Introducing Island of the Blue Dolphins
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&#8220;I wondered what would happen to me if I went against the law of our tribe which forbade the making of weapons by women &#8230; Would the weapons break in my hands at the moment when my life was in danger &#8230; ?&#8221;
In the tradition of Karana&#8217;s people, everyone has two names; the common-use name and a secret name which reflects their spiritual self. The secret name is sacred and diminished by use in the natural world where it is constrained to a narrow role and precise form, like Karana herself. Karana is a young girl of the Nicoleño people who, like other members of her gender and tribe, spends her days scavenging for roots and shellfish, weaving clothing and baskets, and caring for the young and infirm. But Karana is also much more than this, as is revealed when the arrival of strangers thrusts her life down an extraordinary alternate path.
The compendium of literature is replete with tales of survival. Usually these entail a family or individual becoming estranged from civilization and human society, whether finding themselves misplaced in an untamed wilderness or by the collapse of civilization, itself. For most of us, the preoccupation begins in early childhood as we become aware of our dependence upon the adults in our lives, inspiring us to wonder what we would be capable of, left to our own merits. Would we be able to survive without others or the modern conveniences and lifestyle we&#8217;ve grown accustomed to? And who would we be without them?
These questions are explored through Karana, who was forcibly confronted with that ultimate test of wits and identity. Although her true name has been lost to the sands of time, the broad strokes of her story are true. But it was not the loss of civilization which left the Nicoleño girl abandoned on a desert island, but the arrival of it.
Author Scott O&#8217;Dell researched the history of the Nicoleños people and the Lost Woman, in particular, to capture some of the challenges she would or may have faced during her long years alone. Her people lived on the island of San Nicolas, which is the most remote of the channel islands off the California coast and had been occupied for at least 10,000 years before foreign hunters invaded. Disputes erupted between the natives and the newcomers and the population of the Nicoleño was nearly decimated before the last of them set sail and were scattered to the mainland. Notoriously, one solitary girl remained behind, not to be recovered for nearly two decades. O&#8217;Dell named her Karana.
O&#8217;Dell&#8217;s protagonist was not domesticated on the contemporary conveniences of mainland markets, goods, and services, but she was nonetheless limited by cultural constraints, which not only dictated the skills she had learned, but those which the gods and ancestors would abide her to do. Abandoned to her own devices, she had not only to teach herself how to survive, but challenge the deepest beliefs of her people in order to do so. Karana rose to this task, pitting herself against feral dogs, Elephant Seals, stinging Devil Fish, foreign invaders, as well as the endless and unforgiving sea and its devastating assaults upon the island.
Sometimes we are saved by others, but for Karana, it was the arrival of others which cast her life into jeopardy. Yet she did not dwell upon the capricious twists of fate, nor let her fears and customs intimidate her into inaction. In the chronicle of human history, select few have exhibited the degree of grit and fortitude necessary for a solitary woman to persevere under the brutal mental and physical conditions of an isolated, wild, and weather-battered island. It would be an injustice to call her discovery a &#8220;rescue&#8221;, for although she embraced the society of others, she proved herself more than capable in their absence.
This is a story of human ingenuity and resilience, and this is the story of a young woman who became a legend. Karana of the Nicoleño people spends her days scavenging for roots and shellfish, weaving clothing and baskets, and caring for the young and infirm. But Karana is also a builder and toolmaker, a hunter and tamer of wild beasts, an engineer, an explorer, a survivor, a warrior&#8230; And Karana is a powerful mythic figure, far greater than any island and larger than any earthly name could contain.
-Jordan Leigh