EKUNI: An Indian Memoir from the Kanawha River, 1670-1675
Ekuni, a young Monyton Indian boy living in a small village along the Kanawha River came of age in 1670. He was a participant in the only known contacts with the English and the original inhabitants of what would later become West Virginia. Ekuni meets Robert Fallam and Thomas Batts in 1671 and Gabriel Arthur in 1674. This account is based on traditional academic research but brings readers into the living heart of indigenous villages and the politics of the Appalachian Mountains during the 1670s.
The target audience for the text is high school and undergraduate college courses focused on Native Americans. It is accessible to a wide range of readers interested in indigenous people, colonial history, and West Virginia/Appalachian history. My fictional writing was influenced by the indigenous-centered storylines of Louise Erdrich and Cherie Dimaline.
I am a former West Virginian currently based in Oakland, California. I am an historian, educator, and writer. Though this is my first novel, I have written substantive academic manuscripts on the subject of West Virginia Native American History. I completed a PhD in Native American History at West Virginia University in 2015 and continue to research various period in the state’s hidden indigenous peoples’ history. As a non-indigenous person, I feel a duty to ever be a strong and responsible amplifier, ally and advocate for indigenous peoples.
After finishing my dissertation, I realized few students of history would ever hear the histories of West Virginia’s Native peoples. This work stemmed out of a challenge from my teacher colleagues to repackage nearly twenty years of academic work in a way that high schoolers might be able to unpack and enjoy. My work illustrating the novel seemed a natural offshoot of my desire to make this work as realistic as possible.
