Character Interview: Eva Yellow Horn
Eva Yellow Horn is a character in the novel Blood of the White Bear by Marcia Calhoun Forecki and Gerald Schnitzer. This is a virtual interview.
Eva is a member of the Dine’ nation and has lived all of her life in the Four Corners of the Southwestern United States. She is a mother and a healer, a sand painter, and respected for her experience and wisdom.
Some people might call you a radical. How do you feel about that sobriquet?
Do you think I don’t know that word? I know I have been labeled radical. I was at Wounded Knee. That experience should have radicalized a few more, in my opinion.
You are a very important character in this book. Among other things, you saved Dr. Rachel Bisette’s life.
As a little one she came to me from the sky. Descended into the canyon in a flying airplane. I ran to her and pulled her out. Any human being would do the same for a child.
You put Rachel back in the plane to be discovered by the rescuers and then disappeared. Why not stick around, make sure the rescuers found her?
My eyes never left her. I watched the rescue helicopter come down. If they had not found her quick enough, or tried to leave without her, I would have shown myself. She was in no danger after the fire was out. She went home to her own people where she was loved. Her uncle and aunt were good people.
You lost a friend in that plane crash, Rachel’s father?
I knew her father. He was a kind man and he told the truth.
How did you know him?
He came to the Four Corners every summer to study. He knew lots of the Dine’ in the canyons and around here. He knew about Church Rock. He tried to tell the story of what happened there, what happened to the people exposed to the radioactive spill from the collapsed dam at the uranium mine. Albert Bisette tried to tell the story of the contamination of the Rio Puerco and the land it runs through. Why do you think his plane fell out of the sky? You’ve heard about Chernobyl? Well, the release of radioactive contamination at Church Rock was the second biggest release after Chernobyl. Now, we have Fukushima. People never learn.
Let’s talk about the pandemic in the book. Do you feel responsible for setting the hantavirus loose that eventually killed so many people?
The original virus, before it mutated, was in my pots, but I didn’t know it was there. Still, the first victims were infected from sand I used in sand paintings. I mourn all the lives lost, even those lost later after the virus mutated into something different that what was in my pots.
In the beginning, the fatality rate of the virus was 100%. Yet, you never even got sick and you were with all of the first victims. You must have suspected you were somehow the source of the infection.
I thought so at first. I suspected the virus came from some ancient pots I used to hold the sand I used for sand paintings. Then, people got sick from each other. It was out of my hands.
Why didn’t you come forward? Why did Dr. Bisette have to search for you?
I knew what was going on, but I believed, I still believe, my immunity was not biology, but spiritual. I didn’t think I could change anything after he virus mutated and took its own path. I prayed and asked the ancestors to refrain from taking all the sick people. Ironic, isn’t it, after all the diseases the whites set loose upon us.
Dr. Bisette says she was led to the Four Corners by the spirit of a kachina, the White Bear Kachina to be exact.
Yes, I think this is so. There are many kachina spirits. One of them saw the death coming and brought the only person who could make the antibodies to the mutated virus. That was Dr. Bisette, so yes they had to bring her.
Didn’t you have the antibodies?
I had different immunity. Rachel had what protection I could give her when she was with me as a child. But, she had to make the antibodies herself. I rescued Rachel, but she had to rescue the people from the pandemic. The Kachina spirit led us both to find what we needed to find. I was just the way-maker. I helped make the path for Rachel but she had to take her own journey.
How about telling your story? You were at Wounded Knee. You’ve lived through the Church Rock contamination, and so much more. You have a lot to teach.
I share my stories with those I care about. Read the book and you’ll know enough about me.
Thank you.
Blood of the White Bear
Eva is a member of the Dine’ nation and has lived all of her life in the Four Corners of the Southwestern United States. She is a mother and a healer, a sand painter, and respected for her experience and wisdom.
Some people might call you a radical. How do you feel about that sobriquet?
Do you think I don’t know that word? I know I have been labeled radical. I was at Wounded Knee. That experience should have radicalized a few more, in my opinion.
You are a very important character in this book. Among other things, you saved Dr. Rachel Bisette’s life.
As a little one she came to me from the sky. Descended into the canyon in a flying airplane. I ran to her and pulled her out. Any human being would do the same for a child.
You put Rachel back in the plane to be discovered by the rescuers and then disappeared. Why not stick around, make sure the rescuers found her?
My eyes never left her. I watched the rescue helicopter come down. If they had not found her quick enough, or tried to leave without her, I would have shown myself. She was in no danger after the fire was out. She went home to her own people where she was loved. Her uncle and aunt were good people.
You lost a friend in that plane crash, Rachel’s father?
I knew her father. He was a kind man and he told the truth.
How did you know him?
He came to the Four Corners every summer to study. He knew lots of the Dine’ in the canyons and around here. He knew about Church Rock. He tried to tell the story of what happened there, what happened to the people exposed to the radioactive spill from the collapsed dam at the uranium mine. Albert Bisette tried to tell the story of the contamination of the Rio Puerco and the land it runs through. Why do you think his plane fell out of the sky? You’ve heard about Chernobyl? Well, the release of radioactive contamination at Church Rock was the second biggest release after Chernobyl. Now, we have Fukushima. People never learn.
Let’s talk about the pandemic in the book. Do you feel responsible for setting the hantavirus loose that eventually killed so many people?
The original virus, before it mutated, was in my pots, but I didn’t know it was there. Still, the first victims were infected from sand I used in sand paintings. I mourn all the lives lost, even those lost later after the virus mutated into something different that what was in my pots.
In the beginning, the fatality rate of the virus was 100%. Yet, you never even got sick and you were with all of the first victims. You must have suspected you were somehow the source of the infection.
I thought so at first. I suspected the virus came from some ancient pots I used to hold the sand I used for sand paintings. Then, people got sick from each other. It was out of my hands.
Why didn’t you come forward? Why did Dr. Bisette have to search for you?
I knew what was going on, but I believed, I still believe, my immunity was not biology, but spiritual. I didn’t think I could change anything after he virus mutated and took its own path. I prayed and asked the ancestors to refrain from taking all the sick people. Ironic, isn’t it, after all the diseases the whites set loose upon us.
Dr. Bisette says she was led to the Four Corners by the spirit of a kachina, the White Bear Kachina to be exact.
Yes, I think this is so. There are many kachina spirits. One of them saw the death coming and brought the only person who could make the antibodies to the mutated virus. That was Dr. Bisette, so yes they had to bring her.
Didn’t you have the antibodies?
I had different immunity. Rachel had what protection I could give her when she was with me as a child. But, she had to make the antibodies herself. I rescued Rachel, but she had to rescue the people from the pandemic. The Kachina spirit led us both to find what we needed to find. I was just the way-maker. I helped make the path for Rachel but she had to take her own journey.
How about telling your story? You were at Wounded Knee. You’ve lived through the Church Rock contamination, and so much more. You have a lot to teach.
I share my stories with those I care about. Read the book and you’ll know enough about me.
Thank you.
Blood of the White Bear
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