I have just finished this story of the last remaining Beothuk woman.
I had never heard of this group of indigenus people from Newfoundland-Labrador.
It is historical fiction based on an actual person who died in 1829.
Her name was Shanawdithit and looked like this...
The story is a sort of mystery told through the voices of three people in three different eras.
The first, a deserter from the army hiding out in a hidden tunnel under a church.
In his despair, over an accidental crime, while in the tunnel, he hears the voice of Shanawdithit who was buried there 170 years before.
She tells the story of her people and how they were driven to extinction by the colonists who came to Canada in the 1800's.
The third voice is of an archeologist who has gone home to England after her husband is killed while they are investigating the genocide in Rwanda. An unusual discovery takes her on a journey which links the three lives together.
It was difficult to read some parts of the Beothuk woman's story. Sad and brutal. Hard to believe that an entire race of people were destroyed in such a short time.
A read well worth the history and mystery.
Beothuk territory Newfoundland, Canada
No comments:
Post a Comment