaiyowit and Mukat, aligns with information Kroeber gleaned from interviews with Cupeños.28 O’Dell’s details are specific and well researched but also imprecise, as he mixes traditions drawn from cultural groups that are distinct from each other and from the Native people of San Nicolas Island. O’Dell also mentions the “reports” of Charles Hubbard in his author’s note. A sea captain, Hubbard is frequently credited with steering the Mexican schooner Peor es Nada, which removed the Nicoleños to the mainland in 1835 and left the Lone Woman behind.29 Hubbard’s reports, O’Dell states, document the Lone Woman’s jump overboard. Yet no such records have been found, suggesting that their existence, like the mythic fact O’Dell associates with them, is invented.30 The jump overboard likely appeared to O’Dell to be factual because it was so widely asserted. As early as 1847, when the Lone Woman was living alone on San Nicolas Island, her story appeared in the Boston Atlas and was then reprinted in more than a dozen papers across the East Coast. This story told readers that, when the rest of her community was on board and bound for the mainland, the Lone Woman flung herself from the ship, “plunged into the abyss, ‘strove through the surge,’ and, in another moment, stood alone on the shores of her native land.”31 Accounts repeated the claim for more than seventy years. O’Dell’s likely source for this plot detail was Hardacre’s “Eighteen Years Alone.” In its opening paragraph, Hardacre echoes the language of the Boston Atlas, writing that the Lone Woman “voluntarily breasted the waves, and fought death” when she jumped overboard to return to her child. Hardacre’s account acquired authoritative stature in the first half of the twentieth century, in part because the author arrived in Santa Barbara in the 1870s, when many of the people involved in the Lone Woman’s removal from San Nicolas Island and her brief life on the mainland were still alive. As a professional journalist, Hardacre was approached by Santa Barbara city boosters, who asked her to write the definitive account of the extraordinary story. Hardacre had access to eyewitnesses, local documents, and scientifically minded people who knew San Nicolas Island well.32 But this was also an era of yellow journalism. “Eighteen Years Alone” is a dramatic, literary account of the California

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1. Scott O’Dell as a boy, circa 1901. (Photograph taken at Sunbeam Art Gallery in Los Angeles; courtesy of Elizabeth Hall)

otter hunters’ discovery of a long-lost Nicoleña, an Indian who is an object of wonder and awe. In its reliance on European-American sources and its incorporation of literary tropes about New World discovery, Hardacre’s piece encapsulates the complicated nature of the collected sources O’Dell tapped in writing Island of the Blue Dolphins.33 A final and important source informed O’Dell’s research and writing: Southern California’s landscape. O’Dell was born in Los Angeles in 1898 (figure 1), when the now-bustling metropolis was still a modest city (its population in 1900, two years before O’Dell’s birth, was just over one hundred thousand, about 3 percent that of New York City’s

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population at the time). When O’Dell told stories about his childhood, which he spent in Los Angeles, San Pedro, and on nearby Rattlesnake Island, he described a “frontier” landscape.34 In countless interviews, O’Dell detailed his interactions with tide pools, abalone shells, and the rolling waves of the Pacific Ocean. “Places I have known, creatures I have loved are in Island of the Blue Dolphins,” he said in his Newbery Medal acceptance speech.35 In fact, one of O’Dell’s childhood homes, San Pedro, played an important role in the history of San Nicolas Island: it was the port to which the Nicoleño people— minus the Lone Woman—were brought in 1835. Yet the fact that Island of the Blue Dolphins was set on a remote Channel Island posed certain artistic challenges because it remained mysterious even to locals like O’Dell. After 1943, the U.S. Navy—which had gained possession of San Nicolas in the 1930s—closed public access to the island. That didn’t stop O’Dell from trying to walk the land that was Karana’s home, however. Anthropologist Clement W. Meighan wrote in a 1954 article published in Pacific Discovery that he had received permission to conduct research on San Nicolas Island the previous year.36 Meighan’s statement may well have caught O’Dell’s eye. According to his widow, O’Dell attempted to secure such permission for himself; when it was denied, he circumnavigated the island by boat.37 But O’Dell didn’t have to rely on distant viewings and secondary sources like Meighan’s account for the sights, sounds, and feel of standing on the wind-swept island. Decades earlier, when he was working as a technical director for Paramount Pictures, O’Dell had visited San Nicolas as part of a team investigating shooting locations for Ebb Tide, a 1937 film based on the novella by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne.38 In the 1930s, the trip from Los Angeles to this most remote of California’s Channel Islands would have taken at least nine hours by boat. O’Dell must have remembered his visit to the island, where he had experienced San Nicolas’s howling winds, dramatic beauty, and penetrating isolation for himself (figures 2 and 3). O’Dell’s research for Island of the Blue Dolphins, then, was thorough and broad, involving visceral experiences in the landscapes that formed the novel’s backdrop (San Nicolas Island, San Pedro, and the Southern California coast), inspection of ethnographic objects (e.g., tools) associated with Nicoleños, and examination of eyewitness accounts about the Lone Woman, nineteenth-century periodical accounts of her people, and the writings of both early twentieth-century

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2. A San Nicolas Island vista, opposite the cave believed to have been used by the Lone Woman. (Photograph by Sara L. Schwebel)

and contemporary anthropologists specializing in the study of California Indians. This research enabled O’Dell to incorporate into his novel many specific details about the Lone Woman’s solitary stay on the island, including the circumstances that created and ended her ordeal. The verisimilitude between O’Dell’s fiction and his sources led critics and educators to describe the novel as “historically accurate.” But in culling details from his sources, O’Dell also absorbed their limitations, including the nineteenth and early twentieth-century documents’ exclusive reliance on European-American voices, their Western cataloging of knowledge, and their incorporation of literary tropes that align Indians with savagery. When O’Dell integrated pre-existing narratives of the Lone Woman into his fictional tale of Karana, he replicated the colonial framework of his sources and of two literary genres that also influenced his writing: the vanishing Indian story and the robinsonade. Library and curriculum guides most frequently describe Island of the Blue Dolphins as a survival story, which it certainly is. But the novel is also a vanishing Indian story. Like the most prominent book of the genre, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans (1826),

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3. Scott O’Dell at the helm of the Perla Negra, 1972. O’Dell loved the water and took his fifty-foot, round-bilge, offshore cruiser as far north as Anchorage, Alaska. He renamed the boat Arctic Star while he was writing The Cruise of the Arctic Star (1973), because he thought the name sounded better in a book title. (Photograph courtesy of Elizabeth Hall)

Island of the Blue Dolphins weaves a tale about the so-called last of the race. O’Dell explains in his author’s note that when the Lone Woman arrived on the mainland, no one who spoke her language could be found because “the Indians of Ghalas-at had long since disappeared” (page 193). They had vanished. O’Dell reinforces this point within the novel by insinuating that Karana will die without bearing children. As she prepares to leave the island, Karana narrates: “I did something that made me smile at myself. I did what my older sister Ulape had done when she left the Island of the Blue Dolphins. Below the mark of our

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tribe I carefully made the sign which meant that I was still unmarried. I was no longer a girl, yet I made it anyway” (page 190). Karana’s people had died, and she could not bear children: she was the last of her race.39 While it is likely true that the historical Lone Woman was unable to give birth after her arrival in Santa Barbara—locals surmised that she was about fifty at the time she reached the mainland—this should not have been true of Karana. O’Dell’s protagonist is only twelve at the beginning of the novel, meaning that she is about thirty at the story’s end. Yet O’Dell strongly implies that she will never have children of her own, asking readers to see her as “the last Nicoleño.” Vanishing Indian stories are tragedies, tales of nostalgia that cast a “noble savage” as their hero. As a literary trope, noble savages are defined via their foils. Innocent, pure, stoic, and close to nature, they differ from the unrestrained, cruel savage (the “bad Indian”) and also from the effete Anglo-American, whose distance from nature renders him impotent and impure. Yet within this worldview, an Indian is a savage—regardless of whether he is a high or low form of humanity— and this means that exposure to civilization is fatal for him. The ignoble Indian becomes degraded and destitute when removed to the city, whereas the noble savage wastes away when exposed to civilization’s excess. The trope of the noble savage was common in the nineteenth century, and it infused the earliest accounts of the Lone Woman, including those written by Nidever, Hardacre, and Sheridan, which O’Dell almost certainly consulted. As a noble savage, the Lone Woman is a foil to and victim of the barbarous Alaska Natives who were brought to the island by Russian sea otter hunters and who massacred her people.40 She is also a model of womanly grace, who displays impeccable manners both as a hostess on San Nicolas Island and as a guest in the Nidever home in Santa Barbara. But, although she is strong and resilient in her natural habitat, the Lone Woman cannot survive in town, dying just seven weeks after her arrival on the mainland. Hardacre’s description of the Lone Woman’s decline is a textbook case of the noble savage and the concomitant trope of the vanishing Indian: “She drooped under civilization; she missed the out-door life of her island camp. After a few weeks she became too weak to walk; she was carried on to the porch every day in a chair.”41 During the nineteenth century, the circulation of vanishing Indian stories, including that of the Lone Woman, helped justify Manifest Destiny and the westward expansion that uprooted Native peoples to make room for American settlers and American institutions.42 If California

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Indians were destined to disappear, white settlers were free to take their place—both literally, by inhabiting their land, and figuratively, by becoming “native” to it. Scholars have used the theoretical concept of “settler colonialism” to describe the process by which this occurred: settlers move into a colonial landscape with the aim of both extracting its resources and populating the land. In this regard, they differ from empire builders because they seek to establish permanent, self-perpetuating communities. Instead of inserting themselves into the highest echelons of the existing local power structures, they seek to eradicate these structures, replacing them with their own political institutions. Similarly, they seek to eliminate, rather than subjugate, the indigenous population, replacing it entirely with their own people.43 Empire building and settler colonialism coexisted in California through much of the mid-nineteenth century, making the process by which the area became a settler colonial society complicated and multilayered. Spain had planted a series of twenty-one missions and presidios (forts) in Southern California, beginning in 1769. The mission system, established under the direction of the Franciscan priest Junípero Serra, enabled the Spanish Empire to lay claim to the territory while also Christianizing Native peoples, who were put to work. But while large ranches emerged during the Spanish era, Spain never intended to people California with emigrants from Europe. It was not until after Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821 that the landscape began to change. The missions were secularized, and settlers, largely Americans, began arriving in significant numbers. Migrating from the Eastern United States, young, single men established themselves as part of the local elite by converting to Catholicism and marrying the Californiaborn daughters of prominent Spanish families. But even as the Anglo men took on Spanish identities, raised bilingual children, and acquired land grants, they built thriving businesses in the fur and the hide and tallow trades that linked them to family networks in the East. Meanwhile, in the West, they built political and economic infrastructures that helped prepare California to become like the places from which these settlers had originated.44 The Mexican-American War (1846–48), which culminated in the United States’ annexation of California, completed the process. Importantly, as Americans began to build a settler colonial society in California, the fate of Indians changed. Under Spanish rule, Native peoples were removed from their lands in order to be absorbed, however uneasily, into the Spanish Empire. Through exposure to the assimilationist strategies of the mission system, they would enter the

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larger world having been shaped by Catholic identity, religion, and ritual. Under the American system, however, California Indians were removed from their lands in order to be replaced by American families; Americans were not interested in incorporating Indians into their society in any capacity. Instead, it was understood that the displaced Indians were destined to disappear from the landscape. In their absence, the American settlers who replaced them became “native” Californians, the American West’s pioneers. The Lone Woman’s life bridges the Spanish, Mexican, and American periods of California history. When the Lone Woman arrived in Santa Barbara in 1853, the priests at the Santa Barbara Mission were eager to bring her to Christ. She was conditionally baptized as Juana María, and upon her death, her cormorant dress was reportedly sent to Rome as a sign of New Spain’s successful civilizing project (never mind that California was now in American hands). But the Lone Woman’s death took on a different meaning within the history of American California. Memory of the Lone Woman’s life and death served the needs of a settler colonial society well, as we can see in a plaque erected in 1928 by the Santa Barbara chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. This historical marker, which stands outside the mission church on whose grounds the Lone Woman was buried, reads: Juana Maria Indian woman abandoned on San Nicolas Island eighteen years found and brought to Santa Barbara by Capt. George Nidever.

In this narrative, the lives of the hunter George Nidever and the Nicoleña “Juana Maria” cross paths, and memories of the two individuals become intertwined: Nidever rescues a noble savage, whose (inevitable) death enables both to become California heroes. Vanishing Indian narratives are typically literary accounts (e.g., works by novelists like James Fenimore Cooper and journalists like Emma Hardacre), but these stories were also told by nineteenth and early twentieth-century anthropologists. Alfred Kroeber and his colleagues at the University of California, the founders of California anthropology, held largely essentialist views of Native culture, devaluing syncretic (blended) identities forged in the wake of European contact, including exposure to the Spanish mission system. They believed that

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“real” Indians looked, spoke, and behaved in ways consistent with their ancestors and that Native culture was a constant that could not adapt to modernity and also remain authentic. Kroeber contended that a number of southern, coastal California peoples had become extinct following their exposure to European and American societies: their unique cultures had become so thinned by assimilation that they had “melted away” by the early twentieth century; they no longer constituted distinct tribes.45 The concept of vanishing Indians necessarily produces “last Indians,” and Kroeber may be best remembered today for his association with one such man. Ishi, a “wild Indian” who emerged from hiding in 1911 to confront a modern California, was taken under Kroeber’s wing and housed in the University of California’s Museum of Anthropology for study and safekeeping. There, he more or less became an exhibit, on display for scientists and the public alike. Ishi attracted considerable media attention during the remaining years of his life and has continued to generate robust popular and scholarly interest, culminating, most recently, in the 2000 repatriation of his remains (Ishi’s brain had been preserved at the Smithsonian). For obvious reasons, Ishi invites comparison with the Lone Woman; if the Nicoleña’s arrival in Santa Barbara hadn’t predated Kroeber’s arrival in Berkeley by a half century, one wonders if she, too, would have become a museum specimen. Importantly, the stories of the Lone Woman and Ishi intersect in the 1960s. In 1961, the year Island of the Blue Dolphins won the Newbery Medal, anthropologists Robert F. Heizer and Albert B. Elsasser published, in a University of California Archaeological Survey, “Original Accounts of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island,” a collection of primary sources about the “last” Nicoleño. In the same year, Theodora Kroeber, an anthropologist and Alfred Kroeber’s wife, published, to critical acclaim, Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America.46 Neither at the time of its publication nor in subsequent years have critics described Island of the Blue Dolphins as a “last Indian narrative,” but it seems likely that the novel’s early readers and reviewers would have noted the parallels. During the 1960s, publications on two nineteenth-century California Indians, one from the north and one from the south, flourished; each was deemed “the last of their race.”47 Whereas in the 1960s anthropologists were linking the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island to Ishi, a hundred years earlier, in sources O’Dell consulted as he researched Island of the Blue Dolphins, journalists were

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both declaring the Lone Woman the last of her race and linking her to Robinson Crusoe, the titular character of Daniel Defoe’s novel The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner (1719). Writers employed any number of descriptors to make their analogy: the Lone Woman was a “female Crusoe,” a “feminine Crusoe,” and on one occasion, a “Crusoe in petticoats.”48 This characterization makes the Lone Woman familiar: she is like European and American colonists. But in reality, the Lone Woman’s solitary inhabitation of San Nicolas Island was profoundly different from the lives of European and American colonists. Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is an Englishman, the owner of a Brazilian plantation who embarks on a sea voyage to purchase slaves in Africa. When his ship founders en route, Crusoe drifts to a South Pacific island. He does little to encourage his rescue; instead, he busies himself “improving” the island, of which he imagines himself king. When Crusoe finally sails for Europe at the book’s end, he does so with Friday, a man he rescued from cannibals and transformed into a servant. Meanwhile, mutinied sailors—men protected by Crusoe—are left behind on the island as loyal subjects and founders of a colony. Crusoe, a perpetrator and beneficiary of colonialism, and the Lone Woman, its victim, have in common an extended isolation on a deserted island, but little else. When the Lone Woman found herself alone, it was on the familiar land of her people. Her isolation was not a product of her own capitalist impulses but rather the result of others’ mercenary activities. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, the lucrative sea otter trade and rich hunting grounds around the California Channel Islands brought Europeans and Americans to her home; disease, violence, and Indian removal followed close on their heels. When, eighteen years after her solitary vigil began, the Lone Woman allowed George Nidever and his American otter hunting crew to carry her to Santa Barbara, she took with her only a few baskets of clothing, tools, and household goods. She left behind the island’s considerable wealth. Hunters, sheepherders, amateur anthropologists, and ultimately the U.S. Navy took possession of San Nicolas Island and all that it holds. Upon her arrival in Santa Barbara, the Lone Woman was established as a guest in Nidever’s home. Yet she was nonetheless homeless, a refugee. When she died seven weeks later, she did so having forfeited not only her land but also her nativity to first-generation California settlers—people like her hosts, the Tennessee-born Nidever and his wife, the Santa Barbara–born Maria Sinforosa Ramona Sanchez de Nidever.

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Drawing on Hardacre’s article and perhaps other nineteenth-century accounts, O’Dell describes the Lone Woman, his model for Karana, as a “girl Robinson Crusoe” in his author’s note. More subtly, he yokes Karana to Crusoe with his choice of name; to those paying attention, the similarity in syllables and sounds can’t be missed.49 The linkage not only places Island of the Blue Dolphins in conversation with historical accounts of the Lone Woman but also places the novel within a long literary tradition that shares the conceit of a solitary island existence and the model of Robinson Crusoe, a book O’Dell once described as having read “a half-dozen times during my childhood.”50 A comparison between Island of the Blue Dolphins and Robinson Crusoe points to numerous similarities in plot: both protagonists domesticate animals, encounter frightening enemies, build shelter in various places on their islands, and adopt opposite gender norms in order to survive. The result is a recipe for success, especially with young readers. First published in the early eighteenth century, Robinson Crusoe appeared before the advent of children’s literature as a distinctive genre, at a time when reading was largely a communal practice in which books were shared by multigenerational audiences, often in a family circle. Robinson Crusoe’s themes of religious awakening and conversion, perseverance, domesticity, and rugged individualism made it an ideal text, as they matched pedagogic goals of the eighteenth century. In fact, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau famously described Robinson Crusoe as the first book the model child Emilius would read: “In this, indeed, will for a long time, consist his whole library, and it will always hold a distinguished place among others.”51 But Robinson Crusoe’s popularity endured long past its original publication. As reading shifted from a communal to an individual practice, the possibility that children could misread Robinson Crusoe provoked anxiety: while the independence displayed by the protagonist (who famously left home against his father’s will) was widely considered to be a desirable characteristic, his rejection of parental authority was not. Moreover, while competence in hewing a home from the wilderness was seen as admirable, paying too much attention to housekeeping—especially for boys—was deemed troublesome. In light of these and other concerns, adaptations of Robinson Crusoe published especially for children became popular. These abridgements retained what were thought of as the pedagogic elements of the original novel but avoided the danger, for child readers, of the original text. As children’s versions of Robinson Crusoe flourished, a new literary genre emerged: stories that bor-

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rowed key elements of Defoe’s narrative—a shipwreck, a deserted island, despair, conversion, and domestic competence—but also introduced new settings, characters, and purposes.52 These stories, dubbed “robinsonades,” flourished in the nineteenth century and appealed across age divides.53 As the above summary makes clear, Island of the Blue Dolphins fits squarely within this robinsonade tradition, which continued into the twentieth century in children’s literature.

the doubly historical conundrum While Island of the Blue Dolphins is unquestionably a robinsonade, the fact that Karana is native to the island on which she finds herself alone greatly complicates any comparison to Robinson Crusoe. In fact, it points to the need to read Island of the Blue Dolphins as a work of historical fiction. By definition, historical novels tell a story set in the past. The characters can be either completely fictional (such as Karana’s siblings, Ulape and Ramo) or fictionalized versions of real historical figures (Karana herself), but they must think, act, and speak in ways appropriate to their time and place—the historical setting in which the novel is set. Historical novelists conduct careful and extensive research before beginning to write, as O’Dell did in various California museums and archives. But like professional historians, novelists necessarily engage in interpretation. They privilege some historical details over others, fill in the gaps left by an incomplete historical record, and determine relationships between historical actors and historical events. And like professional historians, novelists interpret from the vantage point of a particular historical time, place, and worldview. Historical novels differ from nonfictional histories, however, in their longevity; while nonfictional histories are supplanted by newer interpretations of the past (consider, for example, school history textbooks, which are replaced on regular five- to seven-year cycles), beloved novels endure. Their historical arguments endure as well, embedded as they are within the logic of the narrative’s plot. For many of today’s readers, Island of the Blue Dolphins is what we might call “doubly historical.” First, the book is set in a distant time in the past, the mid-nineteenth century. Second, it was written and edited in the 1950s, another period that is “historical” to many readers as it predates their lived experiences. The dual historical influence is critical to interpreting the novel because the context of the book’s creation necessarily shapes its historical argument, as well as other features of the

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book. O’Dell, like all historical novelists, was a product of his time and place in history, as well as of his own cultural background as a white man from a Midwestern family who was born and raised in Southern California at the beginning of the twentieth century.54 O’Dell wrote Island of the Blue Dolphins during the Cold War, the civil rights movement, and the early days of second-wave feminism. His depictions of boorish Russian sea otter hunters, sympathetic California Indians, and the gender-role-defying Karana reflect these historical contexts. To write Island of the Blue Dolphins, O’Dell steeped himself in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historical documents. When he read primary sources about the historical Lone Woman, however, he did so in largely uncritical ways, taking the voices of their European-American authors at face value. That he did so is not surprising given that it was the 1950s. At that time, historians of early America and the American West had not yet begun to routinely read European-American sources against the grain, looking for Native American perspectives in the silences and omissions. And in American universities, robust Native studies programs, interdisciplinary in focus, had not yet been established. These changes would come as American Indian activism coalesced—partly in response to Cold War American Indian policy. As World War II ended, the federal government favored the dismantling of Indian reservations and their institutions (e.g., schools and health clinics) and the aggressive embracement of assimilation and conformity on privately held property. Between 1945 and 1960, approximately 10 percent of Indian reservation populations were relocated to urban centers. However, this policy, referred to as “termination,” prompted reaction. Pan-Indian organizations emerged to preserve the distinct cultural identities of tribes and collectively redress a host of historical wrongs. American Indians demanded that treaty rights be honored and that the U.S. government respect federally recognized tribes’ status as sovereign nations (that is, as entities that share a government-to-government relationship with the United States). Indians belonging to tribes that were not yet federally recognized accelerated efforts to achieve such status, a process that is ongoing. In making their arguments, Native leaders initially employed a Cold War rhetoric of patriotism and democracy. They argued for the strengthening of reservations by pointing to the wartime service of American Indians in the armed forces and to Indian communities’ “American way of life.”55 Outside of Indian country, however, these legal battles, and the policies that had prompted them, remained largely invisible to the public.

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It was not until a new generation of pan-Indian activism emerged in the wake of the civil rights movement’s turn to radical tactics that American Indian activism became conspicuous to most Americans. The nineteen-month occupation of Alcatraz Island by a group of Native activists in 1969, for example, garnered headlines as American Indians delivered a concrete message about land rights. Meanwhile, Native intellectuals garnered attention in other ways, as evidenced by Vine Deloria Jr.’s publication of the bestselling book Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (1969). Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, American Indians worked both in the halls of federal office buildings and on public streets to upend popular understandings of Indians’ place in the nation. They also devoted considerable energy to halting stereotypical representations of Native peoples in advertising, sports, and children’s culture. At the time O’Dell crafted Island of the Blue Dolphins and Houghton Mifflin editors polished it for publication, however, much of this activism still lay in the future. At the movies and on the television sets that increasingly dotted middle-class homes, Westerns dominated.56 According to Hollywood, Indians’ place in the United States was simple, not complex. Native people were divided along a “good” and “bad” dichotomy: brave warriors versus ignoble savages, Indian princesses versus female drudges.57 There was little diversity. Instead, a generic Hollywood Indian—usually wearing a feathered headdress and speaking in monosyllabic English—stood in for all Native peoples.58 These pervasive media images, moreover, animated the lives of postwar youth, and children “played Indian” at home, school, and summer camp (figure 4). As historian Richard Slotkin has argued, narratives about cowboys and Indians provided a mechanism, during the Cold War, for American audiences to work through perceived political threats and dominant cultural fears.59 In film and in play, Indians might be frightening, but they were always subdued—white Americans invariably emerged as the victors. O’Dell knew the world of Hollywood fantasy and its stock Indian figures well. He finished high school in Claremont, California, during World War I and briefly served in the U.S. Army before embarking on a peripatetic tour through higher education. He never graduated from any institution; instead, O’Dell’s education was largely acquired on the job. In his twenties, he was employed by the Palmer Photoplay Company, a correspondence school in Los Angeles that purportedly trained students to write and sell movie scripts, although the freelance market

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4. Scott O’Dell with his wife, Elizabeth Hall, and grandchildren, Lauren Elizabeth Anderson and Scott David Anderson. Shady Brook Farm, Pennsylvania, 1981. (Photograph courtesy of Elizabeth E. Anderson)

for such had largely closed at that point.60 As an employee, O’Dell published Representative Photoplays Analyzed (1924), a textbook. Work at Palmer led to industry jobs at Paramount and then MGM. Critics have noted how O’Dell’s experience with film scripts, camera shots, and set design shaped his craft as a novelist, but importantly, working in the industry also shaped his understanding of how to represent Native peoples for American consumption; that is, he learned how to create Hollywood Indians.61 O’Dell’s depiction of Karana and her people both draws on and differs from the prevailing Hollywood type: the language of O’Dell’s Indians is elevated, not the broken English of Westerns.62 And Karana’s people are peaceful Indians whose land and way of life are threatened

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by Europeans (and better yet for readers in the midst of the Cold War, by Russians). They leave the island willingly when other, “good” white men arrive to take them to the mainland. Island of the Blue Dolphins thus provides a contrast to a spate of older children’s historical writing that portrays Indians as treacherous warriors who take white captives. But in avoiding the savage Indian trope, O’Dell embraces that of the noble savage. Karana appears to be less a “real” Indian—a nineteenthcentury Nicoleña—than a mythic one.

island of the blue dolphins as children’s literature: writing and editing The fact that Island of the Blue Dolphins was written in the late 1950s shaped another aspect of the text: the way it was positioned for the marketplace. In step with the baby boom, children’s books had become an increasingly important sector of American publishing houses, accounting for up to one-third or one-half of publishers’ annual revenue.63 At the same time, midcentury fiction, like other aspects of American life, became more age segmented.64 While the young adult novel did not materialize until the 1970s, the ’50s and ’60s saw the publication of a number of adult books whose reception history—wide readership among adolescents and eventual adoption into middle school or high school curricula—points to both the beginning of the young adult category of literary children’s fiction and the murkiness of labeling books written in this period either “juvenile” or “adult.” Consider, for example, the following titles: The Catcher in the Rye (1951), The Light in the Forest (1953), Lord of the Flies (1954), A Separate Peace (1959), To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), and Where the Red Fern Grows (1961). All were published as adult novels but became classic texts for school curricula in the decades after their publication. These novels help to contextualize Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960), which shares a number of their characteristics. They are coming-of-age stories featuring adolescent (or, less commonly, child) protagonists who are largely independent from their parents. Physical challenges and personal endurance figure as important themes. And while appealing to young readers, the novels lack illustrations, a feature that was common in books for school-aged children of the period.65 Shortly after The Light in the Forest’s 1953 publication, author Conrad Richter petitioned his publisher for a young people’s edition of the book, bolstering his request with letters received from classroom teachers

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who were sharing his novel—about a white boy taken captive by Indians—with their adolescent students.66 Richter lost the battle. Seven years later, however, Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins was marketed as a juvenile novel, a decision that left some book people confused. Julia Cunningham of Tecolote Book Shop in Santa Barbara, California, wrote Houghton Mifflin editor Mary K. Harmon: “I had another question to ask, if it can be answered. Why was ‘The Island of the Blue Dolphins’ put in the juvenile category? It fits in the adult novels too. Or has it a better chance where it is? I guess, at that, it will have a longer life so maybe I needn’t have asked after all.” In a review titled, “Story Has Universal Appeal,” Luther Nichols of the San Francisco Examiner reported that a “crony” who read an advance copy of Island of the Blue Dolphins said, “‘It’s a fine story for youngsters and has a lot of charm for adults, too.’ Hardwick Moseley, Houghton Mifflin’s astute sales manager, said much the same thing: that his firm didn’t know whether to classify it as adult or juvenile fiction.” In April 1961, Moseley, who was traveling the West Coast with his wares, told O’Dell: “The book is going well in the adult department of the book stores, and if we can get it displayed on the adult counters as well as the juvenile counters we may have some kind of record breaker in Newbery Medal winners.”67 Adult display was a pipe dream, however. By marketing Island of the Blue Dolphins as a children’s book, Houghton Mifflin ensured that the novel lost the game of status—it didn’t remain in adult sections for long—but won the game of sales. In an earlier era, before the establishment of academic departments of English at U.S. universities, the genteel literary critics of the nineteenth century considered the best literature for adults to be the best literature for children.68 Robinson Crusoe was such a book, as was Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy. But by the mid-twentieth century, any inkling of this ethos had vanished; in fact, literary fiction gained status by being disassociated from the popular, the feminine, and the young. As a result, Island of the Blue Dolphins, having been marked as a children’s book, received virtually no critical attention during its first decades of circulation.69 When literary scholarship on the novel began to appear, it did so exclusively in newly established journals of children’s literature criticism and in academic journals for librarians and teachers. By contrast, The Catcher in the Rye—a book embraced by the young but marketed as an adult text—inspired scores of academic articles and, in 1987, a critical edition of the novel edited by Yale University’s notoriously elitist literary critic, Harold Bloom.70

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The snubbing of Island of the Blue Dolphins by the U.S. literary establishment did have a silver lining. By winning the highest prize (the Newbery Medal) in a relatively low-status field (U.S. children’s literature), Scott O’Dell became a literary giant of another sort. First awarded in 1922, the Newbery Medal simultaneously bestows—and denies—literary status. It was created by the American Library Association (ALA) during an era when university English departments were proliferating and the divide between children’s and adult fiction, and between literary and popular fiction, was widening. Through the establishment of the Newbery Medal, the ALA reclaimed status for children’s books by creating its own literary hierarchy. This impulse to generate prestige via prizes expanded in the children’s (and adult) book world in the 1960s, and book awards multiplied.71 As markers of professional approval, the awards became shorthand for literary quality. When K-12 schools began purchasing trade books with the federal dollars generated by the anti-poverty legislation of the mid 1960s, award-winning novels like Island of the Blue Dolphins saw their fortunes skyrocket.72 Of course, no one could have anticipated this trajectory in the late 1950s, least of all Scott O’Dell. Prior to writing Island of the Blue Dolphins, he had never written anything for children. And unlike many accidental children’s authors, O’Dell had no offspring of his own—no captive audience to read his story aloud to as it unfolded. The transformation of what he intended to be another adult novel into a juvenile bestseller began with some astute advice he received from two early readers, Maud and Delos Lovelace, fellow writers and friends whom he acknowledges in his book’s author’s note. Their guidance likely prompted O’Dell to identify his manuscript as a children’s book when he sent it to McIntosh & Otis, his literary agency in New York. O’Dell’s agent, Caroline Sauer, submitted the novel to Viking Press, which had a robust children’s division. Viking turned the book down. In the face of this rejection, Sauer suggested to O’Dell that he change Karana from a girl to a boy, which would make the novel conform to adventure story norms. O’Dell bristled at the suggestion; his protagonist was a girl because she was based on the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, and moreover, O’Dell was an established historical novelist with a reputation to uphold. O’Dell told Sauer to retain the manuscript, and he set off for New York, borrowing the money to do so from his wife’s funds.73 In the meantime, he contacted his old friend Hardwick Moseley, who agreed to meet him over lunch at the Palm Court of the Plaza Hotel. Moseley was afraid he would be caught in the awkward position of

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turning down a friend’s book. But after reading the manuscript—on the train, as the story goes—he knew that he needn’t have worried.74 Houghton Mifflin’s acquisition records include an entry for “Scott O’Dell (McIntosh & Otis)” on May 2, 1959, with a “J” next to the name, indicating that the title is a children’s (or “juvenile”) book.75 The story of the roundabout way that the bestselling, Newbery-winning Island of the Blue Dolphins happened to be published by Houghton Mifflin became legendary at the Boston firm; a book entering editorial offices by way of a sales agent was extraordinary.76 Island of the Blue Dolphins’ success emerged during a period of desperation in O’Dell’s life. A literary triumph was long overdue. Plus, he was short on cash. By birth, tastes, and experience, Scott O’Dell might be considered a member of the Lost Generation, that school of American novelists, poets, and critics who came of age during World War I, nurtured their crafts in interwar Europe, and then returned home to write major works of American literature during the first half of the twentieth century.77 O’Dell (born 1898) was a contemporary of Ernest Hemingway (born 1899), William Faulkner (born 1897), F. Scott Fitzgerald (born 1896), and John Steinbeck (born 1902). Like many others of his literary generation, O’Dell drew inspiration from living and writing abroad. In 1924, he traveled to Europe for his first extended stay, spending most of his time in Rome, where he took classes at a local university and worked as a cameraman for MGM Studios, which was filming Ben Hur on location.78 When MGM moved production back to California, O’Dell returned to the United States. But within twelve months, he was back in Italy, this time in Florence, where he wrote his first novel, Pinfeathers, which he later destroyed.79 O’Dell’s initial residency in Italy coincided with that of F. Scott Fitzgerald. To what degree the men interacted with each other while in Rome is uncertain, but they were in the same place at the same time, and O’Dell reported that they were arrested together at one point.80 Whether that story is true or not, the men’s lives briefly traveled down parallel tracks. Both O’Dell and Fitzgerald returned from Europe around 1927 and sought work in Hollywood, and both published novels in 1934—O’Dell coming out with Woman of Spain and Fitzgerald with Tender Is the Night, drawn in part from Fitzgerald’s experiences in Rome (figure 5). O’Dell’s career as a novelist appeared promising at its start. Woman of Spain was published by Houghton Mifflin, and it landed him a spot at the prestigious Bread Loaf writers’ conference at Middlebury College, a literary event that was covered by the New York Times.81 Further-

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5. Scott O’Dell, 1934. This was likely a publicity photo for his adult historical novel Woman of Spain. (Photograph courtesy of Elizabeth Hall)

more, despite the novel’s modest sales, Woman of Spain generated considerable income because MGM purchased the film rights for $24,000, intending to make it into a movie starring the iconic Greta Garbo. Although the film was never produced, the substantial fee MGM paid for permissions helped O’Dell to live comfortably through the Great Depression, when the average American income was less than $1,500 a year.82 Flush with Hollywood money, O’Dell enjoyed an active social life with friends he had met through the movie studio, including actor John Barrymore, who had been on the Ben Hur set in Rome. But then O’Dell’s writing career stalled. Neither of O’Dell’s subsequent adult novels was commercially successful, and each took more than a decade to write (Hill of the Hawk was published in 1947 by Houghton Mifflin, and The Sea Is Red in 1958 by Henry Holt). While his literary peers soared— and, in many cases, died young—O’Dell became a full-time newspaperman with writer’s block. His literary coup was still on the horizon.

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6. Stoneapple Farm, the house in Julian, California, in which Scott O’Dell wrote Island of the Blue Dolphins. During the 1950s, the house had a cedar shake roof. (Photograph by Sara L. Schwebel)

In the spring of 1958, Scott and Dorsa O’Dell moved into a newly purchased home in Julian, California. The quirky stone cottage, named Stoneapple Farm, had been an apple storage and packinghouse before it was converted into a cozy private residence in the 1940s (figure 6). The sturdy stone walls, warmed by a large fireplace and a wood-burning stove, sat on six acres of secluded land, perfect for writing. Yet while the setting was idyllic, money was tight. Both Scott and Dorsa had been employed by Los Angeles newspapers, which had gone through a series of consolidations in the 1950s that led to the firing of longtime staff. O’Dell lost his job as book review editor for the Los Angeles Daily News when the paper merged with the Los Angeles Mirror in December 1954. Dorsa saw her advice column, “Dear Mrs. Palmer,” replaced by the nationally syndicated “Dear Abby.” With a mortgage and mounting bills to pay, O’Dell felt renewed pressure to get something published. The Sea Is Red was selling poorly, and Country of the Sun (1957)—his attempt to use his knowledge of California history and geography to turn a profit—had also disappointed. In a letter written to her nephew decades later, Dorsa recalled the anxiety of that time: “Now in the Autumn of ’58, I had no job. I’d been supporting us for the last two years. We had no money. Scott couldn’t borrow any more. Everything we had we bought on time. Scott had been able to pay the first installment on the house by selling a fifteen acre plot and getting a veteran’s

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loan. We knew we couldn’t stay at Stoneapple Farm. Our plan was to move to a one room cabin that Scott had built in the ’30s out of stone (he learned to be a good mason by doing that). . . . The cabin had no heat, no electricity, no bathroom.”83 However, the threat of disaster coupled with the quiet of Julian proved magical. O’Dell returned to the historical narrative of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, a brief two-and-a-half pages in Country of the Sun, and expanded the bare bones account into a full-length novel. He wrote upstairs, first thing in the morning, with his typewriter facing the orchard. Proactively combatting writer’s block, he stopped each writing session mid-paragraph so that it would be easy to start again.84 O’Dell was far from the sea living in Julian, but he found it easy to tap into childhood memories of lapping ocean waves. The Lone Woman’s story was close to the surface as well. The year 1953 had marked the hundredth anniversary of the Lone Woman’s arrival in Santa Barbara, and the tale of her ordeal was once again circulating briskly in Southern California. O’Dell labored for years over his previous historical novels, but when it came to Island of the Blue Dolphins, he said that “the book wrote itself.”85 O’Dell started with the narrative ready-made. Periodical accounts of the Lone Woman’s life had already divided the story into episodes: the arrival of a Russian ship with Alaska Native otter hunters, the Lone Woman’s dramatic jump from a Mexican schooner, her eighteen years of isolation, and her eventual departure for the mainland, on an American vessel. But if the historical facts eliminated the need to wrestle with major plot points, they also presented O’Dell with a profound challenge. From the moment his protagonist’s solitude began, the narrative had to be carried forward without the aid of historical sources (no one knew what the Lone Woman thought or experienced on the island) and without dialogue. To moderate this considerable challenge, O’Dell set approximately one-third of his novel before the departure of the second ship, the vessel that brings Karana’s people to the mainland. This enables readers to know Karana as a daughter, sister, and committed community member before they see her as a stricken but self-sufficient individual. Moreover, it allows readers to experience the Ghalas-at community and to see how Karana’s people use language to tease, chide, and comfort. Karana continues to speak in the final two-thirds of the novel, but her conversation, directed to animals, can receive no reply. Karana’s solitude is briefly interrupted during a one-chapter interlude in which Aleut hunters return to the island and bring with them a young woman, whom

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Karana befriends. But because the two girls speak different languages, meaningful dialogue remains impossible. Therefore, from the point of Ramo’s death forward, all conversation O’Dell writes is necessarily onesided. Action must carry the story. O’Dell employs a narrative structure in which chapters alternate between descriptions of the daily activities necessary to sustain life on the island and descriptions of exciting, and dangerous, adventures. In chapter 9, the newly bereaved Karana burns down her memory-filled village and searches for weapons left behind on the island. She is at home, engaged in domestic pursuits.86 The following chapter, however, finds a determined Karana paddling to sea in an overly ambitious effort to join her people on the mainland. Chapters 11 and 12, however, depict an exhausted Karana back on the island, recovering her strength and engaged in building a new home. But in chapter 13, Karana once again embarks on adventure: she hunts an enormous “sea elephant” in pursuit of one of its teeth, an essential component of the spear she plans to make. The narrative thus swings back and forth between action and stasis, between danger abroad and mundane tasks at home.87 Even the domestic chapters that come between the adventures, however, are action driven. In the tradition of Thoreau’s Walden and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books, many of the descriptions of Karana’s activities are “how-to” expositions that invite readers to watch— and marvel at—her ingenuity. Chapter 12 provides a good example. Realizing that she cannot achieve a reunion with her people without assistance—her solo-propelled canoe was no match for the ocean— Karana returns to the island and confronts the need for shelter. Having destroyed her childhood village with fire, she must now find a way to protect both herself and her resources from the elements. She narrates: Many years before, two whales had washed up on the sandspit. Most of the bones had been taken away to make ornaments, but ribs were still there, half-buried in the sand. These I used in making the fence. One by one I dug them up and carried them to the headland. They were long and curved, and when I had scooped out holes and set them in the earth they stood taller than I did. I put the ribs together with their edges almost touching, and standing so that they curved outward, which made them impossible to climb. Between them I wove many strands of bull kelp, which shrinks as it dries and pulls very tight. I would have used seal sinew to bind the ribs together, for this is stronger than kelp, but wild animals like it and soon would have gnawed the fence down. Much time went into its building. It would have taken me longer except that the rock made one end of the fence and part of a side. (page 138)

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In rich, descriptive detail, Karana outlines the steps necessary to build shelter and shows how she single-handedly equipped herself with a new, secure home. The how-to descriptions combined with the home-away-home sequencing make for an engrossing, fast-moving plot. The narrative structure is also shaped by two series of threes (the arrival of three ships and Karana’s three acts of forgiveness) that prompt and produce her character development. The three ships that come to the island—Russian, Mexican, and American—mark significant points of transition in Karana’s life.88 The first ship brings about the death of her father and the destruction of her community as she knew it; the second takes what remains of her people away from her and the home that nurtured them; and the third ship removes Karana herself from the land of her birth. Each foreign ship brings enemies—Aleut hunters, Alaskan dogs, white men—that hunger for the island’s resources. Yet in a remarkable series of steps, Karana forgives each of the three for taking away that which she values most: her family, her land, and the island’s balanced ecosystem. For instance, she initially vows revenge against the wild dogs that kill Ramo, whom she finds dead with a deep wound to the throat, encircled by animals in motion. After carrying her brother’s body home, Karana plots to kill each dog in the pack, one by one if necessary. Some of the animals had long roamed the island, but the leader, a large, yellow-eyed, gray-haired animal with “thick fur around his neck,” was a newcomer of Alaskan breed (page 147). It takes Karana more than a year to strike this alpha dog. When she does, her aim is true. Yet when the animal is poised to die of the injuries inflicted, Karana chooses to nurse him back to health for reasons she “cannot say” (page 149). She names him Rontu, and he becomes her constant companion. This turn from anger and revenge to curiosity and forgiveness initiates a pattern.89 When the Aleuts return to the island, as Karana had long feared they would, she closes her whalebone home on the headland and retreats into a cave for the hunting season. She comes face to face with Tutok, the one female member of the camp, however, when she grows complacent about security and ventures forth in the daylight, albeit with a weapon standing ready: “Why I did not throw the spear, I do not know, for she was one of the Aleuts who had killed my people on the beach of Coral Cove” (page 169). Instead, Karana responds to the girl’s overtures of friendship; they exchange names, teach each other words in their native tongues, and give each other gifts. Rontu and his pack killed her brother, and Tutok’s people killed her father, but Karana

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forgives them both. When two American otter hunters and a priest from Mission Santa Barbara arrive on the Island of the Blue Dolphins to take her to the mainland, Karana does not even contemplate violence. She has forgiven them in advance for not coming sooner and for seizing her land and its resources for themselves. The organizational pattern described above is apparent in all extant drafts of Island of the Blue Dolphins. O’Dell carefully sequenced the novel’s action as part of his drafting process, jotting down on scraps of paper outlines of both individual chapters and groups of chapters. Consisting of a series of words and short phrases, one to two sentences, or more rarely, an ordered set of Roman numerals, these outlines summarize Island of the Blue Dolphins’ plot.90 For example, the following list corresponds to a string of chapters that O’Dell had, at one time, imagined coming in sequence near the end of the book: Rontu & other leader Dress Trip to Black Cave Aleuts Otters Aleuts -no Totuk-91 Otter again Devil Fish American ship

A number of these partial outlines have been preserved, and it seems likely that O’Dell used this organizational technique both for planning and for revising.92 Once O’Dell completed a full draft that he was satisfied with, he made the excellent decision to share it with Maud and Delos Lovelace, a couple who was friendly with Dorsa’s parents in nearby Claremont, California.93 Delos had been a journalist, reporting and editing for a number of New York papers, including the Daily News and the Sun, before he turned to freelance writing. In addition to publishing short stories in many popular magazines, Delos wrote books, including the novelization of King Kong (1932). More importantly, his wife, Maud, was the author of the immensely popular Betsy-Tacy book series for girls (1940–55). As a team, the Lovelaces were experienced authors and

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editors who knew the market, including the children’s market, well. According to stories O’Dell later told to friends and family, Maud read the draft of Island of the Blue Dolphins and informed him that he had written a children’s book and that it was excellent. A seasoned children’s author, Maud undoubtedly noted Karana’s age (she is an adolescent when the story begins), the manuscript’s length (short), and O’Dell’s style (clear prose that avoided complex vocabulary and syntax).94 She knew that there was demand for well-written, engaging books for schoolchildren, and more importantly, for girls. Because of this, she encouraged O’Dell to make Karana “more feminine” to appeal to those readers.95 Maud’s advice was pivotal. From this point forward, Island of the Blue Dolphins was crafted for children. Together, Maud and Delos made a series of editorial recommendations to aid the transformation. Not all of their advice has been preserved (query sheets for the second half of the novel have been lost); nonetheless, a clear pattern of influence is visible.96 In line with Maud’s recommendation to make Karana more feminine, the Lovelaces asked questions that reflected their understanding of teenage romance and its genre expectations: p. 29 Nanko—could heroine secretly like him? Or maybe not secretly. After all she’s 14, could be married etc. and Indians die young. p. 56 Tunic? More about dress If heroine were 14, she might when alone, remember boys she’d like—wonder how it would have been to be married to Nanko, for instance, etc.97

O’Dell demurs. He substitutes the word “skirt” for “tunic” in his next draft but fails to add additional details about the garment’s style; similarly, he rejects the idea of Karana having an adolescent crush on Nanko, retaining this role for her sister, Ulape, instead. Karana remains uninterested in boys in the final version of Island of the Blue Dolphins, just as she was in the draft he shared with the Lovelaces.98 Yet those who knew O’Dell recalled that Maud’s suggestion to make Karana “more feminine” was one of his staple Island of the Blue Dolphins stories. He may have repeated the advice so frequently not because of its influence on his characterization of Karana but rather because the recommendation helped save him, a first-time children’s author, from capitulating when his literary agent suggested that he change Karana to a boy, advice that would unquestionably have altered the book’s fate.

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The Lovelaces also offered feedback about O’Dell’s portrayal of Indians, asking questions and making suggestions about the way Karana’s people might behave and how they might understand the world when confronted by tragedy: Query: Chap. V - - bury own dead, burn Aleuts. Is this correct Indian practice? V. After father’s death would other Indians be uncles, etc. Perhaps a bit here on the non-possessiveness of the tribe might be interesting—all children loved by each, etc. p. 22 Kimki might say that although it had before been taboo for women to do men’s work, okay now when necessary p. 24 Sickness came over the village - - what about Indian philosophy of death and life later? p. 35 How she could punish Ramo and how she would be punished for disobeying the chief. Indian discipline?

Maud and Delos appear to be concerned about accuracy (“Is this correct Indian practice?”), but their suggestions also reflect a monolithic understanding of Native peoples that fails to differentiate between cultural groups. In this regard, they, like O’Dell, drew on stereotypical understandings of “the Indian” that dominated popular culture during the postwar years. By calling attention to Karana’s “Indianness,” the Lovelaces also urged O’Dell to do more with it; they knew that representations of Native people sold well in children’s books and media. O’Dell added a scene to the second extant draft of Island of the Blue Dolphins that captures his effort to capitalize on Indian identity and also shows the tendency toward stereotype that this involved.99 After Karana and Ramo find themselves alone on the island, their people having departed for the mainland, the children engage in a lengthy dialogue (chapter 8). Ramo is struck by the social implications of being the only male on the island, and he declares his newfound independence by boasting that he will bring a canoe back to the village by himself. In his revision to the chapter, O’Dell heightens Ramo’s bravado by having the six-year-old also give himself a new name—Tanyositlopai—and declare that he is now chief of Ghalas-at, a leader who must be obeyed. This change is retained in the published novel. However, O’Dell also experimented with dialogue that was twice the length of what eventually appeared in the final version. In a revision that was ultimately abandoned, the exchange below appeared immediately after Karana’s com-

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plaint that Ramo’s chosen name, Chief Tanyositlopai, is “very long and hard to say”—a remark that prompts Ramo to respond, “You will soon learn” (page 122): Obediently I knelt. Smiling to myself, I said, “Chief Tanyolapai.” “Chief Tanyosit . . . Tanyosit . . . ” he stuttered. “Chief Tanyositlopai,” I said. “Yes, that is it,” he said. He was blushing because he had stuttered over the name, but his expression did not change. He put the tip of the spear on my head and began to think of something to say. He kept on thinking for a long while. “The rock where I kneel grows very hard, Chief Tanyositlopai,” I said. He looked off into the sky and pretended that he did not hear me. Then he said, “I, Chief Tanyositlopai, with this spear which is my sign, my . . . ” “My wand,” I said.100 “Which is my wand, I make my sister Karana, one of the tribe of Ghalasat which I rule over . . . ” “Unto death.” “Unto death. I will be a brave chief like my father and a great hunter. I will rule over the Island of the Blue Dolphins and the words I speak will be obeyed by everyone . . . ” “There are only us two, Chief Tanyositlopai, and the rock grows harder.” “You will obey my words?” “I will obey in all wise things,” I said. “Then touch the rock with your forehead in sign of this and rise.”101

Karana’s attitude toward her younger brother’s assertion of power is indulgent; she understands that he is a little boy playing at being a man. Yet readers who step outside the frame of the text can see that Ramo is not only playing at being a man but also playing at being an Indian.102 In fact, Ramo’s actions mirror exactly those scripted for white children in period books such as Madye Lee Chastain’s Let’s Play Indian (1950), a Wonder Book, and Let’s Be Indian (1962), by Amelia Bedelia author Peggy Parish. The name Ramo chooses for himself, Chief Tanyositlopai, illustrates the point; it is a moniker that an English-speaking child might select. The name includes the easily recognizable word “sit,” which suggests laziness. And to English-speaking ears, it sounds ridiculously long—so long, in fact, that Ramo himself trips over its syllables. Many Native American languages are polysynthetic, meaning that “sentence words” convey entire ideas. Recognizing this tendency, English speakers use exceedingly long words to poke fun at this linguistic characteristic. In striking the extended dialogue above, O’Dell softened the most obvious signs that Ramo, in naming himself Chief Tanyositlopai, was “playing Indian.” But while Ramo’s stereotypical behavior is most

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apparent in the unpublished draft, it is still evident in the final version of Island of the Blue Dolphins. In addition to drawing O’Dell’s attention to the conventions of adolescent romance and the portrayal of Indians in children’s literature, the Lovelaces gave the critically important advice to excise two chapters that appeared between Tutok’s departure from the island (chapter 22) and Karana’s adoption of the sea otter Mon-a-nee to fill her loneliness (chapter 23).103 The scene for these later excised chapters is set when Karana notices, the day after she gives Tutok a farewell gift, that the Aleut ship is still in the cove. Surprised, she builds a fire to cook her dinner—“I was no longer afraid that the Aleuts would find me”—and makes enough food to share with Tutok, just in case (page 174). But the Aleut girl doesn’t appear. In the published novel, Karana wakes at dawn to find the ship gone. But in O’Dell’s earlier drafts, Karana wakes at dawn to spy three canoes in the water, a sign that the crew had decided to hunt another day. She returns to the cave and waits for Totuk (an alternative spelling of Tutok that O’Dell used in these drafts). But again, she doesn’t appear. Instead, at suppertime, two figures approach: “Neither one of them was Totuk. They were dressed in the skins the Aleuts wear and they were men” (page 197). Before she can reach her spear, the Aleuts seize her from behind and throw her to the ground. Rontu is clubbed. With her hands held behind her back, Karana is installed in a canoe and rowed to the ship. There, she is laid on her back in a skin lean-to with her hands tied. Totuk is nowhere to be seen. As Karana lies frightened and alone, the men gather around a fire, loudly eating chichinai, a paste made from mixing wild tobacco, ground sea shells, and water. At first, Karana believes she must have been betrayed by Totuk, but then she decides that her friend would never reveal her whereabouts. Finally, the Aleut girl appears, cuts Karana free, and allows her to jump overboard. In these excised chapters, reprinted on pages 197–200 of this edition, readers confront Karana’s vulnerability, her disempowerment in the face of imperial and colonial forces. For the second time in the novel, Karana jumps from a foreign ship, this time to escape Aleut captors she had been hiding from for weeks. Karana’s first jump overboard, from the ship carrying her people to the mainland, is “historical” in the sense that it dominated nineteenth- and twentieth-century accounts of the Lone Woman, even if it was a literary invention. This second jump also has historical roots. A small minority of nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury accounts of the Lone Woman explain that she was abandoned on San Nicolas Island not because she left the ship in search of a

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child (which allegedly prompted her to jump overboard) but rather because she hid on the island from the sailors manning the ship.104 Many periodical accounts suggest the perpetration of rape and other violence in connection with the arrival of the Russians and Alaska Natives on the island. As these accounts tell the story, “savage” Alaskans slaughtered the island’s simple, mild-mannered men and raped the defenseless women.105 Records of the Russian American Company confirm that a violent encounter with the Nicoleño people occurred when Kodiak Island otter hunters were left on San Nicolas in 1814, although it is unclear precisely what the nature of that violence was. The published version of Island of the Blue Dolphins omits the sexual violence. Readers witness a battle in which many Ghalas-at men— including Karana’s father—are massacred, but the island’s women— including Karana—remain unmolested. O’Dell’s drafts and outlines, however, reveal that he considered an alternative. Early in his brainstorming process, O’Dell typed two lists: one detailing points of the novel’s setting and the other detailing characteristics of his protagonist. The first line of the first list states: “The girl is part Aleut and part . . .” The handwritten word “Chumash” was later added after the ellipses. The second list describes Karana as having “black hair, blue eyes which come from somewhere in her background.” This was later crossed out and replaced with the handwritten: “Light brown hair, streaked by sun, black eyes.”106 Together, the notes suggest that O’Dell initially imagined his protagonist to have been the product of a sexual encounter that took place during the Aleuts’ visit to San Nicolas Island. In this scenario, Karana would not have been witness to the battle that ultimately appears in chapter 4 but would rather have been born in its terrifying wake. Perhaps to emphasize to himself his final decision to make Karana a pure-blood Nicoleña, O’Dell gives her the public name Won-a-pa-lei, which he translates as “The Girl with the Long Black Hair” (page 100).107 (Karana is in fact the protagonist’s secret name, which is shared with readers to increase their intimacy with the protagonist.) The two chapters are an artifact of O’Dell’s exploration of sexual violence; in them it is Karana herself—not her mother—who lies bound, prone, and at the hunters’ mercy. In 1960, it was unthinkable to include this in a children’s story.108 O’Dell was apparently reluctant to let the chapters go, but the Lovelaces, and perhaps also Dorsa, convinced him that they must be cut.109 The decision to do so likely facilitated Houghton Mifflin’s immediate recognition that Island of the Blue Dolphins could be a Newbery contender.110 By the time the novel reached Houghton Mifflin’s offices, it

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was well polished, and the publisher moved quickly to a contract and then to publication.

selling island of the blue dolphins A year before Island of the Blue Dolphins was published, Houghton Mifflin won the Newbery Medal with Elizabeth George Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond, a historical novel set in colonial Connecticut that featured a strong female character (and a chaste romance). When they acquired Island of the Blue Dolphins, the publisher felt confident it had another, similar award contender on its hands. The editors asked Speare’s opinion, and she confirmed their expectations: Thank you so much for sending THE ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS. I’ve been waiting for it impatiently ever since Mr. Moseley told me about it in Washington. It is just as wonderful as it sounded then. Just now, while waiting for Alden to come back from skiing, I’ve read it straight through, and I feel as though I’d been living on the island—just saturated with the beauty of it. Astonishing yet somehow always believable. And what a perfect simple style. And not a single word to spoil the perfect lesson it carries. Thank you for thinking to send it to me. I predict you are in for much excitement with it.111

They were, but it didn’t come immediately. Houghton Mifflin ordered an initial print run of ten thousand copies of Island of the Blue Dolphins and spent $1433.58 (6.89 percent of its total children’s advertising budget) on the book; no other title received comparable investment.112 Perhaps because there was so much anticipation on the part of the publishing house and so much desperation on the part of the financially strapped O’Dell, early sales disappointed. In the months following the novel’s February release, O’Dell’s correspondence with Hardwick Moseley was peppered with anxiety about sales and hints that he was low on funds: “In the face of such a fine press and general enthusiasm, it seems strange that it hasn’t done better,” O’Dell wrote in June 1960. “I’ve been doing all I can at this end, appearing wherever there’s a chance to sell a book.”113 Indeed, determined to secure Island of the Blue Dolphins’ fortunes, O’Dell stepped up his efforts as summer turned to fall. Letters to Moseley detail tours of three bookstores in Los Angeles and plans to check all the shops in outlying areas (September 1960), visits to three book fairs and twenty-eight bookstores in the two hundred miles between San Diego and Santa Barbara (November 1960), and a 940-mile driving tour to sign books and check on Island of the Blue Dolphins stock (December 1960)

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7. Scott O’Dell signing a copy of Island of the Blue Dolphins during a visit to an elementary school in California, circa 1960–61. (Photograph courtesy of the Stoneapple Farm Trust)

(figure 7).114 O’Dell had received a $1,250 advance for the novel, but his bills were mounting, and he let Moseley know.115 On December 2, 1960, Houghton Mifflin’s Juvenile Department sent a memo to the publisher’s Executive Committee: “Scott O’Dell has written Hardwick that he is again in need of money and would like to be assured of at least $350.00 by his next royalty statement.” In spite of the department’s mild frustration, captured in the use of the word “again,” the committee quickly approved the check. Actual monies due to O’Dell at that point were under $100, but Houghton Mifflin was confident about future sales. In fact, as O’Dell fretted about earnings, Houghton Mifflin attempted to reassure him that the novel was doing well—very well. Children’s book sales in the 1960s invariably started slow. On June 13, 1960, just

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shy of four months after its release, Island of the Blue Dolphins sales had reached 4,195 copies. This made it the bestselling title on Houghton Mifflin’s list that spring season, and it meant that Island of the Blue Dolphins had outperformed the initial spring season sales of the publisher’s previous Newbery winner, The Witch of Blackbird Pond. “The truth is we have never had so many delightful letters from people who have read it in advance and after publication on any book of any kind in more than thirty years,” Moseley wrote to O’Dell. “We know we have a classic which will have a long and enduring sale.” Before the year was out, Houghton Mifflin had sold its initial printing of ten thousand copies and arranged a second printing of the same size, anticipating that the American Library Association would name the novel as the Newbery Medal winner of 1961.116 Throughout her long life, Dorsa O’Dell regaled friends with the story of Scott learning that he had won the Newbery. What children’s book people affectionately term “the call” often yields dramatic narratives of sleep-deprived authors jolted from their beds in disbelief by the shrill ringing of the phone. Dorsa’s narration holds true to the genre. In her telling, both she and Scott were at their usual morning writing spots, she in the kitchen and he upstairs, when the telephone rang. Dorsa answered and then called up to Scott that it was long distance, for him. Scott told Dorsa to inform the caller that he was away from home. Certain that it was a creditor, as his car payment was past due, he had no interest in picking up the line. Dorsa insisted that she would not lie for him, so Scott dragged his feet down the stairs and picked up the receiver. He then exclaimed, his voice rising, “Chicago? Chicago?” Moments later, he had Dorsa in his arms and was dancing around the kitchen, shouting, “We won! We won!”117 A whirlwind of activity followed as O’Dell made arrangements to accept the award in New York and to deliver his acceptance speech in Cleveland. Meanwhile, the O’Dells each selected one longed-for item to purchase for Stoneapple. These splurges, a fireplace coal hod and an epergne, found in an antique shop in Claremont, soon graced their great room, where they remain today.118 When the American Library Association festivities finally came to an end, O’Dell was exhausted and stunned: “As if by magic, the Newbery opens a door into a new world. Dorsa and I are still pinching ourselves, scarcely believing it is true.”119 Island of the Blue Dolphins had sold fewer than ten thousand copies in the year before it was announced as the Newbery winner, but it sold more than triple that number in the

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nine months that followed. In April 1961, just two months after the announcement, Moseley declared that he had a bestseller. A month after that, he gleefully wrote that there was no end in sight: “Believe us, we are counting on 100,000 one day in your time and mine,” he wrote O’Dell. Island of the Blue Dolphins would far exceed that modest number well before O’Dell’s death in 1989. But it would take some time. Today, a book that is awarded the Newbery Medal typically sees its sales increase to between one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand copies almost immediately, even if pre-award sales were meager. In 1960, however, overall sales were more modest. As Moseley told O’Dell, “Good Newbery Medal books can easily go to 40,000 or 50,000 copies.”120 As Houghton Mifflin celebrated its triumph, O’Dell continued to sweat. The publisher’s “Showings of 1960” book reported royalties for Island of the Blue Dolphins as $2067.22—a sizeable amount of money, but not nearly enough to live on (figure 8).121 Thus, as soon as he was crowned a Newbery author, O’Dell got back to work promoting his book. In a letter sent to Moseley about two months after his trip east to accept the Newbery Medal, he reported: “My autograph party at the Westlake School for Girls sold 89 copies, 78 at Ranchito, etc. Today I go to Santa Ana for a speech, back to San Diego for a morning appearance and then an afternoon tea. The next morning a radio stint, then in the afternoon and evening to Pomona, then in the morning at nine in Santa Barbara, with an autograph at Tecolote [Book Shop] in the afternoon. Then three days of recuperation before starting out again.”122 The sixty-two-year-old had copies of Island of the Blue Dolphins at the ready, and he brought them himself to bookstores in California that were out of stock.123 Such personal marketing is the status quo for today’s authors, but Houghton Mifflin’s letters reveal the staff’s astonishment at O’Dell’s efforts. They also noted that O’Dell was uniquely suited for the part: “There can’t be a better song and dance team on the road,” Moseley said of O’Dell and Dorsa, whom he described as “barnstorming through California.” Moseley’s secretary Carol Clark wrote that O’Dell would win “all awards for selling more books than any other author,” but then conceded, “We don’t have many with the O’Dell personality and charm and the O’Dell Newbery!”124 Scott likely felt he didn’t have a choice. In November 1961, he was again appealing to Houghton Mifflin for an advance. “I need more money!” he wrote to Moseley on November 1. “I had everything

8. Houghton Mifflin’s “Showings of 1960” book, noting the publisher’s income and expenses for current titles, including A Bear Called Paddington. The entry for Island of the Blue Dolphins is second from the bottom. (Reprinted with permission from Houghton Library, Harvard University)

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carefully planned to get through until the big payment in December (I hope big), and then one of our dogs dislocated a hip, was put in a cast which didn’t work, then operated on for two and a half hours to anchor a plastic plate. Cost: $158. I think about $300 will do it. I’ll appreciate it if you can have it here when I return on the 10th briefly.”125 In addition to promoting his book, O’Dell was teaching a creative writing class for the University of California’s extension system, but he and Dorsa were more or less living paycheck to paycheck, with immense hopes riding on Island of the Blue Dolphins’ post-Newbery success. Having had his first adult novel, Woman of Spain, turn into a goldmine via a movie deal, O’Dell had some inkling of what was possible and was impatient, perhaps, for Island of the Blue Dolphins to produce similar results. Houghton Mifflin had also slipped, allowing the book to run out of stock, albeit briefly. A frustrated O’Dell wrote to Moseley’s secretary about a Parent Teacher Association book fair he attended where there were no copies of Island of the Blue Dolphins for sale: “I spoke to a total of 1600 children, no books. And all this at Christmas! But I am getting garrulous. After all, it’s only my livelihood.”126 At the same time as O’Dell was striving to sell Island of the Blue Dolphins, one book at a time, he was under considerable pressure to write his next book. He did not have a track record as a speedy writer—it had taken him more than a decade to write each of his adult novels—but he knew that time was now of the essence. Being granted the Newbery Medal is a boon for authors not only because it sells the award-winning book but also because it helps to sell subsequent books. In October 1961, Moseley reminded O’Dell: “It would be bad if we went beyond the fall of ’63. . . . the sooner we come to the market with a new book the better.”127 O’Dell was nervous. Island of the Blue Dolphins had come so easily, and the writing of the next novel was not following suit. In March 1961, O’Dell was clocking four hours a day on his new story. In May, he reported that he was “excited” about the new book and had done “a lot of planning and some writing.” But by September, O’Dell was discouraged. He had written fifteen thousand words and was unhappy with both the plot and style. “With each book the hope rises that the next one will be easier. It is, of course, always harder, the hope a dream,” O’Dell confided to Moseley.128 Progress was sluggish in 1962, and O’Dell didn’t make Houghton Mifflin’s deadline. Yet as fall 1963 came and went, things were starting to look up. In November 1963, O’Dell traveled to Frankfurt to receive the Jugendbuchpreis, the top children’s book award in Germany, which

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9. Scott and Dorsa O’Dell in Spain in late 1963 or early 1964, celebrating the success of Island of the Blue Dolphins. The O’Dells titled the photo “Pigeon Spanish.” (Photograph courtesy of the Stoneapple Farm Trust)

came with a considerable cash prize. Then, sometime the following month, O’Dell finished an early draft of what would become The King’s Fifth and set off for Spain with Dorsa, purportedly to fact-check his manuscript, but more importantly to celebrate Island of the Blue Dolphins’ success (figures 9 and 10). The film rights to Island of the Blue Dolphins had been purchased a year and a half before, bringing O’Dell a $1,000 signing fee, but it was during the summer of 1963, right before filming began, that O’Dell received the remainder of the money: two checks totaling $11,500. It wasn’t as much as he had made for the movie rights to his adult novel Woman of Spain, but it was more than enough to fund a trip abroad.129 And while O’Dell couldn’t have known it at the time, more good fortune lay just ahead. Federal anti-poverty legislation would generate considerable funds for U.S. schools and their libraries to purchase children’s books beginning in 1966, and during the 1970s and ’80s, American educators would come to see that Island of the Blue Dolphins addressed a myriad of curricular priorities beyond grade school literacy.

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10. Scott O’Dell and Elizabeth Hall in Germany, 1970. During this trip, O’Dell received the Jugendbuchpreis, the nation’s top children’s book prize, for his second children’s book, The King’s Fifth, which had been translated into German. In 1963, O’Dell had accepted the same award from the German secretary of state for Island of the Blue Dolphins, in a ceremony in Frankfurt with more than forty reporters in attendance. (Photograph courtesy of Elizabeth Hall)

island of the blue dolphins in k–12 schools Contemporary reviewers and later literary critics speak in one voice about Island of the Blue Dolphins’ clean, tight prose, vivid imagery, and expert plotting. But the book’s tremendous success in the K-12 setting stems from more than its literary quality. The novel was perfectly poised for the U.S. school market because it has been perceived, over the last half-century, as addressing three key educational priorities:

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11. Scott O’Dell meeting with students in Indianapolis, Indiana, 1981. O’Dell traveled to the city to give the McFadden Memorial Lecture at the Indianapolis Public Library. (Photograph courtesy of Elizabeth Hall)

multiculturalism, environmentalism, and gender equity. At the time of Island of the Blue Dolphins’ initial release, 85 percent of all children’s books sold in the United States were purchased by public or school libraries.130 A book’s success, then, depended upon librarians’ approval. Island of the Blue Dolphins had that in good measure, having won the Newbery Medal. But the success of a literary children’s novel in the 1970s and ’80s—and the new paperback market—depended in large part on the approval of teachers and hence on a text’s utility in the classroom (figure 11). The paperback market grew in tandem with the authentic literature movement, which advocated using “real books” for instruction in place of graded reading anthologies.131 In the wake of this movement’s popularity, many school districts purchased classroom sets of award-winning paperback novels. They could do so for Island of the Blue Dolphins beginning in 1971, when the first paperback edition was released by Dell, which had purchased the rights from Houghton Mifflin.132 The novel’s sympathetic portrayal of Native Americans significantly aided

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the book’s adoption because multiculturalism flourished alongside the authentic literature movement. In the version K-12 schools embraced in the post–civil rights era, multiculturalism replaced an earlier “melting pot” ideal that advocated a homogenous American identity. Under public schools’ turn to multiculturalism, racial, ethnic, and religious differences became celebrated strengths of the larger American fabric, at least rhetorically. Island of the Blue Dolphins was viewed as contributing to the multicultural agenda because it presented, in a positive light, a fully realized Native American who narrates her own tale. While public debate about cultural outsiders’ ability to tell an “authentic” tale of racial and ethnic others raged on university campuses—perhaps most famously around William Styron’s Pulitzer Prize–winning The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)—it barely touched the K-12 world.133 During the 1970s and ’80s, children’s books authored by Native Americans had not yet reached the mass market. Moreover, those activists who might have expressed concern about Island of the Blue Dolphins’ use as a “Native” text were investing their energy elsewhere; classroom textbooks, not children’s trade books, were the focus of their attention during the period spanning the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.134 It was not until the 1992 quincentennial of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World approached that educators began to scrutinize representations of American Indians in children’s literature. It was at this time that O’Dell’s many novels for children—he had written more than twenty-five—first became subject to criticism. Importantly, however, Island of the Blue Dolphins emerged from the inquiry largely unscathed. Literary critic Isabel Schon, for example, published an article about O’Dell and his oeuvre in 1986 that contrasts the many O’Dell books—Island of the Blue Dolphins included—that display “honesty, integrity, and imagination” with those O’Dell books that capitalize on stereotypes.135 Beginning in the 1990s, some children’s literature scholars went further, tentatively pointing to the way Island of the Blue Dolphins intersects with colonial narratives. In a provocative piece titled “Encountering Others: The Meeting of Cultures in Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins and Sing Down the Moon” (1992), Susan Naramore Maher contends that the novel is a “counterwestern” that turns the adventure genre on its head “to uncover the morally repugnant consequences of cultural dominion.”136 By staying within the frame of the novel in her analysis, Maher views Karana’s survival as a victory even as she acknowledges that, at the story’s end, Karana relinquishes her claim to the island.137

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Five years later, literary scholar C. Anita Tarr published “An Unintentional System of Gaps: A Phenomenological Reading of Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins.” In this article, she concurs with Maher’s reading of Island of the Blue Dolphins as a counterwestern but argues that the means by which O’Dell made his intervention is problematic because “the characters O’Dell employs to tell the stories of the oppressed are actually perpetuating the old stereotype—a positive one, but a stereotype nonetheless.”138 She explains that O’Dell provided only a skeletal outline of Karana, which forces readers to “fill in the gaps” by relying on what they “know” about Indians—that is to say, they rely on stereotypes. In the process, readers identify strongly with Karana, making her a memorable character. Tarr notes that O’Dell employed the same technique again and again in his long career as a children’s author but that it worked only once: “The more O’Dell wrote, it seems, the less careful he was. . . . We must realize that the very reasons that make this first novel good, make his subsequent novels less so. Island of the Blue Dolphins was, so to speak, a phenomenon in itself.”139 Thus, even as critics became critical of and uncomfortable with O’Dell’s Indians at the end of the twentieth century, they continued to hold up Island of the Blue Dolphins as an exceptional work for children. The fact that Karana is an Indian made her an attractive protagonist for school instruction during the 1970s and ’80s, but the novel is less likely to be selected for curricular inclusion on this account today. Instead, children’s books by Native authors such as Sherman Alexie, Joseph Bruchac, and Louise Erdrich, all published at the turn of the twenty-first century, are tapped for that purpose. But other aspects that made Island of the Blue Dolphins attractive for schools at midcentury have endured. Karana’s ability to fend for herself, physically and emotionally, has appealed to generations of child readers. The survival narrative parallels the fantasy play common among children of both genders in middle childhood: the construction of kids-only hideouts.140 Karana’s story offers children a delightful means of imagining themselves as self-sufficient. But important to the history of how Island of the Blue Dolphins was received, Karana’s growth also has a spiritual dimension that parallels the development of Robinson Crusoe, whose isolation brings him to Christ. Karana’s years of solitude lead her to alter her belief system in two key ways, each of which positioned her as a modern literary hero because they placed her squarely in sync with changes unfolding during the postwar period.

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Early in the novel, after the Russian Captain Orlov arrives on the Island of the Blue Dolphins with his Aleut otter hunters, Karana watches with distress as animal pelts accumulate: “Whenever I saw the hunters with their long spears skimming over the water, I was angry, for these animals were my friends. It was fun to see them playing or sunning themselves among the kelp. It was more fun than the thought of beads to wear around my neck. This I told my father one morning” (page 106). Chief Chowig dismisses his daughter’s concerns, assuring her that the otters will return when the hunters depart. But Karana’s misgivings about the trade of beads, iron spearheads, and other items of European manufacture for the island’s maritime abundance remain. When Karana befriends animals as a substitute for human companionship in the years of solitude that follow, she moves from objecting to animal slaughter for capitalist gain (represented by the Russian captain) to refusing to kill animals even to make necessities such as tools and clothing. Karana and her people, like the real-life mid-nineteenth-century Nicoleños, used feathers, furs, and surf grass for clothing; seal sinew for binding; and stones for the construction of tools and weapons. Relative to the mainland, San Nicolas had few plant resources, meaning that island Natives relied heavily on the sea for their survival. Perhaps for this reason, Karana does continue to fish for subsistence after she foreswears the killing of mammals and birds. But she nonetheless recognizes, and justifies, how far she has moved from her people’s practices: “If Ulape and my father had come back and laughed, and all the others had come back and laughed,” Karana narrates, “still I would have felt the same way, for animals and birds are like people” (page 180). In making Karana’s treatment of animals central to her growth, O’Dell was self-consciously participating in the nascent environmental movement. In 1956, Jacques Cousteau’s Academy Award–winning documentary Le Monde du Silence (The Silent World), which was released after a book of the same title, helped to significantly raise awareness of humans’ effect on marine ecosystems as it showcased full-color views of the ocean floor. In 1962, two years after Island of the Blue Dolphins’ release, Houghton Mifflin published Silent Spring, the book that is now widely understood to have marked the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Its author, Rachel Carson, was one of a number of writers Houghton Mifflin sought out for advance reviews of Island of the Blue Dolphins. “No wonder you feel you have an important book in Island of the Blue Dolphins,” Carson wrote to O’Dell’s editor, Austin Olney. “It held me spellbound from the first word. The

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limpid beauty of its prose, the timeless and elemental quality of its theme, combine to make a book that would be memorable in any year. . . . It is fine to have such a book for young readers, but I hope you’ll make clear its appeal to adults also.” Houghton Mifflin later used Carson’s endorsement in print advertisements for Island of the Blue Dolphins.141 Teachers and librarians responded, seeing what she had in O’Dell’s prose: an opportunity to reflect on humans’ actions in nature. This is precisely what O’Dell had hoped. In a 1968 essay for Psychology Today, he wrote: “Island of the Blue Dolphins began in anger, anger at the hunters who invade the mountains where I live and who slaughter everything that creeps or walks or flies.” These were activities that, to his regret, he himself had engaged in when young. In imagining Karana as being in tune with the flora and fauna, the land and the sea, O’Dell “wished to say to the young and to all who wish to listen that we have a chance to come into a new relationship to the things around us.”142 Island of the Blue Dolphins’ readers could follow in Karana’s footsteps. During the course of the novel, she transforms from an adolescent who uses the natural world to feed, clothe, and shelter herself— as generations of her people had done before her—to a woman who, on principle, avoids the destruction of animals at all costs. Her selfconscious decision to change her behavior spoke to the burgeoning twentieth-century environmental movement, creating a welcoming reception for the novel.143 Importantly, Karana’s care for the earth is associated closely with her gender. O’Dell gave her a name that echoes Crusoe’s, but he also made her a character who, unlike Crusoe, saw her relationship to the island and its inhabitants in nonpossessive ways. In making her dramatic and culturally improbable vow to abstain from killing mammals and birds for food or clothing, Karana sets herself apart from the sea otter hunters who destroyed her community and disrupted the island’s ecosystem. Karana’s behavior is also distinguished from that of the male members of her tribe. When Captain Orlov lands on the Island of the Blue Dolphins with his Aleut crew, Karana’s father strives to protect his people and their resources by negotiating the Russian’s stay using European terms. “The sea which surrounds the Island of the Blue Dolphins belongs to us,” he tells the captain (page 101). His statement suggests that the Ghalas-at people own the sea and that they have rights to the otters and other animals within it. After the Aleuts kill Chief Chowig, his son Ramo similarly adopts the language of possession. When he finds himself alone on the island with Karana after their people have

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departed for the mainland, Ramo declares: “I am now Chief of Ghalasat. All my wishes must be obeyed” (page 121). The statement echoes the one made by Robinson Crusoe, who, on finding himself alone on a deserted island, declares himself its king and lord. Ramo, like his father before him, is punished with death. Karana alone survives, and she cultivates a nonpossessive relationship with the land, the sea, and their creatures. But before Karana can swear off violence, she must first engage in it. Ramo’s demand for his sister’s subservience only points to the ridiculousness of his order; he is too young and too weak to protect anyone from danger, including himself. Karana’s survival depends on her ability to complete the daily tasks of both genders. This presents a spiritual as well as a physical challenge. Women of her tribe, readers are told, are forbidden to make weapons. But when the wild dogs that killed her brother begin to threaten her—snarling, howling, and digging up her supply of hidden food—Karana decides she must ignore the taboo. Contrary to the warnings she received during her childhood, which claimed that the “four winds” would smother her, falling rocks would bury her, and the weapons she made would collapse in her hands (page 127), Karana successfully constructs and wields a spear and a bow with arrows. Save for Karana’s increase in self-confidence, nothing happens. Island of the Blue Dolphins arrived on the children’s literature scene three years before Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique went to press. In this era of consciousness-raising, feminists began scrutinizing the gendered messages embedded in books and media for youth. Today, in an era in which strong girl protagonists abound, it is easy to forget how innovative O’Dell’s Karana was when she first appeared in 1960. Just a year earlier, in 1959, the Stratemeyer Syndicate began reissuing the popular Nancy Drew series, first published during the 1930s, in volumes that were shorter and less overtly racist but that also significantly downplayed the girl sleuth’s agency and independence.144 Faced with a postwar culture of retroactive gender ideals, feminists were eager to identify alternative role models for girls. Island of the Blue Dolphins served their purposes beautifully. O’Dell’s readers were presumed to be nonNative, so the tribe’s gender taboos could easily be dismissed as primitive superstitions. Yet Karana wrestles with them. By making the consequences of defying a gender taboo so drastic, and the result an act of divine retribution rather than social punishment, O’Dell set up a straw man.145 This makes it easier for readers to dismiss the prohibition, and it invites them to reflect on equally absurd gender norms and taboos

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within their own culture. In the early 1970s, the activist group Feminists on Children’s Media included Island of the Blue Dolphins in its groundbreaking pamphlet, Little Miss Muffet Fights Back: Recommended Non-Sexist Books about Girls for Young Readers. Later in the decade, an edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins was published as part of Weekly Reader’s book series Especially for Girls. Since the 1980s, Island of the Blue Dolphins has remained popular on lists of “good books for girls,” sitting alongside classics like Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, and A Little Princess. But just as some critics in recent years have pointed to the ways in which Karana is problematic as an embodiment of the Native American, some scholars have questioned the appropriateness of holding up Karana as a feminist. In a 2006 essay titled “Surviving Rescue: A Feminist Reading of Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins,” Diann L. Baecker argues that Island of the Blue Dolphins has been (mis)read as a feminist text when it is really an archetypal story of a virginal orphan who faces ruin if she is not rescued by the right man. Baecker makes her case by contrasting O’Dell’s fiction with the journalistic reporting of Emma Hardacre and John E. Bennett, author of an 1898 Harper’s article about California’s islands. The nineteenth-century writers reported that the Lone Woman was a mother, not a virginal child, and that she was middle-aged at the time of her removal to the mainland. There is no emphasis, in these nineteenth-century accounts, on her having a predilection for pretty things or personal adornment, and none of the accounts report any shift in the way she interacted with her island environment, including its animals. Baecker argues that Karana’s vow to refrain from killing animals is unrealistic and that her “ ‘connection’ with nature leaves her vulnerable, not empowered.”146 But this defenselessness is critical for O’Dell’s plot: “That such a girl must succumb to either [debauchery or rescue] is a necessary element of the archetype,” Baecker writes. Yet as Baecker recognizes, this is not the message children see: “In the hands of young readers, Island—part fairytale, part rescue narrative, part feminist parable—becomes a story of independence and survival, despite the heroine’s ‘rescue’ at the end.”147 Most teachers and librarians, like the young readers Baecker describes, continue to see the novel as a tool of female empowerment. They have ensured Karana’s seamless passage from the age of Title IX to the era of girl power. The abundance of teacher and student guides to Island of the Blue Dolphins attests to its continued popularity as curriculum.148 But another measure of the frequency with which today’s

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grade school classrooms are reading Island of the Blue Dolphins is the continued demand for a new movie version of the novel, a demand so great that some children are willing to watch the original film adaption, which was made when their grandparents were young.

island of the blue dolphins on film The only existing cinematic version of Island of the Blue Dolphins was released by Universal Pictures in September 1964.149 Producer Robert B. Radnitz created the adaption with a limited budget and an unknown twenty-year-old actress, Celia Kaye, starring as Karana.150 Knowing that family films struggled to obtain wide distribution, Radnitz aggressively sought endorsements for the feature, and he received commendations from the American Library Association, the National Education Association, two religious organizations (the National Council of the Churches of Christ and the National Catholic Educational Association), and two government officials (U.S. Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas and U.S. senator Maurine B. Neuberger, a Democrat from Oregon). Through Radnitz’s extraordinary publicity efforts, the film was covered in major adult, teen, and children’s media, including The Today Show, Time, Life, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Boys’ Life, Calling All Girls, and Jack and Jill Magazine.151 At the time, few people in Hollywood were competing with Disney to produce films for all ages, and public concern about the kinds of films attracting teenage audiences was on the rise. Radnitz was outspoken about his desire to fill this gap by offering films that were appropriate for both children and teenagers but that, in their sophistication and artistry, were also attractive to adult viewers (figure 12). When Radnitz obtained the rights for Island of the Blue Dolphins, he had already developed a reputation for producing high-quality family films in a “wholesomely naturalistic” style.152 His movies were filmed on location, featuring rustic backdrops rather than staged sets (figure 13). The scripts were adapted from well-known children’s books, and they paired the skills of expert animal trainers with the novelty of talented but inexperienced actors. The costars of Island of the Blue Dolphins are a case in point: Celia Kaye, a young woman starring in her first film, and the dog Junior, an animal sired by Hollywood’s Old Yeller and coached by Frank Weatherwax, the man who had trained Pal, the dog that played Lassie in Lassie Come Home.153 Reviewing the film for Life magazine, Richard Oulahan wrote:

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12. One of several ad mats that were available for movie theaters that wished to advertise the film adaptation of Island of the Blue Dolphins. Posters incorporating this copy explicitly linked Karana to Robinson Crusoe. (Reprinted with permission from NBCUniversal)

Now Radnitz has done it again. . . . He has taken a simple story with an unobtrusive message and filmed it against an authentic, stunning background. . . . The color photography captures the grandeur of the coast of northern California, and the simple incidents which knit the story together are absorbing and touching. . . . The film has the ring of authenticity, and it conveys a sense of human dignity in tragic circumstances without ever becoming maudlin.154

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13. Robert B. Radnitz, producer of the film adaptation of Island of the Blue Dolphins, on set in Anchor Bay, California, 1963. (Reprinted with permission from NBCUniversal)

Oulahan described the film as being for children, but he didn’t associate this intended audience with lower-quality fare. Others did. The New York Times review of the movie, for example, begins: “Adults and the more sophisticated youngsters probably will find ‘Island of the Blue Dolphins’ a bit thin and sugary. Never mind, though, kiddies. This one is strictly for you.” Boxoffice, an industry publication, was more damning. It described the film as appropriate for children but asserted that it was too boring to hold that audience: “The pace of the film is tranquil and slow, there is little dialog and a plot with suspense leading to a climax is lacking. . . . Concessions counters should be well stocked as young customers will not be glued to their seats to see what will happen next. Little does.”155 Radnitz’s attempt to appeal to a general audience of both children and adolescents, as well as their chaperones, was complicated in an era of increasing market segmentation. Teenage culture was thriving (Island of the Blue Dolphins appeared the same year the Beatles arrived stateside), and teens did not want to share their entertainment with children. Radnitz nonetheless stubbornly and deliberately worked to win over both sections of the youth population. Celia Kaye was selected to play

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Karana in large part for her striking beauty—with the hope that teenage boys and girls alike would fall for her. Calling All Girls, a publication for what marketers now call “tweens,” responded by printing an eightpage spread promising that Kaye was “a new star who’ll capture your heart.”156 Boys’ Life, by contrast, aimed its article about the movie at a younger audience. Instead of featuring a chaste photo of the lust-worthy Karana, editors opted for a shot of Ramo, played by eight-year-old Larry Domasin. The materials Universal offered in the film’s publicity packets demonstrated the awkwardness of attempting to simultaneously please seven- and seventeen-year-olds. Included are coloring mats for children too young to read O’Dell’s novel, crossword puzzles for the elementary school set, and photo-rich spreads discussing costumes, animal training, and the attractive star that are clearly aimed at adolescents. Despite the scattered marketing approach and the failure to win over the critics, Island of the Blue Dolphins was a commercial success that also generated a significant bump in book sales.157 The industry magazine Variety placed Island of the Blue Dolphins in its list of “Big Rental Pictures of 1964,” noting that the movie had made $1.4 million in distributor rentals as of January 1965 (the year’s number one film made $13 million). Moreover, the film enjoyed a second life on television throughout the mid-1970s and a third as a VHS in elementary school classrooms throughout the 1980s and ’90s.158 If the film’s leisurely pace was a cause for concern among reviewers in the 1960s, however, this was magnified tenfold in the post-Internet era. Universal never issued the film on DVD. Island of the Blue Dolphins’ immediate and longer-term reception can be helpfully compared to that of a later Radnitz film, Sounder (1972). While both movies are adaptations of award-winning children’s books and aimed for a general audience, Sounder was much more successful in attracting adult viewers, and it has enjoyed a significantly longer life. In part, Radnitz’s decision to star experienced actors Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield in Sounder increased the film’s marquee impact, but perhaps more important for Sounder’s longevity is its success in speaking from the margins in a way Island of the Blue Dolphins never managed. The film Sounder tells the story of a resilient black family coping with the structural racism of a pre–civil rights South. Although Sounder didn’t win any Oscars, it was nominated for best picture and three additional Academy Awards, all for African Americans: Winfield was nominated for best actor, Tyson for best actress, and Lonnie Elder III for best adapted screenplay. Because of its red carpet

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success, Sounder is often considered the first “black film” to be fully recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.159 Importantly, the artists involved in the production of Sounder were attuned to the political significance of their work. The tragic, lyrical novel the film was based on garnered tremendous praise from the public and from the children’s literary establishment when it was released. But it also attracted harsh criticism from the radical Council on Interracial Books for Children, which objected, first and foremost, to the fact that it was written by a white man and, second, to the author’s narrative strategies, which included universalizing characters by not giving them names and erasing life-giving, rural black culture—religion, storytelling, music—in order to emphasize the bleakness of the Jim Crow era. Radnitz’s Sounder was innovative in that its screenplay responded to criticisms of the novel. Whereas William H. Armstrong’s book emphasized the despair felt by a nameless black family trapped in poverty and racism, the film emphasized the means by which poor black people survived despite their impossible lot in life. Melodic spirituals and a rousing community baseball game light up the screen as the film insists that, even in the oppressively segregated South, strong black communities nurtured their children for hopeful futures.160 But perhaps most importantly, the film’s casting and the selection of Lonnie Elder to write the screenplay transformed Sounder from a novel written by a white author into a film written and performed by African American artists. The adaptation of Island of the Blue Dolphins for the big screen made no parallel innovations. While Sounder can be called a “black film,” Island of the Blue Dolphins cannot be dubbed a Native one.161 Radnitz chose a location for Island of the Blue Dolphins that was far removed from the Lone Woman’s actual homeland and cast non-Native actors in the lead parts. He did recruit American Indian extras, but he assigned them tribal identities on-screen that differed from both their own cultural backgrounds and those of the Indians in the historical account of the Lone Woman. Thus, while one might contend that Radnitz’s Island of the Blue Dolphins presents California Indians positively, it does not present them authentically. It is unclear why Radnitz made the particular casting and location choices he did; it was not from ignorance. To the contrary, Radnitz consulted key historical sources when he was producing the film, some of which were also utilized by Scott O’Dell. A prefatory note to the screenplay, written by Ted Sherdeman and Jane Klove, for example, identifies two texts as sources for the Aleut vocabulary and pronunciation used in the film (the actors playing Aleuts

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speak the Aleut language, with no subtitles provided).162 Moreover, correspondence between Radnitz and a descendent of Carl Dittman, a nineteenth-century American sea otter hunter who, as a member of George Nidever’s party, first spied the Lone Woman on San Nicolas Island, reveals that Radnitz examined Dittman’s and Nidever’s firsthand accounts of finding her and that Radnitz additionally viewed ethnographic material from San Nicolas Island at the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles.163 Thus, he knew the tribal background of the Lone Woman’s people and was familiar with the kind of tools and implements they made. Yet Radnitz’s knowledge of the historical story did not prevent him from taking considerable artistic license in adapting Island of the Blue Dolphins to the screen. The Universal Pictures showman’s manual for Island of the Blue Dolphins reported that the crew scoured the entire length of California’s coast, “from Baja to Eureka,” in search of a location for filming, and this is in fact an understatement: sites as far away as the Caribbean were also considered. A far-reaching search was required, in part, because the historical setting of the Lone Woman’s tragedy, San Nicolas Island, was under the control of the U.S. Navy and therefore off limits for film production. But instead of researching—and selecting—another one of California’s Channel Islands, Radnitz and his team chose a site nearly five hundred miles to the north. The remote coastal towns of Anchor Bay and Gualala, located about four miles apart, had a combined population of less than three hundred at the time of filming. The on-location filming, which continued for weeks, was thus a major event for the region. This was particularly true because Radnitz advertised for fifty extras and “issued a call to local residents for such unlikely props as Indian relics, 20 foot long double ended boats, and kayaks complete with crews.”164 By choosing the location he did, the producer also selected, by default, the local Pomo people to play the roles of both the members of Karana’s Ghalas-at community and the intruding Aleut hunters. Both Karana and the Lone Woman and their people were Nicoleños, however, and the hunters in the novel and in historical accounts were Alaska Natives. Presumably, the change of ethnicity mattered little to the film crew because, despite maintaining the appearance of seeking authenticity, they were concerned with creating undifferentiated Hollywood Indians. Members of the Kashaya Band of Pomo Indians who have relatives who served as extras in the movie recall stories of the producers recruiting the slightest, skinniest girls to play Karana’s people despite the fact that this body type is uncommon among California coastal Indians.

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14. Celia Kaye, who starred as Karana in the Island of the Blue Dolphins movie, poses on set in Anchor Bay, 1963. (Reprinted with permission from NBCUniversal)

Dark makeup was also applied to a number of the recruits.165 Meanwhile, movie publicity emphasized that the star, Celia Kaye, was selected as Karana from among 1,500 applicants not only because of her skill in auditions but also because she “looks like an Indian with her dark hair and skin” and was able to “act” like an Indian, running and swimming athletically (figure 14). Although Radnitz did not know it at the time, Kaye had some Cherokee ancestry through her maternal grandmother, and publicity teams made much of this fact when promoting the film.166 Yet Kaye herself knew nothing about this remote background and certainly did not identify as Native. Her previous television appearances included playing a sorority girl on a decidedly all-white college campus

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in Ozzie and Harriet and appearing as a white woman in the Western television show Tales of Wells Fargo. Kaye was selected as Karana because she could play a Hollywood Indian.167 That Radnitz indiscriminately recruited Indians from one tribe to play Indians from another in the early 1960s isn’t surprising. What is fascinating, however, is that Radnitz and his team changed the tribal identity of Karana. Instead of identifying her as Nicoleña, matching the historical Lone Woman, they rendered her Chumash, a different people entirely. The traditional Chumash homeland stretches approximately two hundred miles up the California coast from modern-day Los Angeles, and it includes the northern but not the southern Channel Islands. This is critical because San Nicolas Island is one of the southern Channel Islands. The language spoken there was not of the same family group as Chumash, and this is part of the reason that, when the Lone Woman arrived in Santa Barbara in 1853, no one could be found who understood her speech. So in Radnitz’s film, the historical Nicoleños are made into Chumash and played, for the most part, by Pomo people. All the actors, both professional and amateur, who play Chumash men and women speak a stilted, grammatically perfect English in the movie, which is supposed to communicate the fact that they are speaking a language foreign to the audience, Chumash. To further complicate matters, the cinematic Island of the Blue Dolphins is set in a landscape that, for much of 1814–53, the period corresponding to the historical events depicted, was part of the Russian Empire.168 In fact, the center of the Russian American Company’s California colony, Fort Ross, was located just thirty miles away from the film’s production grounds.169 In the movie, however, it is Spanish-speaking men who interact with Karana’s people, a narrative decision that adheres to the historical record but is not consistent with the modifications the producer made to the story. Radnitz changed the Lone Woman’s ethnic identity, the location of her home, and the likely year of her birth. Yet despite these significant adjustments, the film, like the novel on which it is based, makes a claim for historical accuracy. It opens with a bold statement printed on the screen: “Our time is 1800 and our story is of a Chumash girl. It is a true story.” Radnitz also emphasized the film’s aim to present “real” rather than stereotypical Indians. In a study guide created for grade school classrooms, Radnitz explained: “The people in this film behave like real people, good and bad. The Indians have their own language—they don’t speak in ‘ughs’ and ‘hows’, because real Indians don’t speak that way. The Aleut hunters in the film speak the authentic Aleut language, and the Spaniards speak

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their own language, too.”170 Radnitz aimed high, but he fell short of his intentions. When the Russian captain steps ashore, the Ghalas-at chief raises his right hand to greet him in a move that can only be described as a visual “How!” Thus, the idea of Indians speaking in grunts is retained even though the film attempts to overcompensate for this by having Karana’s people speak a too-perfect version of American English. Similarly, while tremendous energy was placed on having the actors playing Aleuts speak the authentic Aleut language, the cultural identity and mother tongue of another group of Indians, the Nicoleños, is arbitrarily changed. Contemporary reviewers didn’t comment on these facts, but a few sensed that something was amiss. In his otherwise positive review for Life, Oulahan noted: “Celia Kaye seems to be a wooden little Indian at times.”171 Because Island of the Blue Dolphins remains immensely popular in classrooms, there has been considerable demand for another adaptation of the book. According to Elizabeth Hall, O’Dell’s widow, there have been “at least 15 requests” to produce a new film, but Universal has been unwilling to authorize a remake.172 This is a real loss. The restaging of narratives allows artists and audiences alike to consider how contemporary issues enable new meaning to be drawn from stories long told. In the years since Island of the Blue Dolphins’ publication and Radnitz’s adaptation of it, scholars have learned more about the Lone Woman and her people. More importantly, the public has become less tolerant of stereotypical representations of Native peoples and more attuned to the ways in which narratives can naturalize the disappearance of Indians and indigenous culture. From its nineteenth-century beginnings through Island of the Blue Dolphins, the Lone Woman’s story has been told as a vanishing Indian tale. A new adaptation of the film might not be able to change that, but it could provoke conversation about what it means to tell the Lone Woman’s story in the twenty-first century.

notes The following short titles have been used for archival or manuscript collections. See pages 77–78 for full archival information. Autry

Lost Woman of San Nicolas Island Collected Manuscripts

HMH

Scott O’Dell Papers, 1960–92

Houghton Library

Scott O’Dell Correspondence, Houghton Mifflin Company

Kerlan

Scott O’Dell Papers, 1957–2008

Lone Woman Digital Archive

Lone Woman and Last Indians Digital Archive

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O’Dell Estate

Scott O’Dell Papers, Scott O’Dell Estate Collection

Oregon

Scott O’Dell Papers, 1966–76

Southern California

Robert Radnitz Collection

Stoneapple Trust

Scott O’Dell Papers, Stoneapple Farm Trust

1. Moseley to Scott and Dorsa O’Dell, 7 Jan. 1960, Houghton Library, folder 1. Moseley’s letters are carbon copies, and most were typed by Carol E. Clark, his secretary, as noted by initials at the bottom of the letters. 2. Ibid. 3. Total number of sales as of 2015 provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. See John Perritano, “20 Best-Selling Children’s Books of All Time,” 9 Dec. 2011, www.howstuffworks.com/arts/literature/20-best-selling-childrens-books.htm; and Roback and Britton, “Bestselling Children’s Books,” 24–32. 4. Eric Stickney (director of research, Renaissance Learning), e-mail message to Sara L. Schwebel, 19 Aug. 2015. 5. For reasons of clarity, this edition employs the most commonly used name, Nicoleño, to refer to the Native people of San Nicolas Island. The name is Spanish and is a legacy of colonialism (as is the name of the island itself). What the people of San Nicolas called themselves and their homeland, however, was never recorded. The Nicoleños are part of a larger group of peoples from the Los Angeles Basin and southern Channel Islands who are collectively known as Gabrielino or Gabrieleño, a name that stems from the Spanish Mission San Gabriel. Contemporary Native peoples identifying as members of this cultural group spell the name both ways, with some adding Tongva or Kizh to the umbrella term Gabrielino or Gabrieleño and others using the name Tongva or Kizh alone. These names are not as specific as Nicoleño, however, as they refer, collectively, to people whose traditional homelands span the Los Angeles Basin and the southern Channel Islands. 6. Steven J. Schwartz, personal communication to Sara L. Schwebel, Oct. 2012. Schwartz was the chief archaeologist on San Nicolas Island from 1989 to 2013. 7. The Alaska Natives who hunted otter in California were usually referred to as Aleuts in Russian documents and as Codiacas in Spanish ones. The term “Kodiak” is more accurate, as most Alaska Natives hunting along the coast were from Kodiak rather than the Aleutian Islands. See Farris, “Otter Hunting,” 32n5. 8. Morris et al., “Murder, Massacre, and Mayhem.” The Alaska Native sea otter hunters were left onshore for the hunting season, and the violence—forbidden by RAC policy—was not discovered until a brig returned to collect them. Russian sources detail the disciplinary measures taken against the Russian leader in charge, Iakov Babin. The Alaska Natives had access to Russian weapons while on the island; a Spanish inventory of the RAC hunting group’s possessions indicates that they had with them muskets, shotguns, a small cannon, and hand-held hunting tools. Note that in Island of the Blue Dolphins, unlike in the historical account, the Russian captain condones violence against the island Natives. 9. Morris et al., “Nicoleños in Los Angeles.” 10. See, for example, Hudson, “Accounts Concerning the ‘Lone Woman.’ ” 11. Lone Woman Digital Archive. Prior to 1930, amateur scientific writings about the Lone Woman appeared only occasionally. After 1930, strictly popular-interest stories of the Lone Woman occasionally appeared, but they were outnumbered by scientific articles. 12. Meighan, “Nicoleño,” 25, 24. Meighan’s article is a popular summary of “Archaeological Resources of San Nicolas Island, California,” a more scholarly piece he copublished with Hal Eberhart a year earlier. Meighan’s remarks about the Lone Woman’s

Introduction | 65 narrative trumping Robinson Crusoe’s echo similar statements made by nineteenthcentury journalists. For example, in 1856, C. J. W. Russell wrote in Hutchings’ Illustrated California Magazine: “Could we but find an author at the present day, with Defoe’s graphic imagination, we believe sufficient facts of the lonely exile of this woman for eighteen years, could be obtained to make one of the most thrilling and beautifully descriptive volumes ever published.” C. J. W. Russell, “Narrative of a Woman,” 209. 13. Amazingly, given how long the public had been fascinated with the tale, O’Dell was the first to fictionalize the Lone Woman’s life in a novel. Herman Melville’s Encantadas, a series of sketches that was first published in Putnam’s Magazine in 1854, the year after the Lone Woman’s removal from San Nicolas, contains one story, “Norfolk Isle and the Chola Widow,” that is very loosely based on her life. But Melville changed the setting of the story and imagined the Lone Woman as a mestiza rather than a native of San Nicolas Island. In 1947, Helen M. Roberts published a short story about the Lone Woman’s life as part of a series of tales about the Spanish missions, The Lone Woman of San Nicolas: A Tale of Mission Santa Barbara (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1948), and long after Island of the Blue Dolphins had become a classic, Lawrence Thornton published an adult novel about the Lone Woman, Ghost Woman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). 14. S. O’Dell, Country of the Sun, 175. 15. D. O’Dell, “Scott O’Dell”; Hall, “What’s Fact and What’s Fiction?” 16. Many accounts of the Lone Woman that mention footprints are colored by the trope of discovery. The American sea otter hunters are positioned as latter-day Christopher Columbuses or Juan Cabrillos, explorers whose discovery of an exotic person also lends credence to their claim on the land’s natural resources. For a compilation of these accounts and discussion of the trope of discovery, see Lone Woman Digital Archive. 17. S. O’Dell, “Books Remembered.” 18. Bernice Eastman Johnston’s name is spelled incorrectly (as “Johnson”) in O’Dell’s author’s note. 19. One must approach with caution the information O’Dell gave in interviews over the course of his long career, as details he provided are not consistent and at times fail to align with other evidence. 20. Ellison, Life and Adventures of George Nidever, 82, 88. 21. Widespread reportage that the Lone Woman was the “last of her race” could long ago have been dismissed as a literary trope, but conclusive evidence has now been found that at least one Nicoleño was alive and well in Los Angeles at the time the Lone Woman arrived in Santa Barbara. See Morris et al., “Nicoleños in Los Angeles.” 22. Autry. The archive does not contain any correspondence between O’Dell and Johnston or records of what (if anything) O’Dell viewed at the library. 23. These details are present in the following sources, all of which can be found in the Autry archive. Lone Woman was spied by the otter hunter search party: James Terry interviews (1882), 3; summary of The Life and Adventures of George Nidever, 2; Edwin M. Sheridan, “The Lost Woman of San Nicolas” (1925), 8. She followed the hunters to their boat: Terry, 3; Nidever summary, 3; Sheridan, 10. She bathed: Nidever summary, 3; Sheridan, 11. A new outfit of European cloth: Terry, 3; Nidever summary, 3; Sheridan, 11–12. Her child had been eaten by wild dogs: Sheridan, 15; Terry, 15; Nidever summary, 4. All of the details listed in this paragraph are also present in Hardacre, “Eighteen Years Alone.” 24. Sheridan, 14–15, Autry. 25. For an inventory of items, see Krum, “Early Archeology.” 26. A. Kroeber, Handbook, 633–35. My thanks to Debbie Reese, who shared with me her unpublished paper, “Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins: An Island of

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Ignorance,” in which she suggests that O’Dell used Kroeber as a source. See especially pages 12–15. A condensed version of the paper is available as a Prezi presentation: www.prezi.com/uvcqzr3ntfwl/an-island-of-well-intentioned-ignorance, 31 May 2012. 27. See, for example, L. Burr Beldon, “The Lost Spanish Galleon,” San Bernardino Daily Sun, 15 Feb. 1953. 28. A. Kroeber, Handbook, 672, 692. In 2015, the U.S. Navy declared its intention to begin the process of repatriating funerary objects and human remains held on San Nicolas Island to the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, as pursuant with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The Pechanga are not considered lineal descendants of the Nicoleño people, but they meet the NAGPRA criteria of both cultural affiliation and federal recognition as a tribe. The Nicoleños and Luiseños likely engaged in trade and intermarriage predating the Nicoleños’ removal to the mainland. See Goldberg’s essay in this volume. 29. Provincial Mexican military documents indicate that Isaac J. Sparks, the owner of the Peor es Nada, served as the vessel’s captain in October 1834 but that Hubbard served as captain on the May 1836 trip during which the Peor es Nada capsized in San Francisco Bay. There is no listing of a captain for the intervening year, meaning that either man could have been the captain on the ship’s 1835 trip to San Nicolas Island. See “Provincial State Papers: Benicia, Military, 1767–1845,” LXXIX, p. 134 stamped (p. 73 penned), Archive.org, www .archive.org/details/168035972_80_2_2; “Provincial State Papers: Benicia, Military, 1767– 1845, LXXXI, p. 227 stamped (p. 17 penned), Archive.org, www.archive.org/details /168035972_80_2_2; and “Departmental State Papers, 1821–1846 (1835),” IV, p. 69 stamped (p. 68 penned), Archive.org, www.archive.org/details/168036073_80_11_3. These three documents are transcriptions of the originals (which were lost in the San Francisco fire and earthquake of 1906), created for Hubert Howe Bancroft by Thomas Savage. My thanks to Susan Morris, who brought these documents to my attention. In Island of the Blue Dolphins, Karana describes the loss of the Peor es Nada in 1836: “I asked them then about the ship that had taken my people away many years before, making the signs of the ship and pointing to the east, but they did not understand. Not until I came to Mission Santa Barbara and met Father Gonzales did I learn from him that this ship had sunk in a great storm soon after it reached his country and that on the whole ocean thereabouts there was no other. For this reason, the white men had not come back for me” (page 192). For a discussion of the long history of the detail Karana reports above, that “on the whole ocean thereabouts there was no other” boat available, see “Literary Tropes,” Lone Woman Digital Archive. 30. While no reports of Captain Hubbard have been found, a University of Southern California master’s thesis by Leo Marcus Harloe, the great-grandson of ship captain Isaac J. Sparks, cites a diary kept by Sparks that could perhaps shed light on the 1835 removal of the Nicoleños. In 1948, when the thesis was submitted, the diary was held in the private collection of Leo Harloe’s uncle, John D. Harloe, who died in San Francisco in 1951 without descendants; it has subsequently been lost. It is possible—although it seems unlikely—that O’Dell conflated Spark’s diary with Hubbard’s “records,” as both men are associated with the Peor es Nada, the ship that transported the Nicoleños to the mainland. See Harloe, “Life of Isaac J. Sparks,” 51. 31. “A Female Crusoe,” Boston Atlas, 7 Jan. 1847. 32. Daily, “Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island”; Hudson, “Accounts Concerning the ‘Lone Woman.’ ” Hardacre was likely limited by language when she interviewed local residents. George Nidever’s wife, Maria Sinforosa Ramona Sanchez de Nidever, probably spent more time with the Lone Woman in Santa Barbara than anyone else, as the Lone Woman was installed in the Nidever home. She was still alive when Hardacre wrote her article, but she spoke only Spanish, a language Hardacre did not know. Hardacre also lacked knowledge of California Indian languages and likely would not have thought to interview elderly Indians who may have been in contact with the Lone Woman.

Introduction | 67 33. On the trope of discovery, see Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions. 34. See, for example, Raymond, “Master Storyteller,” 27; Hopkins, “Interview of Scott O’Dell”; and S. O’Dell, “Autobiographical Sketch,” 154. 35. S. O’Dell, “Newbery Acceptance Speech,” 315. In one interview conducted years after Island of the Blue Dolphins was published, O’Dell made further claims: “ ‘I heard the legend about the Indian girl when I was a boy, . . . and 50 years later I said, “That may be a good story. I’ll try it.” . . . The things that she did were things that I did in my childhood.’ ” John J. Archibald, “Life of Kids’-Book Author Has Grown-Up Drama,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 30 Mar. 1984. 36. Meighan, “Nicoleño.” 37. According to Steven J. Schwartz, an archaeologist assigned to San Nicolas Island from 1989 to 2013, no letter from Scott O’Dell has been found in U.S. Navy files. Schwartz heard about O’Dell’s request in the late 1980s and early 1990s from men stationed on San Nicolas Island. O’Dell would not have been able to sail close to the island’s shore after 1957, when waters around San Nicolas were classified as restricted. Steven J. Schwartz, e-mail message to Sara L. Schwebel, 16 Apr. 2012. 38. Hedger, “O’Dell’s Early Life”; “Ebb Tide (1937): Notes,” Turner Classic Movies, accessed 18 Dec. 2015, www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/73876/Ebb-Tide/notes.html. The island was ultimately rejected as a location in favor of the more hospitable Santa Catalina Island. 39. Karana’s death is not depicted in Island of the Blue Dolphins, a narrative choice that allows the survival story to cohere. It also permitted O’Dell to write a sequel, Zia, which was published many years later, in 1976. 40. That the Russians brought the savage Indians to San Nicolas Island was particularly convenient for Scott O’Dell, who wrote Island of the Blue Dolphins in the midst of the Cold War. 41. Hardacre, “Eighteen Years Alone.” 42. The term Manifest Destiny was coined by journalist John O’Sullivan, whose argument that the United States should stretch the length of the continent was made against the backdrop of his advocating for the annexation of Texas, a future slave state. 43. Veracini, Settler Colonialism; Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism.” 44. As Veracini argued in Settler Colonialism, “settler colonial political projects . . . can operate parallel to someone else’s sovereign claim” (67). 45. A. Kroeber, Handbook, 621. For the implications of early anthropologists’ work in terms of federal recognition of California Indian tribes, see Lightfoot, Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants, 8–9; and Panich, “Archaeologies of Persistence.” 46. Two years later, Heizer republished “Original Accounts” in Aboriginal California: Three Studies in Culture History; one of the two other studies in the book was on Ishi. 47. Meredith Eliassen is the only scholar to have noted that the publication of Island of the Blue Dolphins coincided with the release of popular works on Ishi. See Eliassen, “Scott O’Dell.” 48. See Lone Woman Digital Archive. The description of the Lone Woman as a “Crusoe in petticoats” appeared in the article “Crusoe in Petticoats: A Woman Who Was Eighteen Years on a Desert Island,” published simultaneously in Cortland News (New York) and Madison County Times (New York), 26 June 1885. Many articles described the Lone Woman as a female or feminine Crusoe. 49. All the names O’Dell considered during the drafting process similarly echo Crusoe: Karina, Kar-ina, Karena (Kerlan, box 5, folder 15). O’Dell also cited as a source for Karana a teenage Tarascan girl named Carolina who helped clean the cottage he and Dorsa rented during a summer stay in central Mexico during the late 1950s (S. O’Dell, “Newbery Acceptance Speech”). Carolina’s name is also evoked by O’Dell’s choice of Karana.

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50. S. O’Dell, “Books Remembered.” 51. Rousseau, Emilius and Sophia, 51. 52. Andrew O’Malley has done the most extensive work on this topic. See O’Malley, “Acting out Crusoe”; O’Malley, “Island Homemaking”; and O’Malley, Children’s Literature. 53. The term “robinsonade” was coined by Johann Gottfried Schnabel in 1731, a point when the form was already flourishing. 54. O’Dell’s parents were of Irish and Scottish stock. When Scott O’Dell’s father was still young, his extended family, on his father’s side, moved to central Ohio, where they invested in a large grain mill and became involved in real estate. O’Dell’s father, Bennett Mason Scott, married a native Ohioan, May Elizabeth (née Gabriel). Shortly after their wedding, Bennett Scott and May Elizabeth moved west to California, where Bennett became a railroad agent for the Union Pacific Railroad and later opened drugstores in downtown Los Angeles. O’Dell was their first child, born Odell Gabriel Scott soon after they arrived in California. O’Dell inverted his first and last names several decades later. Most accounts (e.g., D. Russell, Scott O’Dell) state that O’Dell started using this version of his name when pleased with a printer’s error that transposed “Scott” and “Odell”; the path to the legal name change was more complex, however. As early as 1924, his passport indicated that he used the name Scott O’Dell professionally. But as late as 1934, his name appeared as Odell Scott in voter registration records; these records register a name change in 1936, after Woman of Spain was published. U.S. Census, 1900, Los Angeles County, California, population schedule, District 6 Wilmington, Enumeration District 137, p. 14B (penned), dwelling 288, Family 293, Odell G. Scott, National Archives and Records Administration microfilm publication T623, roll 92; passport application for O’Dell Scott (known as Scott O’Dell), 12 Aug. 1924, National Archives and Records Administration, passport applications, 2 Jan. 1906–31 Mar. 1925, roll 2626, certificates 470350–470849; “Scott, Odell” in Los Angeles County, California, Index to Register of Voters Pomona City, precinct #25, 1934, Los Angeles City Directory Co., from Great Register of Voters (Sacramento, California), California State Library; “O’Dell, Scott” in Los Angeles County, California, Index to Register of Voters Pomona City, precinct #25, 1936, Los Angeles City Directory Co., from Great Register of Voters (Sacramento, California), California State Library; digital image for Bennet Mason Scott (1870–1949), Find a Grave #103305344, www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=103305344. 55. Literature on the termination era is substantial. See, for example, Rosier, “Ancestral Homelands”; and Cobb, Native Activism. 56. Television shows airing at the time included Gunsmoke (1955–75); Wagon Train (1957–65); Have Gun, Will Travel (1957–63); Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958–61); Bonanza (1959–73); The Rifleman (1958–63); and Maverick (1957–62). 57. Smits, “Squaw Drudge.” 58. During the earliest years of American filmmaking, the parts of Indians were largely played by actual Indians, since movies, borrowing from the Wild West traveling shows popular in the second half of the nineteenth century, were aiming for “authenticity” in their portrayal of Native peoples. Once the studio system arose in the 1920s, however, Hollywood began operating with a small cast of company actors, and the widespread use of Native actors declined precipitously. White people in redface playing generic Indian parts became the norm. See P. Deloria, Indians in Unexpected Places, 52–108. 59. P. Deloria, Playing Indian; Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 347. 60. Morey, “Have You the Power?” 61. Leon Garfield, “Young Man among the Mayans,” review of The Captive, by Scott O’Dell, Washington Post, 9 Mar. 1980, Book World, 7; Eliassen, “Scott O’Dell,” 311; Tarr, “Unintentional System of Gaps,” 69.

Introduction | 69 62. Anita Silvey, “February 6: Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O’Dell,” Children’s Book-a-Day-Almanac, 6 Feb. 2011, www.childrensbookalmanac.com/2011/02 /scott-odell. 63. Marcus, Minders of Make-Believe, 227. 64. On the emergence of market segmentation in relation to youth, see Cohen, Consumers’ Republic, 318–20. 65. The first Newbery Medal–winning book that was not published with illustrations was Harold Keith’s Rifles for Watie, copyright 1957 (see Horning, “It’s Like This, Cat,” 86). Like Island of the Blue Dolphins, it might have been published as an adult text in an earlier era. Interestingly, many translated editions of Island of the Blue Dolphins include illustrations, which were commissioned in the publishing country. These foreign editions, produced after Island of the Blue Dolphins won the Newbery Medal, were clearly marked as children’s books. The first illustrated version of Island of the Blue Dolphins published in the United States was released in 1990 for the novel’s thirtieth anniversary (Ted Lewin is the illustrator). Sales of this gift edition—and of the 2010 illustrated gift edition, released for the book’s fiftieth anniversary—are dwarfed by the less expensive, nonillustrated versions. 66. See Schwebel, Child-Sized History, 43–44. 67. Julia Cunningham to Mary K. Harmon, 21 Feb. 1960, copied into “Random Notes from Park Street #211-H.O.H.-2–25–60,” Houghton Library, folder 1; Luther Nichols, “Story Has Universal Appeal,” San Francisco Examiner, 18 Mar. 1960; Hardwick to O’Dell, 18 Apr. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3. 68. Clark, Kiddie Lit. 69. Serious scholarly attention to Island of the Blue Dolphins did not emerge until the 1980s and ’90s, when the literary field of children’s literature studies blossomed. 70. Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretation series includes three other texts first published in the same era that, while initially marketed to adults, had significant adolescent readerships: A Separate Peace (1959), Lord of the Flies (1954), and To Kill a Mockingbird (1960). 71. Kidd, “Prizing Children’s Literature.” Island of the Blue Dolphins illustrates this trend; in addition to the Newbery, then and now the most prestigious of children’s book awards in the United States, Island of the Blue Dolphins won more than ten other prizes. A complete list can be found on the Scott O’Dell website: www.scottodell.com/Pages /TheIslandoftheBlueDolphins.aspx 72. Schwebel, Child-Sized History, 17–25. On February 1, 1966, Houghton Mifflin editor Austin Olney wrote to Scott O’Dell: “All is well. Everyone is very much concerned with the stream of gold from the federal treasury into the school libraries that will start flowing this spring and undoubtedly account for many more sales of ISLAND [OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS].” HMH, folder 1965–66. Like other letters in Houghton Mifflin’s corporate archive that were written by Austin Olney, this letter is a carbon copy that was typed by his secretary. 73. The fact that Caroline Sauer was O’Dell’s agent at Houghton Mifflin can be confirmed by Houghton Mifflin records, but all of the other details of this story derive only from accounts told and later recorded by Scott and Dorsa O’Dell. Viking Press did not retain copies of manuscript submissions, reader reports, or correspondence associated with rejected books from this era. For versions of the story about Karana’s sex, see McCormick, “Immortal Writer”; Hopkins, “Interview of Scott O’Dell”; and Mary Lou Loper, “Nobody Liked It but the Readers,” Los Angeles Times, 20 Apr. 1961. The fact that O’Dell flew to New York using funds his wife received from her father years earlier is recorded in a letter from Jane Dorsa O’Dell to her nephew, Isaac Russell (n.d., Stoneapple Trust). 74. Houghton Mifflin’s official recommendation to publish Island of the Blue Dolphins notes that the manuscript came to them by way of Moseley (“Juvenile Contract

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Recommendation for the Executive Committee, Island of the Blue Dolphins,” HMH, folder 1965–66). O’Dell references the important lunch meeting—“A happy and fortuitous day, that lunch at the Plaza! Or rather the day we met!”—in a letter he sent to his friend after O’Dell accepted the Newbery (O’Dell to Moseley, 25 Mar. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3). Other details mentioned come from stories O’Dell told after the fact. See, for example, McCormick, “Immortal Writer.” O’Dell often stated that Houghton Mifflin accepted the manuscript “with no changes” or with “just one change.” Elizabeth Hall’s recollection of the story Scott O’Dell told is that Moseley took the manuscript to the president of Houghton Mifflin, William Spaulding, who requested only one change, the addition of a description of how Karana made her shell necklaces. In response to this, a how-to description of Karana making a hair circlet of shells (rather than a necklace) was added between Typescript 2c (which was presumably retyped and sent to Houghton Mifflin) and Typescript 3 (the copyedited version of the novel typed by Houghton Mifflin and sent for O’Dell’s review). The hair circlet, which does not appear in any extant draft before Typescript 3, was a gift for Tutok, offered in exchange for the black stone necklace that the Aleut girl had given to Karana. For a discussion of Island of the Blue Dolphins typescripts, see “Composition of Island of the Blue Dolphins,” in this volume. 75. Editorial Acquisition Books–1959, 92M-42, Houghton Mifflin and Company Blanks, Blank Ledgers, and Fellowships, Houghton Library, box 14, first ledger. 76. Anita Silvey, who served as O’Dell’s publisher at Houghton Mifflin many years after Island of the Blue Dolphins was produced, shared this anecdote: “The legend at Houghton was so specific that I never doubted it. A sales manager finding a manuscript is an unlikely thing” (telephone conversation with Sara L. Schwebel, 25 June 2013). 77. In Exile’s Return, his authoritative account of the Lost Generation, Malcolm Cowley notes that he excludes from his list of writer subjects both children’s book authors and writers of Westerns. Even if he hadn’t, however, O’Dell did not gain name recognition as an author until the 1960 appearance of Island of the Blue Dolphins, well after the 1934 publication of Cowley’s book. 78. O’Dell traveled to Europe with Anne and Katherine Scott, two sisters whose relationship to O’Dell is unclear. According to Los Angeles voter registration records, O’Dell began living with the Scotts, who owned an orange grove, in 1932. The 1940 census lists him (age forty-one) as a cousin living in the household of Jennie Scott (age seventy-seven) and her daughter, Anne Scott (age fifty-eight); his profession is a “novelist” (U.S. Census, 1940, Los Angeles County, California, population schedule, San Jose township, Pomona, Enumeration District 19–731, sheet 4A [penned], p. 13769 [stamped], household 77, Scott O’Dell, National Archives and Records Administration microfilm publication T627, roll 255). Dorsa O’Dell, however, always described Scott’s long relationship with Anne as both romantically involved and vexed, not familial (Gillian Gilhool, in conversation with Sara L. Schwebel, 2013–15). Indeed, the Stoneapple Farm library contains at least one volume dedicated to “Scott and Anne,” which suggests that they were at one time a couple. MGM began filming Ben Hur a year before O’Dell’s arrival in Rome. Just a month before O’Dell’s boat landed in Italy, however, the studio changed key personnel and hired a brand new camera crew. O’Dell may have been hired as part of this MGM crew before he departed the United States; this would explain how he paid for the trip. The evidence, however, is contradictory. O’Dell’s passport application suggests that he had planned on a grand tour of the continent rather than employment overseas, while an unpublished obituary of O’Dell written by Dorsa states that Anne Scott was working in MGM’s Public Relations Department at the time and that she encouraged O’Dell to apply for a job in Rome (Stoneapple Trust). The 1920 U.S. Census confirms the latter: Anne Scott is listed as a “critic” in the photoplay industry and O’Dell as a “writer” (U.S. Census, 1920, Los Angeles County, California, population schedule, Ward 4 Pomona, Enumeration District 595, p. 13B [penned], dwelling 326, Family 330, Anne L. Scott, National Archives and

Introduction | 71 Records Administration microfilm publication T625, roll 118). On O’Dell’s travel and companions, see passport application for O’Dell Scott (known as Scott O’Dell), 12 Aug. 1924, National Archives and Records Administration, passport applications, 2 Jan. 1906–31 Mar. 1925, roll 2626, certificates 470350–470849; passport application for Anne L. Scott, 12 Aug. 1924, National Archives and Records Administration, passport applications, 2 Jan. 1906–31 Mar. 1925, roll 2624, certificates 469350–469849; and passport application for Anne L. Scott, 12 Aug. 1924, National Archives and Records Administration, passport applications, 2 Jan. 1906–31 Mar. 1925, roll 2624, certificates 469350–469849; and manifest of the S.S. Arabic, Southampton, England, to New York, NY, arriving 30 Apr. 1925, p. 88 (stamped), p. 3 (penned), for Scott O’Dell, Anne Scott, and Katherine Scott, National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the U.S. Customs Service, Record Group 36, microfilm serial T715, 1897–1957, microfilm roll 3644, lines 9, 10, 11. On O’Dell’s residence, see “O’Dell, Scott” in Los Angeles County, California, Index to Register of Voters Pomona City, precinct no. 25, 1944, digital image, from Great Register of Voters (Sacramento, California), California State Library. On the three stages of filming for Ben Hur, see “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ,” Progressive Silent Film List, Silent Era, last modified 4 July 2012, www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/B /BenHur1925.html. On O’Dell’s work on the film set, see S. O’Dell, “Autobiographical Sketch,” 154. 79. S. O’Dell, “Dignity of the Human Spirit,” 184. Dorsa O’Dell wrote in an unpublished obituary she penned for Scott O’Dell that Anne Scott had lived with him during the year he spent in Florence (Stoneapple Trust). 80. D. Russell, Scott O’Dell, 5. In an interview conducted on November 29, 2015, Elizabeth Hall, who met O’Dell many years after he had lived in Rome, told Sara L. Schwebel this story as well. 81. “Books and Authors,” New York Times, 27 May 1934. 82. Petro, “Can You Spare a Dime?” 83. Jane Dorsa O’Dell to Isaac Russell, n.d., Stoneapple Trust. Internal context makes it clear that the letter was written after Scott and Dorsa had separated in the mid-1960s. 84. “A Visit with Scott O’Dell.” 85. Jean Hedger, “O’Dell’s Early Life Aids ‘Dolphin’ Story,” El Cajon Valley News, 6 Apr. 1961. 86. Chapter numbers used here correspond to the published novel. Early drafts followed the same structural pattern. 87. Stott, “Narrative Technique”; D. Russell, Scott O’Dell, 32. The circular movement of home-away-home has been identified as a core structure of children’s literature; see Nodelman and Reimer, Children’s Literature. 88. The published novel itself does not classify the ships in this way; it describes the first ship as Aleut but does not associate either the second or third ship with a specific people or nation. During the drafting process, however, O’Dell briefly changed his description of the first ship from Aleut to Russian, a description in line with historical reality (see Typescript 2, first version of chapter 1, p. 2, Kerlan). He then redrafted chapter 1 entirely, and in doing so, changed the adjective back to Aleut. On the Russian ship, see Morris et al., “Murder, Massacre, and Mayhem.” 89. The theme of accepting one’s fate and forgiving one’s enemies has contributed to the novel’s popularity with Christian audiences. In 1978, O’Dell received the Regina Medal from the Catholic Library Association for his body of work in children’s literature. In the post-Soviet era, Island of the Blue Dolphins was translated into Russian and published by the Narnia Center in Moscow, whose mission is to produce materials “that shape a Christ-centered character.” O’Dell did not routinely speak about Christian forgiveness as a theme in Island of the Blue Dolphins until a decade after the novel was first published.

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90. The sentence outlines occasionally contain snippets of Karana’s voice, meaning that the author brainstormed in the first person at times. 91. Far into the drafting process, O’Dell spelled Tutok’s name “Totuk.” 92. Papers associated with Island of the Blue Dolphins were not donated to the University of Minnesota Libraries until after O’Dell’s death, and a number of items were lost or discarded in the intervening years. 93. Scott and Dorsa O’Dell lived in Pomona-Claremont after their marriage, and Dorsa’s parents, William Hunt and Faye Hall Rattenbury, retired there from the East. Dorsa’s parents became friends with the Lovelaces, although Delos and Maud were really of Scott and Dorsa’s generation. After Scott and Dorsa moved to Julian, they made frequent trips back to Claremont (Gillian Gilhool, in conversation with Sara L. Schwebel, 2 June 2015). 94. The novel covers a span of eighteen years, so Karana does age during the course of the narrative. This is not immediately evident, however, as the narrative voice remains constant throughout. The accessibility of Island of the Blue Dolphins’ prose no doubt stems in part from O’Dell’s years of journalistic writing. 95. Elizabeth Hall, e-mail message to Sara L. Schwebel, 29 June 2013. Hall met O’Dell approximately five years after Island of the Blue Dolphins was first published. 96. The Lovelaces read all the typed pages comprising Typescript 2, which were perhaps lightly marked up by O’Dell beforehand. They added handwritten marginalia before returning the draft to O’Dell. Not all the suggestions are signed, but those that are have either “DWL,” for Delos Wheeler Lovelace, or “M,” for Maud. They also typed a series of queries corresponding to the typescript; unfortunately, however, only one page of this document, covering approximately the first half of the book (the published chapters 1–10), has survived. Presumably, this represents the joint advice of the couple. On an unsigned, typed page that addresses the book’s title and author’s note, the Lovelaces move interchangeably between the pronouns “we” and “I” in conveying their feelings about the text (Kerlan, box 5, folder 15). Similarly, a typewritten letter sent on 5 Dec. 1965 from the Lovelaces to Scott and Dorsa O’Dell offering specific editorial suggestions for O’Dell’s second book, The King’s Fifth, is jointly signed: “Delos—for M and D” (Stoneapple Trust). 97. These questions appear on the unsigned query sheet (Kerlan, box 5, folder 15). Karana’s age was later lowered to twelve (Typescript 2c, second version of chapter 1, p. 1, Kerlan). The description of the dress actually appears on page 57 of Typescript 2. 98. The only possible exception appears in the published chapter 18, when Karana names her male bird Tainor, “after a young man I liked who had been killed by the Aleuts,” and her female bird Lurai, “which was a name I wished I had been called instead of Karana” (page 159). Yet the birds are siblings, and the pairing does not seem romantic, particularly since the man Tainor is never again mentioned in the narrative. These names for the two birds appear in all extant versions of the novel, beginning with Typescript 1. 99. The Lovelaces may have seen these pages, but if they did, they made no marginal comments on them. Because they are typed insertions, it is possible that O’Dell added them in response to the Lovelaces’ feedback. O’Dell made a second substantial change after the Lovelaces returned his draft: he expanded the description of Black Cave (page 165) to make it a frightening place where Karana confronts the bones of her ancestors. 100. Alfred Kroeber briefly discusses the Luiseños’ use of ceremonial wands in his Handbook of the Indians of California (665). According to Steven J. Schwartz, wands have also been found on San Nicolas Island (e-mail message to Sara L. Schwebel, 27 Dec. 2015). 101. Typescript 2b, p. 39B (the first of two pages numbered 39B), Kerlan. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected for ease of reading, and stricken-through words and letters have been omitted. 102. P. Deloria, Playing Indian.

Introduction | 73 103. The Lovelaces are also responsible for O’Dell changing the novel’s title. See “Composition of Island of the Blue Dolphins,” in this volume. 104. Juan José Warner, “Lost Woman of the Island,” Los Angeles Star, 13 Dec. 1856; Taylor, “California Notes,” 122. 105. See the Lone Woman Digital Archive. 106. The Chumash populated the northern Channel Islands and the central and southern Santa Barbara coast. At one point, O’Dell likely thought that San Nicolas Island was similarly inhabited by Chumash rather than by Nicoleños (Kerlan, box 5, folder 15). This is reflected in Typescript 2b, in which he adds a phrase identifying the people of Ghalas-at as Chumash: “We of the Chumash tribe.” This is excised in Typescript 2c (first version of chapter 1, p. 1, Kerlan). 107. As Debbie Reese notes, all of the young women of the village would have had long black hair, at least prior to European contact (“Island of Ignorance,” 13). If the Lone Woman was indeed born in the wake of the 1814 atrocities, she would have been about twenty years old at the time the Peor es Nada removed the islanders to the California mainland and in her late thirties when she arrived in Santa Barbara. This is unlikely given that, when she arrived on the mainland, the Lone Woman was described as a woman in her fifties. Therefore, few scholars doubt that she is (uncomplicatedly) Nicoleño. For exceptions, see Daily, “Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island,” and Vellanoweth’s essay in this volume. 108. This would change within the next decade. In 1972, Jean Craighead George published the Newbery-winning novel Julie of the Wolves, widely seen to be in the tradition of Island of the Blue Dolphins. The Eskimo protagonist is orphaned and then, at a very young age, married to a developmentally challenged boy. His frightening, violent attempt to consummate the marriage prompts her to run away to the tundra, where she lives in the wild with wolves as companions. 109. Dorsa O’Dell’s memory, in later years, was that O’Dell submitted the manuscript to publishers with these two chapters included, against the advice of both herself and the Lovelaces. It is possible that O’Dell sent the manuscript to his agent with these chapters. Houghton Mifflin’s reader report makes no mention of the excised chapters, however, so it seems highly unlikely that they were included in the version the publisher received. Jane Dorsa O’Dell to Isaac Russell, n.d., Stoneapple Trust; D. O’Dell, “Scott O’Dell”; “Juvenile Contract Recommendation for the Executive Committee, Island of the Blue Dolphins,” HMH, folder 1965–66 [misfiled]. 110. The publisher didn’t always judge correctly! At the same time as Houghton Mifflin accepted Island of the Blue Dolphins, it rejected George Selden Thompson’s The Cricket in Times Square. The latter was ultimately published by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy and won a Newbery Honor citation in 1961, the same year O’Dell’s novel won the Newbery (Book card #4629, Houghton Mifflin and Company Additional Papers, Reader Report Cards, Houghton Library, box 18. ). 111. “Random Notes from Park Street #211-H.O.H.-2–25–60,” Houghton Library, folder 1. Alden was Speare’s husband. 112. Moseley to O’Dell, 9 Jan. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 2. Two other books (A Bear Called Paddington and Tales of a Common Pigeon) received the next largest advertising budget, over $900 each. “Showings of 1960” book, Houghton Mifflin and Company Additional Records, 92M-52, Houghton Library, box 32, “Miscellaneous Files.” 113. O’Dell to Moseley, 11 June 1960, Houghton Library, folder 2. 114. O’Dell to Moseley, 24 Sept. 1960; O’Dell to Moseley, 27 November 1960; Moseley to O’Dell, 6 Jan. 1961, Houghton Library, folders 2, 3. Furthermore, in June 1960, O’Dell began courting foreign presses, having sample chapters translated into Danish. O’Dell to Moseley, 18 June 1960, Houghton Library, folder 2. 115. O’Dell mentions the figure for his advance in a letter to Moseley, 27 Nov. 1960, Houghton Library, folder 2.

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116. Moseley to O’Dell, 13 June 1960, Houghton Library, folder 2 (typographical errors corrected); Moseley to O’Dell, 9 Jan. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3. 117. D. O’Dell, “Scott O’Dell”; Jane Dorsa O’Dell to Isaac Russell, n.d., Stoneapple Trust. In a letter to Moseley, O’Dell wrote that he had received numerous phone calls since the Newbery announcement but, “luckily, no creditors!” 25 Mar. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3. 118. O’Dell left both, along with many of his books and papers, when he separated from Dorsa in the mid-1960s. Stoneapple is now a writer’s cottage and is owned by Dorsa O’Dell’s niece Gillian Gilhool and Gillian’s husband, Tom. 119. O’Dell to Moseley, 25 Mar. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3. 120. Moseley to O’Dell, 18 Apr. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3; Moseley to O’Dell, 5 May 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3; Moseley to O’Dell, 13 June 1960, Houghton Library, folder 2; Shannon Maughan, “And the Winner Is . . . ,” Publishers Weekly, 5 Dec. 2011, 24–31. 121. “Showings of 1960” book, Houghton Mifflin and Company Additional Records, Houghton Library, 92M-52, Box 32, “Miscellaneous Files.” 122. O’Dell to Moseley, 19 Apr. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3. 123. O’Dell to Moseley, 1 Nov. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 4. 124. Moseley to O’Dell, 3 May 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3; Carol E. Clark to O’Dell, 28 Apr. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3. 125. Austin Olney, “Memo to Executive Committee,” 2 Dec. 1960, Houghton Library, folder 2; O’Dell to Moseley, 1 Nov. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 4. 126. O’Dell to Clark, 7 Dec. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 4. 127. Moseley to O’Dell, 3 Oct. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 4. 128. O’Dell to Moseley, 25 Mar. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3; O’Dell to Moseley, 12 May 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3; O’Dell to Moseley, 30 Sept. 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3. 129. The contract granting Robert B. Radnitz Production Ltd. the right to adapt Island of the Blue Dolphins for film was signed on 7 July 1962. A letter amending the dates on which the remaining financial obligations were to be met was signed by Radnitz and O’Dell on 29 May 1963; it stipulated a payment of $2,500 on 31 May 1963 and the balance of $9,000 on 31 August 1963. The checks went to O’Dell’s agent, who retained 10 percent (O’Dell Estate, “Motion Pictures—Island of the Blue Dolphins” folder). On O’Dell’s trips to Germany and Spain, see correspondence between O’Dell and Houghton Mifflin staff, Nov. 1963–Jan. 1964, HMH, folder 1. The King’s Fifth was finally published in 1966, and it won a Newbery Honor. 130. J. Brown, “Minds of Babes,” 69. See also Marcus, Minders of Make-Believe, 238–39. 131. The authentic literature movement was not all encompassing, and many school districts continued to use graded readers. Houghton Mifflin also signed contracts with numerous educational publishers, allowing excerpts of Island of the Blue Dolphins to appear in various reading series (HMH, folder 1968–69). 132. Houghton Mifflin began discussing a paperback edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins in 1967, but O’Dell was reluctant to move away from cloth. Houghton Mifflin therefore sold the paperback rights to Esther Forbes’s Johnny Tremain (1943) first, allowing O’Dell to see what happened to sales in a parallel book before making a final decision (Johnny Tremain is also a Newbery-winning historical novel taught in upper elementary and middle school). See Austin Olney to Scott O’Dell, 11 Aug. 1967, Oregon, box 2, folder 3; Mary K. Harmon to O’Dell, 1 Oct. 1970, Oregon, box 2, folder 3; Marcia Legru to O’Dell, 23 Dec. 1970, Oregon, box 2, folder 3; and Marcia Legru to O’Dell, 8 Mar. 1971, Oregon, box 2, folder 3. Dell sold more than six hundred thousand paperback copies of Island of the Blue Dolphins between spring 1971 and 1976 (HMH, folder 1976–

Introduction | 75 77); hardback sales, understandably, paled in comparison. Houghton Mifflin production cards call for the printing of less than fifty thousand hardcover copies of the novel during the same period (Island of the Blue Dolphins production cards #21–23, Houghton Mifflin and Company Additional Records, 92M-52, Houghton Library, box 7). Dell held an exclusive contract to produce the paperback edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins in the United States from 1971 to 2010, when rights reverted to Houghton Mifflin. 133. See Schwebel, Child-Sized History, 62–64, 109–17. 134. See ibid., 17–21; and Moreau, Schoolbook Nation, 264–301. For a California context focused on American Indian activism, see Gutfreund, “Standing Up to Sugar Cubes.” Island of the Blue Dolphins and other Scott O’Dell titles appeared on the California Department of Education’s “List of Recommend Literature” consistently from 1986 to 1996. Island of the Blue Dolphins and some, but not all, O’Dell titles briefly disappeared from the recommended readings database—which replaced the printed lists—in the first decade of the twenty-first century, but by 2013, they had been restored. See California Department of Education, Recommended Readings. 135. Schon, “Master Storyteller,” 322. 136. Maher, “Encountering Others,” 216. 137. Importantly, Maher’s reading does not engage with conversations unfolding among Native intellectuals or Native scholars that emphasize the way a people and land are mutually constituted and constituting; a Native person without his or her land and without his or her community cannot survive. There is no victory, only death. 138. Tarr, “Unintentional System of Gaps,” 62. 139. Ibid., 70. Others have made similar claims, suggesting that adherence to some Western perspectives and stereotypes works in Island of the Blue Dolphins but not in other novels. See Schon, “Master Storyteller”; and Stott, “Native American Narratives,” 46. 140. Scott O’Dell wrote to Hardwick Moseley: “The enthusiasm of the children is beyond description, wherever I’ve gone. They seem to love the book, boys as well as girls” (12 May 1961, Houghton Library, folder 3). A year earlier, O’Dell had reported to Moseley: “I’ve been getting a lot of letters from children I don’t know—as many boys as girls, which surprises me” (11 June 1960, Houghton Library, folder 2). On children’s play during middle childhood, see Manen and Levering, Childhood’s Secrets. 141. Carson to Olney, 12 Feb. 1960, Houghton Library, folder 1; New York Times, 8 May 1960, sec. BRA, 13. 142. S. O’Dell, “Memory and Words,” 42. 143. The novel’s attention to the natural world also made Island of the Blue Dolphins an ideal text for interdisciplinary instruction in English and science, a pedagogical strategy that gained popularity in the 1980s, particularly with the rise of the middle school. See Schwebel, Child-Sized History, 21–25. 144. The scholarship on Nancy Drew is vast. See, for example, Dyer and Romalov, Rediscovering Nancy Drew. 145. The Gabrielino people, of whom the Nicoleños are a part, trace kinship through patrilineal descent. Because of the timing and circumstances by which the mid-nineteenthcentury removal of Indians from San Nicolas Island occurred, however, ethnographic accounts of Nicoleño life are not available to scholars. It is therefore impossible to know with certainty the gender roles adopted by the Lone Woman’s people, let alone the context in which those gender roles existed and the rigidity, or lack thereof, surrounding any gender taboos. On the Gabrielinos before European contact, see McCawley, First Angelinos. 146. Baecker, “Surviving Rescue,” 204. 147. Ibid., 195. 148. Guides to Island of the Blue Dolphins currently in print include those published by Scholastic (Book Files), Glencoe-McGraw Hill, Progeny Press, Learning Links, Novel

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Units, Teachers Pet (Lit Plans on CD), Lorenz Educational Press, Teacher Created Resources, Garlic Press (Discovering Literature Series), and Shell Education (Great Works: Instructional Guides for Literature). Numerous free guides, including Sparknotes’ study guide, are available on the web. 149. Scott and Dorsa O’Dell, along with their extended family, attended the premier of the film in New York City. O’Dell had taken no part in the film’s production, but producer Robert Radnitz assured O’Dell that he intended to stick closely to the novel in his adaption. Radnitz sent O’Dell a copy of the screenplay with a handwritten inscription: “It’s your child, and I hope you’ll not find her changed in spirit” (Stoneapple Trust). 150. Howard Thompson, “ ‘Island of the Blue Dolphins’ Has Premier,” New York Times, 4 July 1964. 151. Radnitz also aggressively marketed the film abroad. During an extended trip through Western Europe, he met with exhibitors to personally advocate for Island of the Blue Dolphins, and the film was ultimately released in a number of countries, including England, Germany, France, and Sweden (Robert Radnitz to Fortunate Baronat, 5 Oct. 1964, Southern California, box 2, folder 10). Radnitz failed to secure government assistance through the Cold War–era Information Media Guaranty program to export the movie to what were then identified as Iron Curtain countries. A letter to Radnitz stated that the film was “rejected [by the U.S. Information Agency] under the existing criteria which requires the story to cast a favorable light on the American way of life” (Jos I. Mazer to Radnitz, 16 Nov. 1964, Southern California, box 1, folder 10). 152. N. Brown, “Apostle of Family Films.” 153. Universal Pictures, Translating a Prize-Winning Book to the Movie Screen: Island of the Blue Dolphins, 10, Southern California, box 1, folder 1; “Great Animals in Motion Pictures,” flier in Philip Gerard, Publicity, Promotion, Exploitation: Island of the Blue Dolphins, Universal Pictures promotional material packet, Stoneapple Trust. 154. Richard Oulahan, “New!: A Film Fit for Kids,” Life, 19 June 1964, 4–5. 155. Thompson, “Island of the Blue Dolphins”; Boxoffice BookinGuide, 18 May 1964, 2827. 156. Rubie Saunders, “Celia Kaye & ‘Island of the Blue Dolphins,’ ” Calling All Girls, September 1964, 45. 157. Gerard, Publicity, Promotion, Exploitation, Stoneapple Trust; Island of the Blue Dolphins production cards #13–16, Houghton Mifflin and Company Additional Records, 92M-52, Houghton Library, box 7. More than fifteen thousand copies of Island of the Blue Dolphins were sold in the United States in 1965. In advance of the film’s arrival in England, the novel’s British publisher, Constable Young Books Ltd., issued its third printing of the book. 158. “Big Rental Pictures of 1964,” Variety, 6 Jan. 1965. As late as 1988, a year before his death, O’Dell was still receiving financial returns from the film—he earned nearly $700 in royalties that year (“Universal Pictures Accounting Form, 6-29-1987 to 6-28-1988,” O’Dell Estate, “Motion Pictures—Island of the Blue Dolphins” folder). Three years after O’Dell’s death, a child growing up in Utah wrote to the author care of Houghton Mifflin: “I stumbled across your books by accident, having seen the movie of Island of the Blue dolphins [sic], and wanting to read the book. Once I finished, though, I had something like love at first sight. Every book I can get my hands on that you have written, I devour in an instant, and nothing can stop me. Are you planning to write more?” David Hubbard to Scott O’Dell, 27 Sept. 1991, Kerlan, box 3, folder 25. 159. See Andrew Kendall, “Black History Month: Sounder (1972),” The Film Experience (blog), 17 Feb. 2015, www.thefilmexperience.net/blog/2015/2/17/black-history-monthsounder-1972.html; and Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks, 246–50. 160. For a more detailed discussion of the history of Sounder as novel, big-screen film, and made-for-TV movie, see Schwebel, Child-Sized History, 111–15.

Introduction | 77 161. Unlike Sounder, Island of the Blue Dolphins was not subjected to criticism from the Council on Interracial Books for Children or other antiracist groups in the 1960s and ’70s. Thus, there was little negative criticism for the screenplay writers to respond to. 162. Radnitz consulted Lee, Aleutian Indian and English Dictionary; and Geoghegan, Aleut Language. 163. Patricia Hawkings (secretary to Robert Radnitz) to Henry Dittman, 24 Sept. 1963, Dittman Family Papers, Gledhill Library, Santa Barbara Historical Museum, box 275, folder 3; Robert Radnitz to Henry Dittman, 27 Sept. 1963, Dittman Family Papers, folder 3. 164. “Find Exact Locales for ‘Blue Dolphins’ at Anchor Bay, Calif. (Advance),” Universal City Studios Showman’s Manual, n.d., 3, Southern California, box 1, folder 1. This advance publicity article was reprinted in at least one newspaper under the headline “Anchor Bay, Gualala Become Settings for Filming of Historical Novel” (unidentified newspaper clipping, Stoneapple Trust). Other location sites researched are documented on Motion Picture Weather Outlook memos (Southern California, box 1, folder 11) and on a paper labeled “Check with Mr. Holton—British Consulate—DU 57381” (Southern California, box 2, folder 2). 165. Relatives of Island of the Blue Dolphins’ movie extras, in conversation with Susan L. Morris and Carol Peterson, 6 Oct. 2013, Fort Ross State Historical Park, Jenner, CA; Susan L. Morris, e-mail message to Sara L. Schwebel, 14 Oct. 2013. 166. Saunders, “Celia Kaye”; Celia Kaye, interview with Sara L. Schwebel, 11 Oct. 2012, Ventura, CA; “Celia Kaye, Whose Ancestry Is Part Indian, Plays Role of Indian Girl in New Film (Advance),” Universal City Studios Showman’s Manual, n.d., 2, Southern California, box 1, folder 1. News stories about the film that reported on Kaye’s ancestry include Harold Mendelsohn, “ ‘Dolphins’ Log: California Locale New to Filmmakers Used in Movie of Female ‘Crusoe,’ ” New York Times, 17 Nov. 1963, drama sec., 6; and Stanley Eichelbaum, “ ‘Blue Dolphins’ and the Family,” San Francisco Examiner, 27 July 1964, 29. 167. Film—unlike live theater—deals in illusion, and the widespread acceptance of redface (and blackface) gave rise to a Hollywood system in which white actors were the most valuable and versatile because they could play any role. As historian Philip Deloria has written, after the first decades of the 1900s, “illusion came to matter more than authenticity” for the portrayal of Indians on screen (Indians in Unexpected Places, 106). 168. In the screenplay, the period Karana spends alone on the island is shortened from eighteen years to four. O’Dell was somewhat disappointed in this condensed time frame, which obviated the need for the actress to age onscreen but also stretched, in O’Dell’s view, the credulity of her change in character. See Hoffman and Samuels, Authors and Illustrators, 347. 169. Fort Ross operated from 1812 to 1841. After the Mexican-American War, the land became part of American California. 170. Translating a Prize-Winning Book, 22. 171. Oulahan, “Film Fit for Kids,” 5. 172. This stands in contrast to Sounder, which was remade by Disney in 2003. The new version was directed by Kevin Hooks, who played the boy protagonist in the 1972 film.

bibliography Archival and Manuscript Collections Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Records and Papers. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

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Lone Woman and Last Indians Digital Archive. Edited by Sara L. Schwebel. University of South Carolina Center for Digital Humanities. www.nps.gov/books/island-of-theblue-dolphins/index.htm. Lost Woman of San Nicolas Island Collected Manuscripts, 1937. Braun Research Library Collection, Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA. Robert Radnitz Collection. Cinematic Arts Library, University of Southern California. Scott O’Dell Correspondence. Houghton Mifflin Company Correspondence, 1881–1981 (inclusive), 1940–1979 (bulk). Houghton Library, Harvard University. Scott O’Dell Papers. Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia. Scott O’Dell Papers. Scott O’Dell Estate Collection, Spring Hope, NC. Scott O’Dell Papers. Stoneapple Farm Trust, Julian, CA. Scott O’Dell Papers, 1957–2008. Kerlan Collection of Children’s Literature, Children’s Literature Research Collection, University of Minnesota Libraries. Scott O’Dell Papers, 1960–92. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, MA. Scott O’Dell Papers, 1966–76. Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries.

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Kroeber, Alfred. Handbook of the Indians of California. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1925. Kroeber, Theodora. Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961. Krum, Cassandra E. “Early Archeology on the Western Edge of Alta California: Malcolm Rogers’ San Nicolas Island Collection.” Master’s thesis, San Diego State University, 2013. Lee, Charles A., comp. Aleutian Indian and English Dictionary. Seattle: Lowman and Hanford Stationery and Printing, 1896. Lightfoot, Kent G. Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants: The Legacy of Colonial Encounters on the California Frontier. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Maher, Susan Naramore. “Encountering Others: The Meeting of Cultures in Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins and Sing Down the Moon.” Children’s Literature in Education 23, no. 4 (1992): 215–27. Manen, Max van, and Bas Levering. Childhood’s Secrets: Intimacy, Privacy, and the Self Reconsidered. New York: Teachers College Press, 1996. Marcus, Leonard S. Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children’s Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008. McCawley, William. The First Angelinos: The Gabrielino Indians of Los Angeles. Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press, 1996. McCormick, Edith. “Scott O’Dell: Immortal Writer.” American Libraries 4, no. 6 (1973): 356–57. Meighan, Clement W. “The Nicoleño.” Pacific Discovery 7, no. 1 (1954): 22–27. Meighan, Clement W., and Hal Eberhart. “Archaeological Resources of San Nicolas Island, California.” American Antiquity 19, no. 2 (1953): 109–25. Moreau, Joseph. Schoolbook Nation: Conflicts over American History Textbooks from the Civil War to the Present. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003. Morey, Anne. “Have You the Power?: The Palmer Photoplay Corporation.” Film History 9, no. 4 (1997): 300–19. Morris, Susan L., Glenn J. Farris, Steven J. Schwartz, Irina Vladi L. Wender, and Boris Dralyuk. “Murder, Massacre, and Mayhem on the California Coast, 1815: Newly Translated Russian American Company Documents Reveal Company Concern over Violent Clashes.” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 34, no. 1 (2014): 81–100. Morris, Susan L., John R. Johnson, Steven J. Schwartz, René L. Vellanoweth, Glenn J. Farris, and Sara L. Schwebel. “The Nicoleños in Los Angeles: Documenting the Fate of the Lone Woman’s Community.” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 36, no. 1 (2016): 97–118. Nodelman, Perry, and Mavis Reimer. The Pleasures of Children’s Literature. 3rd ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2003. O’Dell, Dorsa. “Scott O’Dell: Friends of Julian Library Talk.” Julian Public Library, November 16, 2005. Audiovisual recording. O’Dell, Scott. “An Adventure with Memory and Words.” Psychology Today 18 (1968): 40–43. ———. “Autobiographical Sketch.” In Speaking for Ourselves: Autobiographical Sketches by Notable Authors of Books for Young Adults, compiled and edited by Donald R. Gallo, 154–56. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1990. ———. “Books Remembered.” The Calendar (Children’s Book Council) 34, no. 2 (1975– 76): foldout pamphlet. ———. Country of the Sun: Southern California; An Informal History and Guide. New York: Cornwall Press, 1957.

Introduction | 81 ———. “Dignity of the Human Spirit.” In Children’s Authors Speak, edited by Jeannine L. Laughlin and Sherry Laughlin, 183–85. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1993. ———. Island of the Blue Dolphins. 1st paperback ed. New York: Dell, 1971. ———. Island of the Blue Dolphins. 30th anniversary ed. Illustrated by Ted Lewin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. ———. Island of the Blue Dolphins. 50th anniversary ed. Illustrated by Ted Lewin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2010. ———. “Newbery Acceptance Speech.” Horn Book Magazine 67, no. 2 (1961): 311–16. [O’Dell, Scott.] Representative Photoplays Analyzed. Hollywood, CA: Palmer Institute of Authorship, 1924. Ogden, Adele. The California Sea Otter Trade, 1784–1848. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1941. O’Malley, Andrew. “Acting out Crusoe: Pedagogy and Performance in EighteenthCentury Children’s Literature.” Lion and the Unicorn 33, no. 2 (2009): 131–45. ———. Children’s Literature, Popular Culture, and Robinson Crusoe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. ———. “Island Homemaking: Catharine Parr Traill’s Canadian Crusoe and the Robinsonade Tradition.” In Home Words: Discourses of Children’s Literature in Canada, edited by Mavis Reimer, 67–86. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008. Panich, Lee M. “Archaeologies of Persistence: Reconsidering the Legacies of Colonialism in Native North America.” American Antiquity 78, no. 1 (2013): 105–22. Parish, Peggy. Let’s Be Indians. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. Petro, Diane. “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?: The 1940 Census; Employment and Income.” Prologue Magazine 44, no. 1 (2012). www.archives.gov/publications /prologue/2012/spring/1940.html. Raymond, Allen. “A Visit with Scott O’Dell, Master Storyteller.” Early Years 14, no. 7 (1984): 26–29. Reese, Debbie. “Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins: An Island of Ignorance.” Unpublished paper. 2012. Roback, Diane, and Jason Britton, eds. “All-time Bestselling Children’s Books.” Compiled by Debbie Hochman Turvey. Publishers Weekly 248, no. 51 (2001): 24–32. Rosier, Paul C. “ ‘They Are Ancestral Homelands’: Race, Place, and Politics in Cold War Native America, 1945–1961.” Journal of American History 92, no. 4 (2006): 1300– 26. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emilius and Sophia; Or, a New System of Education. Vol. 2. Translated by [William Kenrick]. London: H. Baldwin, 1783. Russell, C. J. W. “Narrative of a Woman Who Was Eighteen Years Alone, upon the Island of San Nicolas, Coast of California.” Hutchings’ Illustrated California Magazine 1, no. 5 (1856): 209–11. Russell, David L. Scott O’Dell. New York: Twayne, 1999. Schon, Isabel. “A Master Storyteller and His Distortions.” Journal of Reading 29, no. 4 (1986): 322–25. Schwebel, Sara L. Child-Sized History: Fictions of the Past in U.S. Classrooms. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2011. Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992. Smits, David D. “The ‘Squaw Drudge’: A Prime Index of Savagism.” Ethnohistory 29, no. 4 (1982): 281–306. Stott, Jon C. “Narrative Technique and Meaning in Island of the Blue Dolphins.” Elementary English 52 (1975): 442–46.

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———. “Native American Narratives and the Children’s Literature Curriculum.” In Teaching Children’s Literature: Issues, Pedagogy, Resources, edited by Glenn Edward Sadler, 41–50. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1992. Tarr, C. Anita. “An Unintentional System of Gaps: A Phenomenological Reading of Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins.” Children’s Literature in Education 28, no. 2 (1997): 61–71. Taylor, Alex S. “California Notes: The Indianology of California [Continued]; Miscellaneous.” California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences 13, no. 16 (1880): 122. Translating a Prize-Winning Book to the Movie Screen: Island of the Blue Dolphins, Study Guide. New York: Universal Pictures, [1964?]. Veracini, Lorenzo. Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. A Visit with Scott O’Dell. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983. Videocassette (VHS). Weiss, Jaqueline Shachter, ed. “Scott O’Dell, Author (1898–1989): 1976 Interview.” In Profiles in Children’s Literature: Discussions with Authors, Artists, and Editors, 270– 76. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001. Wolfe, Patrick. “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (2006): 387–409.

Composition of Island of the Blue Dolphins

Scott O’Dell composed Island of the Blue Dolphins on a typewriter, making handwritten corrections to the typescript; this draft was then retyped by his wife, Dorsa, to produce a new, clean copy.1 There is no evidence of how many drafts O’Dell wrote, but three are extant. This edition identifies them as Typescripts 1, 2, and 3.2 Typescript 1 is nearly complete, with only a page or two missing from the chapter in which Karana fights a devilfish. It includes two chapters that were later excised. Typescript 2 is a more polished draft that is complete with the exception of the final two chapters; it includes roughly half of one chapter and all of a second chapter that were later excised, as well as two different versions of chapter 1 (figure 15). Typescript 3 is the final draft; it was typed by Houghton Mifflin, and its pagination is close to that of the first published edition. Each typescript contains a series of editorial changes, including handwritten additions and deletions, typed insertions, and in the case of Typescript 3, editorial queries and manuscript markup for typesetting. The final iteration of Typescript 3 is not identical to the first published edition; approximately thirty changes in wording and punctuation, including the correction of typographical errors, were made before the first edition was printed. No galley or page proofs have been found to date; they have likely been lost or discarded and destroyed. The lack of evidence makes it impossible to determine with certainty the composition history of Island of the Blue Dolphins. The earliest extant typescripts were composed at Stoneapple Farm, the O’Dell 83

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15. Revisions to Island of the Blue Dolphins’ Author’s Note, Typescript 2. (Reprinted with permission from University of Minnesota Libraries)

cottage in Julian, California, on two different typewriters. It seems most likely that Typescript 1, which was composed entirely on thin, brown paper, was produced on Scott O’Dell’s typewriter in what this edition calls “typeface 1.” O’Dell then made handwritten changes on Typescript 1, and this new version (Typescript 1 with handwritten changes) was retyped on white paper with at least one carbon copy.3 This version was prepared on a different typewriter, likely Dorsa O’Dell’s, in what this edition calls “typeface 2.” This freshly typed draft has been only partially preserved, primarily in carbon copies produced on onionskin. Some of these pages were removed at an undetermined date and replaced by insertions produced on brown paper in typeface 1, presumably by Scott O’Dell. This edition calls the newly formed draft composed of these two sets of pages (the set of white paper and white carbon copies and the set of brown paper insertions) Typescript 2.

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All the pages of Typescript 2 incorporate extensive line edits. Did O’Dell exchange new brown pages for the old white ones (and their carbon copies) after making line edits on all the original white pages and discarding some, or did he insert brown pages for the original white ones (and their carbon copies) first and then line edit the new draft, which contained both old white and new brown pages? A third possibility seems most likely: he made line edits at both junctures.4 At some unknown point in this process of combining (old) white pages produced in typeface 2 and (new) brown pages produced in typeface 1 and making line edits, O’Dell shared the draft with Maud and Delos Lovelace. Each of the Lovelaces wrote marginalia, which appear on both the white and brown pages of the draft and are occasionally signed with initials.5 Which of O’Dell’s line edits were made before the Lovelaces saw the draft cannot be definitively established. The Lovelaces clearly responded to some of O’Dell’s handwritten marks (e.g., “I would not paragraph here,” written in response to a paragraph marker made in O’Dell’s hand). But some of O’Dell’s line edits on these pages seem to have been made in response to the Lovelaces’ marginalia. Marginal notes on Typescript 2 are difficult to analyze. Pencil markings, especially on the onionskin paper, have smudged, at times to the point of erasure. Pencil markings on the brown pages have also smudged, although to a lesser extent. Additionally, Delos’s and Maud’s lettering at times appears alike, making it difficult to determine conclusively which of the unsigned marginal comments were made by Delos and which by Maud—especially given the poor preservation of the markings. Typescript 3, the copyedited draft, poses challenges as well. Some, but not all, marginal notations are signed. One set of initials, “A. O.,” is clearly Austin Olney, O’Dell’s primary editor at Houghton Mifflin. Another set of initials, written in script and difficult to decipher, does not match the name of any known employee of Houghton Mifflin at the time and is therefore likely the initials of an external copyeditor. No records of Typescript 3’s creation have been found. It was probably prepared at Houghton Mifflin, sent to a copyeditor, reviewed by Austin Olney (and perhaps by Walter Lorraine and/or Mary K. Harmon, other editors in the children’s department), and then sent to the author. O’Dell returned the manuscript after having responded to queries and made unsolicited changes. At some point, he also added additional copy. This new prose was retyped on Houghton Mifflin airmail stationery and then copyedited, which generated author queries and O’Dell’s handwritten responses. Because some changes were made in this way, via

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typed insertions, at least some of the original typescript—that is, the pages that were added before and after the insertions—was copyedited twice and may have been reviewed by O’Dell more than once. The result is that it is difficult to know precisely when any specific handwritten change in the typescript was made. Given that the order in which alterations were made cannot be established definitively, the collation created for this edition distinguishes versions according to the way a change entered the draft: via handwriting on an original typed page, a typed insertion, or handwriting on an insertion. The goal for the collation—filed in the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota Libraries—has been to create keywordsearchable texts that recover, to the extent possible, the drafting process for Island of the Blue Dolphins.6 To help identify where in a typescript each change occurred, extant drafts have been designated as shown in table 1. O’Dell made extensive changes while he typed. While some changes are insignificant (e.g., corrections of typographical errors), many reveal his writing and editing style. At times, O’Dell typed over words that were already on the page, enabling researchers who examine the original typescript to see both the initial word selection and the later one. More often, O’Dell used the letter “m,” the letters “m” and “n” together, or on at least one occasion, the letters “n” and “b” together to strike through prose he wished to delete. Most of the text struck though in this way can be painstakingly recovered by studying the original typescript. Similarly, in instances where O’Dell pasted brown paper over white carbon copies, some or all of the original typing is visible if the paper is held up to the light and the sentences are read backwards. Nonetheless, some changes remain unrecoverable. The collation strives to make the many revisions and comments in the typescripts easily accessible to the reader. •

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The book that would become Island of the Blue Dolphins was in many ways fully formed by the time O’Dell completed the first extant draft. Major changes to the narrative—the excision of two chapters detailing Karana’s kidnapping by the Aleuts, the refinement of Ramo’s bravado after he is left behind on the island, and the development of Black Cave into a frightening place—are discussed in this edition’s introduction and notes. Other significant changes of expression, description, and plot are marked in the annotations to the text of Island of the Blue Dolphins,

— Typescript 1 + handwritten changes by O’Dell —

Typescript 2 + handwritten changes and marginalia in various hands Typescript 2a + typed insertions

Typescript 1 Typescript 1a

Typescript 2a

Typescript 3+ handwritten editorial changes and queries (manuscript markup language ignored) Typescript 3a + typed insertions and handwritten first page

Typescript 3a

Typeface 4, pencil, red pencil, green pencil, and blue pen

Typeface 2 (on white paper), typeface 1 (on brown paper), typeface 3 (Delos Lovelace’s typewriter, on a one-page insert), pencil, and blue pen Typeface 2 (on white paper), typeface 1 (on brown paper), typeface 3 (Delos Lovelace’s typewriter, on an insert), pencil, and blue pen Typeface 4

Typeface 2, pencil, and blue pen

Typeface 1 Typeface 1, pencil, blue ink, and red pencil Typeface 2

Ink

Houghton Mifflin airmail Typeface 4 (bank paper), typeface 5 stationery (typed insertions) (airmail stationery), pencil, red and white cotton paper pencil, green pencil, and blue pen (page 1) Houghton Mifflin airmail Typeface 4 (bank paper), typeface 5 stationery (airmail stationery), pencil, red pencil, green pencil, and blue pen

White bank paper and white cotton paper (page 1) White bank paper

Brown, white paper, and white carbon copies

White paper and white carbon copies White paper and white carbon copies Brown, white paper, and white carbon copies

Brown Brown

Paper Color

Scott O’Dell, unidentified copyeditor, and Austin Olney

Scott O’Dell (typed by Houghton Mifflin) Scott O’Dell, unidentified copyeditor, and Austin Olney Scott O’Dell

Scott O’Dell and Maud and Delos Lovelace

Scott O’Dell and Maud and Delos Lovelace Scott O’Dell and Maud and Delos Lovelace

Scott O’Dell

Scott O’Dell Scott O’Dell

Author(s)

sources: Typescripts 1 and 2 and their variants are located in the Scott O’Dell Papers, 1957–2008, Kerlan Collection of Children’s Literature, Children’s Literature Research Collection, University of Minnesota Libraries. Typescript 3 and its variants are housed in the Scott O’Dell Papers, Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.

Typescript 3c

Typescript 3b + handwritten changes to typed insertions

—

Typescript 3

Typescript 3b

Typescript 2b + handwritten changes on typed insertions

Typescript 2c

Typescript 2b

Typescript 2

Contents

drafts of island of the blue dolphins

Name

table 1.

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which follows. Detailed below are broader patterns of changes made during O’Dell’s drafting process.

names and language In his compositional outlines and early drafts, O’Dell used more foreign words for natural resources and geographical locations. Some of these words were Spanish place names (Puerto Coralino instead of Coral Cove, San Nicolas Island instead of Island of the Blue Dolphins), while others were what appear to be invented Nicoleño or Aleut words. For example, in early drafts, O’Dell employed the words lapai for devilfish, poray (or porai) for starfish, and tainorai for the black pitch used to seal the planks of canoes and render baskets leak-proof. O’Dell retained Ghalas-at vocabulary in the final version of the book (e.g., sai-sai for grunions or smelts, zalwit for pelican, and naip for fish), but unlike in earlier drafts, he translates each of the terms into English.7 The pattern echoes Karana’s translation of the names she gives to animals (e.g., Rontu as “Fox Eyes” and Mon-a-nee as “Little Boy with Large Eyes”) and the name she herself was given (Won-a-pa-lei as “The Girl with the Long Black Hair”). In line with a revision pattern of using more English, O’Dell attempted to approximate “Indian speech” by using phrases like “five suns” instead of his initial choice of “five days.” Other changes visible in the revision process include the selection and finalization of character and place names. In the earliest extant draft, O’Dell left blank spaces for the names of a number of characters, which were later filled in with pencil. The choice and spelling of names of people and places were finalized over time: Rama was changed to Ramu and then to Ramo, Gha-las-hat was changed to Ghalas-at, Kimko to Kimki, Totuk to Tutok, and Captain Baranov to Captain Orlov. The most significant name change was the substitution of Island of the Blue Dolphins for San Nicolas Island. This alteration was prompted, if indirectly, by Maud and Delos Lovelace, who made a blunt comment about whatever title O’Dell had initially selected for his novel: “We don’t like it at all.” After considering alternatives including “Island Girl,” “Karana’s Island,” and, as O’Dell claimed in a 1976 interview, “Island of the Brown Dolphins,” the author landed on a winner.8 At that point, he changed all references to Karana’s home, striking San Nicolas Island and replacing it with the more lyrical Island of the Blue Dolphins.

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age and relationships between characters In all of O’Dell’s extant drafts and notes, Karana is a child rather than an adult, despite the fact that the story is a fictionalization of the account of the Lone Woman. Although no one knows for sure how old the Lone Woman was, many reports estimate that she was around fifty when she arrived in Santa Barbara in 1853, meaning that she would have been in her early thirties when she found herself alone on San Nicolas Island. In the published version of Island of the Blue Dolphins, Karana is twelve at the novel’s beginning (and thus thirty at the novel’s end). In earlier drafts, however, O’Dell experimented with having her be slightly older—fourteen, and at one point sixteen. Before Maud and Delos Lovelace reviewed the draft, O’Dell also experimented with Karana’s relationship with her siblings. In one version, Ulape is a friend rather than an older sister, and very briefly—in one sentence written and deleted—O’Dell has Karana tending to a baby brother, a description that echoes narratives about the Lone Woman’s baby.9 Once O’Dell solidifies Ulape’s relationship to Karana as that of an older sister—something he did after the Lovelaces read his draft—he sharpens Karana’s loneliness as a theme, inserting lines that convey her desire to be reunited first with Ulape and, later in the narrative, with Ulape and Tutok.

geography Scott O’Dell’s ideas about where events occurred on Karana’s Island of the Blue Dolphins evolved as he learned more about the actual landscape of San Nicolas Island and the way nineteenth-century Nicoleños occupied their homeland.10 O’Dell’s unpublished pencil sketch of San Nicolas Island marked with site locations (figure 16) illustrates how his thoughts about the geography shifted. O’Dell initially placed the village of Ghalas-at (“village”) on the southeast shore, as indicated on the map. He later moved the village to the northwest, setting it on a mesa east of Coral Cove. In its original position on the map, Coral Cove was identified on the northeast coast of the island as “P. C.,” for Puerto Coralino, O’Dell’s early name for the harbor. This is the site of what archaeologists now identify as the last occupied Nicoleño village on San Nicolas Island.11 O’Dell may have encountered this village site (CA-SNI-25, informally known as the Tule Creek site) in an academic article and map published by

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16. Scott O’Dell’s unpublished sketch of the Island of the Blue Dolphins, created circa 1958. (Reprinted with permission from University of Minnesota Libraries)

archaeologists Clement W. Meighan and Hal Eberhart in 1953, or in Arthur Woodward’s general-interest article about the Lone Woman, “Juana María: Sidelights on the Indian Occupation of San Nicolas Island,” published in 1957.12 The Nicoleños who met the crew of the Mexican schooner Peor es Nada in 1835 and sailed on board that ship to the California mainland, leaving the Lone Woman behind, were most likely living at the Tule Creek site. The discrepancies between site locations on this early map and narrative descriptions of locations in Island of the Blue Dolphins reveal that O’Dell changed the position of Karana’s new home as he revised. On the map, the home Karana built after destroying Ghalas-at village appears in the northeast sector of the island rather than in the northwest. O’Dell also moved the location of a spring; originally it was placed on the east end of the island, but in the final version of the novel, it is placed on the west end, near where Karana built her permanent home. Geographic features that retained their original location include the sandspit, the cliffs, the canoes’ storage site, and the wild dogs’ lair. The San Nicolas Island map created for this volume (figure 17) shows both the locations important to Scott O’Dell’s fictional Karana and those important to the historical Lone Woman. The placements of sites associated with the Lone Woman were drawn from archaeological research and the oral accounts of otter hunters George Nidever and Charles Dittman, and the locations of sites from Island of the Blue Dol-

Composition of Island of the Blue Dolphins

Thousand Springs Old Garden Spring

ALEUT CAMP

Lone Woman’s Windbreak

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N W

E

CORAL COVE GHALAS-AT VILLAGE

KARANA’S CAVE

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KARANA’S HUT

S

George Nidever’s otter-hunting camp

WILD DOG LAIR

Lone Woman’s Cave

Locations on San Nicolas Island LOCATIONS ON ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS Contour lines represent 200-foot elevation intervals

Sandspit BLACK CAVE CANOES STORED HERE

0

1

2 mi

17. Map showing locations on San Nicolas Island and the Island of the Blue Dolphins. (Map by Susan L. Morris and Steven J. Schwartz)

phins were derived from descriptions in the novel and, wherever possible, anchored to existing locations on San Nicolas Island.13 O’Dell’s Coral Cove is undoubtedly the historic Corral Harbor, located on San Nicolas Island’s north coast. With Coral Cove as a starting point, direction and distance notations in the book were used to place the Ghalas-at village, the Aleut camp, Karana’s hut, and Karana’s cave. O’Dell’s notations had to be modified to fit the physical reality of the island, however. The numerical distances (in leagues) O’Dell gave for the relationship between sites on the Island of the Blue Dolphins did not always match up to his narrative descriptions of the locations. Where there are discrepancies, the map aligns with non-numerical descriptions. For example, O’Dell stated that the Aleut camp was half a league north of Coral Cove, but that would place the camp in the Pacific Ocean. The most northerly place on the island is actually northwest, near Thousand Springs, so this is where the Aleut camp was placed on the map. Similarly, O’Dell described Karana’s hut as being “close” to Coral Cove (in chapter 11, he writes that she “could see the north coast and Coral Cove”). It was less than a league west of Coral Cove. However, if Karana’s hut were nearly a league distant from Corral Harbor, she could not have watched for ships arriving at the north coast of the island. In

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chapter 21, O’Dell mentions that Karana’s hut was less than half a league from where the Aleuts camped when Tutok was on the island. This corroborates the location of her hut on the map. Therefore, Karana’s hut was placed significantly closer than a league from Coral Cove. The placement of Black Cave on the southern coast of San Nicolas Island is more of a guess. O’Dell mentioned that the villagers stored canoes below cliffs on the south side of the island and that Black Cave was near that storage spot. This map shows Black Cave as west of the canoes, but O’Dell could have imagined it to the east, closer to the sandspit. The historic Lone Woman’s cave is located on the southwest coast of the island, which is not in the same area that O’Dell placed the cave where Karana sometimes lived, near the northwest coast and west of Coral Cove.

word choice and paragraphing O’Dell cared deeply about word precision and often spoke in interviews and letters about the importance of language sounding just right to the ear, even if that meant breaking grammatical rules.14 Many of the changes made in the drafting process reflect his desire to find the best word for a sentence; this sometimes meant that he changed a word once, and then, in another round of revisions, changed it back again. Examples include the nouns “tip” and “point” and the relative pronouns “that” and “which.” Similarly, O’Dell inserted and deleted paragraph breaks with frequency. •

•

•

The pages that follow present the text of the first edition of Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins.15 I have strived to keep annotations to the text informational rather than interpretive. They address Island of the Blue Dolphins’ intersection with O’Dell’s sources, the history and culture of the Nicoleño, Kodiak, and Aleut peoples after European contact, and the natural history of San Nicolas Island (flora, fauna, marine resources, geography, geology, topography, meteorology). Additionally, they flag the most interesting and significant aspects of the novel’s composition history. The most polished versions of the two excised chapters immediately follow the text of the first edition. Two full drafts of the excised chapter 23 have survived, but only one full draft and a later, partial draft of

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chapter 22 have been preserved. The text presented here combines the two drafts for that chapter. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected for reading ease.

notes 1. Jane Dorsa O’Dell to Isaac Russell, n.d., Scott O’Dell Papers, Stoneapple Farm Trust, Julian, CA; Muriel Fuller, “Scott O’Dell,” in More Junior Authors (New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1963), 161–62. In later years, when O’Dell stopped smoking, a habit he associated with typing, he wrote his drafts by hand on yellow legal pads; Elizabeth Hall, his wife at that time, then typed the drafts. Handwritten manuscripts of a number of his later novels are archived in the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota Libraries. See also Allen Raymond, “A Visit with Scott O’Dell, Master Storyteller,” Early Years 14, no. 7 (1984): 26–29. 2. Typescripts 1 and 2 are currently housed in the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota Libraries; Typescript 3 is housed in the Children’s Literature Research Collection at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Parts of Typescript 1 are in poor condition, with evidence of an earlier mold infection in the corner of pages. 3. Although the white pages of Typescript 2 are “clean,” they do contain some typographical errors, such as transposed letters. 4. Although there are a few changes made in blue pen, the vast majority of editorial changes were made in pencil, making O’Dell’s choice of writing instrument unhelpful in answering the question of timing. The extant white pages containing the excised chapters contain no line edits; however, some of the pages of the first excised chapter have been lost. 5. Additionally, Delos Lovelace typed a paragraph that he suggested inserting into the second version of Typescript 2’s chapter 1; it was produced on brown paper in typeface 3 on a different typewriter than those used to produce any other pages of Typescript 2. The paragraph was excised before Typescript 3 was prepared at Houghton Mifflin. 6. The number of changes made to the typescripts in draft form are far too numerous to print in this reader’s edition. 7. The one exception is gnapan, which he describes as “a thick-leaved plant” (page 156) but does not translate. In his compositional notes, it is defined as “ice plant” (Scott O’Dell Papers, 1957–2008, Kerlan Collection of Children’s Literature, Children’s Literature Research Collection, University of Minnesota Libraries, box 5, folder 15). The crystalline iceplant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum) is a nonnative species on the Channel Islands but may have arrived in California, via ships’ ballast, as early as the sixteenth century; naturalist Blanche Trask recorded its presence on San Nicolas Island in the late nineteenth century. See John M. Randall, entry for crystalline iceplant, California Invasive Plant Council online encyclopedia: www.cal-ipc.org/ip/management/ipcw/pages /detailreport.cfm@usernumber=13&surveynumber=182.php, and Blanche Trask, “Dying San Nicolas,” in Pieces of Eight Channel Islands: A Bibliographic Guide and Source Book, ed. Adelaide LeMert Doran (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1980). 8. The first two title suggestions were handwritten underneath the Lovelaces’ typed note, likely in Maud’s hand (Scott O’Dell Papers, 1957–2008, Kerlan Collection of Children’s Literature, box 5, folder 15); Jaqueline Shachter Weiss, ed., “Scott O’Dell, Author (1898–1989): 1976 Interview,” in Profiles in Children’s Literature: Discussions with Authors, Artists, and Editors, 270–76 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001), 273. 9. On page 34 of Typescript 1, Karana takes an unnamed baby brother from a basket she is carrying: “I held him in my arms, close to my breast.”

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10. The Geography section of this chapter was coauthored by Susan L. Morris. 11. See René L. Vellanoweth, Barney G. Bartelle, Amira F. Ainis, Amanda C. Cannon, and Steven J. Schwartz, “A Double Dog Burial from San Nicolas Island, California, USA: Osteology, Context, and Significance,” Journal of Archaeological Science 35 (2008): 3111–23, and Kevin N. Smith, Sebastian K. T. S. Wärmländer, René L. Vellanoweth, Chelsea M. Smith, and William E. Kendig, “Identification of Aragonite and Calcite in Lithic Residues: Sandstone Abraders as Fishhook Production Tools on San Nicolas Island, California,” Journal of Archaeological Science 54 (2015): 287–93. 12. Clement W. Meighan and Hal Eberhart, “Archaeological Resources of San Nicolas Island, California,” American Antiquity 19, no. 2 (1953): 109–25, and Arthur Woodward, “Juana María: Sidelights on the Indian Occupation of San Nicolas Island,” Westerners Brand Book, Los Angeles Corral 7 (1957): 245–70. 13. Carl Dittman, Narrative of a Seafaring Life on the Coast of California, 1878, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; William H. Ellison, ed., The Life and Adventures of George Nidever [1802–1883]: The Life Story of a Remarkable California Pioneer Told in His Own Words, and None Wasted (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937); Stehman Forney, “Descriptions of Stations, San Nicholas Island, California,” 1879, GA Series F2111, RG 23, National Archives and Records Administration II, College Park, MD; Stehman Forney, T-sheet 1523, San Nicholas Island, California, 1879, Cartographic Records, RG 23, National Archives and Records Administration II, College Park, MD; and R. Scott Byram, Triangulating Archaeological Landscapes: The US Coast Survey in California, 1850–1895 (Berkeley: eScholarship, 2013): 49–53. 14. After he had become a well-established children’s author, O’Dell frequently complained about the “tin ear” of copy editors. He is especially blunt in an interview he gave to Susan Feierabend, a student completing a grade school assignment in 1969 (“An Interview with Scott O’Dell,” typescript copy, Scott O’Dell Papers, 1957–2008, Kerlan Collection of Children’s Literature, box 6, folder 8). 15. Houghton Mifflin has thus far produced three editions of the novel: the first edition (1960), a thirtieth anniversary gift edition (1990), and a fiftieth anniversary gift edition and paperback edition (2010). Some errors—substantive and incidental—were corrected in later editions, but the fiftieth anniversary edition introduced a host of new errata. Where substantive errors appear in the first edition, this volume includes an annotation indicating when, if ever, they were corrected.

Text of the First Edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins

For The Russell Children Isaac Clare Gillian and Felicity and to Eric Cherie and Twinkle1

1. The Russell children are the nieces and nephew of Jane Dorsa (née Rattenbury), the woman to whom Scott O’Dell was married at the time of the novel’s publication. Felicity was twelve in 1960, and her older siblings were grown. Eric, Cherie, and Twinkle were Scott and Dorsa O’Dell’s French poodles. Gillian Gilhool, e-mail message to Sara L. Schwebel, 24 Sept. 2013; and Gilhool, telephone conversation with Schwebel, 21 Nov. 2015.

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chapter 1 I remember the day the Aleut ship came to our island. At first it seemed like a small shell afloat on the sea. Then it grew larger and was a gull with folded wings.2 At last in the rising sun it became what it really was—a red ship with two red sails.3 My brother and I had gone to the head of a canyon that winds down to a little harbor which is called Coral Cove.4 We had gone to gather roots that grow there in the spring.5 My brother Ramo was only a little boy half my age, which was twelve. He was small for one who had lived so many suns and moons, but quick as a cricket. Also foolish as a cricket when he was excited. For this reason 2. The imagery of the ship as a gull with folded wings appears in the Cahuilla legend of the Lost Spanish Galleon. See the introduction to this volume. 3. In one early version of chapter 1, O’Dell described the ship as Russian, writing that it had a black hull, black masts, and black sails. That is a more historically accurate description of the large sailing vessels that carried Alaska Native otter hunters to California. In fact, the ship that transported the Kodiak Island hunters responsible for the 1814 massacre on San Nicolas Island was an American brig purchased by the Russian American Company and renamed the Il’mena. Susan L. Morris et al., “Murder, Massacre, and Mayhem on the California Coast, 1815: Newly Translated Russian American Company Documents Reveal Company Concern over Violent Clashes,” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 34, no. 1 (2014): 81–100. In changing his description of the ship’s sails from black to red, O’Dell selected a color that postwar readers likely associated with the U.S.S.R. This revision maintained an association of the ship with Russians while also enabling O’Dell to privilege Karana’s understanding that the Aleuts were the Ghalas-at people’s central enemy. 4. Coral (or Corral) Harbor is the name of an actual site on the northwest coast of San Nicolas Island. When the first sheep ranch was established on the island in the 1850s, a sheep corral was built on the terrace just above the harbor. See Paul Schumacher, “Researches in the Kjökkenmöddings and Graves of a Former Population on the Santa Barbara Islands and Adjacent Mainland,” Bulletin of the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories 3, no. 1 (1877): plate 16. In the earliest extant drafts of the novel, O’Dell translated the name of this site into Spanish as Puerto Coralino. Just as described in the novel, a Native village site (called Tule Creek Village and identified as the archaeological site CASNI-25) is located close to this location. See Vellanoweth’s essay in this volume. 5. In his Handbook of the Indians of California, which O’Dell likely used as a source in writing Island of the Blue Dolphins, Alfred Kroeber writes: “Seals, water birds, fish, and mollusks were no doubt the principal food [of the Nicoleños]; but roots were dug industriously.” Alfred Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1925), 634. Moreover, when the Lone Woman met the American hunting party on San Nicolas Island in 1853, she offered them roots that she was cooking. See William H. Ellison, ed., Life and Adventures of George Nidever [1802– 1883]: The Life Story of a Remarkable California Pioneer Told in His Own Words, and None Wasted (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937), 83; and Carl Dittman, Narrative of a Seafaring Life on the Coast of California, 1878, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 39 (75 penciled). On current knowledge of the Nicoleños’ diet, see Vellanoweth’s essay in this volume.

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and because I wanted him to help me gather roots and not go running off, I said nothing about the shell I saw or the gull with folded wings. I went on digging in the brush with my pointed stick as though nothing at all were happening on the sea. Even when I knew for sure that the gull was a ship with two red sails. But Ramo’s eyes missed little in the world. They were black like a lizard’s and very large and, like the eyes of a lizard, could sometimes look sleepy. This was the time when they saw the most. This was the way they looked now. They were half-closed, like those of a lizard lying on a rock about to flick out its tongue to catch a fly. “The sea is smooth,” Ramo said. “It is a flat stone without any scratches.” My brother liked to pretend that one thing was another. “The sea is not a stone without scratches,” I said. “It is water and no waves.” “To me it is a blue stone,” he said. “And far away on the edge of it is a small cloud which sits on the stone.” “Clouds do not sit on stones. On blue ones or black ones or any kind of stones.” “This one does.” “Not on the sea,” I said. “Dolphins sit there, and gulls, and cormorants, and otter, and whales too, but not clouds.” “It is a whale, maybe.” Ramo was standing on one foot and then the other, watching the ship coming, which he did not know was a ship because he had never seen one. I had never seen one either, but I knew how they looked because I had been told. “While you gaze at the sea,” I said, “I dig roots. And it is I who will eat them and you who will not.” Ramo began to punch at the earth with his stick, but as the ship came closer, its sails showing red through the morning mist, he kept watching it, acting all the time as if he were not. “Have you ever seen a red whale?” he asked. “Yes,” I said, though I never had. “Those I have seen are gray.” “You are very young and have not seen everything that swims in the world.” Ramo picked up a root and was about to drop it into the basket. Suddenly his mouth opened wide and then closed again.

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“A canoe!” he cried. “A great one, bigger than all of our canoes together. And red!” A canoe or a ship, it did not matter to Ramo. In the very next breath he tossed the root in the air and was gone, crashing through the brush, shouting as he went. I kept on gathering roots, but my hands trembled as I dug in the earth, for I was more excited than my brother. I knew that it was a ship there on the sea and not a big canoe, and that a ship could mean many things. I wanted to drop the stick and run too, but I went on digging roots because they were needed in the village. By the time I filled the basket, the Aleut ship had sailed around the wide kelp bed that encloses our island and between the two rocks that guard Coral Cove.6 Word of its coming had already reached the village of Ghalas-at.7 Carrying their weapons, our men sped along the trail which winds down to the shore. Our women were gathering at the edge of the mesa. I made my way through the heavy brush and, moving swiftly, down the ravine until I came to the sea cliffs. There I crouched on my hands and knees. Below me lay the cove. The tide was out and the sun shone on the white sand of the beach. Half the men from our village stood at the water’s edge. The rest were concealed among the rocks at the foot of the trail, ready to attack the intruders should they prove unfriendly. As I crouched there in the toyon bushes, trying not to fall over the cliff, trying to keep myself hidden and yet to see and hear what went on below me, a boat left the ship. Six men with long oars were rowing. Their faces were broad, and shining dark hair fell over their eyes. When they came closer I saw that they had bone ornaments thrust through their noses.8 Behind them in the boat stood a tall man with a yellow beard. I had never seen a Russian before, but my father had told me about them, and I wondered, seeing the way he stood with his feet set apart and his fists on his hips and looked at the little harbor as though it already belonged 6. For a discussion of archaeological evidence of a Nicoleño village at this location on San Nicolas Island, see Vellanoweth’s essay in this volume. 7. According to Alfred Kroeber, Ghalas-at may be the Chumash name for the island now known as San Nicolas (Handbook, 635). 8. Nose pins were common ornaments among nineteenth-century natives of Kodiak Island and of the Aleutian Islands chain.

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to him, if he were one of those men from the north whom our people feared. I was certain of it when the boat slid in to the shore and he jumped out, shouting as he did so. His voice echoed against the rock walls of the cove. The words were strange, unlike any I had ever heard. Slowly then he spoke in our tongue. “I come in peace and wish to parley,” he said to the men on the shore. None of them answered, but my father, who was one of those hidden among the rocks, came forward down the sloping beach. He thrust his spear into the sand. “I am the Chief of Ghalas-at,” he said. “My name is Chief Chowig.”9 I was surprised that he gave his real name to a stranger. Everyone in our tribe had two names, the real one which was secret and was seldom used, and one which was common, for if people use your secret name it becomes worn out and loses its magic.10 Thus I was known as Won-a-palei, which means The Girl with the Long Black Hair, though my secret name is Karana.11 My father’s secret name was Chowig. Why he gave it to a stranger I do not know. The Russian smiled and held up his hand, calling himself Captain Orlov.12 My father also held up his hand. I could not see his face, but I doubted that he smiled in return. “I have come with forty of my men,” said the Russian. “We come to hunt sea otter. We wish to camp on your island while we are hunting.” My father said nothing. He was a tall man, though not so tall as Captain Orlov, and he stood with his bare shoulders thrown back, thinking about what the Russian had said. He was in no hurry to reply because the Aleuts had come before to hunt otter. That was long in the past, but my father still remembered them. “You remember another hunt,” Captain Orlov said when my father was silent. “I have heard of it, too. It was led by Captain Mitriff who 9. The name O’Dell chose for Karana’s father likely derives from Chowigna, the name of a Gabrielino village located on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which lies to the northeast of the southern Channel Islands. O’Dell lived on the peninsula during part of his childhood. In an earlier draft of the novel, O’Dell used “chowig” in a different way, stating that it was the Aleut word for “storm” (Typescript 1a, p. 131A). 10. The description of public and secret names is O’Dell’s invention. There are no ethnographic accounts of the Nicoleño people available to scholars. 11. See the introduction to this volume for a discussion of O’Dell’s choice of these public and secret names for the protagonist. 12. O’Dell selected this name late in his composition process. He initially named the captain Baranov after the historical figure Alexander Andreyevich Baranov, who was the first chief manager of the Russian American Company, headquartered in Russian Alaska.

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was a fool and is now dead. The trouble arose because you and your tribe did all of the hunting.” “We hunted,” said my father, “but the one you call a fool wished us to hunt from one moon to the next, never ceasing.” “This time you will need to do nothing,” Captain Orlov said. “My men will hunt and we will divide the catch. One part for you, to be paid in goods, and two parts for us.”13 “The parts must be equal,” my father said. Captain Orlov gazed off toward the sea. “We can talk of that later when my supplies are safe ashore,” he replied. The morning was fair with little wind, yet it was the season of the year when storms could be looked for, so I understood why the Russian wished to move onto our island. “It is better to agree now,” said my father. Captain Orlov took two long steps away from my father, then turned and faced him. “One part to you is fair since the work is ours and ours the risk.” My father shook his head. The Russian grasped his beard. “Since the sea is not yours, why do I have to give you any part?” “The sea which surrounds the Island of the Blue Dolphins belongs to us,” answered my father. He spoke softly as he did when he was angry. “From here to the coast of Santa Barbara—twenty leagues away?”14 “No, only that which touches the island and where the otter live.” Captain Orlov made a sound in his throat. He looked at our men standing on the beach and toward those who had now come from behind the rocks. He looked at my father and shrugged his shoulders. Suddenly he smiled, showing his long teeth. “The parts shall be equal,” he said. He said more, but I did not hear it, for at that instant in my great excitement I moved a small rock, which clattered down the cliff and fell 13. In a 1953 article that O’Dell may have consulted while writing Island of the Blue Dolphins, archaeologists Clement W. Meighan and Hal Eberhart note the “virtual absence of trade goods, in particular glass beads,” on San Nicolas Island. Clement W. Meighan and Hal Eberhart, “Archaeological Resources of San Nicolas Island, California,” American Antiquity 19, no. 2 (1953): 109. 14. San Nicolas Island is located about eighty miles south of Santa Barbara—a bit farther than the captain suggests. On Chief Chowig’s language of possession, see the introduction to this volume.

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at his feet. Everyone on the beach looked up. Silently I left the toyon bushes and ran without stopping until I reached the mesa.

chapter 2 Captain Orlov and his Aleut hunters moved to the island that morning, making many trips from their ship to the beach of Coral Cove. Since the beach was small and almost flooded when the tide was in, he asked if he could camp on higher ground. This my father agreed to. Perhaps I should tell you about our island so you will know how it looks and where our village was and where the Aleuts camped for most of the summer. Our island is two leagues long and one league wide, and if you were standing on one of the hills that rise in the middle of it, you would think that it looked like a fish.15 Like a dolphin lying on its side, with its tail pointing toward the sunrise, its nose pointing to the sunset, and its fins making reefs and the rocky ledges along the shore. Whether someone did stand there on the low hills in the days when the earth was new and, because of its shape, called it the Island of the Blue Dolphins, I do not know. Many dolphins live in our seas and it may be from them that the name came. But one way or another, this is what the island was called.16 The first thing you would notice about our island, I think, is the wind. It blows almost every day, sometimes from the northwest and sometimes from the east, once in a long while out of the south.17 All the winds except the one from the south are strong, and because of them the hills are polished smooth and the trees are small and twisted, even in the canyon that runs down to Coral Cove.18 15. As a unit of measure on land, a league is usually understood to mean three miles. San Nicolas Island could be described as oval in shape. It is 9.7 miles long at its greatest length and 3.7 miles wide at its greatest width. Thus, it is closer to 3.5 leagues long and 1.5 leagues wide. J. G. Vedder and Robert M. Norris, Geology of San Nicolas Island, California: Geological Survey Professional Paper 369 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1963). 16. The name is O’Dell’s invention. There is no record of what the Nicoleño people called the island. 17. According to meteorological data collected between the 1940s and ’70s, winds on San Nicolas Island are “prevailingly northwest and strong most of the year.” However, the windiest months are between March and July. See Ed McKenna and Timothy L. Olsen, Wind Resource Assessment: San Nicolas Island, California (Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1996), 2. 18. San Nicolas Island has few native trees, but redwood logs from Northern California do wash ashore as driftwood. See notes 26 and 60.

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The village of Ghalas-at lay east of the hills on a small mesa, near Coral Cove and a good spring.19 About a half league to the north is another spring and it was there that the Aleuts put up their tents which were made of skins and were so low to the earth that the men had to crawl into them on their stomachs.20 At dusk we could see the glow of their fires. That night my father warned everyone in the village of Ghalas-at against visiting the camp. “The Aleuts come from a country far to the north,” he said. “Their ways are not ours nor is their language. They have come to take otter and to give us our share in many goods which they have and which we can use. In this way shall we profit. But we shall not profit if we try to befriend them. They are people who do not understand friendship. They are not those who were here before, but they are people of the same tribe that caused trouble many years ago.” My father’s words were obeyed. We did not go to the Aleut camp and they did not come to our village. But this is not to say that we did not know what they did—what they ate and in what way they cooked it, how many otter were killed each day, and other things as well—for someone was always watching from the cliffs while they were hunting, or from the ravine when they were in camp. Ramo, for instance, brought news about Captain Orlov. “In the morning when he crawls out of his tent he sits on a rock and combs until the beard shines like a cormorant’s wing,” Ramo said.21 My sister Ulape, who was two years older than I, gathered the most curious news of all. She swore that there was an Aleut girl among the hunters.22 “She is dressed in skins just like the men,” Ulape said. “But she wears a fur cap and under the cap she has thick hair that falls to her waist.” 19. The spring closest to the historical village site where O’Dell places Ghalas-at does not have a widely reported name; the Navy calls it Humphrey Sump. 20. This spring is now known as Thousand Springs; water flows from the source and cascades onto the sand from various points on the cliff. O’Dell’s source for information on springs might have been Arthur Woodward’s 1957 article, “Juana María: Sidelights on the Indian Occupation of San Nicolas Island,” Westerners Brand Book, Los Angeles Corral 7 (1957): 245–70. 21. In an early draft, Ramo compared the sheen to that of “a shield of copper,” an item a nineteenth-century Nicoleño boy would never have seen (Typescript 1, p. 8). 22. Kodiak women did occasionally accompany male hunters to assist with work during hunting expeditions. See Glenn Farris, “Otter Hunting by Alaskan Natives along the California Coast in the Early Nineteenth Century,” Mains’l Haul 43, nos. 3–4 (2007): 20–33.

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No one believed Ulape. Everyone laughed at the idea that hunters would bother to bring their wives with them. The Aleuts also watched our village, otherwise they would not have known about the good fortune which befell us soon after they came. It happened in this way. Early spring is a poor season for fishing. The heavy seas and winds of winter drive the fish into deep water where they stay until the weather is settled and where they are hard to catch. During this time the village eats sparingly, mostly from stores of seeds harvested in autumn. Word of our good fortune came on a stormy afternoon, brought by Ulape, who was never idle. She had gone to a ledge on the eastern part of the island hoping to gather shellfish. She was climbing a cliff on the way home when she heard a loud noise behind her. At first she did not see what had caused the noise. She thought that it was the wind echoing through one of the caves and was about to leave when she noticed silvery shapes on the floor of the cove. The shapes moved and she saw that it was a school of large white bass, each one as big as she was. Pursued by killer whales, which prey upon them when seals are not to be found, the bass had tried to escape by swimming toward shore. But in their terror they had mistaken the depth of the water and had been tossed onto the rocky ledge. Ulape dropped her basket of shellfish and set out for the village, arriving there so out of breath that she could only point in the direction of the shore. The women were cooking supper but all of them stopped and gathered around her, waiting for her to speak. “A school of white bass,” she finally said. “Where? Where?” everyone asked. “On the rocks. A dozen of them. Perhaps more than a dozen.” Before Ulape had finished speaking, we were running toward the shore, hoping that we would get there in time, that the fish had not flopped back into the sea, or that a chance wave had not washed them away. We came to the cliff and looked down. The school of white bass was still on the ledge, glistening in the sun. But since the tide was high and the biggest waves were already lapping at the fish, there was no time to lose. One by one we hauled them out of reach of the tide. Then, two women carrying a single fish, for they were all of about the same size and heavy, we lifted them up the cliff and brought them home.

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There were enough for everyone in our tribe for supper that night and the next, but in the morning two Aleuts came to the village and asked to speak to my father.23 “You have fish,” one of them said. “Enough only for my people,” my father answered. “You have fourteen fish,” the Aleut said. “Seven now because we ate seven.” “From seven you can spare two.” “There are forty in your camp,” my father replied, “and more than that of us. Besides, you have your own fish, the dried ones that you brought.” “We tire of that kind,” the Aleut said. He was a short man who only came to my father’s shoulders, and he had small eyes like black pebbles and a mouth like the edge of a stone knife. The other Aleut looked very much like him. “You are hunters,” my father said. “Go and hunt your own fish if you are tired of what you are now eating. I have my people to think of.” “Captain Orlov will hear that you refuse to share the fish.” “Yes, tell him,” my father said. “But also why we refuse.” The Aleut grunted to his companion and the two of them stalked off on their short legs across the sand dunes that lay between the village and their camp. We ate the rest of the white bass that night and there was much rejoicing. But little did we know, as we ate and sang and the older men told stories around the fire, that our good fortune would soon bring trouble to Ghalas-at.

chapter 3 The wide beds of kelp which surround our island on three sides come close to the shore and spread out to sea for a distance of a league. In these deep beds, even on days of heavy winds, the Aleuts hunted. They left the shore at dawn in their skin canoes and did not return until night, towing after them the slain otter. The sea otter, when it is swimming, looks like a seal, but is really very different. It has a shorter nose than a seal, small webbed feet instead of 23. O’Dell does not explain how the men are able to understand each other; the Aleut and Nicoleño languages are linguistically unrelated. Later in the novel, Karana is unable to understand the speech of the Aleut girl she encounters.

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flippers, and fur that is thicker and much more beautiful. It is also different in other ways. The otter likes to lie on its back in the kelp beds, floating up and down to the motion of the waves, sunning itself or sleeping. They are the most playful animals in the sea. It was these creatures that the Aleuts hunted for their pelts. From the cliff I could see the skin canoes darting here and there over the kelp beds, barely skimming the water, and the long spears flying like arrows.24 At dark the hunters brought their catch into Coral Cove, and there on the beach the animals were skinned and fleshed. Two men, who also sharpened the spears, did this work, laboring far into the night by the light of seaweed fires. In the morning the beach would be strewn with carcasses, and the waves red with blood. Many of our tribe went to the cliff each night to count the number killed during the day. They counted the dead otter and thought of the beads and other things that each pelt meant. But I never went to the cove and whenever I saw the hunters with their long spears skimming over the water, I was angry, for these animals were my friends. It was fun to see them playing or sunning themselves among the kelp. It was more fun than the thought of beads to wear around my neck. This I told my father one morning. “There are scarcely a dozen left in the beds around Coral Cove,” I said. “Before the Aleuts came there were many.” “Many still live in other places around the island,” he replied, laughing at my foolishness. “When the hunters leave they will come back.” “There will be none left,” I said. “The hunters will kill them all. This morning they hunt on the south. Next week they move to another place.”25 “The ship is filled with pelts. In another week the Aleuts will be ready to go.”

24. Aleut and Kodiak men hunted animals for both pelts and meat long before the Europeans’ arrival. They were expert hunters, trained from childhood to pursue fur-bearing animals from skin kayaks in the open sea. Their formidable skill led Europeans, and particularly Russians, to become reliant on their labor as otter hunting was transformed into a commercial enterprise and Alaska Natives became subjects of the Russian Empire. See James R. Gibson, “European Dependence upon American Natives: The Case of Russian America,” Ethnohistory 25, no. 4 (1978): 359–85. 25. Karana was not incorrect in her concern. Sea otters give birth to only one offspring a year, and their furs were prized more highly than that of any other animal during the early nineteenth century. In the 1810s, the highest-quality adult female pelt could fetch a price equivalent to the yearly salary of three men employed by the Russian American Company (Gibson, “European Dependence,” 361).

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I was sure that my father thought they would leave soon, for two days before he had sent some of our young men to the beach to build a canoe from a log which had drifted in from the sea.26 There are no trees on the island except the small ones stunted by the wind. When a log came ashore, as happened once in a long time, it was always carried to the village and worked on where a chance wave could not wash it away. That the men were sent to hollow out the log in the cove, and to sleep beside it during the night, meant that they were there to watch the Aleuts, to give the alarm should Captain Orlov try to sail off without paying us for the otter skins. Everyone was afraid he might, so besides the men in the cove who watched the Aleut ship, others kept watch on the camp. Every hour someone brought news. Ulape said that the Aleut woman spent a whole afternoon cleaning her skin aprons, which she had not done before while she had been there. Early one morning, Ramo said he had just seen Captain Orlov carefully trimming his beard so that it looked the way it did when he first came. The Aleuts who sharpened the long spears stopped this work and gave all their time to skinning the otter which were brought in at dusk. We in the village of Ghalas-at knew that Captain Orlov and his hunters were getting ready to leave the island. Would he pay us for the otter he had slain or would he try to sneak away in the night? Would our men have to fight for our rightful share? These questions everyone asked while the Aleuts went about their preparations—everyone except my father, who said nothing, but each night worked on the new spear he was making.

chapter 4 The Aleuts left on a sunless day. Out of the north deep waves rolled down upon the island. They broke against the rocks and roared into the caves, sending up white sprays of water. Before night a storm would certainly strike.

26. The young men could have been making a dugout canoe. In his Handbook of the Indians of California, Alfred Kroeber writes: “Wood was scarce and small on the island [of San Nicolas]. There was enough brush for huts, but most dwellings were reared on a frame of whale ribs and jaws, either covered with sea-lion hides or wattled with brush or rushes. . . . The island may have afforded sufficient timber for plank canoes, or dugouts may have been burned from drift logs” (634).

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Not long after dawn the Aleuts took down their skin tents and carried them to the beach. Captain Orlov had not paid my father for the otter he had killed. So when the news came that the hunters had packed their tents, all of our tribe left the village and hurried toward Coral Cove. The men with their weapons went first and the women followed. The men took the trail that led to the beach, but the women hid themselves among the brush on the cliff. Ulape and I went together far out on the ledge where I had hidden before when the hunters first came. The tide was low and the rocks and the narrow beach were scattered with bundles of otter pelts. Half of the hunters were on the ship. The rest were wading into the water, tossing the pelts into a boat. The Aleuts laughed while they worked, as if they were happy to leave the island.27 My father was talking to Captain Orlov. I could not hear their words because of the noise the hunters made, but from the way my father shook his head, I knew that he was not pleased. “He is angry,” Ulape whispered. “Not yet,” I said. “When he’s really angry, he pulls his ear.”28 The men who were working on the canoe had stopped and were watching my father and Captain Orlov. The other men of our tribe stood at the foot of the trail. The boat went off to the ship filled with otter. As it reached the ship, Captain Orlov raised his hand and gave a signal. When the boat came back it held a black chest which two of the hunters carried to the beach. Captain Orlov raised the lid and pulled out several necklaces. There was little light in the sky, yet the beads sparkled as he turned them this way and that. Beside me, Ulape drew in her breath in excitement, and I could hear cries of delight from the women hidden in the brush. But the cries suddenly ceased as my father shook his head and turned his back on the chest. The Aleuts stood silent. Our men left their places at the foot of the trail and moved forward a few steps and waited, watching my father. 27. The Alaska Natives brought to hunt otter on San Nicolas Island during the early nineteenth century were conscripted laborers who were compelled to hunt for the Russian Empire. As historian James R. Gibson wrote: “They were forcibly separated from their families, moved to new hunting grounds, subjected to arduous labor, and exposed to cold, hunger, accidents, disease, and Indian enemies” (Gibson, “European Dependence,” 363). 28. In the first appearance of this dialogue, in an earlier draft of Island of the Blue Dolphins, Ulape figured as Karana’s best friend, a girl who would know Chief Chowig less intimately than Karana.

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“One string of beads for one otter pelt is not our bargain,” my father said. “One string and one iron spearhead,” said Captain Orlov, lifting two fingers. “The chest does not hold that much,” my father answered. “There are more chests on the ship,” said the Russian. “Then bring them to the shore,” my father said. “You have one hundred and five bales of otter on the ship. There are fifteen here in the cove. You will need three more chests of this size.” Captain Orlov said something to his Aleuts that I could not understand, but its meaning was soon clear. There were many hunters in the cove and as soon as he spoke they began to carry the otter pelts to the boat. Beside me Ulape was scarcely breathing. “Do you think that he will give us the other chests?” she whispered. “I do not trust him.” “When he gets the pelts to the ship he may leave.” “It is possible.” The hunters had to pass my father to reach the boat, and when the first one approached him, he stepped in his path. “The rest of the pelts must stay here,” he said, facing Captain Orlov, “until the chests are brought.” The Russian drew himself up stiffly and pointed to the clouds that were blowing in toward the island. “I load the ship before the storm arrives,” he said. “Give us the other chests. Then I will help you with our canoes,” my father replied. Captain Orlov was silent. His gaze moved slowly around the cove. He looked at our men standing on the ledge of rock a dozen paces away. He looked upward toward the cliff and back at my father. Then he spoke to his Aleuts. I do not know what happened first, whether it was my father who raised his hand against the hunter whose path he barred, whether it was this man who stepped forward with a bale of pelts on his back and shoved my father aside. It all happened so quickly that I could not tell one act from the other.29 But as I jumped to my feet and Ulape screamed 29. Russian American Company documents state that in 1814, an Alaska Native hunter was slain by a San Nicolas Islander, triggering wider violence. Of course, it is impossible to know how the massacre actually began, and many accounts (e.g., Emma Hardacre’s “Eighteen Years Alone”) refrain from pointing fingers. See Morris et al., “Murder, Massacre, and Mayhem.”

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and other cries sounded along the cliff, I saw a figure lying on the rocks. It was my father and blood was on his face. Slowly he got to his feet. With their spears raised our men rushed down across the ledge. A puff of white smoke came from the deck of the ship. A loud noise echoed against the cliff. Five of our warriors fell and lay quiet.30 Ulape screamed again and flung a rock into the cove. It fell harmlessly beside Captain Orlov. Rocks showered into the cove from many places along the cliff, striking several of the hunters. Then our warriors rushed in upon them and it was hard to tell one from the other. Ulape and I stood on the cliff, and watched helplessly, afraid to use the rocks we held lest we injure our own men. The Aleuts had dropped the bales of otter. They drew knives from their belts and as our warriors rushed upon them the two lines surged back and forth along the beach. Men fell to the sand and rose to fight again. Others fell and did not get up. My father was one of these. For a long time it seemed that we would win the battle. But Captain Orlov, who had rowed off to the ship when the battle started, returned with more of his Aleuts. Our warriors were forced backward to the cliffs. There were few of them left, yet they fought at the foot of the trail and would not retreat. The wind began to blow. Suddenly Captain Orlov and his Aleuts turned and ran to the boat. Our men did not pursue them. The hunters reached the ship, the red sails went up, and the ship moved slowly between the two rocks that guard the cove. Once more before it disappeared a white puff of smoke rose from the deck. As Ulape and I ran along the cliff a whirring sound like a great bird in flight passed above our heads. The storm struck us as we ran, driving rain into our faces. Then other women were running beside us and their cries were louder than the wind. At the bottom of the trail we came upon our warriors. Many had fought on the beach. Few had left it and of these all were wounded. My father lay on the beach and the waves were already washing over him. Looking at his body I knew he should not have told Captain Orlov his secret name, and back in our village all the weeping women and the 30. The ship that transported Kodiak otter hunters to and from San Nicolas Island in 1814 had six four-pound-caliber cast-iron cannons on board (P. A. Tikhmene, The Russian American Company: Correspondence of the Governors, Communications Sent, 1818, translated and with an introduction by Richard A. Pierce and Alton S. Donnelly [Kingston, Ontario: Brown and Martin, 1984], 5). This fact was not widely reported in nineteenthcentury sources, however, and O’Dell probably would not have encountered it.

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sad men agreed that this had so weakened him that he had not lived through the fight with the Aleuts and the dishonest Russian.

chapter 5 That night was the most terrible time in all the memory of Ghalas-at. When the fateful day had dawned the tribe numbered forty-two men, counting those who were too old to fight. When night came and the women had carried back to the village those who had died on the beach of Coral Cove, there remained only fifteen. Of these, seven were old men.31 There was no woman who had not lost a father or a husband, a brother or a son. The storm lasted two days and the third day we buried our dead on the south headland. The Aleuts who had fallen on the beach, we burned.32 For many days after that the village was quiet. People went out only to gather food and came back to eat in silence. Some wished to leave and go in their canoes to the island called Santa Catalina, which lies far off to the east, but others said that there was little water on that island.33 In the end a council was held and it was decided to stay at Ghalas-at. The council also chose a new chief to take my father’s place. His name was Kimki.34 He was very old, but he had been a good man in his youth and a good hunter. The night he was chosen to be chief, he called everyone together, saying: “Most of those who snared fowl and found fish in the deep water and built canoes are gone. The women, who were never asked to do more

31. Neither the historical nor archaeological record provides definitive information about the number of Nicoleños living on the island prior to the 1814 confrontation with Kodiak hunters or about the number of Nicoleños slain in the battle. O’Dell’s numbers are within the range of current estimates. See the introduction to this volume. 32. The archaeological record has not yet revealed how the Nicoleños buried the Alaska Native hunters who died on the island. 33. They were mistaken. Archaeologists believe that Santa Catalina has been inhabited for more than eight thousand years, and it has ample water supplies to support a large population. Moreover, Natives on San Nicolas Island were likely familiar with Santa Catalina through trade and social networks. The two islands lie twenty-one miles apart. See Goldberg’s essay in this volume. Until very late in the editing process, the word “east” appeared as “south,” placing Santa Catalina in the wrong location relative to San Nicolas Island, but this was fixed sometime between the copyediting of the galley proofs and the printing of the first edition (Typescript 3a, p. 29). 34. O’Dell may have selected the name Kimki because, according to Alfred Kroeber, Kinkipar or Kinki was the Gabrielino name for San Clemente, one of the California Channel Islands (Handbook, 621).

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than stay at home, cook food, and make clothing, now must take the place of the men and face the dangers which abound beyond the village.35 There will be grumbling in Ghalas-at because of this. There will be shirkers. These will be punished, for without the help of all, all must perish.” Kimki portioned work for each one in the tribe, giving Ulape and me the task of gathering abalones. This shellfish grew on the rocks along the shore and was plentiful. We gathered them at low tide in baskets and carried them to the mesa where we cut the dark red flesh from the shell and placed it on flat rocks to dry in the sun. Ramo had the task of keeping the abalones safe from the gulls and especially the wild dogs. Dozens of our animals, which had left the village when their owners had died, joined the wild pack that roamed the island. They soon grew as fierce as the wild ones and only came back to the village to steal food. Each day toward evening Ulape and I helped Ramo put the abalones in baskets and carry them to the village for safekeeping. During this time other women were gathering the scarlet apples that grow on the cactus bushes and are called tunas. Fish were caught and many birds were netted. So hard did the women work that we really fared better than before when the hunting was done by the men. Life in the village should have been peaceful, but it was not. The men said that the women had taken the tasks that rightfully were theirs and now that they had become hunters the men looked down upon them. There was much trouble over this until Kimki decreed that the work would again be divided—henceforth the men would hunt and the women harvest. Since there was already ample food to last through the winter, it no longer mattered who hunted. But this was not the real reason why autumn and winter were unpeaceful in Ghalas-at. Those who had died at Coral Cove were still with us. Everywhere we went on the island or on the sea, whether we were fishing or eating or sitting by the fires at night, they were with us. We all remembered someone and I remembered my father, so tall and strong and kind. A few years ago my mother had died and since then 35. O’Dell’s description of a community in which women’s work is confined to a domestic space and grants little power is a product of O’Dell’s imagination; there are no ethnographic accounts of the Nicoleño people available to scholars. On gender roles and food gathering, see Vellanoweth’s essay in this volume. The wording of this paragraph was finalized late in the drafting process (Typescript 2b, p. 22) and may have been in response to a query by the Lovelaces: “Kimki might say that although it had before been taboo for women to do men’s work, okay now when necessary.”

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Ulape and I had tried to do the tasks she had done, Ulape even more than I, being older.36 Now that my father was gone, it was not easy to look after Ramo, who was always into some mischief. It was the same in the other houses of Ghalas-at, but more than the burdens which had fallen upon us all, it was the memory of those who had gone that burdened our hearts. After food had been stored in autumn and the baskets were full in every house, there was more time to think about them, so that a sort of sickness came over the village and people sat and did not speak, nor ever laughed. In the spring, Kimki called the tribe together. He had been thinking, he said, during the winter and had decided that he would take a canoe and go to the east to a country which was there and which he had once been to when he was a boy. It lay many days across the sea, but he would go there and make a place for us. He would go alone, because he could not spare more of our men for the voyage, and he would return. The day that Kimki left was fair. We all went to the cove and watched him launch the big canoe. It held two baskets of water and enough tunas and dried abalone to last many days. We watched while Kimki paddled through the narrow opening in the rocks. Slowly he went through the kelp beds and into the sea. There he waved to us and we waved back. The rising sun made a silver trail across the water. Along this trail he disappeared into the east. The rest of the day we talked about the journey. Would Kimki ever reach this far country about which nothing was known?37 Would he come back before the winter was over? Or never? That night we sat around the fire and talked while the wind blew and the waves crashed against the shore.

36. During Houghton Mifflin’s copyediting, O’Dell’s original phrase, “Many years ago,” was changed to, “A few years ago.” The copyeditor had queried, “ ‘Several’? Ramo is only six, she has said.” This was okayed, but later, another editor crossed out the word “Many” and inserted “A few,” explaining in the margin: “ ‘A few’ [is] more girlish” (Typescript 3a, p. 31). 37. “Little” rather than “nothing” would more accurately describe what the Nicoleños knew about the mainland, as they were connected to it through trade and social networks (see Goldberg’s essay in this volume). Nonetheless, when the Lone Woman arrived in Santa Barbara after eighteen years of solitude, she was surprised by many of the things she saw, including a horse.

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chapter 6 After Kimki had been gone one moon, we began to watch for his return. Every day someone went to the cliff to scan the sea. Even on stormy days we went, and on days when fog shrouded the island.38 During the day there was always a watcher on the cliff and each night as we sat around our fires we wondered if the next sun would bring him home. But the spring came and left and the sea was empty. Kimki did not return! There were few storms that winter and rain was light and ended early. This meant that we would need to be careful of water.39 In the old days the springs sometimes ran low and no one worried, but now everything seemed to cause alarm. Many were afraid that we would die of thirst. “There are other things more important to ponder,” said Matasaip who had taken Kimki’s place. Matasaip meant the Aleuts, for it was now the time of year when they had come before. Watchers on the cliff began to look for the red sails and a meeting was held to plan what to do if the Aleuts came. We lacked the men to keep them from landing or to save our lives if they attacked us, which we were certain they would. Plans were therefore made to flee as soon as their ship was sighted. Food and water were stored in canoes and these were hidden on the rocks at the south end of the island. The cliffs were steep here and very high, but we wove a stout rope of bull kelp and fastened it to rocks at the top of the cliff so that it hung to the water.40 As soon as the Aleut ship was sighted we would all go to the cliff and let ourselves down, one at a time. We would then leave in our canoes for the island of Santa Catalina. Although the entrance to Coral Cove was too narrow for a ship to pass through safely at night, men were sent there to watch the cove from dusk to dawn, besides those who watched during the day. 38. Fog is a frequent weather condition on San Nicolas Island, and it is especially common, and dense, during spring and summer. 39. San Nicolas Island is semiarid, with rain falling primarily between late fall and early spring. It is unlikely that water supplies would have run short during the nineteenth century, given the supply of fresh water on the island today, even during periods of drought. However, fresh water was a precious resource on the Channel Islands. 40. Bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana), also called bullwhip kelp, is a large seaweed in the same family as brown algae that is found growing from the Aleutian Islands to Central California. It may wash ashore on San Nicolas Island as flotsam.

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Shortly afterwards, on a night of fine moon, one of the men came running back to the village. Everyone was asleep, but his cries quickly awakened us. “The Aleuts!” he shouted. “The Aleuts!” It was news we expected. We were prepared for it, yet there was much fear in the village of Ghalas-at. Matasaip strode from hut to hut telling everyone to be calm and not to lose time packing things that would not be needed. I took my skirt of yucca fiber, however, for I had spent many days making it and it was very pretty, and also my otter cape.41 Quietly we filed out of the village along the trail that led toward the place where our canoes were hidden. The moon was growing pale and there was a faint light in the east, but a strong wind began to blow. We had gone no farther than half a league when we were overtaken by the man who had given the warning. He spoke to Matasaip, but we all gathered around to listen to him. “I went back to the cove after I gave the alarm,” he said. “When I got there I could see the ship clearly. It is beyond the rocks that guard the harbor. It is a smaller ship than the one which belonged to the Aleuts.42 The sails are white instead of red.” “Could you see anyone?” Matasaip asked. “No.” “It is not the same ship which was here last spring?” “No.” Matasaip was silent, pondering the news. Then he told us to go on to where the canoes were and wait for him, for he was going back. It was light now and we went quickly over the dunes to the edge of the cliff and stood there while the sun rose. The wind grew cold, but fearing that those on the ship would see the smoke we did not start a fire, though we had meal to cook for breakfast. Instead we ate a small quantity of dried abalone, and afterwards my brother Ramo climbed over the cliff. No one had been down to the

41. Yucca plants do not grow on San Nicolas Island, but surf grass (Phyllospadix torreyi) was used by the people of the Channel Islands to make women’s skirts. In the earliest extant draft of Island of the Blue Dolphins, O’Dell describes Karana’s dress as having been made from surf grass; it is not clear why he later changed the material to yucca (Typescript 1, p. 116). 42. The ship carrying Alaska Native otter hunters to San Nicolas Island in 1814, the Il’mena, weighed 200 tons, whereas the Mexican ship that removed the Nicoleños from the island in 1835, the Peor es Nada, weighed only 20.5 tons.

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rocks since the canoes were hidden so we did not know whether they were still safe or not. While he was gone we saw a man running across the dunes. It was Nanko, carrying a message from Matasaip. He was sweating in spite of the cold and he stood trying to catch his breath. We all waited, urging him to talk, but his face was happy and we knew that he brought good news. “Speak!” everyone said in a chorus. “I have been running for more than a league,” he said. “I cannot talk.” “You are talking,” someone said. “Speak, Nanko, speak,” cried many voices. Nanko was having fun with us. He threw out his chest and took a deep breath. He looked around at the circle of faces as if he did not understand why everyone was staring at him. “The ship,” he said at last, saying the words slowly, “does not belong to our enemies, the Aleuts. There are white men on this ship and they have come from that place where Kimki went when he left our island.” “Has Kimki returned?” an old man broke in.43 “No, but it is he who saw the white men and told them to come here.” “What do they look like?” Ulape asked. “Are there boys on the ship?” asked Ramo, who had come back with his mouth full of something. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. Nanko made his face stern, which was hard for him to do because his mouth had been cut in the battle with the Aleuts and ever since it had always seemed to smile. He held up his hand for silence. “The ship has come for one reason,” he said. “To take us away from Ghalas-at.” “To what place?” I asked. It was good news that the ship did not belong to the Aleuts. But where would the white men take us? “I do not know to what place,” he said. “Kimki knows and he has asked the white men to take us there.” Saying no more, Nanko turned back and we followed him. We were fearful of where we were going, yet we were happy, too.

43. This line was originally given to Karana, but the Lovelaces asked: “What about protocol. Shouldn’t only men be allowed to ask questions?” “I” was later crossed out and replaced with “an old man” (Typescript 2a, p. 29).

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chapter 7 We took nothing with us when we thought we would have to flee, so there was much excitement as we packed our baskets. Nanko strode up and down outside the houses, urging us to hurry. “The wind grows strong,” he shouted. “The ship will leave you.” I filled two baskets with the things I wished to take. Three fine needles of whalebone, an awl for making holes, a good stone knife for scraping hides, two cooking pots, and a small box made from a shell with many earrings in it. Ulape had two boxes of earrings, for she was vainer than I, and when she put them into her baskets, she drew a thin mark with blue clay across her nose and cheekbones. The mark meant that she was unmarried. “The ship leaves,” shouted Nanko. “If it goes,” Ulape shouted back, “it will come again after the storm.”44 My sister was in love with Nanko, but she laughed at him. “Other men will come to the island,” she said. “They will be far more handsome and brave than those who leave.” “You are all women of such ugliness that they will be afraid and soon go away.” The wind blew in fierce gusts as we left the village, stinging our faces with sand. Ramo hopped along far in front with one of our baskets, but before long he ran back to say that he had forgotten his fishing spear. Nanko was standing on the cliff motioning us to hurry, so I refused to let him go back for it. The ship was anchored outside the cove and Nanko said that it could not come closer to the shore because of the high waves. They were beating against the rocks with the sound of thunder. The shore as far as I could see was rimmed with foam. Two boats were pulled up on the beach. Beside them stood four white men and as we came down the trail, one of the men beckoned us to walk faster. He spoke to us in a language which we could not understand. The men of our tribe, except Nanko and Chief Matasaip, were already on the ship. My brother Ramo was there too, Nanko said. He 44. The earliest extant draft includes an additional line here: “ ‘We men will leave,’ Nanko answered. ‘Then you will be here without anyone to protect you’ ” (Typescript 1a, pp. 35 [the first of two pages numbered 35] and 36). Its excision is representative of a pattern of revisions that eliminates potential plot spoilers.

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had run on ahead after I had told him that he could not go back to the village for his spear. Nanko said that he had jumped into the first boat that left the cove. Matasaip divided the women into two groups. Then the boats were pushed into the water, and while they bobbed about we scrambled into them as best we could. The cove was partly sheltered from the wind, but as soon as we went through the passage between the rocks and into the sea, great waves struck us. There was much confusion. Spray flew, the white men shouted at each other. The boat pitched so wildly that in one breath you could see the ship and in the next breath it had gone. Yet we came to it at last and somehow were able to climb onto the deck. The ship was large, many times the size of our biggest canoes. It had two tall masts and between them stood a young man with blue eyes and a black beard. He was the chieftain of the white men, for he began to shout orders which they quickly obeyed. Sails rose on the tall masts and two of the men began to pull on the rope that held the anchor. I called to my brother, knowing that he was very curious and therefore would be in the way of the men who were working. The wind drowned my voice and he did not answer. The deck was so crowded that it was hard to move, but I went from one end of it to the other, calling his name. Still there was no answer. No one had seen him. At last I found Nanko. I was overcome with fear. “Where is my brother?” I cried. He repeated what he had told me on the beach, but as he spoke Ulape who stood beside him pointed toward the island. I looked out across the deck and the sea. There, running along the cliff, the fishing spear held over his head, was Ramo. The sails had filled and the ship was now moving slowly away. Everyone was looking toward the cliff, even the white men. I ran to one of them and pointed, but he shook his head and turned from me. The ship began to move faster. Against my will, I screamed. Chief Matasaip grasped my arm. “We cannot wait for Ramo,” he said. “If we do, the ship will be driven on the rocks.” “We must!” I shouted. “We must!” “The ship will come back for him on another day,” Matasaip said. “He will be safe. There is food for him to eat and water to drink and places to sleep.” “No,” I cried.

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Matasaip’s face was like stone. He was not listening. I cried out once more, but my voice was lost in the howling wind. People gathered around me, saying again what Matasaip had said, yet I was not comforted by their words. Ramo had disappeared from the cliff and I knew that he was now running along the trail that led to the beach. The ship began to circle the kelp bed and I thought surely that it was going to return to the shore. I held my breath, waiting. Then slowly its direction changed. It pointed toward the east. At that moment I walked across the deck and, though many hands tried to hold me back, flung myself into the sea.45 A wave passed over my head and I went down and down until I thought I would never behold the day again. The ship was far away when I rose. Only the sails showed through the spray. I was still clutching the basket that held all of my things, but it was very heavy and I realized that I could not swim with it in my arms. Letting it sink, I started off toward the shore. I could barely see the two rocks that guarded the entrance to Coral Cove, but I was not fearful. Many times I had swum farther than this, although not in a storm. I kept thinking over and over as I swam how I would punish Ramo when I reached the shore, yet when I felt the sand under my feet and saw him standing at the edge of the waves, holding his fishing spear and looking so forlorn, I forgot all those things I planned to do. Instead I fell to my knees and put my arms around him. The ship had disappeared. “When will it come back?” Ramo asked. There were tears in his eyes. “Soon,” I said. The only thing that made me angry was that my beautiful skirt of yucca fibers, which I had worked on so long and carefully, was ruined.

chapter 8 The wind blew strong as we climbed the trail, covering the mesa with sand that sifted around our legs and shut out the sky. Since it was not possible to find our way back, we took shelter among some rocks. We stayed there until night fell. Then the wind lessened and the moon came out and by its light we reached the village. 45. For a discussion of Karana’s jump overboard, see the introduction to this volume.

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The huts looked like ghosts in the cold light. As we neared them I heard a strange sound like that of running feet. I thought that it was a sound made by the wind, but when we came closer I saw dozens of wild dogs scurrying around through the huts.46 They ran from us, snarling as they went. The pack must have slunk into the village soon after we left, for it had gorged itself upon the abalone we had not taken. It had gone everywhere searching out food, and Ramo and I had to look hard to find enough for our supper. While we ate beside a small fire I could hear the dogs on the hill not far away, and through the night their howls came to me on the wind. But when the sun rose and I went out of the hut, the pack trotted off toward its lair which was at the north side of the island, in a large cave. That day we spent gathering food. The wind blew and the waves crashed against the shore so that we could not go out on the rocks. I gathered gull eggs on the cliff and Ramo speared a string of small fish in one of the tide pools. He brought them home, walking proudly with the string over his back. He felt that in this way he had made up for the trouble he had caused. With the seeds I had gathered in a ravine, we had a plentiful meal, although I had to cook it on a flat rock. My bowls were at the bottom of the sea. The wild dogs came again that night. Drawn by the scent of fish, they sat on the hill, barking and growling at each other. I could see the light from the fire shining in their eyes. At dawn they left. The ocean was calm on this day and we were able to hunt abalone among the rocks. From seaweed we wove a rough basket which we filled before the sun was overhead. On the way home, carrying the abalone between us, Ramo and I stopped on the cliff. The air was clear and we could look far out to sea in the direction the ship had gone. “Will it come back today?” Ramo asked. 46. Wild dogs populated San Nicolas Island after it was devoid of human population; sheep ranchers hired men to kill the animals. During the time the Lone Woman’s people lived on the island, however, the dogs were domesticated—they were working animals and part of the Nicoleño community. O’Dell’s depiction of threatening wild dogs likely stems from his reading of Emma Hardacre’s “Eighteen Years Alone.” Like many nineteenth-century narratives of the Lone Woman, Hardacre’s article describes wild dogs roaming the island during the years the Lone Woman lived there, and it reports that the Lone Woman communicated through signs that her child was eaten by wild dogs. For a discussion of the relationship between Nicoleños and their dogs, see Vellanoweth’s essay in this volume.

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“It may,” I answered him, though I did not think so. “More likely it will come after many suns, for the country where it has gone is far off.” Ramo looked up at me. His black eyes shone. “I do not care if the ship never comes,” he said. “Why do you say this?” I asked him. Ramo thought, making a hole in the earth with the point of his spear. “Why?” I asked again. “Because I like it here with you,” he said. “It is more fun than when the others were here. Tomorrow I am going to where the canoes are hidden and bring one back to Coral Cove. We will use it to fish in and to go looking around the island.” “They are too heavy for you to put into the water.” “You will see.” Ramo threw out his chest. Around his neck was a string of seaelephant teeth which someone had left behind. It was much too large for him and the teeth were broken, but they rattled as he thrust the spear down between us. “You forget that I am the son of Chowig,” he said. “I do not forget,” I answered. “But you are a small son. Someday you will be tall and strong and then you will be able to handle a big canoe.” “I am the son of Chowig,” he said again, and as he spoke his eyes suddenly grew large. “I am his son and since he is dead I have taken his place. I am now Chief of Ghalas-at. All my wishes must be obeyed.”47 “But first you must become a man. As is the custom, therefore, I will have to whip you with a switch of nettles and then tie you to a red-ant hill.”48 Ramo grew pale. He had seen the rites of manhood given in our tribe and remembered them. Quickly I said, “Since there are no men to give the rites, perhaps you will not have to undergo the nettles and the ants, Chief Ramo.” “I do not know if this name suits me,” he said, smiling. He tossed his spear at a passing gull. “I will think of something better.” I watched him stride off to get the spear, a little boy with thin arms and legs like sticks, wearing a big string of sea-elephant teeth. Now that 47. In an earlier version of this chapter, an additional line of dialogue appeared here: “ ‘Chief Ramo,’ I said and bowed” (Typescript 2b, p. 39A). It was removed when the paragraph about the male initiation rite, which incorporates the name Chief Ramo, was added to the text. See note 48. 48. This paragraph was added right before publication. In fact, it was cut and pasted into the final, copyedited draft, likely in response to a request by Houghton Mifflin. This male initiation rite echoes the one that Alfred Kroeber described in Handbook of the Indians of California as being practiced among the Luiseños (672).

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he had become Chief of Ghalas-at, I would have even more trouble with him, but I wanted to run after him and take him in my arms. “I have thought of a name,” he said when he came back. “What is it?” I asked solemnly. “I am Chief Tanyositlopai.” “That is a very long name and hard to say.” “You will soon learn,” Chief Tanyositlopai said.49 I had no thought of letting Chief Tanyositlopai go alone to the place where the canoes were hidden, but the next morning when I awoke I found that Ramo was not in the hut. He was not outside either, and I knew then that he had gotten up in the dark and left by himself. I was frightened. I thought of all that might befall him. He had climbed down the kelp rope once before, but he would have trouble pushing even the smallest of the canoes off the rocks. And if he did get one afloat without hurting himself, would he be able to paddle around the sandspit where the tides ran fast?50 Thinking of these dangers, I started off to overtake him. I had not gone far along the trail before I began to wonder if I should not let him go to the cliff by himself. There was no way of telling when the ship would come back for us. Until it did, we were alone upon the island. Ramo therefore would have to become a man sooner than if we were not alone, since I would need his help in many ways. Suddenly I turned around and took the trail toward Coral Cove. If Ramo could put the canoe in the water and get through the tides that raced around the sandspit, he would reach the harbor when the sun was tall in the sky. I would be waiting on the beach, for what was the fun of a voyage if no one were there to greet him? I put Ramo out of my mind as I searched the rocks for mussels. I thought of the food we would need to gather and how best to protect it from the wild dogs when we were not in the village. I thought also of the ship. I tried to remember what Matasaip had said to me. For the first time I began to wonder if the ship would ever return. I wondered about this as I pried the shells off the rocks, and I would stop and look fear-

49. At one stage in the manuscript’s drafting, O’Dell added a substantial section of dialogue after this sentence that had Ramo giving orders to Karana, who good-naturedly obeyed. See the introduction to this volume. 50. A sandspit is a sandy point of land that extends into a large body of water, such as an ocean or lake. It is formed by wind and waves that move sediment along a coast at an angle to the shore.

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fully at the empty sea that stretched away farther than my eyes could reach.51 The sun moved higher. There was no sign of Ramo. I began to feel uneasy. The basket was filled and I carried it up to the mesa. From here I looked down on the harbor and farther on along the coast to the spit that thrust out like a fishhook into the ocean. I could see the small waves sliding up the sand and beyond them a curving line of foam where the currents raced. I waited on the mesa until the sun was overhead. Then I hurried back to the village, hoping that Ramo might have come back while I was gone. The hut was empty. Quickly I dug a hole for the shellfish, rolled a heavy stone over the opening to protect them from the wild dogs, and started off toward the south part of the island. Two trails led there, one on each side of a long sand dune. Ramo was not on the trail I was traveling and, thinking that he might be coming back out of sight along the other one, I called to him as I ran. I heard no answer. But I did hear, far off, the barking of dogs. The barking grew louder as I came closer to the cliff. It would die away and after a short silence start up again. The sound came from the opposite side of the dunes, and leaving the trail I climbed upward through the sand to its top. A short distance beyond the dune, near the cliff, I saw the pack of wild dogs. There were many of them and they were moving around in a circle. In the middle of the circle was Ramo. He was lying on his back, and had a deep wound in his throat. He lay very still. When I picked him up I knew that he was dead. There were other wounds on his body from the teeth of the wild dogs. He had been dead a long time and from his footsteps on the earth I could see that he had never reached the cliff. Two dogs lay on the ground not far from him, and in the side of one of them was his broken spear. 51. In the earliest extant draft, an additional spoiler paragraph appeared here: “Little did I know, and not until many summers had come and gone—until I learned it from the good father Juan Martinez at the Mission Santa Barbara—that I had reason for my fears. For it was soon after this time when I stood on the rocks at Puerto Coralino looking at the sea that the ship was destroyed in a great storm. My people of Ghalas-at had been put on shore safely, but after that it was destroyed. It therefore did not come, and no other came because on the whole sea around that country there was not another ship” (Typescript 1, p. 44, typographical errors corrected).

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I carried Ramo back to the village, reaching it when the sun was far down. The dogs followed me all the way, but when I had laid him down in the hut, and came out with a club in my hand, they trotted off to a low hill. A big gray dog with long curling hair and yellow eyes was their leader and he went last. It was growing dark, but I followed them up the hill. Slowly they retreated in front of me, not making a sound. I followed them across two hills and a small valley to a third hill whose face was a ledge of rock. At one end of the ledge was a cave. One by one the dogs went into it. The mouth of the cave was too wide and high to fill with rocks. I gathered brush and made a fire, thinking that I would push it back into the cave. Through the night I would feed it and push it farther and farther back. But there was not enough brush for this. When the moon rose I left the cave and went off through the valley and over the three hills to my home. All night I sat there with the body of my brother and did not sleep. I vowed that someday I would go back and kill the wild dogs in the cave. I would kill all of them. I thought of how I would do it, but mostly I thought of Ramo, my brother.

chapter 9 I do not remember much of this time, except that many suns rose and set. I thought about what I was going to do now that I was alone. I did not leave the village. Not until I had eaten all of the abalones did I leave and then only to gather more. Yet I do remember the day that I decided I would never live in the village again. It was a morning of thick fog and the sound of far-off waves breaking on the shore. I had never noticed before how silent the village was. Fog crept in and out of the empty huts. It made shapes as it drifted and they reminded me of all the people who were dead and those who were gone. The noise of the surf seemed to be their voices speaking. I sat for a long time, seeing these shapes and hearing the voices, until the sun came out and the fog vanished. Then I made a fire against the wall of the house. When it was burned to the earth I started a fire in another house. Thus, one by one, I destroyed them all so that there were only ashes left to mark the village of Ghalas-at.52 52. Mourning ceremonies practiced by many nineteenth-century Native Californian peoples involved the burning of items associated with the deceased.

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There was nothing to take away with me except a basket of food. I therefore traveled fast and before night fell I reached the place where I had decided to live until the ship returned. This place lay on a headland a half league to the west of Coral Cove. There was a large rock on that headland and two stunted trees. Behind the rock was a clear place about ten steps across, which was sheltered from the wind, from which I could see the harbor and the ocean. A spring of water flowed from a ravine nearby. That night I climbed onto the rock to sleep. It was flat on top and wide enough for me to stretch out. Also it was so high from the ground that I did not need to fear the wild dogs while I was sleeping. I had not seen them again since the day they had killed Ramo, but I was sure they would soon come to my new camp. The rock was also a safe place to store the food I had brought with me and everything I should gather. Since it was still winter and any day the ship might return, there was no use to store food I would not need. This gave me time to make weapons to protect myself from the dogs, which I felt would sometime attack me, to kill them all, one by one. I had a club I found in one of the huts, but I needed a bow and arrows and a large spear. The spear which I had taken from the slain dog was too small. It was good for spearing fish and little else. The laws of Ghalas-at forbade the making of weapons by women of the tribe, so I went out to search for any that might have been left behind. I went first to where the village had been and sifted the ashes for spearheads, and then, finding none, to the place where the canoes were hidden, believing that weapons might have been stored there with the food and water. I found nothing in the canoes under the cliff. Then, remembering the chest the Aleuts had brought to shore, I set out for Coral Cove. I had seen that chest on the beach during the battle but did not remember that the hunters had taken it with them when they fled. The beach was empty except for rows of seaweed washed in by the storm. The tide was out and I looked in the place where the chest had lain. It was just below the ledge Ulape and I had stood on while we watched the battle. The sand was smooth and I dug many small holes with a stick. I dug in a wide circle, thinking that the storm might have covered it with sand. Near the center of the circle the stick hit something hard, which I was sure was a rock, but as I dug deeper with my hands I saw it was the black lid of the chest.

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All morning I worked, moving the sand away. The chest lay deep from the washing of the waves and I did not try to dig it out, but only so I could raise the lid. As the sun rose high the tide came rushing up the beach and filled the hole with sand. Each wave covered the chest deeper until it was completely hidden. I stood on the place, bracing myself against the waves, so that I would not have to look for it again. When the tide turned I began to dig with my feet, working them down and down, and then with my hands.53 The chest was filled with beads and bracelets and earrings of many colors.54 I forgot about the spearheads I had come for. I held each of the trinkets to the sun, turning them so that they caught the light. I put on the longest string of beads, which were blue, and a pair of blue bracelets, which exactly fitted my wrists, and walked down the shore, admiring myself. I walked the whole length of the cove. The beads and the bracelets made tinkling sounds. I felt like the bride of a chief as I walked there by the waves.55 I came to the foot of the trail where the battle had been fought. Suddenly I remembered those who had died there and the men who had brought the jewels I was wearing. I went back to the chest. For a long time I stood beside it, looking at the bracelets and the beads hanging from my neck, so beautiful and bright in the sun. “They do not belong to the Aleuts,” I said, “they belong to me.”56 But even as I said this I knew that I never could wear them. One by one I took them off. I also took the rest of the beads from the chest. Then I walked through the waves and flung them all far away, out into the deep water. There were no iron spearheads in the chest. I closed the lid and covered it with sand. I looked along the bottom of the trail, but finding nothing there that I could use, gave up my search. 53. This paragraph is a fairly late addition to the text; it was typed on an unnumbered slip of paper and placed between pages 47 and 47A in Typescript 2b. 54. See note 13. 55. In the earliest extant drafts, this phrase read: “I felt like a princess as I walked there by the waves” (Typescript 1 and 1a, p. 48A, second version, and Typescript 2, p. 47). 56. Such trade goods would have been the property of the Russians, not the Aleuts. Very late in the editing process, after the final typescript was sent to galleys, O’Dell added several lines of text to this scene (Typescript 3a, p. 60).

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For many days I did not think of the weapons again, not until the wild dogs came one night and sat under the rock and howled. They were gone at daylight, but not far. During the day I could see them slinking through the brush, watching me. That night they came back to the headland. I had buried what was left of my supper, but they dug it up, snarling and fighting among themselves over the scraps. Then they began to pace back and forth at the foot of the rock, sniffing the air, for they could smell my tracks and knew that I was somewhere near. For a long time I lay on the rock while they trotted around below me. The rock was high and they could not climb it, but I was still fearful. As I lay there I wondered what would happen to me if I went against the law of our tribe which forbade the making of weapons by women—if I did not think of it at all and made those things which I must have to protect myself.57 Would the four winds blow in from the four directions of the world and smother me as I made the weapons? Or would the earth tremble, as many said, and bury me beneath its falling rocks? Or, as others said, would the sea rise over the island in a terrible flood? Would the weapons break in my hands at the moment when my life was in danger, which is what my father had said? I thought about these things for two days and on the third night when the wild dogs returned to the rock, I made up my mind that no matter what befell me I would make the weapons. In the morning I set about it, though I felt very fearful. I wished to use a sea elephant’s tusk for the tip of the spear because it is hard and of the right shape.58 There were many of these animals on the shore near my camp, but I lacked a weapon with which to kill one. Our men usually hunted them with a strong net made of bull kelp, which they threw over an animal while it slept.59 To do this at least three men were needed, and even then the sea elephant often dragged the net into the sea and got away. 57. For a discussion of Nicoleño gender roles and taboos, see the introduction to this volume. 58. O’Dell uses the term “sea elephant” to describe mammals that are actually known as elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris). The adult males have long noses that resemble an elephant’s trunk. Elephant seals do not have tusks, but they do have canine teeth that are up to six inches long, including the part of the tooth that lies below the gum line. 59. It is unlikely that nets on San Nicolas Island were made of bull kelp. Surf grass was used to make nets, but these would not be strong enough to immobilize a large animal.

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I used instead the root of a tree which I shaped into a point and hardened in the fire. This I bound to a long shaft, with the green sinews of a seal I killed with a rock. The bow and arrows took more time and caused me great difficulty. I had a bowstring, but wood which could be bent and yet had the proper strength was not easy to find. I searched the ravines for several days before I found it, trees being very scarce on the Island of the Blue Dolphins.60 Wood for the arrows was easier to find, and also the stone for the tips and the feathers for the ends of the shafts. Gathering these things was not the most of the trouble. I had seen the weapons made, but I knew little about it. I had seen my father sitting in the hut on winter nights scraping the wood for the shafts, chipping the stones for the tips, and tying the feathers, yet I had watched him and really seen nothing. I had watched, but not with the eye of one who would ever do it. For this reason I took many days and had many failures before I fashioned a bow and arrows that could be used. Wherever I went now, whether to the shore when I gathered shellfish or to the ravine for water, I carried this weapon in a sling on my back. I practiced with it and also with the spear.61 The dogs did not come to the camp during the time I was making the weapons, though every night I could hear them howling. Once, after the weapons were made, I saw the leader of the pack, the one with the gray hair and the yellow eyes, watching me from the brush. I had gone to the ravine for water and he stood on the hill above the spring, looking down at me. He stood very quiet, with only his head showing over the top of a cholla bush. He was too far away for me to reach him with an arrow. Wherever I went during the day, I felt secure with my new weapons, and I waited patiently for the time when I could use them against the wild dogs that had killed Ramo. I did not go to the cave where they had their lair since I was sure that they would soon come to the camp. Yet every night I climbed onto the rock to sleep.

60. See notes 18 and 26. O’Dell repeats several times the fact that there are few trees on the Island of the Blue Dolphins. His Houghton Mifflin copyeditor called attention to this fact, but O’Dell’s editor, Austin Olney, okayed the repetition (Typescript 3a, p. 62). 61. The earliest extant draft of the manuscript includes a significant line just before this one: “My father had taught me while I was still a young girl to use a bow and arrow, which I was fortunate. good” (Typescript 1a, p. 49).

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After the first night I spent there, which was uncomfortable because of the uneven places in the rock, I carried dry seaweed up from the beach and made a bed for myself. It was a pleasant place to stay, there on the headland. The stars were bright overhead and I lay and counted the ones that I knew and gave names to many that I did not know. In the morning the gulls flew out from their nests in the crevices of the cliff. They circled down to the tide pools where they stood first on one leg and then the other, splashing water over themselves and combing their feathers with curved beaks. Then they flew off down the shore to look for food. Beyond the kelp beds pelicans were already hunting, soaring high over the clear water, diving straight down, if they sighted a fish, to strike the sea with a great splash that I could hear. I also watched the otter hunting in the kelp. These shy little animals had come back soon after the Aleuts had left and now there seemed to be as many of them as before. The early morning sun shone like gold on their glossy pelts.62 Yet as I lay there on the high rock, looking at the stars, I thought about the ship which belonged to the white men. And at dawn, as light spread across the sea, my first glance was toward the little harbor of Coral Cove. Every morning I would look for the ship there, thinking that it might have come in the night. And each morning I would see nothing except the birds flying over the sea. When there were people in Ghalas-at I was always up before the sun and busy with many things. But now that there was little to do I did not leave the rock until the sun was high. I would eat and then go to the spring and take a bath in the warm water. Afterwards I went down to the shore where I could gather a few abalones and sometimes spear a fish for my supper. Before darkness fell I climbed onto the rock and watched the sea until it slowly disappeared in the night. The ship did not come and thus winter passed and the spring.

chapter 10 Summer is the best time on the Island of the Blue Dolphins. The sun is warm then and the winds blow milder out of the west, sometimes out of the south.63 62. There is no gold on San Nicolas Island, and no gold pieces have been found in the archaeological record. 63. See note 17.

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It was during these days that the ship might return and now I spent most of my time on the rock, looking out from the high headland into the east, toward the country where my people had gone, across the sea that was never-ending. Once while I watched I saw a small object which I took to be the ship, but a stream of water rose from it and I knew that it was a whale spouting. During those summer days I saw nothing else. The first storm of winter ended my hopes. If the white men’s ship were coming for me it would have come during the time of good weather. Now I would have to wait until winter was gone, maybe longer. The thought of being alone on the island while so many suns rose from the sea and went slowly back into the sea filled my heart with loneliness. I had not felt so lonely before because I was sure that the ship would return as Matasaip had said it would. Now my hopes were dead. Now I was really alone. I could not eat much, nor could I sleep without dreaming terrible dreams. The storm blew out of the north, sending big waves against the island and winds so strong that I was unable to stay on the rock. I moved my bed to the foot of the rock and for protection kept a fire going throughout the night. I slept there five times. The first night the dogs came and stood outside the ring made by the fire. I killed three of them with arrows, but not the leader, and they did not come again. On the sixth day, when the storm had ended, I went to the place where the canoes had been hidden, and let myself down over the cliff. This part of the shore was sheltered from the wind and I found the canoes just as they had been left. The dried food was still good, but the water was stale, so I went back to the spring and filled a fresh basket.64 64. The Nicoleños made bottle-shaped woven baskets to carry and store water. They rendered these rush baskets leakproof by coating them with asphaltum, or naturally occurring tar, which they likely obtained from marine seeps. In his memoir, otter hunter George Nidever described how the Lone Woman lined a basket by dropping inside it small pieces of asphaltum followed by stones heated in a fire; the heat of the stones melted the asphaltum into a waterproof layer. The Lone Woman brought one of these water bottle baskets with her to Santa Barbara in 1853, and it eventually entered the collections of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The basket burned in the San Francisco fire and earthquake of 1906, but Scott O’Dell may have seen a woodcut print of it. In 2009, four bottle-shaped woven baskets were excavated on San Nicolas Island. See Ellison, Life and Adventures, 86–87; Robert F. Heizer, “A San Nicolas Island Twined Basketry Water Bottle,” Reports of the University of California Archaeological Survey 50 (1960): 1–3; Jon M. Erlandson, Lisa Thomas-Barnett, René L. Vellanoweth, and Daniel R. Muhs, “A Unique Nineteenth-Century Cache Feature from San Nicolas Island, California,” Journal of Island & Coastal Archaeology 8 (2013): 66–78. See also Vellanoweth’s essay in this volume.

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I had decided during the days of the storm, when I had given up hope of seeing the ship, that I would take one of the canoes and go to the country that lay toward the east.65 I remembered how Kimki, before he had gone, had asked the advice of his ancestors who had lived many ages in the past, who had come to the island from that country, and likewise the advice of Zuma, the medicine man who held power over the wind and the seas. But these things I could not do, for Zuma had been killed by the Aleuts, and in all my life I had never been able to speak with the dead, though many times I had tried.66 Yet I cannot say that I was really afraid as I stood there on the shore. I knew that my ancestors had crossed the sea in their canoes, coming from that place which lay beyond. Kimki, too had crossed the sea. I was not nearly so skilled with a canoe as these men, but I must say that whatever might befall me on the endless waters did not trouble me. It meant far less than the thought of staying on the island alone, without a home or companions, pursued by wild dogs, where everything reminded me of those who were dead and those who had gone away.67 Of the four canoes stored there against the cliff, I chose the smallest, which was still very heavy because it could carry six people. The task that faced me was to push it down the rocky shore and into the water, a distance four or five times its length. This I did by first removing all the large rocks in front of the canoe. I then filled in all these holes with pebbles and along this path laid down

65. The shortest distance between San Nicolas Island and the mainland (Laguna Point, California) is sixty-one miles. 66. This conception of social and religious practices is O’Dell’s invention, as there are no ethnographic accounts of the Nicoleño people available to scholars. Ethnographies of other California tribes, however, include descriptions of the Nicoleños as a people who held great spiritual power. The toshaawt stones native to San Nicolas Island have been found across California, where they were used by shamans. See, e.g., Janice Timbrook, “Search for the Source of the Sorcerers’ Stones,” Proceedings of the Fifth California Island Symposium, March 29–April 1, 1999, CD-ROM (Washington, DC: Minerals Management Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior, 1999); and Peter C. Howorth, “San Nicolas Island: The Elusive Source of the Chumash Magic Stones,” Santa Barbara Magazine 14, no. 4 (1988): 38–42. O’Dell’s use of the name Zuma for the medicine man likely stems from his research; the name derives from a Chumash word meaning “abundance.” See Richard Applegate, “An Index of Chumash Place Names,” Papers on the Chumash (Paso Robles, CA: San Luis Obispo County Archaeological Society Occasional Paper Nine, 1976), 43. 67. This sentence was not finalized until well into the drafting process, when O’Dell added the phrase “without a home or companions, pursued by wild dogs, where everything reminded me of those who were dead and those who had gone away” (Typescript 2b, p. 54A). Marginal notes suggest that the Lovelaces offered feedback on the passage.

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long strips of kelp, making a slippery bed. The shore was steep and once I got the canoe to move with its own weight, it slid down the path and into the water. The sun was in the west when I left the shore. The sea was calm behind the high cliffs. Using the two-bladed paddle I quickly skirted the south part of the island. As I reached the sandspit the wind struck. I was paddling from the back of the canoe because you can go faster kneeling there, but I could not handle it in the wind. Kneeling in the middle of the canoe, I paddled hard and did not pause until I had gone through the tides that run fast around the sandspit. There were many small waves and I was soon wet, but as I came out from behind the spit the spray lessened and the waves grew long and rolling. Though it would have been easier to go the way they slanted, this would have taken me in the wrong direction. I therefore kept them on my left hand, as well as the island, which grew smaller and smaller, behind me. At dusk I looked back. The Island of the Blue Dolphins had disappeared. This was the first time that I felt afraid. There were only hills and valleys of water around me now. When I was in a valley I could see nothing and when the canoe rose out of it, only the ocean stretching away and away. Night fell and I drank from the basket.68 The water cooled my throat. The sea was black and there was no difference between it and the sky. The waves made no sound among themselves, only faint noises as they went under the canoe or struck against it. Sometimes the noises seemed angry and at other times like people laughing. I was not hungry because of my fear. The first star made me feel less afraid. It came out low in the sky and it was in front of me, toward the east. Other stars began to appear all around, but it was this one I kept my gaze upon. It was in the figure that we call a serpent, a star which shone green and which I knew.69 Now and then it was hidden by mist, yet it always came out brightly again. Without this star I would have been lost, for the waves never changed. They came always from the same direction and in a manner that kept pushing me away from the place I wanted to reach. For this reason the canoe made a path in the black water like a snake. But somehow I kept moving toward the star which shone in the east. 68. See note 64. 69. There are no snakes on San Nicolas, although they do live on neighboring islands.

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This star rose high and then I kept the North Star on my left hand, the one we call “the star that does not move.”70 The wind grew quiet. Since it always died down when the night was half over, I knew how long I had been traveling and how far away the dawn was. About this time I found that the canoe was leaking. Before dark I had emptied one of the baskets in which food was stored and used it to dip out the water that came over the sides.71 The water that now moved around my knees was not from the waves. I stopped paddling and worked with the basket until the bottom of the canoe was almost dry. Then I searched around, feeling in the dark along the smooth planks, and found the place near the bow where the water was seeping through a crack as long as my hand and the width of a finger. Most of the time it was out of the sea, but it leaked whenever the canoe dipped forward in the waves. The places between the planks were filled with black pitch which we gather along the shore.72 Lacking this, I tore a piece of fiber from my skirt and pressed it into the crack, which held back the water. Dawn broke in a clear sky and as the sun came out of the waves I saw that it was far off on my left. During the night I had drifted south of the place I wished to go, so I changed my direction and paddled along the path made by the rising sun. There was no wind on this morning and the long waves went quietly under the canoe. I therefore moved faster than during the night. I was very tired, but more hopeful than I had been since I left the island. If the good weather did not change I would cover many leagues before dark. Another night and another day might bring me within sight of the shore toward which I was going. Not long after dawn, while I was thinking of this strange place and what it would look like, the canoe began to leak again. This crack was

70. The final phrase was added to the manuscript during the copyediting process (Typescript 3a, p. 72). Names for the North Star in a number of different Native American languages have been translated into English in this way. 71. “Dip out” was the copyeditor’s suggestion, replacing O’Dell’s chosen word, “collect.” The copyeditor wrote: “ ‘collect’ suggests that she [intends?] to keep the water” (Typescript 3a, p. 72). 72. There is no archaeological evidence (e.g., appropriate tools) that plank canoes were built on San Nicolas Island. They may have been obtained in trade. For canoe building, Native Californians combined plant resin, such as pine pitch, with tar, which seeps up from the land and solidifies with exposure to air. They melted the tar and resin together to make a mixture that they used as caulk; when it cooled, it held the planks of a canoe together.

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between the same planks, but was a larger one and close to where I was kneeling. The fiber I tore from my skirt and pushed into the crack held back most of the water which seeped in whenever the canoe rose and fell with the waves. Yet I could see that the planks were weak from one end to the other, probably from the canoe being stored so long in the sun, and that they might open along their whole length if the waves grew rougher. It was suddenly clear to me that it was dangerous to go on. The voyage would take two more days, perhaps longer. By turning back to the island I would not have nearly so far to travel. Still I could not make up my mind to do so. The sea was calm and I had come far. The thought of turning back after all this labor was more than I could bear. Even greater was the thought of the deserted island I would return to, of living there alone and forgotten. For how many suns and how many moons?73 The canoe drifted idly on the calm sea while these thoughts went over and over in my mind, but when I saw the water seeping through the crack again, I picked up the paddle. There was no choice except to turn back toward the island. I knew that only by the best of fortune would I ever reach it. The wind did not blow until the sun was overhead. Before that time I covered a good distance, pausing only when it was necessary to dip water from the canoe. With the wind I went more slowly and had to stop more often because of the water spilling over the sides, but the leak did not grow worse. This was my first good fortune. The next was when a swarm of dolphins appeared.74 They came swimming out of the west, but as they saw the canoe they turned around in a great circle and began to follow me. They swam up slowly and so close that I could see their eyes, which are large and the color of the ocean. Then they swam on ahead of the canoe, crossing back and forth in front of it, diving in and out, as if they were weaving a piece of cloth with their broad snouts. Dolphins are animals of good omen. It made me happy to have them swimming around the canoe, and though my hands had begun to bleed 73. This paragraph, which emphasizes Karana’s reluctance to resign herself to solitude, was finalized late in the revision process (Typescript 2b, p. 59). On O’Dell’s use of “suns and moons,” see “Composition of Island of the Blue Dolphins” in this volume. 74. Dolphins frequently swim in front of and alongside boats, both large and small. Marine biologists are not certain why. They may be searching for food, using the vessel’s wake to propel themselves forward, or simply engaging in play.

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from the chafing of the paddle, just watching them made me forget the pain. I was very lonely before they appeared, but now I felt that I had friends with me and did not feel the same. The blue dolphins left me shortly before dusk. They left as quickly as they had come, going on into the west, but for a long time I could see the last of the sun shining on them. After night fell I could still see them in my thoughts and it was because of this that I kept on paddling when I wanted to lie down and sleep. More than anything, it was the blue dolphins that took me back home. Fog came with the night, yet from time to time I could see the star that stands high in the west, the red star called Magat which is part of the figure that looks like a crawfish and is known by that name.75 The crack in the planks grew wider so I had to stop often to fill it with fiber and to dip out the water. The night was very long, longer than the night before. Twice I dozed kneeling there in the canoe, though I was more afraid than I had ever been. But the morning broke clear and in front of me lay the dim line of the island like a great fish sunning itself on the sea. I reached it before the sun was high, the sandspit and its tides that bore me into the shore. My legs were stiff from kneeling and as the canoe struck the sand I fell when I rose to climb out. I crawled through the shallow water and up the beach. There I lay for a long time, hugging the sand in happiness. I was too tired to think of the wild dogs. Soon I fell asleep.

chapter 11 I was awakened by the waves dragging at my feet. Night had come, but being too tired to leave the sandspit, I crawled to a higher place where I would be safe from the tide, and again went to sleep. In the morning I found the canoe a short distance away. I took the baskets, my spear, and the bow and arrows, and turned the canoe over so that the tides could not take it out to sea. I then climbed to the headland where I had lived before. I felt as if I had been gone a long time as I stood there looking down from the high rock. I was happy to be home. Everything that I saw—the otter playing in the kelp, the rings of foam around the rocks that guarded 75. This name for crawfish (and the star) is likely O’Dell’s invention. See note 90.

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the harbor, the gulls flying, the tides moving past the sandspit—filled me with happiness. I was surprised that I felt this way, for it was only a short time ago that I had stood on this same rock and felt that I could not bear to live here another day. I looked out at the blue water stretching away and all the fear I had felt during the time of the voyage came back to me. On the morning I first sighted the island and it had seemed like a great fish sunning itself, I thought that someday I would make the canoe over and go out once more to look for the country that lay beyond the ocean. Now I knew that I would never go again. The Island of the Blue Dolphins was my home; I had no other. It would be my home until the white men returned in their ship. But even if they came soon, before next summer, I could not live without a roof or a place to store my food. I would have to build a house. But where? That night I slept on the rock and the next day I began the search. The morning was clear, but to the north banks of clouds hung low. Before long they would move in across the island and behind them many other storms were waiting. I had no time to waste. I needed a place that was sheltered from the wind, not too far from Coral Cove, and close to a good spring. There were two such places on the island—one on the headland and the other less than a league to the west. The headland seemed to be the more favorable of the two, but since I had not been to the other for a long time I decided to go there and make certain. The first thing I found, which I had forgotten, was that this place was near the wild dogs’ lair. As soon as I drew near to it the leader came to the opening of the cave and watched me with his yellow eyes. If I built a hut here I would first have to kill him and his pack. I planned to do this anyway, but it would take much time. The spring was better than the one near the headland, being less brackish and having a steadier flow of water. Besides it was much easier to reach, since it came from the side of a hill and not from a ravine as the other one did.76 It was also close to the cliff and a ridge of rocks which would shelter my house. 76. O’Dell’s description corresponds to a source of water now known as Old Garden Spring, which is located near the site where sea otter hunter Carl Dittman first spotted the Lone Woman as well as near huts constructed with whale ribs and covered with brush. Elephant seals “haul out” (i.e., leave the water for an extended period of time) onto the beach near this freshwater source.

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The rocks were not so high as those on the headland and therefore would give me less protection from the wind, yet they were high enough, and from them I could see the north coast and Coral Cove. The thing that made me decide on the place to build my house was the sea elephants. The cliffs here fell away easily to a wide shelf that was partly covered when the tide came in. It was a good place for sea elephants because they could crawl halfway up the cliff if the day were stormy. On fair days they could fish among the pools or lie on the rocks. The bull is very large and often weighs as much as thirty men. The cows are much smaller, but they make more noise than the bulls, screaming and barking through the whole day and sometimes at night. The babies are noisy, too. On this morning the tide was low and most of the animals were far out, just hundreds of specks against the waves, yet the noise they made was deafening. I stayed there the rest of the day, looking around, and that night. At dawn when the clamor started again I left and went back to the headland. There was another place to the south where I could have built my house, near the destroyed village of Ghalas-at, but I did not want to go there because it would remind me of the people who were gone.77 Also the wind blew strong in this place, blowing against the dunes which cover the middle part of the island so that most of the time sand is moving everywhere. Rain fell that night and lasted for two days. I made a shelter of brush at the foot of the rock, which kept off some of the water, and ate the food I had stored in the basket. I could not build a fire because of the rain and I was very cold. On the third day the rain ceased and I went out to look for things which I would need in building the house. I likewise needed poles for a fence. I would soon kill the wild dogs, but there were many small red foxes on the island. They were so numerous that I could never hope to get rid of them either by traps or with arrows. They were clever thieves and nothing I stored would be safe until I had built a fence. The morning was fresh from the rain. The smell of the tide pools was strong. Sweet odors came from the wild grasses in the ravines and from

77. This line appears in the novel as early as the first extant draft (Typescript 1, p. 63). It was written before O’Dell changed the location of Ghalas-at from the south to the northwest. See figures 16 and 17 for O’Dell’s original and final placement of Ghalas-at.

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the sand plants on the dunes. I sang as I went down the trail to the beach and along the beach to the sandspit. I felt that the day was an omen of good fortune. It was a good day to begin my new home.

chapter 12 Many years before, two whales had washed up on the sandspit. Most of the bones had been taken away to make ornaments, but ribs were still there, half-buried in the sand. These I used in making the fence. One by one I dug them up and carried them to the headland. They were long and curved, and when I had scooped out holes and set them in the earth they stood taller than I did. I put the ribs together with their edges almost touching, and standing so that they curved outward, which made them impossible to climb. Between them I wove many strands of bull kelp, which shrinks as it dries and pulls very tight.78 I would have used seal sinew to bind the ribs together, for this is stronger than kelp, but wild animals like it and soon would have gnawed the fence down. Much time went into its building. It would have taken me longer except that the rock made one end of the fence and part of a side. For a place to go in and out, I dug a hole under the fence just wide and deep enough to crawl through. The bottom and sides I lined with stones. On the outside I covered the hole with a mat woven of brush to shed the rain, and on the inside with a flat rock which I was strong enough to move. I was able to take eight steps between the sides of the fence, which gave me all the room I would need to store the things I gathered and wished to protect. I built the fence first because it was too cold to sleep on the rock and I did not like to sleep in the shelter I had made until I was safe from the wild dogs. The house took longer to build than the fence because it rained many days and because the wood which I needed was scarce.

78. During a 1940 expedition to San Nicolas Island sponsored by the Los Angeles County Museum, anthropologists gathered the remains of a whale-bone structure believed to have been used by the Lone Woman, reassembled them into a windbreak, and photographed the structure with a young female research assistant sitting inside. See Ron Morgan, “An Account of the Discovery of a Whale-Bone House on San Nicolas Island,” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 1, no. 1 (1979): 171–77. On bull kelp, see note 40.

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There was a legend among our people that the island had once been covered with tall trees. This was a long time ago, at the beginning of the world when Tumaiyowit and Mukat ruled. The two gods quarreled about many things. Tumaiyowit wished people to die. Mukat did not. Tumaiyowit angrily went down, down to another world under this world, taking his belongings with him, so people die because he did.79 In that time there were tall trees, but now there were only a few in the ravines and these were small and crooked. It was very hard to find one that would make a good pole. I searched many days, going out early in the morning and coming back at night, before I found enough for the house. I used the rock for the back of the house and the front I left open since the wind did not blow from this direction. The poles I made of equal length, using fire to cut them as well as a stone knife which caused me much difficulty because I had never made such a tool before. There were four poles on each side, set in the earth, and twice that many for the roof. These I bound together with sinew and covered with female kelp, which has broad leaves. The winter was half over before I finished the house, but I slept there every night and felt secure because of the strong fence. The foxes came when I was cooking my food and stood outside gazing through the cracks, and the wild dogs also came, gnawing at the whale ribs, growling because they could not get in. I shot two of them, but not the leader. While I was building the fence and the house, I ate shellfish and perch which I cooked on a flat rock. Afterwards I made two utensils. Along the shore there were stones that the sea had worn smooth. Most of them were round, but I found two with hollow places in the center which I deepened and broadened by rubbing them with sand. Using these to cook in, I saved the juices of the fish which are good and were wasted before.80 79. Alfred Kroeber reported hearing this origin story during interviews he conducted with Cupeños (Handbook, 692). Tumaiyowit and Mukat also figured in Cahuilla mythology. See the introduction to this volume. 80. O’Dell’s copyeditor questioned whether Karana could deepen and broaden holes in stones in so short a period: “Is this really possible, in less than many years’ time, that is?” Editor Austin Olney okayed the text as written (Typescript 3a, p. 87), but the copyeditor was correct to flag the sentence. The soft, layered rocks found on the beach (e.g., sandstone) are not suitable for cooking, as they sometimes contain trapped water that causes the rock to split when heated. Instead, the Nicoleños used metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks found elsewhere on the island for cooking. Soapstone obtained in trade with the people of Santa Catalina Island was also made into griddles and cooking bowls.

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For cooking seeds and roots I wove a tight basket of fine reeds, which was easy because I had learned how to do it from my sister Ulape. After the basket had dried in the sun, I gathered lumps of pitch on the shore, softened them over the fire, and rubbed them on the inside of the basket so that it would hold water. By heating small stones and dropping them into a mixture of water and seeds in the basket I could make gruel.81 I made a place for fire in the floor of my house, hollowing it out and lining it with rocks. In the village of Ghalas-at we made new fires every night, but now I made one fire which I covered with ashes when I went to bed. The next night I would remove the ashes and blow on the embers. In this way I saved myself much work. There were many gray mice on the island and now that I had food to keep from one meal to the other, I needed a safe place to put it. On the face of the rock, which was the back wall of my house, were several cracks as high as my shoulder. These I cut out and smoothed to make shelves where I could store my food and the mice could not reach it. By the time winter was over and grass began to show green on the hills my house was comfortable. I was sheltered from the wind and rain and prowling animals. I could cook anything I wished to eat. Everything I wanted was there at hand. It was now time to make plans for getting rid of the wild dogs which had killed my brother and would kill me should they ever come upon me unarmed. I needed another and heavier spear, also a larger bow and sharper arrows. To collect the material for these weapons, I searched the whole island, taking many suns to do it. This left only the nights to work on them. Since I could not see well by the dim fire I used for cooking, I made lamps of the dried bodies of little fish which we call sai-sai.82 The sai-sai is the color of silver and not much bigger than a finger. On nights when the moon shines full, these little fish come swimming out of

81. Tar-lined baskets (see note 64) were used for holding water, but they were not used for cooking, as the tar coating would melt when heated. Instead, baskets that were woven so tightly as to be leakproof were used for boiling liquids (by means of dropping heated stones inside). However, no materials suitable for making these tightly woven baskets grow on San Nicolas Island; prepared plant materials (or baskets made from them) were likely obtained in trade. 82. In early extant drafts of the novel, O’Dell calls the fish Karana burns “smelts.” He added to the description of making lamps during the drafting process, and as he did so, he began using the name sai-sai instead of smelts (Typescript 2b). In this, he defied an overall revision pattern of using fewer foreign words in the narrative and, when doing so, explicitly translating them. See “Composition of Island of the Blue Dolphins” in this volume.

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the sea in schools so thick that you can almost walk on them. They come with the waves and twist and turn on the sand as if they were dancing. I caught many basketfuls of sai-sai and put them out in the sun. Hung up by their tails from the poles of the roof, they made much odor, but burned with a very clear light. I made the bow and arrows first and was pleased when I tried them that I could shoot farther and much straighter than I had before. The spear I left to the last. I wondered, as I smoothed and shaped the long handle and fitted a stone collar around the end both to give the spear weight and to hold the spear point, if I could make this point the way the men of our tribe did, from the tooth of a sea elephant. Many nights I thought about it, wondering how I could possibly kill one of these great beasts. I could not use a net of kelp, because that needed the strength of several men. Nor could I remember that a bull elephant had ever been killed with an arrow or with a spear. Only after they had been caught in a net were they killed and then with a club. We killed many cows for their oil, using spears, but the teeth were not large. How I would do this, I did not know. Yet the more I thought about it, the greater was my determination to try, for there was nothing to be found on the island that made such good spear points as the tusklike teeth of the bull sea elephant.

chapter 13 I did not sleep much the night before I went to the place of the sea elephants. I thought again about the law that forbade women to make weapons. I wondered if my arrows would go straight and, if they did, would they pierce the animal’s tough hide. What if one of the bulls turned on me? What if I were injured and then had to fight the wild dogs as I dragged myself homeward? I thought about these things most of the night, but with the sun I was up and on my way to the place where the sea elephants lived. When I reached the cliff, the animals had left the reef and gathered along the shore. Like gray boulders the bulls sat on the pebbly slope. Below them the cows and their babies played in the waves. Perhaps it is not right to speak of young sea elephants as babies, for they are as large as a man. But they are still babies in many ways. They follow their mothers around, waddling along on their flippers like children learning to walk, making crying sounds and sounds of pleasure

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that only the young make. And before they will leave the shore and learn to swim their mothers have to push them into the sea, which is often difficult to do because of their size. Some distance separated the bulls from each other, for they are badtempered, very jealous by nature and quick to fight over anything that displeases them. There were six of them below me on the slope, each sitting alone like a great chief, watching his herd of cows and babies. The cow has a smooth body and a face that looks much like that of a mouse, with a sharp-pointed nose and whiskers, but the bull is different. His nose has a large hump on it which hangs down over his mouth. His skin is rough and looks like wet earth that has dried in the sun and cracked. He is an ugly animal. From the top of the cliff I looked down at each of the sea elephants and tried to choose the smallest of the six. They were all the same size save one, which was the farthest from me and partly hidden by a rock. He was about half as large as the others, a young bull. Since no cows were playing among the waves in front of him, I knew that he did not have a herd of his own, and for that reason would not be so wary or quickly angered. Quietly I let myself down over the edge of the cliff. To reach him I had to pass behind the others, being careful not to alarm them. They fear nothing and would not move if they saw me, but it was better, I thought, not to put them on their guard. I carried my new bow, which was almost as tall as I was, and five arrows. The path was rough and covered with small stones. I took pains not to send them tumbling down the slope. I was also careful not to be seen by the cows, which get alarmed easily and would have warned the rest of the herd with their cries. I crawled behind a big rock near the young bull. I then got to my feet and fitted an arrow to the bow, although I suddenly remembered my father’s warning that, because I was a woman, the bow would break. The sun was far in the west, but luckily my shadow fell away from the young bull. The distance between us was short and his back was turned squarely toward me. Still I did not know where to place the first arrow, whether in his shoulders or in his head. The skin of the sea elephant is rough, yet very thin, but beneath it are thick layers of fat, and though his body is large, his head is small and makes a poor target. While I stood there behind the rock, not knowing what to do, again aware of my father’s warning that a bow in the hands of a woman

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would always break in a time of danger, the animal began to move toward the shore. At first I thought that by some chance he had heard me. I soon saw that he was on his way toward the cows that belonged to the old bull sitting nearby. The sea elephant moves fast in spite of his size, waddling along on his great flippers which he uses like hands. The bull was nearing the water. I let the arrow go and it went straight. At the last instant he changed direction and, though the bow did not break, the arrow passed harmlessly to one side. I had failed to notice that the old bull was moving down the slope until I heard stones grating against each other. Quickly he overtook his rival and with a single thrust of his shoulders overturned him. The young bull stood as high as a tall man and was twice that length, yet from the force of the blow he rolled into the water and lay there stunned. The old bull bore down upon him, swinging his head and bellowing so loud it echoed against the cliffs. The herd of cows and calves, who were lying in the waves and scratching their backs with their flippers, stopped to watch the battle. Two of the cows were in the bull’s path as he waddled toward his rival, but he went over them as if they were small stones. Using his tusklike teeth, he ripped a long gash in the young bull’s side. The young bull raised himself and as he turned his small eyes shone fiercely red. When the old bull slashed at him again, he struck first and sunk his teeth into the other’s neck. He did not let go and the two rolled over in the waves, splashing water high into the air. The cows had scattered by now, but the other bulls still sat quietly on the slope. The two fighters paused, getting ready for a new attack. It was a good chance to send an arrow into the young bull, who lay on his back with his teeth still grasping the other’s neck. But I hoped that he would win the battle, and I stood there and did not move. The old bull had many deep scars on his head and shoulders from battles he had fought before. Suddenly he lashed out with his tail, trying to loose the hold on his neck, and struck the side of a rock. With his tail against the rock, he flung his body out of the water and thus broke away. He came quickly up the slope, his great mouth open, the young bull close behind him. He came toward me and, in haste to get out of his way, not knowing whether he was bent on attacking me, I stepped back. In doing so, I tripped over a stone and fell to my knees.

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I felt a sharp pain in my leg, but was quickly up. By this time the old bull had whirled around and turned upon his pursuer so fast that the young bull was taken by surprise. Again the young bull’s flank was ripped deep, and again the force of the blow threw him backward into the water. The waves grew redder from his blood, but this time he rolled over and was waiting for the charge. He met the old bull with his shoulder. The sound was like rocks crashing together. Once more the young bull caught the other’s throat, and together they disappeared beneath a wave. When they came up they were still locked together. The sun had gone down and it was so dark I could no longer see clearly. My leg had now begun to hurt. Since I had a long way to go, I left them. I could hear their bellowing as I went up the cliff and for a long time afterward.

chapter 14 My leg hurt so much by the time I had reached the house that it was hard for me to crawl under the fence and move aside the heavy rock. For five suns I could not go out because my leg had swollen so badly and I had no herbs with which to treat it. I had enough food to eat, but on the third day the water in the basket ran low. Two days later the basket was empty. It was necessary then for me to go to the spring in the ravine. I started out when the sun rose. I took with me shellfish to eat, also my spear and my bow and arrows. I went very slowly, for I had to crawl on my hands and knees, carrying the food tied to my back, and dragging the weapons. There was a short way to the spring, but it was over many rocks which I could not climb, so I had to take a longer way through the brush. I reached the ravine when the sun was overhead. The spring was not far off and I rested there, though I was very thirsty, cutting a lobe from a cactus bush to chew on. While I was resting there, sucking the juice from the cactus, I saw the big gray dog, the leader of the wild pack, in the brush above me.83 His head was down and he was moving slowly, sniffing the tracks I had

83. The earliest versions of this chapter did not include Karana facing the threat of a wild dog attack while she was laid up with an injury; these details were added in Typescript 2b (76A).

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made. He saw me soon after I saw him and stopped. Behind him was the rest of the pack, trotting along one after the other. The pack stopped too. I took up my bow and fitted an arrow, but as I did this the big dog faded away into the brush and was quickly followed by the others. In the time of one breath they were gone. There was nothing to aim my arrow at. It was as if they had not been there at all. I listened. They were moving so silently I could not hear their steps, but I was sure that they would try to surround me. Slowly I crawled on, stopping to listen, to glance back, to measure the distance between me and the spring. My leg hurt. I left my bow and arrows behind as I went on, for the brush had grown heavy and I could not use them. In one hand I dragged my spear. I came to the spring. It flowed out of a crack in a rock and the rock rose high on three sides of it. The wild dogs could not attack me from any of these directions, so I lay on the earth and drank, watching the ravine below me. I drank for a long time and filled my basket and then, feeling better, crawled toward the mouth of the cave. A ledge of black rock ran out above it. Some low bushes grew there and among them, with just his head showing, stood the big gray dog. He did not move, but his yellow eyes followed me, turning slowly as I drew near the cave. Another head showed behind him and another. They were too far away for me to reach with my spear. Suddenly I saw brush moving on the opposite bank of the ravine. The pack had split up and were waiting on both sides of the ravine for me to pass them. The cave was now in front of me. I crawled to the mouth and into it. Above me I could hear feet running and the cracking of brush, which was followed by silence. I was safe. I knew the wild dogs would come back and they did as night fell, stalking around in the rooms until morning, but not venturing close.84 Although the mouth of the cave was small, once you were inside, it spread out and you could stand up. Water dropped from the roof and the cave was cold without a fire, but here I stayed for six suns, until my leg was well, crawling out only once to fetch water from the spring. 84. O’Dell’s copyeditor asked if “rooms” was the correct word, a question that was answered with the explanation that it referred to the rooms of the cave (Typescript 3a, p. 99). However, in the thirtieth anniversary edition of the novel, Houghton Mifflin replaced the word “rooms” with “brush.”

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While I was living there I decided that I would make the cave into another house, where I could stay should I again get hurt or sick. And this I did as soon as I was strong and could walk. The cave went far back into the hill, around many turns, but I needed only that part which lay near the opening and which the sun could reach during some of the day. A long time before this my ancestors had used the cave, why I do not know, and along the walls on each side they had cut figures in the stone. There were figures of pelicans floating on the water and flying, of dolphins, whales, sea elephants, gulls, ravens, dogs, and foxes. Near the opening of the cave they had also cut two deep basins in the stone, which I decided to use for storing water since they held much more than the baskets.85 I made shelves in the side of the rock as I had done in the other house, and gathered shellfish and seeds to store there. I also gathered herbs from the hill above the spring in case I should need them. The bow and arrows I had first made I likewise took to the cave. At the last, after I had made a good bed of seaweed and collected dry wood for my fires, I closed the opening with stones, except for a small hole at the top which I could crawl through. All this I did, thinking of the days I had been sick and without water. It was hard work, much of it a man’s work, but not until I was finished did I go back to the place where the sea elephants lived. The tide was low when I reached it. Far up on the slope lay the body of the old bull. Gulls had picked his bones clean, but I found what I had come for. Some of the teeth were as long as my hand and half its width. They were curved at the tops and some were broken, but when I had ground the best of them down with sand, I had for my work four good spear points, broad at the bottom and very sharp at the ends. I made two more spears from these points and at last was ready to go to the cave of the wild dogs.

85. The first extensive study of a sea cave believed to have been used as a sacred site by the Nicoleños was conducted on San Nicolas Island in the early 1950s. Archaeologists refer to the feature as the Cave of the Whales because the walls contain rock art imagery of marine animals. See Kathleen Conti, William D. Hyder, and Antoinette Padgett, “Cave of the Whales: Rock Art on San Nicolas Island,” Proceedings of the Fifth California Island Symposium, March 29–April 1, 1999, CD-ROM (Washington, DC: Minerals Management Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior, 1999).

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chapter 15 There had been wild dogs on the Island of the Blue Dolphins as long as I remember, but after the Aleuts had slain most of the men of our tribe and their dogs had left to join the others, the pack became much bolder. It spent the nights running through the village and during the day was never far off. It was then that we made plans to get rid of them, but the ship came and everyone left Ghalas-at.86 I am sure that the pack grew bolder because of their leader, the big one with the thick fur around his neck and the yellow eyes.87 I had never seen this dog before the Aleuts came and no one else had, so he must have come with them and been left behind when they sailed away. He was a much larger dog than any of ours, which besides have short hair and brown eyes. I was sure that he was an Aleut dog. Already I had killed four of the pack, but there were many left, more than in the beginning, for some had been born in the meantime.88 The young dogs were even wilder than the old ones. I first went to the hill near the cave when the pack was away and collected armloads of brush which I placed near the mouth of their lair. Then I waited until the pack was in the cave. It went there early in the morning to sleep after it had spent the night prowling. I took with me the big bow and five arrows and two of the spears. I went quietly, circling around the mouth of the cave and came up to it from the side. There I left all of my weapons except one spear. I set fire to the brush and pushed it into the cave. If the wild dogs heard me, there was no sound from them. Nearby was a ledge of rock which I climbed, taking my weapons with me. The fire burned high. Some of the smoke trailed out over the hill, but much of it stayed in the cave. Soon the pack would have to leave. I did not

86. See note 46. 87. O’Dell makes (and then unmakes) a number of grammatical changes during the drafting process, but he is inconsistent in his pronoun usage for “the pack,” sometimes referring to the pack as “it” and other times as “them.” 88. “Four of the pack” is internally inconsistent; Karana “killed three of them with arrows” in chapter 10 and “shot two of them” in chapter 12. In 1986, a fifth grader noticed the discrepancy but, according to a letter he wrote to Scott O’Dell, was told by his teacher that he was “wasting class time” in pointing out the error and furthermore that a “Newbery book would not have a mistake in it.” O’Dell responded differently; he praised the student for his copyeditor’s eye and arranged for the boy to visit with him in New York. The child, Scott Ward of Houston, Texas, was also interviewed for newspapers and television. Houghton Mifflin corrected the error in its later editions (Ward to O’Dell, 23 May 1986, Kerlan, box 3, folder 26).

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hope to kill more than five of them because I had only that many arrows, but if the leader was one of the five I would be satisfied. It might be wiser if I waited and saved all my arrows for him, and this I decided to do. None of the dogs appeared before the fire died. Then three ran out and away. Seven more followed and a long time afterwards a like number. There were many more still left in the cave. The leader came next. Unlike the others, he did not run away. He jumped over the ashes and stood at the mouth of the cave, sniffing the air. I was so close to him that I could see his nose quivering, but he did not see me until I raised my bow. Fortunately I did not frighten him. He stood facing me, his front legs spread as if he were ready to spring, his yellow eyes narrowed to slits. The arrow struck him in the chest. He turned away from me, took one step and fell. I sent another arrow toward him which went wide. At this time three more dogs trotted out of the cave. I used the last of my arrows and killed two of them. Carrying both of the spears, I climbed down from the ledge and went through the brush to the place where the leader had fallen. He was not there. While I had been shooting at the other dogs, he had gone. He could not have gone far because of his wound, but though I looked everywhere, around the ledge where I had been standing and in front of the cave, I did not find him. I waited for a long time and then went inside the cave. It was deep, but I could see clearly. Far back in a corner was the half-eaten carcass of a fox. Beside it was a black dog with four gray pups. One of the pups came slowly toward me, a round ball of fur that I could have held in my hand. I wanted to hold it, but the mother leaped to her feet and bared her teeth.89 I raised my spear as I backed out of the cave, yet I did not use it. The wounded leader was not there. Night was coming and I left the cave, going along the foot of the hill that led to the cliff. I had not gone far on this trail that the wild dogs used when I saw the broken shaft of an arrow. It had been gnawed off near the tip and I knew it was from the arrow which had wounded the leader. Farther on I saw his tracks in the dust. They were uneven as if he were traveling slowly. I followed them toward the cliff, but finally lost them in the darkness. 89. Karana’s comment that she “wanted to hold” the puppy was a late addition to the text (Typescript 2c, p. 81A).

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The next day and the next it rained and I did not go to look for him. I spent those days making more arrows, and on the third day, with these arrows and my spear, I went out along the trail the wild dogs had made to and from my house. There were no tracks after the rain, but I followed the trail to the pile of rocks where I had seen them before. On the far side of the rocks I found the big gray dog. He had the broken arrow in his chest and he was lying with one of his legs under him. He was about ten paces from me so I could see him clearly. I was sure that he was dead, but I lifted the spear and took good aim at him. Just as I was about to throw the spear, he raised his head a little from the earth and then let it drop. This surprised me greatly and I stood there for a while not knowing what to do, whether to use the spear or my bow. I was used to animals playing dead until they suddenly turned on you or ran away. The spear was the better of the two weapons at this distance, but I could not use it as well as the other, so I climbed onto the rocks where I could see him if he ran. I placed my feet carefully. I had a second arrow ready should I need it. I fitted an arrow and pulled back the string, aiming at his head. Why I did not send the arrow I cannot say. I stood on the rock with the bow pulled back and my hand would not let it go. The big dog lay there and did not move and this may be the reason. If he had gotten up I would have killed him. I stood there for a long time looking down at him and then I climbed off the rocks. He did not move when I went up to him, nor could I see him breathing until I was very close. The head of the arrow was in his chest and the broken shaft was covered with blood. The thick fur around his neck was matted from the rain. I do not think that he knew I was picking him up, for his body was limp, as if he were dead. He was very heavy and the only way I could lift him was by kneeling and putting his legs around my shoulders. In this manner, stopping to rest when I was tired, I carried him to the headland. I could not get through the opening under the fence, so I cut the bindings and lifted out two of the whale ribs and thus took him into the house. He did not look at me or raise his head when I laid him on the floor, but his mouth was open and he was breathing. The arrow had a small point, which was fortunate, and came out easily though it had gone deep. He did not move while I did this, nor

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afterwards as I cleaned the wound with a peeled stick from a coral bush. This bush has poisonous berries, yet its wood often heals wounds that nothing else will. I had not gathered food for many days and the baskets were empty, so I left water for the dog and, after mending the fence, went down to the sea. I had no thought that he would live and I did not care. All day I was among the rocks gathering shellfish and only once did I think of the wounded dog, my enemy, lying there in the house, and then to wonder why I had not killed him. He was still alive when I got back, though he had not moved from the place where I had left him. Again I cleaned the wound with a coral twig. I then lifted his head and put water in his mouth, which he swallowed. This was the first time that he had looked at me since the time I had found him on the trail. His eyes were sunken and they looked out at me from far back in his head. Before I went to sleep I gave him more water. In the morning I left food for him when I went down to the sea, and when I came home he had eaten it. He was lying in the corner, watching me. While I made a fire and cooked my supper, he watched me. His yellow eyes followed me wherever I moved. That night I slept on the rock, for I was afraid of him, and at dawn as I went out I left the hole under the fence open so he could go. But he was there when I got back, lying in the sun with his head on his paws. I had speared two fish, which I cooked for my supper. Since he was very thin, I gave him one of them, and after he had eaten it he came over and lay down by the fire, watching me with his yellow eyes that were very narrow and slanted up at the corners. Four nights I slept on the rock, and every morning I left the hole under the fence open so he could leave. Each day I speared a fish for him and when I got home he was always at the fence waiting for it. He would not take the fish from me so I had to put it on the ground. Once I held out my hand to him, but at this he backed away and showed his teeth. On the fourth day when I came back from the rocks early he was not there at the fence waiting. A strange feeling came over me. Always before when I returned, I had hoped that he would be gone. But now as I crawled under the fence I did not feel the same. I called out, “Dog, Dog,” for I had no other name for him.

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I ran toward the house, calling it. He was inside. He was just getting to his feet, stretching himself and yawning. He looked first at the fish I carried and then at me and moved his tail. That night I stayed in the house. Before I fell asleep I thought of a name for him, for I could not call him Dog. The name I thought of was Rontu, which means in our language Fox Eyes.90

chapter 16 The white men’s ship did not return that spring or in the summer. But every day, whether I was on the headland or gathering shellfish on the rocks or working on my canoe, I watched for it. I also watched for the red ship of the Aleuts. I was not sure what I would do if the Aleuts came. I could hide in the cave which I had stored with food and water, for it was surrounded by thick brush and the mouth of the ravine could only be reached from the sea. The Aleuts had not used the spring and did not know about it because there was another one closer to where they had camped. But they might come upon the cave by chance and then I must be ready to flee. For this reason I worked on the canoe I had abandoned on the spit. I went to the place where the others were hidden, but they were dried out and cracked. Also they were too heavy for a girl to push into the water, even a girl as strong as I was.91 The tides had almost buried the canoe, and I labored many days to dig it out of the sand. Since the weather was warm, I did not go back and forth to my house on the headland, but cooked my meals on the sandspit and at night slept in the canoe, which saved much time. Even this canoe was too big for me to pull easily in and out of the water, so I set about making it smaller. I did this by loosening all the

90. The name and its meaning were likely invented by O’Dell. There are no vocabularies of the Nicoleño language, and only four words spoken by the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island were recorded; thus, the name is certainly not Nicoleño. Few vocabularies of California languages were widely available in the 1950s, and although O’Dell may have drawn on some in crafting Karana’s native words, the inconsistency displayed within them—Rontu (“Fox Eyes”) and, later, Mon-a-nee (“Little Boy with Large Eyes”) both contain the meaning “eyes” but have no syllables in common—suggests that at least some of them were invented. 91. The phrases “a girl to push” and “even a girl as strong as I was” were added to the narrative midway through O’Dell’s writing process (Typescript 2a, p. 87). On canoe building, see note 72.

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planks, by cutting the sinews and heating the pitch that bound them together. I then shaped these planks to half their length, using sharp knives made from a black stone which is to be found at one place on the island, and bound them back together with fresh pitch and sinews. The canoe when I had finished was not so beautiful as it had been before, but I could now lift one end of it and drag it through the waves. All the time I was working on the canoe, which was most of that summer, Rontu was with me. He was either sleeping in the shade of the canoe or running up and down the sandspit chasing the pelicans that roost there in great numbers because there are numerous fish nearby. He never caught any of the birds, yet he would keep trying until his tongue hung out of his mouth. He had learned his name quickly and many words that meant something to him. Zalwit, for example, which is our word for pelican, and naip which means fish.92 I talked to him often, using these words and others and many that he did not understand, just as though I were talking to one of my people. “Rontu,” I would say after he had stolen a special fish I had speared for my supper, “tell me why it is that you are such a handsome dog and yet such a thief.” He would put his head on one side and then the other, although he knew only two of the words, and look at me. Or I would say, “It is a beautiful day. I have never seen the ocean so calm and the sky looks like a blue shell. How long do you think these days will last?” Rontu would look up at me just the same, though he understood none of the words, acting as if he did. Because of this I was not lonely. I did not know how lonely I had been until I had Rontu to talk to. When the canoe was finished and the pitch had dried I wanted to find out how it went through the water and if the planks leaked, so we set off on a long voyage around the island. The voyage took all of one day, from dawn until night. There are many sea caves on the Island of the Blue Dolphins and some of them are large and go far back into the cliffs. One of these was near the headland where my house stood. The opening was narrow, not much wider than the canoe, but once we were inside, it spread out and was larger than my place on the headland. 92. These words are likely O’Dell’s invention. See note 90.

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The walls were black and smooth and slanted far up over my head. The water was almost as black, except where light came through the opening. Here it was a gold color and you could see fish swimming around. They were different from the fish on the reefs, having larger eyes and fins that drifted out from their bodies like kelp. This place opened into another, which was smaller and so dark I could see nothing. It was very silent in there, with no sound of the waves on the shore and only the lapping of the water against the rocky walls. I thought of the god Tumaiyowit who had become angry at Mukat and gone down, down into another world, and I wondered if it were not to such a place as this that he had gone.93 Far ahead was a spot of light no larger than my hand, so instead of turning back, which I felt like doing, I drifted toward it around many turnings and came at last to another room much like the first. Along one side was a wide shelf of rock, which ran out to the sea through a narrow opening. The tide was full and yet the shelf was out of the water. It was a fine place to hide a canoe, which could be lifted out and stored there where no one could find it. The ledge joined the cliff just below my house. All I needed was a trail down to the cave and then the canoe would be close at hand. “We have made a great discovery,” I said to Rontu. Rontu did not hear me. He was watching a devilfish, just beyond the opening of the cave.94 This fish has a small head with eyes that bulge and many arms. All day Rontu had been barking—at the cormorants, the gulls, the seals—at everything that moved. Now he was quiet, watching the black thing in the water. I let the canoe drift along and knelt down out of sight until I could pick up my spear. The devilfish was in front of us, swimming slowly near the surface, moving all his arms at once. Large devilfish are dangerous if you are in the sea, for their arms are as long as a man, and they can quickly wrap them around you. They also have a big mouth and a sharp beak where their arms join their head. This one was the largest I had ever seen.

93. The words “become angry” were written by the book’s copyeditor, who struck through the words “gotten mad” (Typescript 3a, p. 113). On the gods Tumaiyowit and Mukat, see note 79. 94. “Devilfish” is Karana’s word for octopus. In early drafts, Karana calls the animal a lapai, which O’Dell defined as “octopus” in his compositional notes (Kerlan, box 5, folder 15). Two species of octopi can be found around the California Channel Islands, the red octopus (Octopus rubescens) and the two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculatus).

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Since Rontu was standing in front of me and I could not put the canoe into a better position, I had to lean out to use the spear. As I did so, the devilfish saw my movement and let loose in the water a black cloud of liquid which instantly hid him from view. I knew that the devilfish would not be in the center of this cloud, that he had left it behind. I therefore did not aim my spear at it, but picked up the paddle and waited until he appeared. He was now twice the length of the canoe from me and though I paddled fast I could not overtake him. “Rontu,” I said, for he was watching the black cloud in the water, “you have much to learn about the devilfish.” Rontu did not look at me or bark. He put his head to one side and then the other, still puzzled, more so when the cloud disappeared and nothing was left except clear water. Devilfish is the best food in the seas. The flesh is white and tender and very sweet. But they are difficult to catch without a special kind of spear, which I now decided to make during the winter when I would have much time. I took the canoe to Coral Cove, not far from the cave, and pulled it up on the shore out of reach of the winter storms. There it would be safe until spring when I would hide it in the cave that Rontu and I had found. It was easy to paddle and did not leak. I was very happy.

chapter 17 Storms came early with rain and between the rains fierce winds struck the island and filled the air with sand. During this time, I made myself another dress, but most of the days I spent fashioning a spear to catch the giant devilfish. I had seen this spear made, as I had seen my father make bows and arrows, yet I knew little about it, no more than I had about the others. Still I remembered how it looked and how it was used. From these memories I made it after many errors and many hours of work, sitting on the floor while Rontu slept nearby and the storms beat upon the roof. Four of the sea-elephant teeth were left, and though I broke all except one, this I worked down to a head with a barbed point. I then made a ring and fastened it to the end of the shaft, and into this ring fitted the head, which was tied to a long string made of braided sinew. When the spear was thrown and struck a devilfish, the head came loose from the shaft. The shaft floated on the water, but the pointed barb was held

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by the string which was tied to your wrist. This spear was especially good because it could be thrown from a distance. On the first day of spring I went down to Coral Cove with my new spear. I knew it was spring because that morning at dawn the sky was filled with flocks of darting birds. They were small and black and came only at this time of year. They came out of the south and stayed for two suns, hunting food in the ravines, and then flew off in one great flight toward the north. Rontu did not go with me to the beach because I had let him out of the fence and he had not returned. The wild dogs had been to the house many times that winter and he had paid no heed to them, but the night before, after they had come and gone, he had stood at the fence. He stood and whined and walked up and down. It worried me to see him act so strangely, and when he refused to eat I finally let him out. Now I pushed the canoe into the water and drifted toward the reef where the devilfish lived. The water was so clear that it was like the air around me. Far down, the sea ferns moved as though a breeze were blowing there, and among them swam the devilfish trailing their long arms. It was good to be on the sea after the winter storms, with the new spear in my hand, but all the morning as I hunted the giant devilfish I kept thinking of Rontu. I should have been happy, yet thinking of him I was not. Would he come back, I wondered, or had he gone to live with the wild dogs? Would he again be my enemy? If he were my enemy, I knew that I could never kill him, now that he had been my friend. When the sun was high I hid the canoe in the cave we had found, for once more it was the time the Aleuts might return, and with the two small bass I had speared, though not the giant devilfish, I went up the cliff. I had planned to make a trail from the cave to my house, but had decided that it could be seen from a ship and by anyone standing on the headland. The climb was steep. As I reached the top, I paused for breath. The morning was quiet except for the noise of the little birds flying from bush to bush and the cries of the gulls who did not like these strangers. Then I heard the sound of dogs fighting. The sound came from far off, perhaps from the ravine, and taking my bow and arrows, I hurried in that direction. I went down the path which led to the spring. There were tracks of the wild dogs around the spring, and among them I saw the large ones of Rontu. The tracks led away through the ravine which winds to the sea. I heard again the distant sound of fighting. I went slowly through the ravine because of my bow and arrows.

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At last I came to the place where it opens into a meadow right at the edge of a low sea cliff. Sometimes in the summers, a long time ago, my people had lived here. They gathered shellfish on the rocks and ate them here, leaving the shells which after many summers had formed a mound. Over this grass had grown, and a thick-leaved plant called gnapan.95 On this mound, among the grasses and the plants, stood Rontu. He stood facing me, with his back to the sea cliff. In front of him in a halfcircle were the wild dogs. At first I thought that the pack had driven him there against the cliff and were getting ready to attack him. But I soon saw that two dogs stood out from the rest of the pack, between it and Rontu, and that their muzzles were wet with blood. One of these dogs was the leader who had taken Rontu’s place when he had come to live with me. The other one, which was spotted, I had never seen. The battle was between Rontu and these two dogs. The rest were there to fall upon whichever was beaten. So great was the noise made by the pack, they had not heard me as I came through the brush, nor did they see me now as I stood at the edge of the meadow. They sat on their haunches and barked, with their eyes fixed on the others. But I was sure that Rontu knew I was somewhere near, for he raised his head and smelled the air. The two dogs were trotting back and forth along the foot of the mound, watching Rontu. The fight had probably started at the spring and they had stalked him to this place where he had chosen to fight. The sea cliff was behind him and they could not reach him from that direction so they were trying to think of some other way. It would have been easier if one could have attacked him from the back and one from the front. Rontu did not move from where he stood on top of the mound. Now and again he lowered his head to lick a wound on his leg, but whenever he did he always kept his eyes on the two dogs trotting up and down. I could have shot them, for they were within reach of my bow, or driven off the pack, yet I stood in the brush and watched. This was a battle between them and Rontu. If I stopped it, they would surely fight again, perhaps at some other place less favorable to him. 95. San Nicolas Island was inhabited for thousands of years before the generation of the Lone Woman, and shell middens can be found in many places on the island. The word gnapan is likely O’Dell’s invention; see note 90 and “Composition of Island of the Blue Dolphins” in this volume.

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Rontu again licked his wound and this time he did not watch the two dogs moving slowly past the mound. I thought it was a lure and so it proved to be, for suddenly they ran toward him. They came from opposite sides of the mound, ears laid back and teeth bared. Rontu did not wait for the attack, but, leaping at the nearer one, turned his shoulder and with his head lowered caught the dog’s foreleg. The pack was quiet. In the silence, I could hear the sound of the bone breaking, and the dog backed away on three legs. The spotted dog had reached the top of the mound. Whirling away from the one he had crippled, Rontu faced him, but not in time to fend off the first heavy rush. Teeth slashed at his throat and, as he turned his body, struck him instead on the flank, and he went down. At that moment, while he lay there on the grass with the dog circling warily and the pack moving slowly toward him, without knowing that I did so, I fitted an arrow to the bow. A good distance separated Rontu from his attacker and I could end the battle before he was wounded further or the pack fell upon him. Yet, as before, I did not send the arrow. The spotted dog paused, and turned in his tracks, and again leaped, this time from behind. Rontu was still lying in the grass with his paws under him and I thought he did not see that the other was upon him. But crouching there, he suddenly raised himself and at the same time fastened his teeth in the dog’s throat. Together they rolled off the mound, yet Rontu did not let go. The pack sat restless in the grass. In a short time Rontu rose to his feet and left the spotted dog where it lay. He walked to the top of the mound and lifted his head and gave a long howl. I had never heard this sound before. It was the sound of many things that I did not understand. He trotted past me and up the ravine. When I got to the house he was there waiting, as if he had not been away or nothing had happened. In all the time he lived, Rontu never left again, and the wild dogs, which for some reason divided into two packs, after that never returned to the headland.

chapter 18 Flowers were plentiful that spring because of the winter’s heavy rains. The dunes were covered with mats of sand flowers, which are red and have tiny eyes that are sometimes pink and sometimes white. Yuccas

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grew tall among the rocks of the ravine.96 Their heads were clustered with curly globes no larger than pebbles and the color of the sun when it rises. Lupines grew where the springs ran. From the sunny cliffs, in crevices where no one would think anything could grow, sprang the little red and yellow fountains of the comul bush. Birds were plentiful, too. There were many hummers which can stand still in the air and look like bits of polished stone and have long tongues to sip honey with. There were blue jays, which are very quarrelsome birds, and black-and-white peckers that pecked holes in the yucca stalks and the poles of my roof, even in the whale bones of the fence. Red-winged blackbirds also came flying out of the south, and flocks of crows, and a bird with a yellow body and a scarlet head, which I had never seen before. A pair of these birds made a nest in a stunted tree near my house. It was made from strings of the yucca bush and had a small opening at the top and hung down like a pouch. The mother laid two speckled eggs which she and her mate took turns sitting on. After the eggs hatched, I put shreds of abalone under the tree and these she fed her young. The young birds were not like their mother and father, being gray and very ugly, but anyway, I took them from the nest and put them in a small cage that I made of reeds. So later in the spring, when all the birds except the crows left the island and flew off to the north, I had these two for friends. They soon grew beautiful feathers like those of their parents and began to make the same sound, which was reep, reep. But it was soft and clear and much sweeter than the cries of the gulls or the crows or the talk of the pelicans which sounds like the quarreling of toothless old men. Before summer came the cage was too small for my two birds, but instead of building a larger one, I cut the tips of their wings, one wing of each, so they could not fly away, and let them loose in the house. By the time their wings had grown out, they had learned to take food from my hand. They would jump down from the roof and perch on my arm and beg, making their reep, reep sound. When their wings began to feather out, I cut them again. This time I let them loose in the yard, where they hopped around hunting food, perching on Rontu who by now had gotten used to them. The next time they feathered out, I did not trim their wings, but they never flew farther away than the ravine and would always come back at night to sleep and, no matter how much they had eaten, to ask for food. 96. On yucca, see note 41.

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One, because he was larger, I called Tainor. I named him after a young man I liked who had been killed by the Aleuts. The other was called Lurai, which was a name I wished I had been called instead of Karana. During the time that I was taming the birds, I made another skirt. This one I also made of yucca fibers softened in water and braided into twine.97 I made it just like the others, with folds running lengthwise. It was open on both sides and hung to my knees. The belt I made of sealskin which could be tied in a knot. I also made a pair of sandals from sealskin for walking over the dunes when the sun was hot, or just to be dressed up when I wore my new skirt of yucca twine. Often I would put on the skirt and the sandals and walk along the cliff with Rontu. Sometimes I made a wreath of flowers and fastened it in my hair. After the Aleuts had killed our men at Coral Cove, all the women of our tribe had singed their hair short as a sign of mourning. I had singed mine, too, with a faggot, but now it had grown long again and came to my waist. I parted it and let it fall down my back, except when I wore a wreath. Then I made braids and fastened them with long whalebone pins.98 I also made a wreath for Rontu’s neck, which he did not like. Together we would walk along the cliff looking at the sea, and though the white men’s ship did not return that spring, it was a happy time. The air smelled of flowers and birds sang everywhere.

chapter 19 Another summer had come and still I had not speared the giant devilfish that lived near the cave. Every day during the spring, Rontu and I went to look for him. I would put the canoe in the water and paddle slowly through the cave, from one opening to the other, often several times. I saw many devilfish there where the black water is streaked with light, but not the giant one. 97. This sentence took its final form as the result of the copyeditor. O’Dell’s submitted draft read: “This one I also made of yucca fibers beaten on a rock and softened in water” (Typescript 3a, p. 126). Karana’s methods—rinsing, straightening, and weaving her materials—matches historical practices, but the skirt would have been made of surf grass, likely woven at the top and then left hanging loose, as fringe, at the bottom. Surf grass skirts with tiny cones of asphaltum at their bottom, some decorated with shell beads, have been found in the region. On yucca, see note 41. 98. This passage, beginning with “After the Aleuts had killed our men,” appears as an insertion to the typescript copyedited by Houghton Mifflin (Typescript 3b, p. 127). This was likely one of the last substantial changes O’Dell made to the manuscript.

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At last I gave up looking for him and began to gather abalones for winter. The red shells hold the sweetest meat and are best for drying, though the green ones and the black are also good. Because the red ones are the sweetest, starfish prey upon them. This star-shaped creature places itself over the shell of an abalone. With its five arms spread out against the rock to which the abalone is fastened, it holds the shell with its suckers, and then begins to lift itself. The starfish pulls against the abalone shell, sometimes for days, holding on with its suckers and pushing up with its legs, until little by little the heavy shell comes loose from the body. One morning we left the cave and paddled out to the reef which is joined to it. For many days I had been gathering a few shellfish on the rocks at Coral Cove, but I had been watching the reef and waiting for the right time to harvest. This is when there are few starfish feeding, for they are as hard to pry loose from an abalone as an abalone is to pry from a rock. The tide was low and the reef rose far out of the water. Along its sides were great numbers of red abalones and very few starfish, so before the sun was high I filled the bottom of the canoe. The day was windless, and since I had all I could carry, I tied the canoe, and with Rontu following me, climbed onto the reef to look for fish to spear for our supper. Blue dolphins were leaping beyond the kelp beds. In the kelp otter were playing at the games they never tire of. And around me everywhere the gulls were fishing for scallops, which were numerous that summer. They grow on the floating kelp leaves and there were so many of them that much of the kelp near the reef had been dragged to the bottom. Still there were scallops that the gulls could reach, and taking them in their beaks they would fly far above the reef and let them drop. The gulls would then swoop down to the rocks and pick the meat from the broken shells. Scallops fell on the reef like rain, which amused me, but not Rontu who could not understand what the gulls were doing. Dodging this way and that I went to the end of the reef where the biggest fish live. With a sinew line and a hook made of abalone shell I caught two that had large heads and long teeth, but are good to eat. I gave one to Rontu and on the way back to the canoe gathered purple sea urchins to use for dyeing. Rontu, who was trotting along in front of me, suddenly dropped his fish and stood looking down over the edge of the reef. There, swimming in the clear water, was a devilfish. It was the same one I had been hunting for. It was the giant!

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Seldom did you see any devilfish here, for they like deep places, and the water along this part of the reef is shallow. Perhaps this one lived in the cave and came here only when he could not find food. Rontu made no sound. I fixed the head of the spear and the long string that held it to my wrist. I then crawled back to the edge of the reef. The giant had not moved. He was floating just below the surface of the water and I could plainly see his eyes. They were the size of small stones and stood out from his head, with black rims and gold centers and in the centers a black spot, like the eyes of a spirit I had once seen on a night that rain fell and lightning forked in the sky. Where my hands rested was a deep crevice and in it a fish was hiding. The giant was half the length of my spear from the reef, but while I watched, one of his long arms ran out like a snake and felt its way into the crevice. It went past the fish and along the side of the rock and then the end of it curled back. As the arm gently wound itself around the fish from behind, I rose to one knee and drove the spear. I aimed at the giant’s head, but though it was larger than my two fishes and a good target, I missed. The spear struck down through the water and slanted off. Instantly a black cloud surrounded the devilfish. The only thing I could see of him was one long arm still grasping his prey. I jumped to my feet to pull in the spear, thinking that I might have a chance to throw it again. As I did so, the shaft bobbed back to the surface and I saw that the barbed point had come loose. At the same moment the string tightened. My grip on it broke, and aware that I had struck the devilfish, I quickly dropped the coils I held, for when the string runs out fast it burns your hands or becomes entangled. The devilfish does not swim with fins or flippers, like other things in the sea. He takes water in through the hole in the front of his body and pushes the water out behind through two slits. When he is swimming slowly you can see these two streams trailing out, but only then. When he moves fast, you can see nothing except a streak in the water. The coils I had dropped on the rock hopped and sang as they ran. Then there were no more of them. The string tightened on my wrist and, to lessen the shock, I leaped across the crevice in the direction the giant had taken. With the string in both hands, but still fastened to my wrist, I braced my feet on the slippery rock and leaned backwards. The string snapped tight with the weight of the devilfish. It began to stretch, and fearing that it might break, I walked forward, yet I made him pull me every step.

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He was moving toward the cave, along the edge of the reef. The cave was a good distance away. If he got there I would surely lose him. The canoe was tied just in front of me. Once I was in it, I could let him pull me until he grew tired. But there was no way to untie the canoe and still hold on to the string. Rontu all this time was running up and down the reef barking and leaping at me, which made my task harder. Step by step I walked forward, until the devilfish was in the deep water close to the cave. He was so close that I had to stop, even if the sinew broke and I lost him. I therefore braced myself and did not move. The sinew stretched, throwing off drops of water. I could hear it stretch and I was sure it would break. I did not feel it cutting into my hands, though they bled. The pull suddenly lessened and I was sure that he was gone, but the next instant I saw the string cutting the water in a wide circle. He was swimming off from the cave and the reef toward some rocks that were about twice the length of the string away. He would be safe there, too, for among them were many places to hide. I pulled in half the string while he was moving toward the rocks, but soon had to let it out. It grew tight and again began to stretch. The water here was only a little over my waist, and I let myself down over the reef. There was a sand bar not far from the rocks, and stepping carefully on the bottom, which was full of holes, I slowly made my way toward it. Rontu swam along by my side. I reached the sand bar before the devilfish could hide himself in the rocks. The string held and he turned about and once more swam toward the cave. Twice again he did this. Each time I took in some of the string. The third time, as he came up into the shallow water, I walked backward across the sand bar so he would not see me, and pulled on the string with all my strength. The giant slid up on the sand. He lay with his arms spread out, partly in the water, and I thought he was dead. Then I saw his eyes moving. Before I could shout a warning, Rontu had rushed forward and seized him. But the devilfish was too heavy to lift or shake. As Rontu’s jaws sought another hold, three of the many arms wound themselves around his neck. Devilfish are only dangerous when in the water where they can fasten themselves to you with their long arms. These arms have rows of suckers underneath them and they can drag you under and hold you there

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until you drown. But even on land the devilfish can injure you, for he is strong and does not die quickly. The giant was flailing his arms, struggling to get back into the water. Little by little he was dragging Rontu with him. I could no longer use the string because it was wound around Rontu’s legs. The whalebone knife I used for prying abalones from the rocks was tied to a thong at my waist. The blade was thick at the point but had a sharp edge. I dropped the coils of string and unfastened the knife as I ran. I ran past the devilfish and got between him and the deep water. So many of his arms were flailing that it was useless to cut any one of them. One struck me on the leg and burned like a whip. Another, which Rontu had chewed off, lay wriggling at the edge of the water, as if it were looking for something to fasten on to. The head rose out of the twisting arms like a giant stalk. The gold eyes with their black rims were fixed on me. Above the sounds of the waves and the water splashing and Rontu’s barking, I could hear the snapping of his beak, which was sharper than the knife I held in my hand. I drove the knife down into his body and as I did this I was suddenly covered, or so it seemed, with a countless number of leeches, sucking at my skin. Fortunately one hand was free, the hand that held the knife, and again and again I struck down through the tough hide. The suckers, which were fastened to me and pained greatly, lessened their hold. Slowly the arms stopped moving and then grew limp. I tried to drag the devilfish out of the water, but my strength was gone. I did not even go back to the reef for my canoe, though I did take the shaft and the head of the spear, which had cost me much labor, and the sinew line. It was night before Rontu and I got back to the house. Rontu had a gash on his nose from the giant’s beak, and I had many cuts and bruises. I saw two more giant devilfish along the reef that summer, but I did not try to spear them.

chapter 20 I gathered two more canoeloads of abalones soon after that, mostly the sweet red ones, which I cleaned and carried to the house.99 Along the 99. The odd term “canoeloads” was inserted by a Houghton Mifflin copyeditor. O’Dell’s copy had “canoes full” (Typescript 3a, p. 137).

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south part of the fence where the sun shone most of the day, I built long shelves out of branches and put the meat up to dry. Abalones are larger than your hand and twice as thick when fresh, but they shrink small in the sun so you have to dry many. In the old days on the island there were children to keep away the gulls, which would rather feast on abalones than anything else. In one morning, if the meat was left unguarded, they could fly off with a month’s harvest. At first, whenever I went to the spring or to the beach, I left Rontu behind to chase them off, but he did not like this and howled all the time I was gone. Finally I tied strings to some of the abalone shells and hung them from poles. The insides of the shells are bright and catch the sun and they turn one way and another in the wind. After that I had little trouble with the gulls. I also caught small fish in a net I had made and hung them up to dry for winter light. With meat drying on the shelves and the shells flashing and turning in the wind and the strings of fish hanging on the fence, the yard looked as if a whole village were living there on the headland instead of just Rontu and me. Every morning after I had gathered food for winter, we went out on the sea. At the end of summer I would gather roots and seeds to store, but now there was nothing that needed to be done. We went many places those first days of summer—to the beach where the sea elephants lived, to Black Cave which was even larger than the first cave we found, and to Tall Rock where the cormorants roosted. Tall Rock was more than a league from the island and was black and shimmering because it was covered with cormorants.100 I killed ten of the birds the first time we went there and I skinned and fleshed them and put them out to dry, for someday I wanted to make myself a skirt of cormorant feathers. Black Cave was on the south coast of the island, near the place where the canoes were stored. In front of the cave was a high ledge of rocks surrounded by deep kelp beds, and I would have paddled by it if I had not seen a sea hawk fly out. The sun was in the west and I had a long way to go to reach home, but I was curious about the hawk and the place he lived in. 100. Tall Rock is likely based on a fifteen-foot-high natural feature now known as Begg Rock, which lies eight miles off the west coast of San Nicolas Island. The long passage that follows, detailing what Karana sees and feels in Black Cave, was a late addition to the text. It appears as an insertion to the typescript copyedited by Houghton Mifflin (Typescript 3b, 138A–39).

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The opening of the cave was small, like the one in the cave under the headland, and Rontu and I had to crouch low to get through. Weak light came from outside and I saw that we were in a room with black, shining walls that curved high overhead. At the far end of the room was another small opening. It was long and very dark, but when we reached the end of it we were in another room which was larger than the first and lit with a shaft of light. The light came from the sun, which shone down through a jagged crack in the ceiling. Seeing the sun shining down and the black shadows drifting over the walls, Rontu barked, then began to howl. The sound echoed through the cave like the howling of a whole pack of dogs. It sent a cold feeling down my back. “Be quiet!” I shouted, putting my hand over his jaws. My words echoed and echoed in the room. I turned the canoe around and started back toward the opening. Above it, on a deep ledge that ran from one side of the room to the other, my gaze fell upon a row of strange figures. There must have been two dozen of them standing against the black wall. They were as tall as I, with long arms and legs and short bodies made of reeds and clothed in gull feathers. Each one had eyes fashioned of round or oblong disks of abalone shell, but the rest of their faces were blank. The eyes glittered down at me, moved as the light on the water moved and was reflected upon them. They were more alive than the eyes of those who live. In the middle of the group was a seated figure, a skeleton. It sat leaning against the wall with its knees drawn up and in its fingers, which were raised to its mouth, a flute of pelican bone.101 There were other things there on the ledge, in the shadows among the standing figures, but having drifted far back in the room, I again paddled toward the opening. I had forgotten that the tide was coming in. To my great surprise the opening had narrowed. It was too small now for me to get through. We would have to stay there in the room until the tide went out, until dawn came. I paddled to the far end of the cave. I did not look back at the glittering eyes of the figures on the ledge. I crouched in the bottom of the canoe and watched the shaft of light grow weak. The opening out to the 101. Caves have been used as burial sites on a number of the California Channel Islands, but whether they were used as such on San Nicolas is not known at this time. A flute made of pelican bones was found on San Nicolas Island in 2009 (Erlandson et al., “Unique Nineteenth-Century Cache”).

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sea grew smaller and finally disappeared. Night came and a star showed through the crevice overhead. This star passed out of sight and another took its place. The tide lifted the canoe higher in the room, and as the water lapped against the walls it sounded like the soft music of a flute. It played many tunes through the long night and I slept little, watching the stars change. I knew that the skeleton who sat on the ledge playing his flute was one of my ancestors, and the others with the glittering eyes, though only images, were too, but still I was sleepless and afraid. With the first light, another high tide almost setting, we left the cave. I did not look up at those standing quietly on the ledge or at the flute player playing for them, but paddled fast out into the morning sea. Nor did I look back. “I suppose this cave once had a name,” I said to Rontu, who was as glad to be free as I was, “but I have never heard of it or heard it spoken about. We will call it Black Cave and never in all our days go there again.” When we came back from our voyage to Tall Rock, I hid the canoe in the cave below the headland. It was hard work, but each time I would lift the canoe from the water and onto the ledge, even though I planned to go out the next morning. Two summers had come and gone and the Aleut hunters had not returned, yet during these days I always looked for them. At dawn, as Rontu and I went down the cliff, I would watch the ocean for their sails. The summer air was clear and I could see many leagues. Wherever we went in the canoe I would never be gone longer than half a day. On the way home, I always paddled close to shore and looked for them. It was the last time that we went to Tall Rock that the Aleuts came. I had hidden the canoe and climbed the cliff with the ten cormorant skins slung over my back. At the top of the cliff I stood for a while gazing at the sea. There were some small clouds on the water. One of them, the smallest, did not look like the others, and as I watched, I saw that it was a ship. The sun made bright scales on the water, but I could see clearly. There were two sails and it was a ship coming toward the island. For a long time I could not tell the color of the sails. I wondered if it could be the white men, though now I thought about them little and seldom looked for them. I left the cormorants hanging on the fence and went to the rock on the headland. I could see no better from the rock because the sun was

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low and the whole ocean was covered with light. Then as I stood there I remembered that the white men’s ship would come from the east. This one had came from a different direction—from the north. I still was not sure that it belonged to the Aleuts, but I decided to pack the things that I would take to the cave in the ravine. There was much to take—my two birds, the skirt I had made, the stone utensils, my beads and earrings, the cormorant feathers, and all of my baskets and weapons. The abalones were not yet dry so I would have to leave them. When I had packed everything and put it beside the hole under the fence, I went back to the headland. I lay on the rock so I would not be seen and peered over its rim toward the north. For a moment I did not find the ship, and then I saw that it had traveled faster than I thought it would. It was already rounding the kelp bed, close to the rocks of Coral Cove. The last of the sun shone on the ship, on the bow, which was made like the beak of a bird, and on the two red sails. I knew that the Aleuts would not come on shore in the dark, and that I had until morning to carry my things to the cave, but I did not wait. Most of the night I worked, making two trips to the cave. At dawn, when everything had been moved, I went back to the house for the last time. There I buried the ashes of my fires and threw sand over the shelves and the floor. I took down the shells I had put up to scare the gulls and tossed them and the abalones over the cliff. At last, with a pelican wing, I brushed away the marks of my feet. When I had finished, it looked as though no one had lived there for a long time. By now the sun was up and I climbed onto the rock. The ship lay at anchor in the cove. Canoes were bringing goods to the shore and some were out in the kelp beds, beginning to hunt for otter. There was a fire on the shore and beside it, a girl. She was cooking something and I could see the fire shining on her hair. I did not stay long on the headland. Always in the past I had gone to the ravine by a different way so as not to wear a trail. This time I went off toward the west, along the cliff, and then doubled back through the brush, being careful to leave no tracks. Rontu’s prints did not matter because the Aleuts knew that there were dogs on the island. The cave was very dark and I had trouble getting Rontu to go through the small opening. Only after I had crawled in and out several times would he follow me. I closed the opening with stones, and since I was tired, lay down and slept all that day. I slept until I could see the stars shining between the cracks in the rocks.

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chapter 21 I did not take Rontu with me when I left the cave that night. And I closed the opening so that he would not follow me, for if the Aleuts had brought their dogs, he would surely smell them out. I went quietly through the brush to the headland. Before I had climbed to the top of the high rock I could see the glow of the Aleut fires. They had camped on the mesa, at the place and the spring they had used before. It was less than half a league from my cave. I stood for a long time watching the fires, wondering if I should move to another part of the island, perhaps to the cave where the wild dogs had lived. I was not afraid that the men would discover me, because they worked on the beach or hunted in their canoes all day. It was the girl I was afraid of. The ravine was tangled with brush, which was hard to walk through, but in the ravine grew seeds and roots. Sometime when she was out looking for food she might wander by the spring and see that it was being used and find my steps leading to the cave. I stood on the rock until the Aleut fires died. I thought of everything I could do, of the different places I could go, and at last decided to stay in the ravine. The far end of the island had no springs, and if I moved there I would have no place to hide the canoe which I might need. I went back to the cave and did not leave it until the moon was full. There was little food left. Rontu and I climbed to the headland and when we passed the house I saw that three of the whale ribs had been cut from the fence. No one was there or else Rontu would have barked. I waited until the tide was low, which was close to dawn, and filled a basket with sea water and abalones. We were back in the cave before it grew light. The sea water kept the abalones fresh, but when we had to go out again the night was too dark to find our way to the reef. I therefore had to gather roots. I could never gather many before the sun rose, so I went out every morning until the next moon came. Then I went to the reef for abalones. During all this time I saw none of the Aleuts. Nor did the girl come near the cave, though I found her footsteps far down the ravine where she had been to dig roots. The Aleuts had not brought their dogs, which was fortunate, for they would have found Rontu’s tracks and followed us to the cave. The days were long for Rontu and me. At first he would pace up and down the cave and stand at the opening sniffing through the cracks. I

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did not let him out except when I was with him for fear he would go to the camp and not come back. After a while he got used to this and would lie all day and watch whatever I was doing. It was dark in the cave, even when the sun was high, so I burned the small fish I had stored. By their light I began to make a cormorant skirt, working every day on it. The ten skins I had taken at Tall Rock were now dry and in condition to sew. All of them were from male cormorants whose feathers are thicker than those of the females and much glossier. The skirt of yucca fibers was simple to make. I wanted this one to be better, so I cut the skins carefully and sewed them with great care. I made the bottom first, putting the skins end to end, and using three of them. For the rest of the skirt I sewed the others along their sides so that the feathers ran one way on the upper part and a different way along the bottom. It was a beautiful skirt and I finished it on the day after the second moon. I had burned all of the little fish, and since I could catch no more until the Aleuts left, I took the skirt outside to work on it there. I had found footsteps in the ravine twice again after the first time, but no closer to the cave. I had begun to feel safe, for the winter storms would soon be here and the Aleuts would leave. Before another moon they would be gone. I had never seen the skirt in the sunlight. It was black, but underneath were green and gold colors, and all the feathers shimmered as though they were on fire. It was more beautiful than I had thought it would be. I worked fast now that it was almost finished, yet from time to time I would stop to hold it against my waist. “Rontu,” I said, feeling giddy with happiness, “if you were not a male dog I would make you one too, as beautiful as this.” Rontu, who was sprawled out at the mouth of the cave, raised his head and yawned at me and went back to sleep. I was standing in the sunlight, holding the skirt to my waist, when Rontu leaped to his feet. I heard the sound of steps. It came from the direction of the spring and as I turned quickly I saw a girl looking down at me from the brush. My spear stood beside the mouth of the cave within easy reach. The girl was not more than ten paces from me and with one movement I could have picked up the spear and thrown it. Why I did not throw the spear, I do not know, for she was one of the Aleuts who had killed my people on the beach of Coral Cove.

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She said something and Rontu left the mouth of the cave and walked slowly toward her. The hair raised on his neck, but then he walked to where she stood and let her touch him. The girl looked at me and made a motion with her hands which I took to mean that Rontu was hers. “No,” I cried and shook my head. I picked up my spear. She started to turn and I thought that she was going to flee back through the brush. She made another motion which I took to mean that Rontu was now mine. I did not believe her. I held the spear over my shoulder, ready to throw. “Tutok,” she said, pointing to herself. I did not say my name. I called Rontu and he came back. The girl looked at him and then at me and smiled. She was older than I, but not so tall. She had a broad face and small eyes that were very black. When she smiled, I saw that her teeth were worn down from chewing seal sinew, but they were very white. I was still holding the cormorant skirt and the girl pointed to it and said something. There was one word—wintscha—which sounded like a word that means pretty in our language.102 I was so proud of the skirt that I did not think. The spear was in my hand, but I held up the skirt so the sunlight could shine on all of it. The girl jumped down from the ledge and came over to me and touched it. “Wintscha,” she said again. I did not say the word, but she wanted to hold the skirt and I gave it to her. She put it against her waist and let it fall from her hips, turning one way and the other. She was graceful and the skirt flowed around her like water, but I hated the Aleuts and took it from her. “Wintscha,” she said. I had not heard words spoken for so long that they sounded strange to me, yet they were good to hear, even though it was an enemy who spoke them.

102. The word is likely O’Dell’s invention; it does not appear in Geoghegan’s The Aleut Language. More importantly, the Native languages spoken in Russian Alaska were from an entirely different linguistic family than those that were spoken on the California islands. See Richard Henry Geoghegan, The Aleut Language: The Elements of Aleut Grammar with a Dictionary in Two Parts Containing Basic Vocabularies of Aleut and English, ed. Fredericka I. Martin (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1944).

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She said other words I did not understand, but now as she spoke she looked over my shoulder toward the cave. She pointed to the cave and then to me and made gestures as if she were making a fire. I knew what she wanted me to say, but I did not say it. She wished to know if I lived there in the cave so she could come back with the men and take me to their camp. I shook my head, and pointed to the far end of the island, away, away, for I did not trust her. She kept looking toward the cave, but she said nothing more about it. I held the spear, which I could have thrown. I did not, though I feared she would return with the hunters. She came over to me and touched my arm. I did not like the feel of her hand. She said more words and smiled again and walked to the spring and drank. The next moment she had disappeared in the brush. Rontu did not try to follow her. She made no noise as she went. I crawled back in the cave and began to pack the things I owned. I had all the day to do it, because the men were working and would not return to their camp before night. By nightfall I was ready to go. I planned to take my canoe and go to the west part of the island. I could sleep there on the rocks until the Aleuts left, moving from place to place if I needed to. I carried five baskets up the ravine and hid them near my house. It was getting dark and I had to go back to the cave for two that were left. Carefully I crawled through the brush and stopped just above the mouth of the cave and listened. Rontu was beside me and he listened also. No one could go through the brush in the dusk without making a sound, except someone who had lived in it for a long time. I went past the spring and waited and then on to the cave. I felt that someone had been there while I had been away. They could be hiding in the dark watching me. They were waiting until I went into the cave. I was afraid so I did not go in, but quickly turned around. As I did so I saw something in front of the cave, on the flat rock I used for a step. It was a necklace of black stones of a kind I had never seen.

chapter 22 I did not go into the cave nor did I take the necklace from the rock. That night I slept on the headland at the place where I had left my baskets. At dawn I went back to the ravine. There I hid myself on a brushy ledge. It was near the spring and from it I could see the mouth of the cave.

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The sun rose and shone through the ravine. I could see the necklace lying on the rock. The stones looked blacker than they had in the darkness and there were many of them. I wanted to go down to the cave and count them, to see if they would make two loops around my neck, but I did not leave the ledge. I stayed there all the morning. The sun was high when Rontu barked and I heard steps below me. The girl came out of the brush singing. She walked to the cave, but when she saw the necklace lying on the rock she grew quiet. She picked up the necklace and put it down again and peered into the mouth of the cave. Two of my baskets were still there. Then she went and drank from the spring and started off through the brush. I jumped to my feet. “Tutok,” I cried, running down the ravine. “Tutok.” She came out of the brush so quickly that she must have been waiting nearby to see if I would return. I ran to the rock and put on the necklace and turned around for her to admire it. The beads made not two loops but three. They were long and oval instead of round, which is a very hard shape to make and takes much skill. “Wintscha,” she said. “Wintscha,” I said, after her, the word strange on my tongue. Then I said the word that meant pretty in our language. “Win-tai,” she said and laughed, because this was strange to her. She touched the necklace, giving the word for it, and I gave mine. We pointed out other things—the spring, the cave, a gull flying, the sun and the sky, Rontu asleep—trading the names for them and laughing because they were so different. We sat there on the rock until the sun was in the west and played this game. Then Tutok rose and made a gesture of farewell. “Mah-nay,” she said and waited to hear my name. “Won-a-pa-lei,” I answered, which as I have said, means The Girl with the Long Black Hair. I did not tell her my secret name. “Mah-nay, Won-a-pa-lei,” she said. “Pah-say-no, Tutok,” I replied. I watched her go through the brush. I stood for a long time listening to her footsteps, until I could hear them no more, and then I went to the headland and brought the baskets back to the cave. Tutok came again the next day. We sat on the rock in the bright sun, trading words and laughing. The sun went fast in the sky. The time

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came soon when she had to leave, but she returned on the day that followed. It was on this day, when she was leaving, that I told her my secret name. “Karana,” I said, pointing to myself. She repeated the word, but she did not understand what it meant. “Won-a-pa-lei,” she said, frowning. I shook my head. Pointing again to myself, I said, “Karana.” Her black eyes opened wide. Slowly she began to smile. “Pah-say-no, Karana,” she said. That night I began to make a gift for her, in return for the necklace she had given me. At first I thought I would give her a pair of my bone earrings, but remembering that her ears were not pierced and that I had a basket of abalone shells already flaked into thin disks, I set about making a circlet for her hair. I bored two holes in each of the disks, using thorns and fine sand. Between them I put ten olivella shells, which were no larger than the tip of my little finger, and threaded them all together with sinew. I worked five nights on the circlet and on the fifth day when she came I gave it to her, putting it around her head and tying it in the back. “Wintscha,” she said and hugged me. She was so pleased that I forgot how sore my fingers were from boring the holes in the hard shells.103 Many times she came to the cave, and then one morning she did not come. I waited for her all that day and at dusk I left the cave and went to the ledge where I could watch the ravine, fearing that the men had learned that I lived here and would find me. That night I slept on the ledge. The night was cold with the first wind of winter. Tutok did not return the next day and I remembered that it was near the time when the Aleut hunters would leave. Perhaps they had already gone. That afternoon I went to the headland. I climbed the rock and crawled across it until I could look over the rim. My heart beat loud. The Aleut ship was still there, but men were working on the deck and canoes were going back and forth. The wind blew hard and few bales of otter skins lay on the shore so probably the ship would leave at dawn. 103. This and the two previous paragraphs that detail Karana making the circlet were among the last substantial changes made to the novel; they were added as insertions to the typescript copyedited by Houghton Mifflin (Typescript 3b, 153A). This late addition to Island of the Blue Dolphins became part of the standard story O’Dell told about Houghton Mifflin’s acceptance of his manuscript; see the introduction to this volume.

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It was dark when I got back to the ravine. Since the wind was very cold and I was no longer afraid that the Aleuts would find me, I made a fire in the cave and cooked a supper of shellfish and roots. I cooked enough for Rontu and me and for Tutok. I knew Tutok would not come, yet I put her food beside the fire and waited. Once Rontu barked and I thought I heard the sound of footsteps and went to the opening and listened. I waited a long while and did not eat. Clouds moved from the north, covering the cold sky. The wind grew louder and made wild noises in the ravine. At last I closed the mouth of the cave with stones.104 At dawn I went to the headland. The wind had died. Fog lay over the sea, washing against the island in gray waves. I waited a long time for a glimpse of Coral Cove, but finally the sun burned away the fog. The little harbor was deserted. The Aleut ship with its red-beaked prow and red sails had gone. At first, knowing that I could now leave the cave and move back into my house on the headland, I was happy. But as I stood there on the high rock looking down at the deserted harbor and the empty sea, I began to think of Tutok. I thought of all the times we had sat in the sun together. I could hear her voice and see her black eyes squinting closed when she laughed. Below me, Rontu was running along the cliff, barking at the screaming gulls. Pelicans were chattering as they fished the blue water. Far off I could hear the bellow of a sea elephant. But suddenly, as I thought of Tutok, the island seemed very quiet.

chapter 23 The hunters left many wounded otter behind them. Some floated in and died on the shore and others I killed with my spear since they were suffering and could not live. But I found a young otter that was not badly hurt. It lay in a bed of bull kelp and I would have paddled by if Rontu had not barked. A strand of kelp was wound around its body and I thought it was sleeping, for often before they go to sleep they anchor themselves in this way to keep from drifting off. Then I saw there was a deep gash across its back. The otter did not try to swim away as I drew near and reached over the side of the canoe. They have large eyes, especially when they are 104. In the earliest extant drafts, the chapter ends here and is followed by the two excised chapters that appear in this volume after the text of the novel.

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young, but this one’s were so large from fear and pain that I could see my reflection in them. I cut the kelp that held it and took it to a tide pool behind the reef, which was sheltered from the waves. The day was calm after the storm and I caught two fish along the reef. I was careful to keep them alive, because otter will not eat anything that is dead, and left them in the pool. This was early in the morning. That afternoon I went back to the pool. The fish had disappeared and the young otter was asleep, floating on its back. I did not try to treat its wound with herbs because salt water heals and the herbs would have washed off anyway. I brought two fish every day and left them in the pool. The otter would not eat while I was watching. Then I brought four fish and these also disappeared and finally six, which seemed to be the right number. I brought them whether the day was calm or stormy. The otter grew and its wound began to heal, but still it stayed in the pool, and now when I came it would be waiting for me and would take the fish from my hand. The pool was not big and it could easily have gotten out and away into the sea, yet it stayed there and slept or waited for me to come with food. The young otter now was the length of my arm and very glossy. It had a long nose that came to a point and many whiskers on each side and the largest eyes I have ever seen. They would watch me all the time I was at the pool, following me whatever I did, and when I said something, they would move around in a very funny way. In a way, too, that made pain come to my throat because they were gay and sad also. For a long time I called it Otter as I had called Rontu, Dog. Then I decided to give the otter a name. The name was Mon-a-nee, which means Little Boy with Large Eyes.105 It was a hard task catching fish every day, especially if the wind was blowing and the waves were high. Once when I could catch only two and dropped them into the pool, Mon-a-nee ate them quickly and waited for more. When he found that was all I had he swam around in circles, looking at me reproachfully. The waves were so high the next day that I could not fish on the reef even at low tide, and since I had nothing to give him I did not go to the pool. It was three days before I could catch fish and when I went there again the pool was deserted. I knew that he would leave someday, but I felt bad 105. This is likely an invented name. See note 90.

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that he had gone back to the sea and that I would never catch fish for him again. Nor would I know him if I saw him again in the kelp, for now that he had grown and his wound had healed, he looked like all the others. Soon after the Aleuts had left I moved back to the headland. Nothing had been harmed except the fence, which I mended, and in a few days the house was the same as before. The only thing that worried me was that all the abalones I had gathered in the summer were gone. I would need to live from day to day on what I could catch, trying to get enough on the days when I could fish to last through the times when I could not. Through the first part of the winter, before Mon-anee swam away, this was sometimes hard to do. Afterwards it was not so hard and Rontu and I always had enough to eat. While the Aleuts were on the island, I had no chance to catch little smelts and dry them, so the nights that winter were dark and I went to bed early and worked only during the day.106 But still I made another string for my fishing spear, many hooks of abalone shell, and last of all earrings to match the necklace Tutok had given me. These took a long time, for I searched the beach many mornings when the tide was out before I found two pebbles of the same color as the stones in the necklace and soft enough to cut. The holes in the earrings took even more time, for the stones were hard to hold, but when I was done and had rubbed them bright in fine sand and water, and fastened them with bone hooks to fit my ears, they were very pretty. On sunny days I would wear them with my cormorant dress and the necklace, and walk along the cliff with Rontu.107

106. On O’Dell’s decision not to use the English word “smelt” to describe this animal in other parts of the book, see Jean Hedger, “O’Dell’s Early Life Aids ‘Dolphin’ Story,” El Cajon Valley News, 6 April 1961. It seems that O’Dell simply forgot to change this instance of “smelts” to sai-sai when he began using the latter term for the fish. See note 82 and “Composition of Island of the Blue Dolphins” in this volume. 107. O’Dell changed his mind a number of times about what to call the outfit made of cormorant feathers. He used the words “tunic” and “garment” in his earliest drafts and then switched to the words “dress” and “skirt.” In the last extant draft created before Houghton Mifflin’s final, copyedited typescript, O’Dell used “dress” fairly consistently. When he edited his typescript by hand, however, he crossed out all typed instances of “dress” and handwrote “skirt” above them. He missed this one iteration of “cormorant dress,” however, and it was never corrected. “Dress” appears in Houghton Mifflin’s first edition and remains uncorrected in the fiftieth anniversary edition of the novel. O’Dell’s indecision about which word to use may have stemmed from his sources. The otter hunter George Nidever referred to the Lone Woman’s cormorant outfit as a “gown” and “dress,” while journalist Emma Hardacre described the garments as “robes.”

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I often thought of Tutok, but on these days especially I would look off into the north and wish that she were here to see me. I could hear her talking in her strange language and I would make up things to say to her and things for her to say to me.108

chapter 24 Spring again was a time of flowers and water ran in the ravines and flowed down to the sea. Many birds came back to the island. Tainor and Lurai built a nest in the tree where they were born. They built it of dry seaweed and leaves and also with hairs off Rontu’s back. Whenever he was in the yard while it was being made, they would swoop down if he were not looking and snatch a beakful of fur and fly away. This he did not like and he finally hid from them until the nest was finished. I had been right in giving a girl’s name to Lurai, for she laid speckled eggs and, with some help from her mate, hatched two ugly fledglings which soon became beautiful. I made up names for them and clipped their wings and before long they were as tame as their parents. I also found a young gull that had fallen from its nest to the beach below. Gulls make their nests high on the cliffs, in hollow places on the rocks. These places are usually small and often I had watched a young one teetering on the edge of the nest and wondered why it did not fall. They seldom did. This one, which was white with a yellow beak, was not badly hurt, but he had a broken leg.109 I took him back to the house and bound the bones together with two small sticks and sinew. For a while he did not try to walk. Then, because he was not old enough to fly, he began to hobble around the yard. With the young birds and the old ones, the white gull and Rontu, who was always trotting at my heels, the yard seemed a happy place. If

108. In the earliest extant draft, which contained two chapters that were later excised, this chapter continued here: “Yet I was never sorry that I had not gone with Totuk on the ship. More than ever, more than at any time since I had been alone, I was happy. Sometimes, t[h]inking of how near I had come to leaving the Island of the Blue Dolphins, I would throw out my arms and dance. Rontu always looked at me as if he thought I had lost my wits, but I danced anyway” (Typescript 1a, p. 136A; the relevant page of Typescript 2 was discarded). 109. A young western gull (Larus occidentalis) would not yet have the adult plumage that would give it a white body, grey back, and wings with white tips.

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only I had not remembered Tutok. If only I had not wondered about my sister Ulape, where she was, and if the marks she had drawn upon her cheeks had proved magical. If they had, she was now married to Kimko and was the mother of many children.110 She would have smiled to see all of mine, which were so different from the ones I always wished to have. Early that spring I started to gather abalones and I gathered many, taking them to the headland to dry. I wanted to have a good supply ready if the Aleuts came again. One day when I was on the reef filling my canoe, I saw a herd of otter in the kelp nearby. They were chasing each other, putting their heads through the kelp and then going under and coming up again in a different place. It was like a game we used to play in the brush when there were children on the island. I looked for Mon-a-nee, but each of them was like the other. I filled my canoe with abalones and paddled toward shore, one of the otter following me. As I stopped he dived and came up in front of me. He was far away, yet even then I knew who it was. I never thought that I would be able to tell him from the others, but I was so sure it was Mon-a-nee that I held up one of the fish I had caught. Otter swim very fast and before I could take a breath, he had snatched it from my hand. For two moons I did not see him and then one morning while I was fishing he came suddenly out of the kelp. Behind him were two baby otter. They were about the size of puppies and they moved along so slowly that from time to time Mon-a-nee had to urge them on. Sea otter cannot swim when they are first born, and have to hold on to their mother. Little by little she teaches her babies by brushing them away with her flippers, then swimming around them in circles until they learn to follow. 110. The final typescript of Island of the Blue Dolphins, produced at Houghton Mifflin for copyediting, states that Ulape would now be married to Kimko (Typescript 3a, 162). The first U.S. edition and subsequent reprintings by both Houghton Mifflin (hardback) and Dell Yearling (paperback) repeated this error, which was not corrected until Houghton Mifflin published the thirtieth anniversary gift edition. Kimko is obviously incorrect; Kimki (note the different spelling) is the old man who becomes chief of Ghalas-at after the death of Karana’s father in chapter 5. Nanko is the young man with whom Ulape is said to be “in love” in chapter 7. In his drafts, O’Dell initially spells the older man’s name Kimko, which partly accounts for this error (the spelling of all previous instances of Kimko were changed to Kimki by Typescript 2, excluding this one instance, where O’Dell clearly intended to type Nanko). British copyeditors at Puffin, which published the first UK paperback version of the novel in 1966, caught the error earlier but changed Kimko to Kimki rather than to Nanko.

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Mon-a-nee came close to the reef and I threw a fish into the water. He did not snatch it as he usually did, but waited to see what the young otter would do. When they seemed more interested in me than in food, and the fish started to swim away, he seized it with his sharp teeth and tossed it in front of them. I threw another fish into the water for Mon-a-nee, but he did the same things as before. Still the babies would not take the food, and at last, tired of playing with it, swam over and began to nuzzle him. Only then did I know that Mon-a-nee was their mother. Otter mate for life and if the mother dies the father will often raise the babies as best he can. This is what I thought had happened to Mon-a-nee. I looked down at the little family swimming beside the reef. “Mon-anee,” I said, “I am going to give you a new name. It is Won-a-nee, which fits you because it means Girl with the Large Eyes.”111 The young otter grew fast and soon were taking fish from my hand, but Won-a-nee liked abalones better. She would let the abalone I tossed to her sink to the bottom and then dive and come up holding it against her body, with a rock held in her mouth. Then she would float on her back and put the abalone on her breast and strike it again and again with the rock until the shell was broken. She taught her young to do this and sometimes I sat on the reef all the morning and watched the three of them pounding the hard shells against their breasts. If all otters did not eat abalones this way I would have thought it was a game played by Won-a-nee just to please me. But they all did and I always wondered about it, and I wonder to this time. After that summer, after being friends with Won-a-nee and her young, I never killed another otter. I had an otter cape for my shoulders, which I used until it wore out, but never again did I make a new one. Nor did I ever kill another cormorant for its beautiful feathers, though they have long, thin necks and make ugly sounds when they talk to each other. Nor did I kill seals for their sinews, using instead kelp to bind the things that needed it. Nor did I kill another wild dog, nor did I try to spear another sea elephant.112 Ulape would have laughed at me, and others would have laughed, too—my father most of all. Yet this is the way I felt about the animals who

111. See note 90. 112. On Karana’s decision not to kill birds or mammals for any reason, see the introduction to this volume.

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had become my friends and those who were not, but in time could be. If Ulape and my father had come back and laughed, and all the others had come back and laughed, still I would have felt the same way, for animals and birds are like people, too, though they do not talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.

chapter 25 The Aleuts never again came to the Island of the Blue Dolphins, but every summer I watched for them, and early every spring I gathered shellfish, which I dried and stored in the cave where I kept my canoe. Two winters after they left I made more weapons—a spear, a bow, and a quiver of arrows. These I also stored in the place beneath the headland, so if the hunters returned I would be ready to go to another part of the island, to move from cave to cave, living in my canoe if necessary. For many summers after the Aleuts had gone the herd of otter left Coral Cove. The old otter which had survived the Aleut spears and by now were aware that summer was a time of danger would lead the herd away. They went far off to the kelp beds of Tall Rock where they stayed until the first storms of winter. Often Rontu and I would go out to the rock and live there for several days catching fish for Won-a-nee and the others I had come to know. One summer the otter did not leave, the summer that Rontu died, and I knew then that none of the otter who remembered the hunters were left. Nor did I think of them often nor of the white men who had said they would come back, but did not come. Until that summer, I had kept count of all the moons since the time my brother and I were alone upon the island. For each one that came and went I cut a mark in a pole beside the door of my house. There were many marks, from the roof to the floor. But after that summer I did not cut them any more. The passing of the moons now had come to mean little, and I only made marks to count the four seasons of the year. The last year I did not count those. It was late in the summer that Rontu died. The days since spring, whenever I went to the reef to fish, he would not go with me unless I urged him to. He liked to lie in the sun in front of the house and I let him, but I did not go so often as in the past. I remember the night that Rontu stood at the fence and barked for me to let him out. Usually he did this when the moon was big, and he

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came back in the morning, but that night there was no moon and he did not return. I waited all that day for him until almost dusk and then I went out to look for him. I saw his tracks and followed them over the dunes and a hill to the lair where he had once lived. There I found him, lying in the back of the cave, alone. At first I thought that he had been hurt, yet there were no wounds on him. He touched my hand with his tongue, but only once and then he was quiet and scarcely breathed. Since night had fallen and it was too dark for me to carry Rontu back, I stayed there. I sat beside him through the night and talked to him. At dawn I took him in my arms and left the cave. He was very light, as if something about him had already gone. The sun was up as I went along the cliff. Gulls were crying in the sky. He raised his ears at the sound, and I put him down, thinking that he wished to bark at them as he always did. He raised his head and followed them with his eyes, but did not make a sound. “Rontu,” I said, “you have always liked to bark at the seagulls. Whole mornings and afternoons you have barked at them. Bark at them now for me.” But he did not look at them again. Slowly he walked to where I was standing and fell at my feet.113 I put my hand on his chest. I could feel his heart beating, but it beat only twice, very slowly, loud and hollow like the waves on the beach, and then no more. “Rontu,” I cried, “oh, Rontu!” I buried him on the headland. I dug a hole in the crevice of the rock, digging for two days from dawn until the going down of the sun, and put him there with some sand flowers and a stick he liked to chase when I threw it, and covered him with pebbles of many colors that I gathered on the shore.114

chapter 26 That winter I did not go to the reef at all. I ate the things I had stored and left the house only to get water at the spring. It was a winter of 113. Rontu’s death scene was reportedly taken from O’Dell’s personal experience. O’Dell was a lifelong dog lover, and one of his beloved pets staggered to the author’s feet before collapsing on the ground, dead. Maud Hart Lovelace, “Biographical Note: Scott O’Dell,” in Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books: 1956–1965, ed. Lee Kingman (Boston: Horn Book, 1965), 105–8; and Elizabeth Hall, telephone interview with Sara L. Schwebel, 1 July 2013. 114. On dog burials on San Nicolas Island, see Vellanoweth’s essay in this volume.

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strong winds and rain and wild seas that crashed against the cliffs, so I would not have gone out much even if Rontu had been there. During that time I made four snares from notched branches. In the summer once, when I was on my way to the place where the sea elephants lived, I had seen a young dog that looked like Rontu. He was running with one of the packs of wild dogs, and though I caught only a glimpse of him, I was sure he was Rontu’s son. He was larger than the other dogs and had heavier fur and yellow eyes and he ran with a graceful stride like Rontu’s. In the spring I planned to catch him with the snares I was making. The wild dogs came to the headland often during the winter, now that Rontu was gone, and when the worst of the storms were over I set the snares outside the fence and baited them with fish. I caught several of the dogs the first time, but not the one with the yellow eyes, and since I was afraid to handle them, I was forced to let them free. I made more snares and set these again, but while the wild dogs came close they would not touch the fish. I did catch a little red fox, which bit me when I took her out of the snare, yet she soon got over her wildness and would follow me around in the yard, begging for abalone. She was very much of a thief. When I was away from the house, she always found some way to get into the food, no matter how well I hid it, so I had to let her go back to the ravine. Often, though, she would come at night and scratch at the fence for food. I could not catch the young dog with a snare, and I was about to give up trying to when I thought of the toluache weed which we sometimes used to catch fish in the tide pools. It was not really a poison, but if you put it in the water the fish would turn over on their backs and float.115 I remembered this weed and dug some where it grew on the far side of the island. I broke it up into small pieces which I dropped in the spring where the wild dogs drank. I waited all day and at dusk the pack came down to the spring. They drank their fill of the water, but nothing happened to them, or not much. They frisked around for a while, as I watched them from the brush, and trotted away. I then remembered xuchal, which some of the men of our tribe used and is made from ground-up sea shells and wild tobacco. I made a big 115. Toluache or toloache (Datura wrightii), also called jimsonweed, is a psychoactive plant that was used by Native Californians for ceremonial and medicinal purposes. It was not used for catching fish. O’Dell might have learned about the plant from Kroeber’s Handbook of the Indians of California.

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bowl of this, mixing it with water, and put it in the spring. I hid in the brush and waited. The dogs came at dusk. They sniffed the water and backed off and looked at each other, but at last began to drink. Soon afterwards they began to walk around in circles. Suddenly they all lay down and went to sleep.116 There were nine of them lying there by the spring. In the dim light it was hard to tell the one I wanted to take home, but finally I found him. He was snoring as if he had just eaten a big meal. I picked him up and hurried along the cliff, being frightened all the way that he would wake up before I reached the headland. I pulled him through the opening under the fence and tied him to it with a thong and left food beside him to eat and some fresh water. Before long he was on his feet, gnawing through the thong. He howled and ran about the yard while I cooked my supper. All night he howled, but at dawn when I went out of the house, he was asleep. While he lay there by the fence sleeping, I thought of different names for him, trying first one and then another, saying them over to myself. At last, because he looked so much like his father, I called him RontuAru, which means Son of Rontu.117 In a short time he made friends with me. He was not so large as Rontu, but he had his father’s thick coat and the same yellow eyes. Often when I watched him chasing gulls on the sandspit or on the reef barking at the otter, I forgot that he was not Rontu. We had many happy times that summer, fishing and going to Tall Rock in our canoe, but more and more now I thought of Tutok and my sister Ulape. Sometimes I would hear their voices in the wind and often, when I was on the sea, in the waves that lapped softly against the canoe.118

chapter 27 After the fierce storms of winter came many days when the wind did not blow. The air was so heavy that it was hard to breathe and the sun so hot that the sea was like a sun itself, too bright to look at.

116. This paragraph and most of the one preceding it were added as insertions to the typescript copyedited by Houghton Mifflin (Typescript 3b, 172A); they were among the last substantial changes O’Dell made. 117. See note 90. Aru is almost certainly a name of O’Dell’s invention. In his compositional notes, he also used Aru as part of an Aleut name (Kerlan, box 5, folder 15). 118. The final paragraph of this chapter, which foreshadows Karana’s departure from the island, was a late addition to the text (Typescript 2c, p. 154A).

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The last day of this weather I took the canoe from the cave and paddled around the reef to the sandspit. I did not take Rontu-Aru with me, for while he liked the cold he did not like heat. It was good that he did not come with me. The day was the hottest of all and the sea shimmered with red light. Over my eyes I wore shields made of wood with small slits in them to see through. No gulls were flying, the otter lay quiet in the kelp, and the little crabs were deep in their holes. I pulled the canoe up on the beach, which was wet but steaming from the sun. Early every spring I took the canoe to the sandspit and spread fresh pitch in the cracks that needed it. I worked all this morning, stopping from time to time to cool off in the sea. As the sun climbed high I turned the canoe over and crawled under it and went to sleep in the shade. I had not slept long when I was suddenly awakened by what I thought was thunder, but upon looking out from my shelter I saw that there were no clouds in the sky. Yet the rumbling sound kept on. It came from a distance, from the south and, as I listened, grew louder. I jumped to my feet. The first thing that caught my gaze was the gleaming stretch of beach on the southern slope of the sandspit. Never in my life on the island had I seen the tide so low. Rocks and small reefs that I did not know were under the sea stood bare in the blinding light. It was like another place. I had gone to sleep and wakened on another island. The air was suddenly tight around me. There was a faint sound as if some giant animal were sucking the air in and in through its teeth. The rumbling came closer out of an empty sky, filling my ears. Then beyond the gleam of the beach and the bare rocks and reefs, more than a league beyond them, I saw a great white crest moving down upon the island. It seemed to move slowly between the sea and the sky, but it was the sea itself. I tore off the shields I wore over my eyes. In terror I ran along the sandspit. I ran and stumbled and got up and ran again. The sand shuddered under my feet as the first wave struck. Spray fell around me like rain. It was filled with pieces of kelp and small fish. By following the curve of the sandspit I could reach the cove and the trail that led to the mesa, but there was no time for this. Water was already rushing around my knees, pulling from every direction. The cliff rose in front of me and though the rocks were slippery with sea moss I found a hold for a hand and then a foot. Thus, a step at a time, I dragged myself upward. The crest of the wave passed under me and roared on toward Coral Cove.

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For a time there was no sound. Then the sea began to seek its old place, running backward in long, foaming currents. Before it could do so another great wave moved out of the south. Perhaps it would be even bigger than the first one. I looked up. The cliff rose straight above me. I could climb no farther. I stood facing the rock, with my feet on a narrow ledge and one hand thrust deep into a crack. Over my shoulder I could see the wave coming. It did not come fast, for the other wave was still running out. For a while I thought that it would not come at all because the two suddenly met beyond the sandspit. The first wave was trying to reach the sea and the second one was struggling toward the shore. Like two giants they crashed against each other. They rose high in the air, bending first one way and then the other. There was a roar as if great spears were breaking in battle and in the red light of the sun the spray that flew around them looked like blood. Slowly the second wave forced the first one backward, rolled slowly over it, and then as a victor drags the vanquished, moved in toward the island. The wave struck the cliff. It sent long tongues streaming around me so that I could neither see nor hear. The tongues of water licked into all the crevices, dragged at my hand and at my bare feet gripping the ledge. They rose high above me along the face of the rock, up and up, and then spent themselves against the sky and fell back, hissing past me to join the water rushing on toward the cove. Suddenly all around me was quiet. In the quiet I could hear my heart pounding and knew that my hand still had its hold on the rock and that I was alive. Night came and though I was afraid to leave the cliff I knew that I could never stay there until morning, that I would go to sleep and fall. Neither could I find my way home, so I climbed down from the ledge and crouched at the foot of the cliff. Dawn was windless and hot. The sandspit was strewn with hills of kelp. Dead fish and lobsters and pink crabs lay everywhere, and two small whales were stranded against the rock walls of the cove. Far up the trail that led to the mesa I found things from the sea. Rontu-Aru was waiting at the fence. When I crawled under it he jumped upon me and followed me around, never letting me out of his sight. I was glad to be home on the high headland where the waves had not come. I had been gone only from one sun to the next, yet it was like

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many suns, like the time I had gone away in the canoe. Most of the day I slept, but I had many dreams and when I awoke everything around me was strange. The sea made no sounds on the shore. The gulls were quiet. The earth seemed to be holding its breath, as though it were waiting for something terrible to happen. At dusk I was coming back from the spring with a basket of water on my shoulder, walking along the cliff with Rontu-Aru. Everywhere, the ocean was smooth and yellow and it lay against the island as if it were very tired. The gulls were still quiet, perched on their rocky nests. Slowly the earth began to move. It moved away from my feet and for a moment I seemed to be standing in the air. Water tipped out of the basket and trickled over my face. Then the basket fell to the ground. Not knowing what I did, thinking foolishly that another wave was upon me, I began to run. But it was a wave, a wave of earth, and it rippled under me along the cliff.119 As I ran another wave overtook me. Looking back I saw many of them coming out of the south like waves in the sea. The next thing I remember I was lying on the ground and Rontu-Aru was beside me and we were both trying to get to our feet. Then we were running again toward the headland, toward a house that kept moving off into the distance. The opening under the fence had caved in and I had to pull the rocks away before we could crawl through. Night came, but the earth still rose and fell like a great animal breathing. I could hear rocks tumbling from the cliff, falling down into the sea. All night as we lay there in the house the earth trembled and rocks fell, yet not the big one on the headland, which would have fallen if those who make the world shake had really been angry with us. In the morning the earth was quiet once more and a fresh wind that smelled of kelp blew out of the northern sea.

chapter 28 The earthquake did little damage. Even the spring, which failed to flow for several days, started up again and flowed more than ever. But the great waves had cost me all the food and weapons which were stored in

119. Although rare, earthquakes with tsunamis have occurred off the coast of Southern California. Mission and other records detail such an event in 1812, just a bit over two decades before the Lone Woman’s isolation on San Nicolas Island began.

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the cave, as well as the canoe I had been working on and those hidden under the south cliffs. The canoes were the biggest loss. To find enough wood to make another would have taken me all the spring and summer. I therefore set out on the first fair morning to search for whatever wreckage the waves had washed ashore. Among the rocks near the south cliffs I found a part of one canoe, buried in sand and twisted kelp. I worked all morning to dig it free and then, having scraped it clean, could not decide what to do. I could cut the sinews and carry the planks up the cliff two at a time on my back and across the dunes to Coral Cove, which meant many days. Or I could build the canoe here on the rocks and take the chance that another storm would wash it away before I was finished. I finally did neither of these things. Choosing a day when the sea was calm, I floated what was left of the canoe and, pushing it in front of me, made my way past the sandspit and into the cove. There I took the wreckage apart and moved the planks up the trail, beyond the place where the great waves had reached. I found the remains of my other canoe. It had been washed far back in the cave and I could not get it out, so I went back to the south cliffs and hunted among the piles of kelp until I had enough pieces of wood, counting what I already had, to begin the building of another. It was late in the spring now. The weather was still unsettled, with light rain falling most of the days, but I started the new canoe anyway, for I needed it to gather shellfish. No longer did I think of the Aleuts, as I have said, yet without a canoe to go where I wanted, I felt uneasy. The planks were all about the same size, the length of my arm, but they came from different canoes and were therefore hard to fit together. The holes were ready, however, which saved me much labor and time. Another help was that the great waves had washed ashore long strings of black pitch, which was often difficult to find on the island and which I needed. When I had sorted out the planks and shaped them, the work went fast, so that by late spring I was ready to finish the seams. It was on a windy morning that I made a fire to soften the pitch. The wind was cold and it took a long time to get the fire going. To hasten it I went down to the beach for dry seaweed. I had started back with my arms filled when I turned to look at the sky, thinking from the feel of the wind that a storm might be close. Off to the north the skies were clear, but in the east from whence storms

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sometimes came at this season, stood banks of gray clouds, one on top of the other. At this moment, in the deep shadows cast by the clouds, I saw something else. Forgetting that I was carrying a load of seaweed, I threw up my arms. The seaweed fell to the ground. A sail, a ship, was there on the sea, halfway between the horizon and the shore! By the time I had reached the headland it was much closer, moving quickly on the strong wind. I could see that it did not have the red, beaked prow of the Aleuts. Nor did it look like the white men’s ship, which I clearly remembered. Why had it come to the Island of the Blue Dolphins? I crouched on the headland and wondered, my heart beating fast, if the men who sailed it had come to catch otter. If they were hunters, I must hide before they saw me. They would soon find my fire and the canoe I was making, yet I could go to the cave and probably be safe from them. But if they had been sent by my people to take me away, then I should not hide. The ship moved slowly between the black rocks and into Coral Cove. I could see the men now and they were not Aleuts. They lowered a canoe and two of the men paddled toward the beach. The wind had begun to blow hard and the men had trouble landing. Finally one of them stayed behind in the canoe, and the other, the man without a beard, jumped into the water and came along the beach and up the trail. I could not see him, but after a while I heard a shout, then another, and I knew that he had found my fire and the canoe. The man he had left in the cove did not answer, nor did the men on the ship, so I was sure that he was calling to me. I crawled down from the rock and went to the house. Since my shoulders were bare, I put on my otter cape.120 I took my cormorant skirt and the abalone box in which I kept my necklace and earrings. With RontuAru I then went along the trail that led to Coral Cove. I came to the mound where my ancestors had sometimes camped in the summer. I thought of them and of the happy times spent in my house on the headland, of my canoe lying unfinished beside the trail. I thought

120. This cape was presumably well worn. In chapter 24, Karana told readers: “I had an otter cape for my shoulders, which I used until it wore out, but never again did I make a new one.”

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of many things, but stronger was the wish to be where people lived, to hear their voices and their laughter. I left the mound and the green grass growing on it among the white shells. I could no longer hear the man calling, so I began to run. When I came to the place where the two trails met, where I had built my fire, I found the footsteps the man had left. I followed them down to the cove. The canoe had gone back to the ship. The wind was screaming now and mist blew in across the harbor and waves began to pile up on the shore. I raised my hand and shouted. I shouted over and over, but the wind carried my voice away. I ran down the beach and waded into the water. The men did not see me.121 Rain started to fall and the wind drove it against my face. I waded farther out through the waves, raising my arms to the ship. Slowly it moved away in the mist. It went toward the south. I stood there until it was out of sight.

chapter 29 After two more springs had gone, on a morning of white clouds and calm seas, the ship came back. At dawn I saw it from the headland far out on the horizon. When the sun was overhead it lay anchored in Coral Cove. Until the sun went down I watched from the headland while the men made a camp on the shore and built a fire. Then I went to my house. All night I did not sleep, thinking of the man who once had called to me. I had thought of his voice calling for a long time, since the night of the storm when the ship had sailed away. Every day during those two springs and two summers I had gone to the headland and watched, always at dawn and again at dusk. In the morning I smelled smoke from their fire. I went down to the ravine and bathed in the spring and put on my otter cape and my cormorant skirt.122 I put on the necklace of black stones and the 121. In his memoir, The Life and Adventures of George Nidever, the otter hunter describes how he and his crew found the Lone Woman on the last of three trips he took to San Nicolas Island between April 1852 and May 1853. On the first two trips, Nidever found evidence of a woman’s presence, but he did not see the woman herself. He and his companions, who included Carl Dittman, left the island due to brewing storms. Dittman described similar sightings in his memoir, Narrative of a Seafaring Life on the Coast of California. 122. A number of sources O’Dell likely consulted in his research on the Lone Woman include a description of the Nicoleña stopping to bathe when she was en route to the otter hunters’ camp. See the introduction to this volume.

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black earrings. With blue clay I made the mark of our tribe across my nose. Then I did something that made me smile at myself. I did what my older sister Ulape had done when she left the Island of the Blue Dolphins. Below the mark of our tribe I carefully made the sign which meant that I was still unmarried. I was no longer a girl, yet I made it anyway, using the blue clay and some white clay for the dots.123 I went back to the house then and built a fire and cooked food for Rontu-Aru and me. I was not hungry and he ate my food and his too. “We are going away,” I said to him, “away from our island.” But he only put his head to one side, as his father often had done, and when I said no more, he trotted out to a sunny place and lay down and fell asleep. Now that the white men had come back, I could not think of what I would do when I went across the sea, or make a picture in my mind of the white men and what they did there, or see my people who had been gone so long. Nor, thinking of the past, of the many summers and winters and springs that had gone, could I see each of them. They were all one, a tight feeling in my breast and nothing more. The morning was full of sun. The wind smelled of the sea and the things that lived in it. I saw the men long before they saw the house on the headland, far off on the dunes to the south. There were three of them, two tall men and one who was short and wore a long gray robe. They left the dunes and came along the cliff, and then seeing the smoke from the fire which I kept burning, they followed it, and at last reached my house. I crawled under the fence and stood facing them. The man in the gray robe had a string of beads around his neck and at the end of it was an ornament of polished wood. He raised his hand and made a motion toward me which was the shape of the ornament he wore.124 Then one of the two men who stood behind him spoke to me. His words made the strangest sounds I have ever heard. At first I wanted to laugh, but I bit my tongue. I shook my head and smiled at him. He spoke again, slowly this time, and though his words sounded the same as before and meant nothing to me, they now seemed sweet. They were the sound of a human voice. There is no sound like this in all the world. 123. On the significance of Karana’s statement that she was no longer a girl, see the introduction to this volume. 124. No priest was present during the Lone Woman’s removal from San Nicolas Island. Furthermore, the Franciscans in California wore brown robes, not gray ones.

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The man lifted his hand and pointed toward the cove and made a picture in the air of what could have been a ship. To this I nodded and myself pointed to the three baskets I had placed by the fire, making a gesture of taking them with me to the ship. Also the cage in which I had put two young birds. There were many gestures before we left, though the two men spoke among themselves. They liked my necklace, the cape, and the cormorant skirt that shone in the sun. But when we got to the beach, where their camp was, the first thing the man who spoke the most did was to tell the other men to make me a dress. I knew this was what he said because one of them stood in front of me and held up a string from my neck to my feet and across my shoulders. The dress was blue. It was made of two trousers, just like those the white men were wearing. The trousers were cut up into pieces and then one of the men sat down on a rock and put them together again with white string.125 He had a long nose, which looked like the needle he used. He sat all afternoon on the rock and the needle went back and forth, in and out, flashing in the sun. From time to time he would hold up the dress and nod his head as if he were pleased. I nodded as if I were pleased, too, but I was not. I wanted to wear my cormorant skirt and my otter cape, which were much more beautiful than the thing he was making. The dress reached from my throat to my feet and I did not like it, either the color of it or the way it scratched. It was also hot. But I smiled and put my cormorant skirt away in one of the baskets to wear when I got across the sea, sometime when the men were not around. The ship stayed in Coral Cove nine days.126 It had come for otter, but the otter had gone. Some must have been left, after all, who remembered the Aleuts, for on that morning there were none to be seen. I knew where they had gone. They had gone to Tall Rock, but when the men showed me the weapons they had brought to kill the otter, I shook my head and acted as though I did not understand. They pointed to my otter cape, but I still shook my head.

125. In their memoirs, both George Nidever and Carl Dittman describe Dittman making the Lone Woman a skirt out of “ticking.” This, combined with a man’s shirt, black necktie, and old cloak, creates a complete outfit. See Ellison, Life and Adventures, 85; and Dittman, Seafaring Life, 43 (83 penciled). 126. Nidever and his crew remained on San Nicolas Island for approximately one month after bringing the Lone Woman to their camp. In his memoir, Dittman reports that they obtained “something over 80 otter skins” (Seafaring Life, 45 [87 penciled]).

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I asked them then about the ship that had taken my people away many years before, making the signs of the ship and pointing to the east, but they did not understand. Not until I came to Mission Santa Barbara and met Father Gonzales did I learn from him that this ship had sunk in a great storm soon after it reached his country and that on the whole ocean thereabouts there was no other.127 For this reason, the white men had not come back for me. On the tenth day we sailed. It was a morning of blue skies and no wind. We went straight toward the sun. For a long time I stood and looked back at the Island of the Blue Dolphins. The last thing I saw of it was the high headland. I thought of Rontu lying there beneath the stones of many colors, and of Won-a-nee, wherever she was, and the little red fox that would scratch in vain at my fence, and my canoe hidden in the cave, and of all the happy days. Dolphins rose out of the sea and swam before the ship. They swam for many leagues in the morning through the bright water, weaving their foamy patterns. The little birds were chirping in their cage and Rontu-Aru sat beside me.

author’s note 128 The island called in this book the Island of the Blue Dolphins was first settled by Indians in about 2000 b.c., but it was not discovered by white men until 1602.129

127. The Peor es Nada, which removed the Nicoleños from San Nicolas Island in 1835, did indeed capsize after taking the Lone Woman’s people to San Pedro, California. The myth that there were no boats on the California coast that could make a trip to San Nicolas circulated widely in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century press, but it was false; dozens of sailing vessels were engaged in a thriving trade in the Pacific between California and the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) during the 1830s and ’40s, and ships continued to sail to the southern Channel Islands on otter hunting missions. See Adele Ogden, The California Sea Otter Trade, 1784–1848 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1941). 128. The author’s note was greatly expanded during O’Dell’s drafting process, perhaps in response to Maud and Delos Lovelace’s advice: “Your story is really highly fictionalized, and there’s no harm at all in that. It’s a good way to handle it. But your Note should make this clear, so the historians will not jump on you” (Kerlan, box 5, folder 15). After the manuscript had been submitted to Houghton Mifflin, the author’s note was moved from the front of the novel to the back. 129. It is currently estimated that the first humans settled the island significantly earlier, perhaps up to ten thousand years ago. For a discussion of the European concept of discovery and its significance, see Goldberg’s essay in this volume.

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In that year the Spanish explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno set out from Mexico in search of a port where treasure galleons from the Philippines could find shelter in case of distress. Sailing north along the California coast, he sighted the island, sent a small boat ashore and named it La Isla de San Nicolas, in honor of the patron saint of sailors, travelers, and merchants. As the centuries passed, California changed from Spanish to Mexican hands, the Americans arrived, but only occasional hunters visited the island. Its Indian inhabitants remained in isolation. The girl Robinson Crusoe whose story I have attempted to re-create actually lived alone upon this island from 1835 to 1853, and is known to history as The Lost Woman of San Nicolas. The facts about her are few.130 From the reports of Captain Hubbard, whose schooner carried away the Indians of Ghalas-at, we know that the girl did jump into the sea, despite efforts to restrain her. From records left by Captain Nidever we know that he found her eighteen years later, alone with a dog in a crude house on the headland, dressed in a skirt of cormorant feathers. Father Gonzales of Santa Barbara Mission, who befriended her after her rescue, learned that her brother had been killed by wild dogs. He learned little else, for she spoke to him only in signs; neither he nor the many Indians at the mission could understand her strange language. The Indians of Ghalas-at had long since disappeared.131 The Lost Woman of San Nicolas is buried on a hill near the Santa Barbara Mission. Her skirt of green cormorant feathers was sent to Rome.132 Outermost of the eight Channel Islands, San Nicolas is about seventy-five miles southwest of Los Angeles. For years historians thought that it had been settled some six centuries ago, but recent carbon-14 tests of excavations on the island show that Indians came here from the north long before the Christian era. Their images of the creatures of the land, sea, and air, similar to those found on the shores of Alaska and 130. See this volume’s introduction for a discussion of both the Robinson Crusoe trope and the historical sources from which O’Dell drew his facts. 131. The final sentence of this paragraph, which declares the Nicoleño people vanished, was added in response to the copyeditor’s query: “What about the Indians of Ghalas-at who would have known her language? All scattered or had they been taken to another post?” (Typescript 3b, p. 196). On Island of the Blue Dolphins as a vanishing Indian story, see the introduction to this volume. 132. The actual site of the Lone Woman’s burial is unknown. Numerous accounts claim that her cormorant gown was sent to Rome, but no evidence of the garment has yet been found.

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carved with extraordinary skill, may be seen at the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles. The future of San Nicolas is not clear. It is now a secret base of the United States Navy, but scientists predict that because of the pounding waves and furious winds it will one day be swept back into the sea.133 In the writing of the Island of the Blue Dolphins, I am deeply indebted to Maude and Delos Lovelace, to Bernice Eastman Johnson of the Southwest Museum, and to Fletcher Carr, formerly curator of the San Diego Museum of Man.134

133. From 1957 to 1984, San Nicolas Island housed a facility that functioned as part of the Navy’s Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS), which was used to track submarines. The facility was given the cover name NAVFAC, and its presence on the island, which was part of U.S. Cold War strategy, led to the waters around San Nicolas being classified as restricted. In this sense, San Nicolas Island was a “secret base of the United States Navy,” as O’Dell wrote. Steven J. Schwartz, e-mail message to Sara L. Schwebel, 19 Dec. 2015; see also the IUSS and CAESAR Alumni Association website: www.iusscaa.org. 134. O’Dell misspelled the names of both Maud Lovelace (as Maude) and Bernice Eastman Johnston (as Johnson), and his copyeditor did not catch the mistake. These errors have not been corrected in any edition of the novel to date.

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chapter 22 At dawn I went to the headland. The ocean was like a flat gray stone and the sky was a stone, too. The ship still lay in the cove, but the bales of otter that were piled on the beach had gone. I was certain [the] Aleuts were ready to leave, and I lay on the rock and watched, thinking that I would see Totuk.1 As the sun came up I would see her there on the ship. A red glow showed in the east, like a big camp fire, and it spread over the water, over the reef and the ship. The glow faded. In the clear light I saw three canoes leave the ship. I knew they were going out to hunt otter, which meant that the Aleuts had changed their plans and would not leave San Nicolas until the storm came, perhaps the next day, perhaps later. Quickly I climbed down from the rock and went back to the cave. All morning I waited for Totuk. The air was heavy as it is before a storm but there was no wind. The sun passed overhead and shadows began to fall across the ravine. Still Totuk did not come. It grew dark and the wind blew again. I brushed the ashes from the fire I had made the night before. I fanned the embers alive and put on a bunch of twigs and began to cook supper. Rontu, who was sleeping beside the fire, suddenly stirred. I ran to the mouth of the cave and crawled out. There was a little light in the sky and by it I saw two figures walking toward me. Neither one of them was Totuk. They were dressed in the skins the Aleuts wear and they were men. I was about three steps from the mouth of the cave and my spear was leaning against the rock in front of it, yet before I could reach the spear I was seized from behind and thrown to the earth. Rontu growled and jumped through the mouth of the cave. He leaped at the throat of one of the Aleuts, the one who was holding me, but the other struck him with a club and he fell beside me and lay quiet. The two men dragged me to my feet, though I fought against them with all my strength. The skins they wore were slippery and stank with the smell of otter blood. They held my hands behind my back and shoved me in front of them through the brush. I made no sound as we went down the ravine. I listened for Rontu, but I did not hear him. A canoe was waiting on the shore and the two men took me to the ship. A fire was burning on a flat rock between the masts. Many of the 1. O’Dell used the name Totuk instead of Tutok far into his drafting process.

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hunters sat around it. As I was pushed along the deck they stopped to look at me. The Aleuts tied my hands with sinew and left me in a skin lean-to at one end of the ship. The lean-to was so small that I had to lie down, but through the opening I could see the men sitting around the fire. They were passing a bowl from one to the other, dipping their fingers in it. From the odor that came to me on the wind I knew that the bowl held chichinai, a paste made of water mixed with wild tobacco and the powder of ground sea shells. Some of our men on San Nicolas ate chichinai, which made them act strange and finally fall into a long stupor. I lay there quietly, though I wanted to leap up and tear the skin tent to pieces. I watched the hunters eating the chichinai and wondered how I was ever to get away from them. I thought of jumping into the sea, but with my hands tied at my back I would not be able to swim. I thought about Totuk and doubted that she would help me, for unless she had told them they would never have known where I lived. I could think of nothing that I could do, yet rather than let them take me away I would leap into the water and drown myself. The men around the fire began to talk louder. A moon came up out of the sea and made everything bright. Then thin clouds covered the moon and everything grew dark again, except for the glow of the fire. I lay quietly and again thought about Totuk. The men could not have forced her to tell them that I was on the island because they did not know that I was. Nor could they have had any suspicion that I was there, since the house looked as if it had been deserted for a long time and I had always been careful not to be seen. Could Totuk have told her husband, believing that he would say nothing? I wondered about this, for I did not think that she had betrayed me. Gusts of wind struck the ship and it leaned over to one side. Sparks from the fire flew across the deck and two of the hunters got up to put them out. The rest of the Aleuts sat and watched the two men as they staggered around stamping their feet, laughing wildly when one fell down and the grease on his clothes caught fire.

chapter 23 The island rose black against a black sky. The fire on the rock was dying and the hunters had grown quiet. Over and over I kept wondering about Totuk, doubting that she had betrayed me. At the same time I remembered my father’s warning

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against the Aleuts. Then a new thought suddenly took shape in my mind. Could Totuk feel that it would be better for me to go with her to the country of the Aleuts and live there with her people than to live alone on the island? This was surely the answer to my doubts. I changed my position to ease the bite of the sinews. I looked out into the night, over the hunters seated around the fire. In my mind I saw the house on the headland and my canoe hidden in the cave and the baskets of food stored for winter. I thought about my weapons and earrings and cormorant skirt, and all the labor everything had cost me. But mostly I thought of Rontu. I saw him as I had seen him last, lying quiet at the mouth of the cave, yet breathing, and I knew that because of him and because the island was my home, even though it was sometimes lonely, I would never be happy with the Aleuts. Some day I might come to like them as I liked Totuk, but I would not be happy. I would jump into the sea rather than go with them. Clouds now covered the sky and waves beat against the ship. The hunters sat like stones around a dead fire. Out of the darkness, a figure came quickly towards me, and thinking that it was one of the hunters, I rose to my knees. It was Totuk and she knelt beside me and put her hand on my face. Then she said her word for sea, which I understood, and pointed away, away to the north, making the motion of a ship sailing. “No,” I said softly. Totuk was silent. After a while she whispered to me again. I did not understand any of her words, only the gestures that meant the sea and the ship. “No,” I said and shook my head. Totuk looked behind her at the hunters beside the fire. They did not move. From her skirt she took a knife and with it cut the sinews that bound me. I started to rise, once my hands were free, but she held me back, pointing toward the hunters. Then she pressed my arm and before I could speak her name was gone in the darkness. The wind blew stronger as the night passed. All the hunters were now sprawled out around the dead fire, felled by the chichinai. I crouched in the lean-to, ready to flee, but as I did so, four men who had not eaten from the bowl, came to the deck and began to walk back and forth. Again I lay down and waited. While they were walking along the deck, they kept saying a word that Totuk had taught me. It was shomu and it meant storm. One of the men came to the tent and peered in, but said nothing and went away.

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With the first light of morning the storm struck. Through the rain I saw the men working with the sails. I heard the noise of the anchor being dragged in. Slowly I got to my knees, watching the men. I waited until I could crawl safely out of the tent. Rain fell in my eyes and I could see little. I heard the sails flap. The ship began to move. Now I must go whether they saw me or not. In two leaps I was on my feet and beside the rail. A man who was standing near one of the masts saw me as I climbed over the rail. He shouted and lurched toward me, his hands grasping at my leg like claws. Part of my skirt tore away and I fell. The sea was cold. I slid along the side of the ship and then it was gone in the rain and I could not see it any more, nor hear the man shouting. Gray light showed on the water as I swam. The cliffs rose dark before me, their edges white with the breaking waves. I swam until my feet touched the sand and then I walked out of the waves and onto the beach. Rain was falling and the waves were high, but I could see the Aleut ship. It was far out to sea. Above me on the cliff, as I turned and started up the trail, stood Rontu.

Commentary and Contextualization

Archaeology, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island rené l. vellanoweth professor of archaeology california state university, los angeles

Archaeology is about the things of the past: the residues of lives in the form of the possessions left behind. Think about those objects you carry or have tucked away in a drawer—a lucky talisman, an old weathered coin, a faded picture of your great-great-grandmother. You are surrounded by items that say something about who you are. As an archaeologist, I am fascinated by artifacts—objects modified by humans. I am equally interested in ecofacts—unmodified objects found in archaeological sites—such as food remains, the rocks that were used to line a fire hearth, and unused chunks of ochre, bitumen, and pitch. An association of artifacts and/or ecofacts form what are called “features,” and these tell us about lives in the past. If I remove a burned stone from a fire hearth, all I can say is that I have a burned stone. But when the stone is described along with its associated objects (such as other burned stones, charcoal, charred animal remains, etc.), it becomes something meaningful: a fire hearth that was used to cook and to keep people warm or a place where people shared the events of the day or passed down stories and history. Together, objects (both modified and unmodified) and features form the basis of archaeological research. Analyzing the archaeological record to understand human history is complicated by the fact that things tend to erode, disintegrate, and disappear over time. Ultimately, archaeologists can only analyze what has survived. While some artifacts, like stone tools, endure, items made of wood, 203

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hide, feathers, and even metals can break down quite rapidly. However, in some special circumstances—in caves and rock shelters or in extremely dry, frozen, or waterlogged conditions—many objects fair quite well. This essay places recent archaeological findings about the Lone Woman in the context of excavations on San Nicolas Island dating back to the nineteenth century as well as within the broader history of American archaeology as a discipline. Both the research questions archaeologists have asked and the research methods they have used have changed over time, and this has influenced what we know and can know about the Lone Woman and her people. Because I have been fortunate enough to participate in some of the more recent discoveries related to the Lone Woman and have spent countless hours sifting through San Nicolas Island’s archaeological treasures, I know firsthand the emotional impact of the story. I hope these feelings are conveyed in the following pages.

a brief history of american archaeology The account below aims to provide a quick view of the discipline, without jargon, for a general audience. For those interested in understanding this history in more detail, I suggest consulting Bruce Trigger’s A History of Archaeological Thought (2006) for its comprehensiveness and Matthew Johnson’s Archaeological Theory: An Introduction (2010) for its accessibility. Early Explorers and Culture Historians In the years following the 1853 removal of the Lone Woman, sheep ranching was introduced on San Nicolas Island, and it extracted a terrible toll on the island’s vegetation, which held archaeological sites together. Thousands of artifacts and features became exposed by erosion. Not long after, casual relic hunters started collecting objects from the surface and crudely probing sites with shovels or makeshift tools. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, museums from around the world joined individual treasure hunters, sponsoring expeditions to collect rare, museum-quality artifacts from the island. The modern-day explorers that institutions deployed to San Nicolas Island and the far reaches of the globe are known today as antiquarians. The exotic objects of curiosity they brought back for display were used to tell the story of a disappearing race of “noble savages” that lived in more innocent times, far from the bile of industrialization. Some of the earliest anti-

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quarians to explore the California Channel Islands were Paul Schumacher, Leon de Cessac, and Stephen Bowers, each of whom focused their efforts on the island’s recently eroded graves and cemeteries as well as on the numerous artifacts strewn over the ground. Although their excavation methods were crude, the result of their labor has nonetheless become valuable in piecing together the story of the Nicoleños, in part because they arrived on the island less than twenty-five years after the Lone Woman’s departure. They collected and described literally tons of artifacts, including perishable items. During the early part of the twentieth century, until about 1950, archaeologists associated with local Southern California museums continued to collect island artifacts. Bruce Bryan and Arthur Woodward of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Malcolm Rogers of the San Diego Museum of Man, and Phil Orr of the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum each conducted archaeological explorations on San Nicolas. These men had more formal training in archaeology, anthropology, and geology than the antiquarians who had come before, and they attempted to build a culture history of the island based on the chronological distribution of artifacts and features. As culture historians, these scholars were part of national trends in archaeology that focused on understanding technological development through time by ordering artifacts from simple to complex and comparing human-made objects across broad geographical regions. On San Nicolas Island, archaeologists conducted on-ground surveys and excavations, made relatively detailed descriptions of sites, and plotted this information on maps to show site locations and boundaries. In sitespecific notes, they described the extent and condition of cemeteries, dog burials, house depressions, and whalebone structures. They also noticed that artifacts and burial features of different ages had not remained static but had changed through time, becoming more complex and sophisticated. In short, these were true archaeologists who, far from seeing these artifacts as treasure pieces, tried to understand their place in Californian, American, and world culture history. Science and Process in Archaeology The post–World War II era ushered in a new age for Americanist archaeology. With the development of dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) in the early decades of the twentieth century and radiocarbon dating in the 1940s, and the writing of Walter Taylor, who advocated for a more

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scientific approach to archaeology, the field moved away from its singular focus on artifacts, and archaeologists started to examine sites as repositories of information about human culture. Reflecting the introduction of science into archaeology, Clement Meighan of the University of California, Los Angeles, published two papers in the 1950s that argued for ecological interpretation in archaeology, and he used examples from California’s Santa Catalina Island to do so. These publications set the groundwork for the study of food remains, and the California Channel Islands, with their abundant middens, became the ideal proving grounds for local archaeologists. The social upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s materialized in archaeology as a full-scale attack on the attitudes and ideas of previous generations. The result was processual archaeology. Processual archaeologists strove to make broad statements about the past by looking for commonalities (in forms of subsistence, technology, trade, religion, etc.) among cultures that lived under similar conditions. Like ecologists, they viewed culture as a series of subsystems that worked to maintain and balance a group of people within a particular environment. Leading the charge in this new methodology was the larger-than-life Lewis Binford. He and his colleagues and students argued that archaeology must be explicitly scientific in its approach and rooted in quantitative methods. They called for archaeologists to use the scientific method—observation, classification, generalization, and testing of hypotheses—that was employed in the natural and physical sciences. To come up with universal and testable ideas, processual archaeologists focused on ethnographic analogy and what has been called experimental archaeology. They began to live with modern-day huntergatherers to make observations about how they lived (including how they discarded trash). Their observations allowed them to make inferences about the spatial distribution of artifacts and features within archaeological sites. To understand the artifacts themselves, archaeologists also began to experiment with making and using traditional tools and weapons. After making artifacts and using them to hunt and grind seeds and chop down trees, they would analyze the resulting marks, grooves, nicks, and scratches and compare these to archaeological examples. Much of the work conducted on the California Channel Islands since the 1980s has been processual in nature, although without explicitly being called such. On San Nicolas Island, for instance, my students and I have analyzed food remains, made and used traditional implements, plotted the spatial distribution of artifacts and features in

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sites, examined the chemical make-up of dog and fox bones, and used scientific techniques to identify stone tool residues. The Rise of a Postmodern World During the latter half of the twentieth century, archaeology was shaped by a growing distrust of science, which had come to permeate all aspects of Western life. As scholars across the humanities and social sciences claimed that knowledge was biased and filtered through cultural norms and individual motivation (e.g., greed, ego, and social conformity), the very foundation of scientific inquiry was challenged. Known in the discipline as post-processual or interpretative archaeology, scholars such as Ian Hodder, Janet Spector, Margaret Conkey, and Rosemary Joyce argued for the plurality of different archaeologies, suggesting that archaeological explanation was an interpretive and narrative process imbued with the subjective voice of the author. A number of aspects of post-processual archaeology paved the way for research on the Lone Woman, a nineteenth-century figure. Postprocessualists sought the active individual in the archaeological record, and they criticized their predecessors for viewing people as part of faceless cultural systems rather than as members of groups and as individuals with ideas, motivations, and constraints. They also believed that archaeology had been dominated by a Western perspective that led to it being focused on hunting, warfare, and other male-gendered activities. They argued for a more inclusive archaeology that considered the role of women and children in creating the archaeological record, and they enlisted the voice of Native peoples to interpret and explain their own history. The influence of postmodern perspectives on Channel Islands archaeology is still playing out, but it can be seen in studies that have interpreted historical sites as multiethnic places where people from around the globe commingled. On San Nicolas Island, this includes the era of the Lone Woman, a time when Russian fur traders, Alaska Native sea otter hunters, Chinese abalone fishermen, European ranchers, and California Nicoleños overlapped in their use of the island.

recent discoveries and new directions The Lone Woman’s story has previously been told primarily in written sources: the transcribed memoirs of otter hunters, ethnographic testimonies, journalists’ accounts, and Scott O’Dell’s novel. But material objects—

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a cormorant-feather cape, a sea grass skirt, a bone knife, a wooden spoon, and a shell fishhook, all of which she reportedly brought with her to the mainland—are powerful reminders of who she was. Archaeological investigations on San Nicolas Island since 2009 have yielded more such artifacts, and I have been fortunate to be part of that process. I cannot express in words the overwhelming responsibility I feel in reconstructing the Lone Woman’s story through the archaeological record or the emotional toll it has sometimes taken on me. I only wish readers could see firsthand the incredible discoveries my colleagues, students, and I have made and witness the painstaking hours it has taken to piece together the wonderful puzzles presented. A Cove and a Village As readers of Island of the Blue Dolphins know, the novel opens with Karana and her brother gathering roots near Coral Cove. They spot a Russian ship on the horizon. As the news spreads, the women of Ghalas-at gather on the mesa’s edge while the men, weapons in hand, speed down the trail from the village to meet the new arrivals. From a geographic and archaeological perspective, Scott O’Dell could not have picked a better place to begin his story. Coral Cove, known today as Corral Harbor, actually exists and is one of the few navigable harbors on the island. Moreover, as O’Dell describes in chapter 1, the harbor is contained by a wave-carved sandstone face with an entrance (“two rocks”) that allows the ocean water to enter and form a gently curving, semicircular embayment. The lush kelp forests that surround San Nicolas Island enclose the harbor and above it are a series of ancient marine terraces, the uppermost one creating the island’s central plateau, a large and relatively flat landform dissected by many ravines and gullies that have developed where rainwater has eroded the island’s surface. It is here, at the edge of the plateau, which is roughly five hundred feet in elevation and offers a commanding view of Corral Harbor and beyond, that O’Dell placed his fictional village of Ghalas-at. Even though he likely had no idea, this is the exact location of the last Native village on the island, which was also perhaps the birthplace of the Lone Woman. Tule Creek Site (CA-SNI-25) In 2001, I started a research program designed to uncover intact archaeological features on San Nicolas Island. I selected an excavation site

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based on previous research: Patricia Martz’s 1996 excavation of a small unit (or carefully dug, square-shaped hole) within the area and Steven Schwartz’s documentary findings, which had shown it to be a site of collection for many antiquarians. Known colloquially as the Tule Creek site (named after a local freshwater source), its official archaeological name is CA-SNI-25. The site overlooks the island’s north shore. The work my students and I conducted over a period of years uncovered numerous discrete trash pits, fire hearths, and living surfaces; hundreds of shell fishhooks; thousands of shell and stone beads, arrow points, stone drills, sandstone grinding tools, broken soapstone bowls, complete pendants, tarring pebbles, and bitumen; and a huge array of food remains, including discarded shellfish of a variety of species and the bones of different types of birds, sea mammals, and bony and cartilaginous fishes. Radiocarbon dates for the site suggest it was used for over five thousand years and that the upper layers, which contained all the village-related features described above, dated to between about 1300 and the early 1800s. Analyses of the food remains found at the site suggest that the majority of meat consumed by the Lone Woman’s immediate ancestors came from fish, sea otters, and sea lions, supplemented by abalone, mussels, and sea snails. Tubers, corms, seeds, cactus fruits, kelps, and other plants provided most of the plant-based starches and sugars, as well as critical dietary vitamins. These food items also likely contributed to the Lone Woman’s diet while she was on the island by herself. Historical accounts of the Lone Woman point to some of these same food resources. But did the Lone Woman have to contend with foodgathering taboos? Did she need to maintain culturally bound restrictions on what she could hunt or gather and consume? Many Native and other traditional cultures have strict rules about food that dictate when, where, and by whom certain plants and animals can be gathered, dispatched, prepared, and consumed. Perhaps survival, psychological well-being, and an understanding of a changing world outweighed any traditional notions that otherwise might have constrained the Lone Woman’s behavior. We may never know. However, recent discoveries hint at what might have happened during those eighteen fateful years of relative solitude. Wild Dogs of San Nicolas Island Beginning in the field season of 2006, my team discovered a double dog burial in an area of the Tule Creek site used for religious ceremonies.

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The juvenile dogs, both female and less than six months old at death, were likely sacrificed and carefully placed side by side, the smaller puppy within the embrace of the larger. The dogs’ stomach contents, likely their last meals, were found intact and consisted of burned fish bones and gnawed and pitted sea mammal bones. In pits adjacent to and surrounding the double dog burial, we found unusual stacked stone features made of exotic (not endemic to the island) and local materials, as well as ochre pigments, toshaawt stones (known to have been used by shamans across California), calcite crystals, and a shaped but unfinished piece of soapstone. I cannot help but wonder if the soapstone carving was left unfinished to symbolize that the dogs’ lives had been cut short. A year later, some thirty feet away, we found what we would eventually identify as a triple dog burial. This burial feature consisted of three adult male dogs, each curled on its stomach to form a rough circle with head over paw and tail folded to the side. The dogs, which were sacrificed and buried at the same time, were laid together to form a larger circle and were buried alongside exotic and locally made artifacts. These dogs, which were relatively old when sacrificed (between five and ten years), showed considerable trauma and pathology. One dog in particular showed evidence of healed fractures, including an area of the scapula that exhibited a massive trauma, perhaps from a sea lion bite, which had healed over. They also bore marks on their necks and back bones, suggesting that they pulled simple sleds across the island while wearing harnesses. The dog burials at the Tule Creek site clearly suggest that the animals, instead of being wild, were well-trained working dogs and pets that were a part of village life. They were fed the same food as humans and were incorporated into the community’s religious customs as sacrificial offerings, a practice common in the past among Uto-Aztecan speaking cultures throughout North America. Evidence from the Tule Creek sites falls in line with the accounts of the 1853 Nidever expedition, whose party members indicated that the Lone Woman had dogs around her, which began barking when the men approached; she voiced a command, and the canine clamor came to a halt. Clearly, the dogs of San Nicolas Island were not wild. Boxes in a Cliff In 2009, while searching for evidence of San Nicolas Island’s earliest inhabitants, a team of researchers from the University of Oregon, led by

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Jon Erlandson and Troy Davis, along with Navy archaeologist Lisa Thomas and I, stumbled upon an incredible historical treasure. I remember it like it happened yesterday. It was a typical cloudy October day with constant wind and a threat of rain. The team split up to cover more ground, as we had only a couple of fieldwork days left before returning to our lives on the mainland. I had just finished surveying a deeply incised ravine and was hiking to our agreed-upon meeting destination when I saw Erlandson beckon to me, a grin on his face. When I got to him, he was standing at the edge of a cliff, pointing down to a small ledge and crevice. “Check this out, dude,” he said. When I craned my neck and carefully bent over to see what he was pointing at, I almost fell over in my astonishment. Erlandson had found two redwood boxes covered with a whalebone rib in a sandy crevice above a small rocky ledge. Below the ledge, the cliff face plummeted to a rocky intertidal zone. With daylight diminishing, we took photographs, left the field, and made plans to return the next day to remove the boxes intact so that their contents could be excavated under controlled conditions. While removing the boxes the following morning, we found four bitumen-coated baskets that we decided to rebury and remove later. Two of the baskets were water bottles or canteens and are among the finest examples of such ever recorded. Once we had the opportunity to excavate the boxes under controlled laboratory conditions, we were amazed at what we found. Inside were more than two hundred artifacts, including eleven knives with stone blades and redwood handles; numerous Southern California chert and European-American glass projectile points; soapstone beads and animal effigies; a stone pipe with a wad of tobacco; bird-bone whistles; bone and shell beads; abalone-shell dishes; eccentric shell fishhooks; Alaska Native toggling harpoon points, a ground slate knife, and an adze blade; European-American metal harpoon blades, pieces of metal and glass, and a brass button; and numerous other artifacts, as well as unmodified shells, bones, and teeth. In all, this feature consisted of an amalgamation of Nicoleño, Alaska Native, and European-American artifacts stashed by an individual sometime in the early to mid-1800s. At this point, it is impossible to say with certainty that these items were left by the Lone Woman—more detailed analyses are necessary— but many lines of evidence strongly suggest that she was responsible for putting these items in the cliff more than 150 years ago. The Lone Woman was one of only a handful of people who spent time on the island when these artifacts could have been made and the only permanent occupant

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of the island from 1835 to 1853. Moreover, documentary sources indicate that the Lone Woman had a penchant for stashing things at different places across the island, likely a survival mechanism of someone living alone who could not call for help. The majority of the artifacts in the redwood boxes are clearly Nicoleño in origin, and the baskets and tarlined water bottles found nearby are also of local design. The unusual, somewhat fanciful and eclectic fishhooks are emblematic of someone with time on her hands and with an understanding of local material culture. The boxes also contain Alaska Native artifacts. The Lone Woman could have been of both Nicoleño and Alaska Native ancestry, owing to the presence of Aleut or Kodiak Islander sea otter hunters on the island in the early 1800s; this could explain the combination of different artifact styles. Although we may never know who placed these boxes and baskets in the cliff ledge, it certainly seems plausible that it was the Lone Woman herself. This makes this find one of the few direct links to her life and one of the most important discoveries about her ever made. A Cave Is a Home Numerous accounts by explorers, sheep ranchers, U.S. Navy personnel, and U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (USCGS) employees suggest the presence of at least two caves on San Nicolas Island that were potentially used by the Lone Woman. The Cave of the Whales, a surge channel formed by wave action, is located on the south coast of the island and contains faint paintings and etchings of marine animals and other, more ambiguous, designs. This cave is well known to archaeologists and has been thoroughly documented. Finding a second cave on the south coast was for many years more problematic, and in 2011 Steven Schwartz (then the Navy’s chief archaeologist on San Nicolas Island) put together a team (which included myself) to conduct a detailed search for this “lost” cave (figure 18). Schwartz compiled a lengthy list of sources, including an 1879 USCGS map and field survey notes obtained by Scott Byram of the University of California, Berkeley, with a mark labeled “Indian Cave,” and together we began the process of searching in the field. We had a good understanding of how the landscape on the island had changed over time, and we knew that ancient sea levels, which were higher than today’s, had carved out or deposited various landforms, including marine terraces, fossil beaches, and caves. We also knew that, being composed primarily of sandstone and other sedimentary rocks, the island contained huge sand

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18. Archaeologist Steven J. Schwartz in front of a storage cabinet in the curation facilities on San Nicolas Island, 2012. The building in which the curation facility is now housed was built during the Cold War, and it played a central role in the Navy’s Integrated Undersea Surveillance System. (Photograph by Sara L. Schwebel)

dunes and dune fields that had moved around due to strong winds. What we hadn’t fully appreciated, but soon realized, was how extensively sheep ranching had changed the erosional cycles of the island through vegetation stripping, fence building, and other destructive activities. All of the above made it difficult to determine where to begin in our search for the cave. We decided to work in an area that, for all intents and purposes, seemed dubious. There was no direct evidence or even suggestion that a cave was present in that particular part of the island. A small, thin,

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19. Students of René L. Vellanoweth work to remove more than forty thousand buckets of sand (the equivalent of a million pounds) from the cave believed to have been used by the Lone Woman, her people, and their ancestors. (Photograph by Steven J. Schwartz)

wind-carved crevice in an old fossil beach deposit was the only clue we had, which didn’t seem promising at all. But this had to be the place. Schwartz asked me to gather a workforce of trained individuals to begin excavations. I immediately turned to my graduate students, who had lots of experience digging on the island and knew its cultural resources well. We began digging. And digging. After hauling out more than forty thousand buckets of sand, the equivalent of a million pounds, we hit pay dirt, so to speak, uncovering a cave that is at a minimum seventyfive feet long, twenty feet wide, and as of now, twenty feet deep (figures 19 and 20). In the process, we found inscriptions on the walls dating to 1911, a metal bucket, random pieces of wood and rusty metal, the remains of a Chinese abalone-fishing camp, and two glass bottles from about the 1800s. All of these items were in correct stratigraphic position, youngest to oldest, suggesting that the site was rapidly buried by wind and waterborne sediments after it had been abandoned. If we are correct in our assessment, then the layers containing evidence of the Lone Woman’s life and times are only a few feet below our current excavated surface. In fact, with a cave of this size, we expect that, locked up in its sediments, is the entire cultural and envi-

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20. René L. Vellanoweth at the mouth of the cave the Lone Woman is thought to have lived in, 2012. (Photograph by Steven J. Schwartz)

ronmental history of the island over the past twenty thousand years or so—including the first human colonization, the advent of technological innovations, the dawn of complex social behavior, the maintenance of religious systems, and the lives of its last Native inhabitants. Truly, this is a remarkable find, and when we return to the site for further work, it may prove to be one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of our generation.

conclusions Archaeologists’ changing perspectives on the past have dictated the focus of their inquiries. While they continue to rely on material remains to reconstruct ancient cultures and the lives of distant people, practitioners of archaeology have moved from treasure hunting to an emphasis on artifacts and design to science and culture and finally to questioning scientific objectivity, and the field has been transformed accordingly. As archaeology continues to evolve, the forgotten stories of the past will become increasingly clear. Today, the Lone Woman of San Nicolas is known mostly from what people observed during her last days on the island and the few weeks she

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spent on the mainland. Perhaps no more than three months of her life is used to tell her complete history. But to understand the Lone Woman’s life—where she was born, what she ate, where she lived, how she engaged with the spiritual world—it is important to go beyond the few historical accounts documenting her final days. To archaeologists, the story of the Lone Woman is ultimately a narrative about not just one person but also her ancestors, both immediate and distant. It is a story told through the study of artifacts and features—the archaeological record of her people, the Nicoleños. By examining this material evidence, a more complete picture of the Lone Woman’s life begins to emerge: the story of a woman— the last of her people on San Nicolas Island—stranded at home.

further reading Ainis, Amira F., René L. Vellanoweth, Queeny G. Lapeña, and Carol S. Thomber. “Using Non-Dietary Gastropods in Coastal Shell Middens to Infer Kelp and Seagrass Harvesting and Paleoenvironmental Conditions.” Journal of Archaeological Science 49 (2014): 343–60. Bartelle, Barney G., René L. Vellanoweth, Elizabeth S. Netherton, Nicholas W. Poister, William E. Kendig, Amira F. Ainis, Ryan J. Glenn, Johana V. Marty, Lisa ThomasBarnett, and Steven J. Schwartz. “Trauma and Pathology of a Buried Dog on San Nicolas Island, California, USA.” Journal of Archaeological Science 37, no. 11 (2010): 2721–34. Bowers, Stephen. “San Nicolas Island.” In Ninth Annual Report of the State Mineralogist 1889, edited by William Irelan, 57–61. Sacramento, CA: California State Mining Bureau, 1890. Brown, Kaitlin M., Jacques Connan, Nicholas W. Poister, René L. Vellanoweth, John Zumberge, and Michael H. Engle. “Sourcing Archaeological Asphaltum (Bitumen) from the California Channel Islands to Submarine Seeps.” Journal of Archaeological Science 43 (2014): 66–76. Brown, Kaitlin M., and René L. Vellanoweth. “Linking the Artifact to the Activity: Tarring Pebble Classification and the Use of Asphaltum on San Nicolas Island, California.” California Archaeology 6, no. 1 (2014): 1–22. Bryan, Bruce. Archaeological Explorations on San Nicolas Island: Southwest Museum Papers 22. Los Angeles, CA: Southwest Museum, 1970. ———. “Collecting Indian Relics on a Desert Island.” [Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History] Museum Graphic 1, no. 4 (1926): 145–50. Cessac, Leon de. “Observations sur des fetiches de pierre sculptés en forme d’animaux décovert à l’île de San Nicolas (Californie)” (Observations on rock fetiche sculptures in animal form discovered on San Nicolas Island [California]). Revue d’Ethnographie 1 (1882): 30–40. Erlandson, Jon M., Lisa Thomas-Barnett, René L. Vellanoweth, Steven J. Schwartz, and Daniel R. Muhs. “From the Island of the Blue Dolphins: A Unique Nineteenth-Century Cache Feature from San Nicolas Island, California.” Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 8, no. 13 (2013): 66–78. Guttenberg, Richard B., René L. Vellanoweth, William E. Kendig, Rebekka G. Knierim, and Steven J. Schwartz. “Geographic Information Systems as a Tool for Intra-Site

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Spatial Analysis on San Nicolas Island, California.” In Small Islands, Big Implications: The California Channel Islands and Their Archaeological Contribution, edited by Jennifer Perry and Christopher Jazwa, 97–112. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2013. Johnson, Matthew. Archaeological Theory: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2010. Kendig, William E., René L. Vellanoweth, Kevin N. Smith, Jennie A. Allen, Chelsie A. Smith, and Angelique M. Points. “The Use of Replicative Studies to Understand the Function of Expedient Tools: The Sandstone Saws of San Nicolas Island, California.” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 30, no. 2 (2010): 193–210. Knierim, Rebekka G., René L. Vellanoweth, William E. Kendig, Barney G. Bartelle, and Richard B. Guttenberg. “Portable Religious Stone Features from a Ceremonial Complex on San Nicolas Island, California.” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 33, no. 1 (2013): 39–51. Martz, Patricia C. “Prehistoric Settlement and Subsistence on San Nicolas Island.” Proceedings of the Sixth California Islands Symposium, December 1–3, 2003. Edited by David K. Garcelon and Catherin A. Schwemm. CD-ROM. Arcata, CA: Institute for Wildlife Studies, 2005. Meighan, Clement W. “The Little Harbor Site, Catalina Island: An Example of Ecological Interpretation in Archaeology.” American Antiquity 24, no. 4 (1959): 383–405. Meighan, Clement W., and Hal Eberhart. “Archaeological Resources of San Nicolas Island, California.” American Antiquity 19, no. 2 (1953): 109–25. Meighan, Clement W., David M. Pendergast, Benjamin K. Swartz Jr., and M. O. Wissler. “Ecological Interpretation in Archaeology: Part I.” American Antiquity 24, no. 1 (1958): 1–23. Nash, Stephen E. Time, Trees, and Prehistory: Tree-Ring Dating and the Development of North American Archaeology, 1914–1950. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1999. O’Brien, Michael J., R. Lee Lyman, and Michael Brian Schiffer. Archaeology as a Process: Processualism and Its Progeny. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005. Orr, Phil C. “Return to San Nicolas.” [Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History] Museum Leaflets 20, no. 7 (1945): 75–79. Rogers, Malcolm J. “Report of Archaeological Investigations on San Nicolas Island in 1930.” Bureau of American Ethnology Manuscript (1930): 2102, no. 2. On file, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Schumacher, Paul. “Ancient Grave and Shell Heaps of California.” In Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1874, 335–50. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1875. ———. “Researches in the Kjökkenmöddings and Graves of a Former Population on the Santa Barbara Islands and Adjacent Mainland.” Bulletin of the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories 3, no. 1 (1877): 37–56. Schwartz, Steven J. “Some Observations on the Material Culture of the Nicoleño.” Proceedings of the Sixth California Islands Symposium, December 1–3, 2003. Edited by David K. Garcelon and Catherin A. Schwemm. CD-ROM. Arcata, CA: Institute for Wildlife Studies, 2005. Schwartz, Steven J., and Patricia Martz. “An Overview of the Archaeology of San Nicolas Island, Southern California.” Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 28, 4 (1992): 46–75. Smith, Kevin N., Sebastian K. T. S. Wärmländer, René L. Vellanoweth, Chelsea M. Smith, and William E. Kendig. “Identification of Aragonite and Calcite in Lithic Residues: Sandstone Abraders as Fishhook Production Tools on San Nicolas Island, California.” Journal of Archaeological Science 54 (2015): 287–93.

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Taylor, Royal Ervin. Radiocarbon Dating: An Archaeological Perspective. New York: Academic Press, 1987. Taylor, Walter W. A Study of Archaeology: Memoirs No. 69. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association, 1948. Trigger, Bruce G. A History of Archaeological Thought. 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Vellanoweth, René L., Barney G. Bartelle, Amira F. Ainis, Amanda C. Cannon, and Steven J. Schwartz. “A Double Dog Burial from San Nicolas Island, California, USA: Osteology, Context, and Significance.” Journal of Archaeological Science 35, no. 12 (2008): 3111–23. Whitely, David S. Reader in Archaeological Theory: Post-Processual and Cognitive Approaches. London: Routledge, 1998.

A Counterstory of Native American Persistence carole goldberg jonathan d. varat distinguished professor of law university of california, los angeles

Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins portrays a young woman’s resourcefulness and self-reliance under harsh conditions and extreme isolation. Not far beneath the surface, however, lies another story. That other story has deep roots in American law and literature; it is the narrative of the vanishing Indian. Vanishing Indian stories are accounts of the extinction or complete assimilation of the peoples who occupied North America before Europeans invaded. In Island of the Blue Dolphins, that story plays out clearly as the book ends, when Karana, the protagonist, is portrayed as the last surviving member of her Native village of Ghalas-at. As if to underline the point, the author’s note, describing the events that inspired the book, states that, by the time the real-life “Lost Woman of San Nicolas” was taken to Mission Santa Barbara, “the Indians of Ghalas-at had long since disappeared.” This narrative of the vanishing Indian is both convenient and thoroughly mistaken. It conveniently sweeps aside any moral or legal qualms that people may have about the European colonization of North America and the displacement of the continent’s inhabitants. If the Indians became extinct, whether physically or culturally, they could have no ongoing collective rights to land or self-government that Europeans, and later Americans, would be obliged to respect. The narrative also mistakenly ignores the continued survival and adaptation of Native American tribes to this very day—legally, politically, and culturally. Despite losses of land and population, as well as concerted U.S. government efforts to 219

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eradicate Native social systems, beliefs, and ceremonies, American Indian tribes persist to the present day. More than five hundred tribes are federally recognized, and they govern distinct territories, hold government-to-government relations with the United States, and seek the protection and return of precious cultural resources and the remains of their ancestors. Hundreds of other tribes, including many in California, sustain cultural connections to their ancestral places and are seeking federal recognition. Just as Karana survived by applying her community’s knowledge and adapting it to challenging conditions, so American Indian tribes have survived by renewing and reworking their traditional knowledge to suit their lives in the modern world. That is not the story O’Dell told in Island of the Blue Dolphins, but it is the more accurate one, both historically and in our day. This alternative view of Karana’s story, as a metaphor for tribal survival, is really a three-part tale involving land rights, the power to govern, and cultural claims. Because the hundreds of Native groups that originally occupied North America had different languages, cultures, and economies, and because their encounters with Euroamericans occurred at different times and under different historical circumstances, it is impossible to capture their experiences in one single account. The approach I take in this essay is therefore a more general treatment of each topic—land, governance, and cultural resources—followed by a more specific application of the associated issues to the people of San Nicolas Island.

land rights and the doctrine of discovery When Europeans first arrived in North America, they claimed the lands for their respective kings and queens, despite the fact that, in most cases, indigenous peoples were already living, growing crops, hunting, and fishing on those same territories. Tribal groups generally held the lands, and the tribes operated their own systems of law, allocating specific territories and rights to extended families, clans, or individuals. Under tribal legal systems, community subgroups and members could possess and use those lands but could not sell them to outsiders. From the sixteenth century onward, European powers eagerly sought access to land and other resources in North America. During their first centuries colonizing that continent, European explorers and settlers experienced violent conflict with tribal groups that resisted being dispossessed of their lands and often figured out how to play European

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nations against each other. To facilitate more orderly acquisition of parts of North America, European powers fashioned a legal doctrine known as the Doctrine of Discovery. According to this doctrine, the first European power to reach a part of the continent acquired a property interest in that territory, although the original inhabitants would also retain the right to possess and use the land (like tenants in a modern-day lease). Significantly, the “discovering” European power also acquired a right to extinguish the inhabitants’ remaining rights through either purchase or a “just” war. The British responded to this situation by making treaties with tribal leaders in which tribes ceded (legally transferred) tracts of land to the British Crown in exchange for British promises to respect tribal possession of the remaining lands that the tribes reserved. The Spanish, by contrast, sent over missionaries to convert the Indians and confine them in missions, where they were forced to perform labor to serve Spanish interests. Forcible internment of Indians in the Spanish missions depleted the Native villages of their populations, which allowed the Spanish to view the lands as abandoned and available for settlement. The newly formed United States continued the British practice of treaty making until 1871, when it switched to legislation as the means of setting aside lands for tribes. Over time, the United States has violated many of these treaties and otherwise denied many tribes the protection originally promised for their lands. Nonetheless, the remaining reserved lands, which comprise more than seventy million acres, have provided the territorial basis for tribal governments operating today. Some of these territories, like those of the Navajo Nation, are vast, covering expanses as large as states. Other reservations, especially in California, are much smaller. San Nicolas Island, lying approximately sixty-five miles west of the California coast, was occupied for at least five thousand years before a Spanish captain sailed past it in 1543. Nearly sixty years later, in 1602, Spanish explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno claimed it for his king. Although direct documentation is scarce, archaeological evidence indicates there were probably two villages on the island, holding as many as two hundred to three hundred people. The general practice in Native villages in southern California, both on and off the Channel Islands and across linguistic lines, was that each village consisted of a dominant family line or lineage, and the chosen or hereditary leader of that lineage would be responsible for resolving conflicts over land and other matters within the village. Trade across villages was both essential and robust. Young men and women from the islands married people from outside of their villages, including

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people from villages on the mainland and from other islands where different languages were spoken. Villages had ceremonial and social links but were not politically united. Because it is small in size and the most remote of the California Channel Islands, San Nicolas was spared missionaries rounding up and removing its population. Spaniards and other Europeans were more interested in the fish, seals, and otters surrounding the island than in the land itself or even its people. Nonetheless, contact was hazardous to the Native inhabitants because the Spaniards spread diseases for which the island people had no immunity and depleted animal life on which the islanders depended. In terms of land rights, all of the Channel Islands were treated the same as the mainland—as Spanish and later Mexican holdings that the local governor could grant to those who served his interests. If the original occupants remained on the land after missionaries attempted to remove them, they were entitled to stay there under government protection. But in keeping with the Doctrine of Discovery, these Natives were not treated as owners of the land. No Spanish or Mexican land grants were made on San Nicolas Island, but deadly conflict with hunters caused nearly the entire population to leave for the mainland in 1835. This departing group, probably numbering no more than a few dozen, was brought to San Pedro harbor in Los Angeles and likely intermarried with the local Indians. When the United States defeated Mexico in the Mexican-American War in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transferred California to U.S. control. The United States agreed to recognize Mexican land rights, which included Native rights to possession. Following standard practice, the United States sent treaty negotiators to make treaties with the diverse tribes throughout the state. Eighteen such treaties were negotiated between 1851 and 1852 with more than a hundred Indian tribes and nations, representing approximately 40 percent of the Indians then living in California. All but two of these treaties covered central and northern parts of the state. In all, they reserved more than eight million acres for the participating tribes. But the California delegation in the United States Senate fiercely resisted ratification of the treaties, claiming that the land was too valuable to the non-Native population to be reserved for the Indians. As a result, the Senate rejected the treaties. Congress then passed a law giving recipients of Mexican grants the right to prove up their claims and providing that all lands not approved in this fashion would automatically become public lands of the United States.

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The California Indians were never told their treaties had been rejected and had no way of advancing their rights to possession drawn from Mexican law. As a result, they were left landless and vulnerable to massacres by the non-Native population. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, some tribal groups in California received small reservations through federal legislation or presidential executive orders. Many tribal groups were overlooked in this process, however, and they remained landless. More than a century later, a few of those landless groups have been able to show they were party to unratified treaties and are therefore entitled to recognition and allocation of land by the federal government. However, most Southern California tribes located near urbanizing areas were excluded from both the treaty process and the later provisions of small reservations. Also in the twentieth century, two different acts of Congress allowed very limited compensation to California Indians for the loss of their lands. These acts did not, however, allow the return of the lands to those who had been dispossessed of them. The tribal communities of San Nicolas Island had already been dispossessed of their lands and dispersed on the mainland by the time of the treaty negotiations, so they were never invited to participate in that process. Unencumbered by Mexican land grants, San Nicolas Island became the property of the United States after the Mexican-American War. It has never left federal ownership and is now controlled by the U.S. Navy. Under a federal law passed in 1946, descendants who could prove ancestry from the two villages on San Nicolas were entitled to receive meager compensation for the lands that were taken, but they have not been able to reclaim the island.

governance and tribal sovereignty All Indian tribes, including the communities on San Nicolas Island, governed themselves in the centuries before Europeans invaded. They had governments that took varying forms, and they maintained government-to-government relations with one another. Apart from some limited concessions in treaties, Native nations have never voluntarily surrendered this governing power or given up their sovereignty to the United States. Tribes did not participate in the formation of the United States through the Constitution of 1787, and that constitution asserts only limited federal power over “commerce with the Indian Tribes.” In fact, tribes have continued to maintain government-to-government relations with the United States and each other. In 1924, as part of a larger

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assimilationist policy, the United States incorporated American Indian individuals as U.S. citizens. Even so, citizenship was conferred on all Indians by Congress’s declaration, not by the application of individual Native people, and Congress acknowledged that it would continue to recognize the governmental status and rights of tribes. Over the centuries, the U.S. Supreme Court has asserted broader federal power over tribes and their people. That federal power has been strong enough to displace authority that states would otherwise enjoy within their boundaries. So, for example, state tax laws and laws regulating gaming do not apply to tribes except as Congress permits. Importantly, however, this federal power does not drive out tribal governing authority—also called tribal sovereignty—unless Congress clearly indicates its intention to do so. As a result, lands set aside or “reserved” for Native American tribes, collectively known as “Indian country,” are places where tribes continue to exercise many powers as governments, including the administration of child protection, environmental control, and criminal jurisdiction. Today, most Native nations have governing bodies that make rules for their communities; courts or other justice systems that resolve conflicts; and leaders who represent them in dealings with other Native nations, the United States, state and local governments, and international organizations, such as the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Contests remain in the courts over the extent to which tribes may exercise their powers over nonmembers. And many tribes struggle to find the resources needed to run their government operations. Yet despite these conflicts and challenges, the governing capacity of Native nations continues to grow steadily. Federal Indian policy, affirmed by all recent presidents regardless of their political party, favors tribal self-determination. That federal policy grew from Indian activism of the 1960s and 1970s and was inspired, at least partly, by worldwide movements to overthrow European colonialism in the second half of the twentieth century. Not only is a policy favoring tribal self-government more defensible in moral terms than the alternatives, it is also considered more effective in achieving strong tribal economies and communities because tribal governments are locally accountable and more legitimate in the eyes of the members of the tribes themselves. In California, where 109 federally recognized tribes conduct government-to-government relations with the United States, Congress has adopted a special law that allows the state to share some powers with the tribes. Under a 1953 statute known as Public Law 280, California

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(along with a few other named states) can apply its general criminal laws on reservations but not to the exclusion of tribal law. Public Law 280 was passed at a time when Congress was trying hard to eliminate tribes and their treaty rights, and it is still in effect today, even though the tide turned in federal Indian policy during the 1970s. California tribes have worked hard to develop their governing institutions and economies to meet modern needs without sacrificing longtime, accepted methods of decision making. Tribal gaming has offered some of these tribes the first real infusion of resources to support local education and cultural programs, government apparatus such as tribal courts, and healthy communities. Since 1987, Congress has required states and tribes to make agreements, known as compacts, to manage tribal gaming. Although California tribes had to go to state voters twice to gain such compacts, those tribes with advantageous locations—a minority— have been able to benefit their people significantly. California is also special because of the number of indigenous groups it has that are not recognized as tribes by the federal government. Many of the members of these groups can document that they are descended from peoples that were living in the state at the time of European contact. However, disruptive effects of the Spanish mission system, failure of the U.S. treaty process, and inadequate federal efforts to provide land bases around the turn of the twentieth century have made it difficult for Native groups in California to satisfy federal requirements for federal recognition. Nevertheless, more than seventy-five such groups are petitioning the federal government for recognition. Without it, they cannot establish protected land bases, govern their territories and people, and enjoy most federal benefits that have been established for tribes and tribal members. The state of California does afford members of these non-federally recognized tribes some rights to monitor development on private lands that disrupts burial sites, and where federal law touches on such development, congressional acts may allow them to play a role in protecting places the law describes as “historic.” Furthermore, many of these petitioning groups have active systems of internal self-governance and support for community well-being. The broader authority upheld for federally recognized tribes, however, is denied them under American law. There is currently no Native group petitioning for federal recognition based solely on ties to San Nicolas Island. Reduction and displacement of the island’s population made it easier for federal agents to overlook any claims remaining islanders and their descendants might have.

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However, descendants of the islanders may have intermarried with individuals from tribes that are now federally recognized. That would be consistent with the practice of these tribes before European contact, where autonomous villages, each home to a dominant family line or lineage, welcomed marriage partners from other village lineages. Some of those villages in California gained federal recognition because of fortuities such as encounters with a federal agent in the late nineteenth century, whereas others did not. Today, San Nicolas Island is governed by the U.S. Navy, which has closed the island to the public and uses the site for missile testing and other classified operations.

cultural resources and repatriation Contemporary Native nations invest enormous effort in protecting their spiritual and cultural practices, ceremonial sites, burials, ancestral sites, and traditional knowledge. For too long, governments, private landowners, archaeologists, museums, and even pharmaceutical companies have been involved in outlawing, seizing, and destroying these precious cultural resources. As an exercise of their tribal sovereignty, many tribes have created their own historic and cultural resource protection programs with tribal agencies that regulate archaeological and development activities inside tribal territory and intervene in government decision-making processes for off-reservation sites. Beginning in the 1970s, Congress passed several laws that support tribes in protecting sites from further destruction, conducting their ceremonies, and even reclaiming their ancestors’ remains and culturally significant items from museums and other federally funded institutions. One of the most important of these laws is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA), which requires museums to return, or repatriate, human remains and cultural items to any federally recognized tribe that can demonstrate “cultural affiliation” based on some combination of evidence, including geographic, linguistic, biological, oral historical, and archaeological evidence. A somewhat older law, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, requires federal permission before any excavation or removal of any “material remains of human life or activities which are at least 100 years of age” can occur on federal or tribal lands. Around 1990, the story of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island drove one determined archaeologist, Steve Schwartz, to begin excavations in search of the cave where she lived. With the U.S. Navy’s permis-

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sion, he carried on this work unsuccessfully for more than twenty years. Then, in a breakthrough in 2012, he came upon notes of a nineteenthcentury government surveyor that appeared to pinpoint the location of the cave. The surveyor described his field station as “100 yards eastward of the large cave formerly inhabited by a wild Indian woman who lived there alone for 18 years.” Schwartz enlisted Dr. René Vellanoweth, an archaeologist at California State University, Los Angeles, who had established a field school for his students, and they began removing large amounts of sand from the site. As they neared the floor of the cave, one of the students had qualms about the enterprise and contacted the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, a federally recognized tribe based in Temecula, California, about eighty miles southeast of Los Angeles and seventeen miles from the coast. A few weeks later, after several Pechanga tribe members had visited the site, the Pechanga Band sent letters to the Navy demanding that all archaeological activity on the island, including at the cave, come to a halt. The Navy then ordered Schwartz and his team to stop. Meanwhile, the Pechanga Band prepared a repatriation claim for hundreds of human remains and associated funerary objects that had previously been excavated from the island and were being held or controlled by the Navy. These items had been labeled “culturally unidentifiable,” meaning that they had no affiliation with a currently existing tribe or that their affiliation was with a non-federally recognized tribe. If this were true, the Navy could continue to hold or control these objects and would not have to repatriate them. Challenging that view, the Pechanga’s claim asserted cultural affiliation based on language, oral tradition, connections through material culture, and other archaeological evidence. Notably, they presented evidence that the only four words recorded from the Lone Woman, analyzed recently by two linguistic experts, appear to resemble the Luiseño/Cupeño language, spoken at Pechanga, more than any other. Further, they explained that traditional religious songs of the Pechanga Band’s Luiseño culture connect them to San Nicolas and other southern Channel Islands, reflecting the exceptional religious influence and power that the Luiseño people attributed to the islands. Other sections of their claim document travel, trade, and intermarriage relations between Luiseño and island peoples, as well as common elements of material culture, such as distinctive stones from the islands that are believed to hold ritual power, abalone shells, and ceremonial wands made of wood and other materials. In February 2015, the Navy accepted the Pechanga Band’s claim of

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cultural affiliation and agreed to return all of the remains and cultural objects to them. Non-federally recognized tribes, such as the Tongva, who inhabited the Los Angeles Basin and some of the Channel Islands, may be able to show cultural affiliation as well. Some Tongva groups sent letters of protest to the U.S. Navy challenging the repatriation to the Pechanga Band. However, the fact that these groups lack federal recognition denied them legal rights to make claims under NAGPRA and frustrated their efforts to intervene in the process.

conclusion Although the people of San Nicolas Island may no longer hunt otter and carve beautiful soapstone bowls in their ancestral territory, their departure from the island did not bring the curtain down on a culture or a people. The people of San Nicolas blended with Natives on the mainland, as they had done for millennia, and their songs and ceremonies live on. On a higher level, Karana’s story of resilience and survival is the story of Native America—which is reclaiming land, sovereignty, and culture in our time.

further reading Chari, Sangita, and Jaime M. N. Lavallee, eds. Accomplishing NAGPRA: Perspectives on the Intent, Impact, and Future of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2013. Chiles, Frederic Caire. California’s Channel Islands: A History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. The State of the Native Nations: Conditions under U.S. Policies of Self-Determination. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Phillips, George Harwood. Chiefs and Challengers: Indian Resistance and Cooperation in Southern California, 1769–1906. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014.

Index

Page references followed by fig. indicate an illustration and t indicates a table. Aboriginal California (Heizer), 67n46 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 58–59 Accelerated Reader, 2 ALA (American Library Association), 27, 42. See also Newbery Medal Alaska Native hunters, 4, 15, 39, 64nn7,8, 97n3, 103n22, 106n24, 108n27 Aleut language, 105n Aleuts. See Alaska Native hunters Alexie, Sherman, 50 algae, brown, 114n40 American Library Association (ALA), 27, 42. See also Newbery Medal Anderson, Lauren Elizabeth, 24 fig. Anderson, Scott David, 24 fig. animal sacrifice, 209–10 anti-poverty legislation, 27, 46 antiquarians, 204–5 Ant Ordeal, 10 Archaeological Resources Protection Act (1979), 226 archaeology, 203–18; artifacts, 203–6, 210–12; dog burials, 209–10; ecofacts, 203; experimental, 206; history of, 204–7; “lost” cave on San Nicolas, 212–15, 214–15 figs., 226–27; overview of, 203–4, 215; post-processual, 207; processual, 206–7; protection of cultural

resources, 226–28; recent discoveries/ new directions, 207–15; scientific, 205–6. See also Schwartz, Steven J. “Archeological Resources of San Nicolas Island, California” (Meighan and Eberhart), 64n12, 101n13 Armstrong, William H.: Sounder, 59 authentic literature movement, 48–49, 74n131 Babin, Iakov, 64n8 Baecker, Diann L., 54 Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 8, 66n29 Baranov, Alexander Andreyevich, 100n12 Barrymore, John, 29 baskets, water bottle, 130n, 140n81, 211–12 A Bear Called Paddington (Bond), 44 fig., 73n112 Begg Rock (near San Nicolas Island), 164n Ben Hur (W. Wyler), 28–29, 70n78 Bennett, John E., 54 Binford, Lewis, 206 Bloom, Harold, 26, 69n70 Bond, Michael: A Bear Called Paddington, 44 fig., 73n112 book awards, 2, 27. See also Jugendbuchpreis; Newbery Medal Bowers, Stephen, 204–5

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Boxoffice, 57 Boys’ Life, 58 Bread Loaf writers’ conference (Middlebury College), 28 Bruchac, Joseph, 50 Bryan, Bruce, 205 bull kelp, 114n40, 127n59 Burnett, Frances Hodgson: Little Lord Fauntleroy, 26 Byram, Scott, 212 Cahuilla people, 9, 97n2, 139n79 California: empire building in, 16; indigenous groups in, 225–26; settler colonialism in, 16–17; Spanish missions/ presidios in, 16, 221; U.S. annexation of, 16, 222 Calling All Girls, 58 canoe building, 133n72 Carr, Fletcher, 7, 9 Carson, Rachel: on Island of the Blue Dolphins, 51–52; Silent Spring, 51 The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger), 25–26 Catholic Library Association, 71n89 Cave of the Whales (San Nicolas Island), 146n, 212 Cessac, Leon de, 204–5 Channel Islands: archaeological work on, 206–7; caves as burial sites on, 165n; land rights on, 222; otter hunting on, 4; snakes on, 132n69; surf grass used on, 115n41; villages of, 221–22. See also San Nicolas Island Chastain, Madye Lee: Let’s Play Indian, 37 Cherie (O’Dell family poodle), 96n children’s literature: critiques/scholarly studies of, 26, 69nn69,70; emergence of, 20–21, 25–26; gender in, 53–54; home-awayhome structure of, 33, 71n87; Indians in, 49; by Native American authors, 49–50; recommended readings database for, 75n134; school market for, 48, 48 fig.; sexual violence in, 39, 73n108; without illustrations, 25, 69n65. See also Island of the Blue Dolphins Chowigna (Palos Verdes Peninsula), 100n9 Chumash people, 39, 62, 73n106 Clark, Carol, 43 Clark, James B. See Island of the Blue Dolphins (film; J. B. Clark) Cold War, 22, 194n133 Columbus, Christopher, quincentennial of arrival of, 49 coming-of-age stories, 25

The Confessions of Nat Turner (Styron), 49 Conkey, Margaret, 207 Constitution, U.S., 223 Cooper, James Fenimore: The Last of the Mohicans, 13–14 Corral Harbor (San Nicolas Island), 91, 97n4, 208 Council on Interracial Books for Children, 59, 77n161 Country of the Sun (S. O’Dell), 1, 6–7, 30–31 Cousteau, Jacques: Le Monde du Silence, 51 cowboys and Indians, narratives about, 23 Cowley, Malcolm, 70n77 The Cricket in Times Square (Thompson), 73n110 The Cruise of the Arctic Star (S. O’Dell), 14 fig. culture historians, 205 Cunningham, Julia, 26 Cupeño people/language, 9–10, 227 Custer Died for Your Sins (V. Deloria), 23 Davis, Troy, 210–11 Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe, 6–7, 18–21, 26, 50, 53, 56 fig. Dell Publishing, 48, 74–75n132 Deloria, Philip, 77n167 Deloria, Vine, Jr.: Custer Died for Your Sins, 23 dendrochronology (tree-ring dating), 205–6 Depression, 29 discovery trope, 11, 65n16 Disney, 55, 77n172 Dittman, Carl, 8, 60, 90, 136n, 189n121, 191n125 Doctrine of Discovery, 221–22 dolphins, 134n74 Domasin, Larry, 58 Doyle, William: Man Alone, 1 earthquakes, 186n Ebb Tide (Hogan), 12, 67n38 Eberhart, Hal, 89–90; “Archeological Resources of San Nicolas Island, California,” 64n12, 101n13 “Eighteen Years Alone” (Hardacre), 5, 10–11, 15, 20, 66n32, 120n Elder, Lonnie, III, 58–59 elephant seals, 127n58, 136n Eliassen, Meredith, 67n47 Elsasser, Albert B.: “Original Accounts of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island,” 18

Index Encantadas (Melville), 65n13 environmental movement, 51–52 Erdrich, Louise, 50 Eric (O’Dell family poodle), 96n Erlandson, Jon, 210–11 Especially for Girls series, 54 ethnographic analogy, 206 explorers, 204–5 Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 73n110 Faulkner, William, 28 Feierabend, Susan, 94n13 The Feminine Mystique (Friedan), 53 feminists, 53 Feminists on Children’s Media, 54 fiction vs. history, 6–7 Fitzgerald, F. Scott: Tender Is the Night, 28 Forbes, Esther: Johnny Tremain, 74n132 Fort Ross (California), 62, 77n169 Franciscans, 190n124 Friedan, Betty: The Feminine Mystique, 53 Gabrielino/Gabrieleño, 64n5 Gabrielino people, 75n145 George, Jean Craighead: Julie of the Wolves, 73n108 Ghost Woman (Thornton), 65n13 Gibson, James R., 108n27 Golding, William: Lord of the Flies, 25, 69n70 Gonzalez, Father (or Gonzales), 7, 9, 66n29 grass skirts, 115n41 Great Depression, 29 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 222 gulls, 177n109 Hall, Elizabeth, 24 fig., 47 fig., 63, 70n74, 71n80, 72n95, 93n1 Handbook of the Indians of California (A. Kroeber), 9, 72n100, 97n5, 99n7 Hans Christian Andersen Award, 2 Hardacre, Emma, 54, 176n107; “Eighteen Years Alone,” 5, 10–11, 15, 20, 66n32, 120n Harloe, John D., 66n30 Harloe, Leo Marcus, 66n30 Harmon, Mary K., 26, 85 Heizer, Robert F.: Aboriginal California, 67n46; “Original Accounts of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island,” 18 Hemingway, Ernest, 28 Henry Holt: The Sea Is Red published by, 29 Hill of the Hawk (S. O’Dell), 1, 29

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historical novels vs. nonfictional histories, 21 history vs. fiction, 6–7 Hodder, Ian, 207 Hogan, James P.: Ebb Tide, 12, 67n38 Hollywood films, Indians in, 23, 62–63, 68n58, 77n167 Hooks, Kevin: Sounder, 77n172 Houghton Mifflin: The Cricket in Times Square rejected by, 73n110; on Scott O’Dell’s promotion of Island of the Blue Dolphins, 43 —books published: A Bear Called Paddington, 44 fig., 73n112; Hill of the Hawk, 29; Island of the Blue Dolphins (see under Island of the Blue Dolphins); Silent Spring, 51; Tales of a Common Pigeon, 73n112; The Witch of Blackbird Pond, 40, 42; Woman of Spain, 28 Hubbard, Charles, 7, 10, 66nn29,30 Hunt, William, 72n93 Il’mena, 4, 97n3, 110n, 115n42 Indian languages, 37, 62, 105n, 151n90, 227. See also Luiseño people/language Indians, 219–28; activism of, 22–23, 224; as anthropological subjects, 17–18; assimilation/Christianization of, 16–17, 22, 223–24; in children’s literature, 49 (see also under Island of the Blue Dolphins); citizenship of, 223–24; Cold War policy toward, 22; cultural resources and repatriation of human remains/artifacts, 220, 226–28; displacement of, 219; gaming by, 225; in Hollywood films, 23, 68n58; internment in Spanish missions, 221; land of, 75n137, 219–23; mourning ceremonies of, 124n; relocation from reservations to cities, 22; self-government/tribal sovereignty of, 219–20, 223–26; Spanish impact on, 221–22; stereotyping of, 23–25, 36, 63; toluache used by, 182n; treaties with Europeans/ United States, 221–22; tribes, federal recognition of, 22, 220, 225–28; “vanishing Indian” trope, 13–18, 63, 193n131, 219; villages of, 221–22 Information Media Guaranty program, 76n151 Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS; NAVFAC), 194n133, 213 fig. International Board on Books for Young People, 2

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Ishi, 18, 67nn46,47 Ishi in Two Worlds (T. Kroeber), 18 Island of the Blue Dolphins (book; S. O’Dell): accessibility of the prose, 35, 72n94; anniversaries of, 69n65; bird pair in, 72n98; Black Cave in, 72n99; Chief Chowig’s death, 52; a child (Scott Ward) spots an error in, 147n88; as a counterwestern, 49–50, 75n139; vs. Country of the Sun, 6–7; critical reception of, 26–27, 47, 49–50; environmentalist theme in, 51–52; as a feminist text, 54; film adaptation of (1964) (see Island of the Blue Dolphins [film; J. B. Clark]); film adaptation of (proposed remake), 63; forgiveness theme in, 33–34, 71n89; gendered messages in, 53–54; Ghalas-at village, 4, 208; guides to, 54, 75–76n148; historical accuracy of, 13; historical contexts of, 22, 67n40; as historical fiction, 21; Hollywood’s influence on, 24–25; Indians’ portrayal in, 36–38, 48–50; longevity and global reach of, 2–3; on the male initiation rite, 121nn47,48; narrative structure of, 32–33; natural-world focus of, 75n143; Newbery Medal awarded to, 2, 26–27, 42, 48, 69n69; noble savage trope in, 25; opening scene at the cove, 208; popularity with Christian audiences, 71n89; prizes won by, 47 fig., 69n71; Ramo names himself Chief Tanyositlopai, 9–10, 36–38, 52–53; Ramo’s death, 33, 53; vs. Robinson Crusoe, 6–7, 19–21, 50, 52–53; Rontu’s death, 181n113; sales increase due to the film, 58, 76nn157,158; scholarship on, 26, 69n69; school market for, 2, 47–55, 48 fig., 74n131, 75nn134,140; setting for, 12; sexual violence theme in, 39; ships’ role in, 33, 71n88, 97nn2,3; spoilers in, 117n, 123n; success of, 1–2, 28, 42–43, 46, 46 fig., 69n72; Tutok’s departure from the island, 38; Tutok’s friendship with Karana, 33, 38, 70n74; Ulape in, 108n28; as a vanishing Indian story, 13–15, 63, 193n131; violence against the natives, 4, 64n8; on women’s domestic work, 112n —composition: age/relationships between characters, 89, 93n9, 113n36, 178n; author’s note, 192n128; drafts, 86, 87t, 112n, 116n, 117n, 121–22nn47,48,49,

126nn53,55,56, 128nn60,61, 131n67, 134n73, 144n, 148n, 174n, 177n108, 183n118; geographic features of the story, 89–92, 90–91 figs., 97n4, 111n33, 137n, 208; line edits, 85, 113n36; marginalia, 85, 131n67; names and language, 88, 93n7, 97n4, 100nn9,10,12, 102n16, 111n34, 131n66, 133n70, 135n, 140n82, 151nn90,91, 153n94, 170n, 178n, 183n117, 197n; O’Dell’s handwritten changes, 85–86; O’Dell’s strikethroughs, 86; paper used, 83–85; penciled changes, 93n4; title suggestions, 88, 93n8; typed insertions, 85–86, 93n5, 159nn97,98, 164n, 173n, 183n116; Typescripts 1, 2, and 3, 83–85, 84 fig., 93nn2,3,5, 178n; word choice/ paragraphing, 92, 133n71, 145n, 147n87, 153n93, 163n, 176n106,107 —karana: age of, 35, 72n97; cape worn by, 188n; concern for animals, 51–52; death of, 67n39; describes her people’s rituals and origins, 10; describes the sinking of the Peor es Nada, 66n29; dress worn by, 115n41; ethnicity of, 60; jumps overboard and swims back to the island, 6, 38–39; lack of interest in boys, 35, 72n98; as last of her race, 14–15, 219; leaves the island, 3; left alone on the island, 3; Lone Woman as model for, 3, 20, 27; resilience of, 8; as a role model for girls, 53; Rontu befriended by, 33; self-sufficiency/ingenuity of, 32, 50; shell hair circlet made by, 70n74, 173n; witnesses the massacre of her people, 4 —publication: as children’s vs. adult literature, 25–27, 35, 69n65; of editions, 69n65, 92, 94n14; by Houghton Mifflin, 26–28, 39–40, 45, 69–70nn74,76, 73n109, 74–75nn131,132; the Lovelaces, drafts read by, 35–36, 38–39, 72nn96,99, 73n109, 86, 89, 112n, 116n; the Lovelaces, title suggestions by, 73n103, 88, 93n8; in paperback, 48, 74–75n132; promotion/sales of, 40–47, 41 fig., 44 fig., 52, 73n114; in translation, 2, 71n89; writing/editing process, 25, 27–28, 31–39, 69n73, 70n74, 72n90 —sources: author’s recollection of stories about the Lone Woman, 67n35; California tribal rituals/legends, 9–10; Hardacre’s “Eighteen Years Alone,” 5, 10–11, 15, 20, 66n32, 120n; Ishi, 18,

Index 67n47; for Karana, 20, 67n49; overview of, 12–13; reports in author’s research notes, 7–8, 10; Southern California’s landscape, 11–12 Island of the Blue Dolphins (film; J. B. Clark), 57 fig., 61 fig.; artistic license vs. historical accuracy in, 60, 62–63, 77n168; audience for, 57–58; cast of, 55, 57–58, 60–61; film rights to the novel purchased, 46, 74n129; increase in book sales due to, 58, 76nn157,158; Indians’ portrayal in, 59–63; location/research for, 59–60; marketing of, 76n151; Scott and Dorsa O’Dell attend premier of, 76n149; publicity/endorsements for, 55, 56 fig., 58, 61; release of, 55, 76n151; reviews of, 55–58, 63; screenplay for, 59–60; success of, 58 IUSS (Integrated Undersea Surveillance System; NAVFAC), 194n133, 213 fig. Johnny Tremain (Forbes), 74n132 Johnston, Bernice Eastman, 7–9, 65n18, 194n134 Joyce, Rosemary, 207 Juana María. See Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island “Juana María” (Woodward), 90, 103n20 Jugendbuchpreis, 45–46, 47 fig. Julie of the Wolves (George), 73n108 Junior (dog actor), 55 Kashaya Band, 60 Kaye, Celia, 54–55, 57–58, 61–63, 61 fig. Keith, Harold: Rifles for Watie, 69n65 kelp, 114n40, 127n59 The King’s Fifth (S. O’Dell), 46, 47 fig., 72n96 Klove, Jane, 59–60 Knowles, John: A Separate Peace, 25, 69n70 Kodiak Islanders. See Alaska Native hunters Kroeber, Alfred: on authentic Indians, 17–18; Handbook of the Indians of California, 9, 72n100, 97n5, 99n7; Ishi studied by, 18; on Kinkipar, 111n34; on the Luiseños, 10, 72n100, 121n48; on San Nicolas, 9, 107n; on the Tumaiyowit–Mukat origin story, 139n79 Kroeber, Theodora: Ishi in Two Worlds, 18 The Last of the Mohicans (Cooper), 13–14 Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird, 25, 69n70

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Let’s Be Indian (Parish), 37 Let’s Play Indian (Chastain), 37 Lewin, Ted, 69n65 Life magazine, 55–57 The Light in the Forest (Richter), 25–26 “List of Recommend Literature” (California Department of Education), 75n134 Little Lord Fauntleroy (Burnett), 26 Little Miss Muffet Fights Back, 54 The Lone Woman of San Nicolas (Roberts), 65n13 Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island (Nicoleña): abandonment on San Nicolas, 3, 5, 19; archaeological research on, 207–8, 215–16; arrival in Santa Barbara, age at, 89; arrival in Santa Barbara, baptism after, 17; arrival in Santa Barbara, emotions/experiences after, 8, 113n37; attire of, 176n107, 191n125; bathing by, 189n122; burial site of, 193n132; cave of, 92, 226–27 (see also under San Nicolas Island); child killed by wild dogs, 120n; decline and death of, 4, 7, 15, 17; diet of, 97n5, 209; dogs kept by, 210; episodes in the story of, 31; ethnicity of, 60, 73n107; fictionalizations of, 65n13 (see also Island of the Blue Dolphins); footprints of, 6–7, 65n16; hides on island to avoid capture/rape, 38–39; vs. Ishi, 18; jumps overboard to escape capture, 10, 38; as the last of her race, 14, 18–19, 63, 65n21, 219; likened to Robinson Crusoe, 5–6, 18–19, 64–65n12, 67n48; memorial plaque for, 17; as model for Karana, 3, 20, 27; as noble savage, 15; O’Dell’s research on, 6; redwood boxes of, 210–12; removal to Santa Barbara, 3–5, 7, 19, 190n124; village of, 208–9; water bottle basket of, 130n; whalebone structure used by, 138n; words spoken by, 151n90, 227; writings about, 5–11, 18, 64–65nn11,12 Lord of the Flies (Golding), 25, 69n70 Lorraine, Walter, 85 Los Angeles, population of, 11–12 Los Angeles County Museum, 138n Lost Generation, 28, 70n77 Lost Spanish Galleon, 9, 97n2 Lovelace, Maud and Delos, 27, 34–36, 93n5. See also under Island of the Blue Dolphins Luiseño people/language, 9–10, 66n28, 72n100, 121n48, 227

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Maher, Susan Naramore, 49, 75n137 Man Alone (S. O’Dell and Doyle), 1 Manifest Destiny, 15–16, 67n42 Martz, Patricia, 209 McIntosh & Otis, 27 Meighan, Clement W.: “Archeological Resources of San Nicolas Island, California,” 64n12, 101n13; on ecological interpretation in archaeology, 206; essay on the Nicoleños, 5, 12, 64–65n12, 89–90, 101n13; on the Lone Woman, 5–6, 64–65n12 “melting pot” ideal, 49 Melville, Herman: Encantadas, 65n13 Mexican-American War (1846–48), 16, 222 MGM, 28–29, 70n78 middens, 156n, 206 Le Monde du Silence (Cousteau), 51 Moseley, Hardwick, 45; correspondence with O’Dell re Island of the Blue Dolphins, 40–43, 75n140; friendship with O’Dell, 1; on the O’Dells’ promotion of Island of the Blue Dolphins, 43; role in publishing Island of the Blue Dolphins, 26–28, 69–70n74 Mukat, 139n79 multiculturalism, 48–49 Murray, Edward F., 8 Museum of Man (San Diego), 9 NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act; 1990), 66n28, 226, 228 Nancy Drew series, 53 Narnia Center (Moscow), 71n89 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA; 1990), 66n28, 226, 228 Native Americans. See Indians; Nicoleños Navajo Nation, 221 NAVFAC (Integrated Undersea Surveillance System), 194n133, 213 fig. nets, 127n59 Newbery Medal: book sales boosted by receiving, 42–43, 45; history/importance of, 2, 27; for Island of the Blue Dolphins, 2, 26–27, 42, 48, 69n65; for Julie of the Wolves, 73n108; for Rifles for Watie, 69n65; for The Witch of Blackbird Pond, 40, 42 New York Times, 57 Nichols, Luther, 26 Nicoleña. See Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island

Nicoleños: baskets used by, 130n, 140n81, 211–12; cooking stones used by, 139n80; decline of, 4, 65n21; dogs kept by, 120n, 209–10; ethnographic accounts of, 112n, 131n66; gender roles among, 75n145; kinship among, 75n145; knowledge of the mainland, 113n37; languages of, 105n, 151n90; and the Luiseños, 66n28; massacre of (1814), 4, 15, 39, 64n8, 97n3, 109n, 111n31; naming of, 64n5; number of, 111n31; removal to San Pedro, 4–5, 12, 222 Nidever, George: background of, 7; on the dogs kept by the Lone Woman, 210; The Life and Adventures of George Nidever, 8, 189n121; on the Lone Woman as noble savage, 15; Lone Woman brought to Santa Barbara by, 7, 19; on the Lone Woman’s attire, 176n107, 191n126; Lone Woman’s footprints found by, 6–7; on the Lone Woman’s water bottle basket, 130n; records, 7–8; on San Nicolas sites, 90; search for the Lone Woman, 5, 7–8 Nidever, Maria Sinforosa Ramona Sanchez de, 19, 66n32 “noble savage” trope, 15, 17, 25 North America, Europeans’ arrival in, 220–21 nose pins, 99n8 octopus, 153n94 O’Dell, Jane Dorsa (née Rattenbury), 69n73; advice column by, 30; on excised chapters of Island of the Blue Dolphins, 73n109; finances of, 27, 30–31; on the Newbery, 42; nieces and nephews of, 96n; in Pomona-Claremont, 72n93; promotion of Island of the Blue Dolphins, 43; on Anne Scott, 70n78, 71n79; separation from O’Dell, 71n83, 74n118; in Spain, 46, 46 fig.; at Stoneapple Farm, 30–31, 30 fig. O’Dell, Scott: background/childhood of, 11–12, 11 fig., 68n54; boat of, 14 fig.; at the Bread Loaf writers’ conference, 28; copy editors criticized by, 94n13; criticism of, 49; death of, 43; as a dog lover, 181n113; education of, 23; finances of, 29–31, 40, 43, 45; friendship with Moseley (see Moseley, Hardwick); handwritten vs. typed

Index manuscripts of, 93n1; Hans Christian Andersen Award given to, 2; Jugendbuchpreis won by, 45–46, 47 fig.; literary career of, 24, 27–29; literary contemporaries of, 28; as a Lost Generation member, 28; military career of, 23; name change of, 68n54; newspaper career of, 30; at Palmer Photoplay, 23–24; in Pomona-Claremont, 72n93; Regina Medal awarded to, 71n89; reputation/stature of, 27–28, 70n77; research on the Lone Woman, 6; San Pedro home of, 12; smoking by, 93n1; in Spain, 46, 46 fig.; at Stoneapple Farm, 30–31, 30 fig., 42, 83–84; travels of, 28, 70n78; veracity of interviews given by, 65n19; as a writing teacher, 45 —works: Country of the Sun, 1, 6–7, 30–31; The Cruise of the Arctic Star, 14 fig.; Hill of the Hawk, 1, 29; The King’s Fifth, 46, 47 fig., 72n96; Man Alone, 1; Pinfeathers, 28; Representative Photoplays Analyzed, 24; The Sea Is Red, 1, 29–30; Woman of Spain, 1, 28–29, 29 fig., 45–46; Zia, 67n39. See also Island of the Blue Dolphins Old Yeller (dog actor), 55 Olney, Austin, 69n72, 85, 128n60, 139n80 “Original Accounts of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island” (Heizer and Elsasser), 18 Orr, Phil, 205 Osbourne, Lloyd, 12 O’Sullivan, John, 67n42 otter hunters, 4, 65n16, 106nn24,25. See also Nidever, George Oulahan, Richard, 55–57, 63 Pacific Discovery, 5, 12 Pal (dog actor), 55 Palmer Photoplay Company, 23–24 pan-Indian organizations, 22–23 paperback market, 48, 74–75n132 Parish, Peggy: Let’s Be Indian, 37 Pechanga Band, 66n28, 227–28 Peor es Nada (schooner), 4, 6, 10, 66nn29,30, 73n107, 90, 115n42, 192n127 Perla Negra (cruiser), 14 fig. Pinfeathers (S. O’Dell), 28 Pomo people, 60, 62 postmodernism, 207 Public Law 280 (1953), 224–25

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RAC. See Russian American Company Radnitz, Robert B., 57 fig. See also Island of the Blue Dolphins (film; J. B. Clark); Sounder (film; Ritt) Rattenbury, Faye Hall, 72n93 Rawls, Wilson: Where the Red Fern Grows, 25 Reese, Debbie, 9, 73n107 relic hunters, 204 Representative Photoplays Analyzed (S. O’Dell), 24 Richter, Conrad: The Light in the Forest, 25–26 Rifles for Watie (Keith), 69n65 Ritt, Martin: Sounder, 58–59, 77n161 Roberts, Helen M.: The Lone Woman of San Nicolas, 65n13 robinsonades, 13, 20–21, 68n53 Robinson Crusoe (Defoe), 6–7, 18–21, 26, 50, 53, 56 fig. Rogers, Malcolm, 205 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 20 Russell, C.J.W., 65n12 Russell children, 96n Russian American Company (RAC), 4, 39, 62, 64n8, 97n3, 100n12 Salinger, J. D.: The Catcher in the Rye, 25–26 sandspits, 122n50 San Nicolas Island (Channel Islands), 13 fig.; absence of trading on, 101n13; Alaska Native otter hunters on, 4, 15, 97n3, 115n42; anthropological expedition to, 138n; archaeological work on, 206–9 (see also archaeology); caves on, archaeological study of, 146n, 212–15, 214–15 figs., 226–27; climate of, 102n17, 114nn38,39; collection of objects/artifacts from, 9; distance from the mainland, 131n65; dogs of, 120n, 209–10; early inhabitants of, 156n, 192n129, 210–11, 221; fog on, 114n38; gold on, 129n62; language spoken on, 62; last Nicoleño village on, 89–90; location of, 101n14; map of, 90, 91 fig.; Navy facility on, 194n133, 213 fig., 226; nets on, 127n59; O’Dell’s visit to, 12, 67n37; Old Garden Spring on, 103n19, 136n; pelican-bone flute found on, 165n; population of, 4; redwood boxes found on, 210–12; restricted access to, 12, 60, 67n37, 194n133, 226; sand dunes of, 212–13; shape/size of,

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San Nicolas Island (continued) 102n15; sheep ranching on, 204, 213; size/location of, 4; snakes on, 132n69; Spanish impact on, 221–22; toshaawt stones of, 131n66, 210; Tule Creek site, 208–10; water on, 114n39; winds on, 102n17; wood on, 102n18, 107n. See also Nicoleños Santa Catalina Island, 111n33, 139n80 Sauer, Caroline, 27, 69n73 Savage, Thomas, 66n29 Schnabel, Johann Gottfried, 68n53 Schon, Isabel, 49 Schumacher, Paul, 204–5 Schwartz, Steven J., 67n37, 72n100, 213 fig.; as chief archaeologist on San Nicolas, 64n6, 209, 212; on the population of San Nicolas, 4; San Nicolas caves studied by, 212, 214, 226–27 Scott, Anne, 70n78, 71n79 Scott, Bennett Mason, 68n54 Scott, Katherine, 70n78 Scott, May Elizabeth (née Gabriel), 68n54 Scott, Odell Gabriel. See O’Dell, Scott The Sea Is Red (S. O’Dell), 1, 29–30 seaweed, 114n40, 127n59 A Separate Peace (Knowles), 25, 69n70 Serra, Junípero, 16 settler colonialism, 16–17, 67n44 shamans, 131n66, 210 Sherdeman, Ted, 59–60 Sheridan, Edwin M., 8–9, 15 Silent Spring (Carson), 51 Silvey, Anita, 70n76 Slotkin, Richard, 23 Sounder (book; Armstrong), 59 Sounder (film; 1972; Ritt), 58–59, 77n161 Sounder (film; 2003; Hooks), 77n172 Spain, 16–17, 221 Sparks, Isaac J., 66nn29,30 Spaulding, William, 70n74 Speare, Elizabeth George: The Witch of Blackbird Pond, 40, 42 Spector, Janet, 207 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 12 Stoneapple Farm (Julian, Calif.), 30–31, 30 fig., 42, 74n118, 83–84 Stratemeyer Syndicate, 53 Styron, William: The Confessions of Nat Turner, 49 Supreme Court, 224 surf grass, 115n41, 127n59

Tales of a Common Pigeon (Weeks), 73n112 Tarr, C. Anita: “An Unintentional System of Gaps,” 50 Taylor, Walter, 205–6 Tender Is the Night (Fitzgerald), 28 Terry, James, 8 Thomas, Lisa, 210–11 Thompson, George Selden: The Cricket in Times Square, 73n110 Thoreau, Henry David, 32 Thornton, Lawrence: Ghost Woman, 65n13 To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee), 25, 69n70 toluache, 182n Tongva tribe, 228 tsunamis, 186n Tule Creek site (San Nicolas Island), 208–10 Tumaiyowit, 139n79 Twinkle (O’Dell family poodle), 96n Tyson, Cicely, 58 “An Unintentional System of Gaps” (Tarr), 50 United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, 224 United States: assimilationist policy of, 223–24; formation of, 223; relations/ treaties with Indian tribes, 221–25 Universal Pictures, 55, 58, 63 U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (USCGS), 212 U.S. Navy’s possession of San Nicolas, 19, 223; archaeology and repatriation of objects from the island, 66n28, 227–28 (see also Schwartz, Steven J.); public access restricted after, 12, 60, 226; use of island as a secret base, 194n133, 213 fig., 226 U.S. Supreme Court, 224 Uto-Aztecan speaking cultures, 210 “vanishing Indian” trope, 13–18, 63, 193n131, 219 Variety, 58 Vellanoweth, René L., 214–15 figs., 227 Veracini, Lorenzo, 67n44 Viking Press: Island of the Blue Dolphins rejected by, 27, 69n73 Vizcaíno, Sebastián, 221 wands, ceremonial, 36, 72n100 Ward, Scott, 147n88 Weatherwax, Frank, 55

Index Weeks, Sara: Tales of a Common Pigeon, 73n112 Where the Red Fern Grows (Rawls), 25 Wilder, Laura Ingalls, 32 Winfield, Paul, 58 The Witch of Blackbird Pond (Speare), 40, 42 Woman of Spain (S. O’Dell), 1, 28–29, 29 fig., 45–46

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Woodward, Arthur, 205; “Juana María,” 90, 103n20 Wyler, William: Ben Hur, 28–29, 70n78 young adult novels, 25 yucca plants, 115n41 Zia (S. O’Dell), 67n39