When I finished writing
my Long Island-based novel, Don’t Ya Know,
in 2014, I wasn’t aware of the Shelter Island, New York discovery of an Indian
grave in 2003. I found this out when a Beta
reader for the novel sent me a decade-old article from the New York Times.*
Of course, the five
skeletons found on the Shelter Islander's property are not located in an Indian mound,
so there is no similarity to the novel there; however, in the news' story, local historians confirm that a communal
grave is an uncommon find, and among the possibilities given for the unusual grave’s
existence is a smallpox epidemic.
 |
| A skeleton found elsewhere on LI exhibits same position of SI finds. |
In Don’t Ya Know, it is 1903 when a Spiritualist spots a gravesite on
the fictional Corycian (Core-seen)
Island, and she is sure she has found a pre-Columbian phenomenon. Quickly, the
owner of the property casts off the Spiritualist’s suppositions:
“I don’t
know anything about [Indian mounds],” Eula Morely says. “This is a grave for the
victims of smallpox and such. They were buried ‘all-a-wanna’ as the natives say,
that means ‘all together.’ Indians. All people. They were buried together to keep the illness
of their spirit seeds in one place.”
Sure, I know it isn’t a
big leap to assume mass burials took place following any kind of
epidemic; however, having the confirmation of the possibility does a writer’s
heart good.
Making history align
with cultural facts in fiction is a task I haven’t taken lightly. Consequently,
the most meaningful compliments I receive often concern the quality of my research.
Corycian Island is not Shelter Island, and even though I lit the story with glints
of my love for the place, many of the novel’s stories were told by other
islands I have known as well. My hope is that the result reflects a sense of
time and place familiar to any who are part of the eastern seaboard’s island
legacy. One of those compliments came from retired Shelter Island historian, Louise Tuthill
Green, whose family’s Island roots run deep. Ms. Green praised the
novel as “A gem. A time and place come alive again in a story that blends local color with cultural history.”
And somewhere, in those
mysterious threads of creativity, fiction wove with reality.
Members of the Shinnecock Indian Nation arrived to assess the Shelter
Island gravesite in 2003. In my novel, (again: written without knowledge of the actual find), a “curious coalition” of Montauketts visits Corycian Island in
1926 to challenge the long-rumored Indian mound. The Grand Sachem promises the
caretakers of the land: “If this is an Indian burial ground, I assure you I
will do all I can to protect it.”
I understand this is
another small coincidence. Indian skeletons and artifacts are unearthed all over
Long Island. Nonetheless, I lived on Shelter Island year-round for a decade and
part of my heart stayed when I had to leave. So, the coincidence, for me, has
a reverential quality to it.
In the reality of 2003
and the fiction of the 1900s, modern-day logic is applied to ancient intention. Each of the events is mired in myth and legend. The
truth is somewhere in the stories, and isn’t that always the case, don’t ya
know.
~~~
*
~~~
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Visit: http//:www.suzannerosenwasser.com Don't Ya Know is also available at Book Revue in Huntington, LI http://bookrevue.com/index.html |
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