Borland presents his readers with a remarkably sensitive and insightful portrayal of Native American life in twentieth-century United States. He seems to understand their profound connection to the natural world and their sense of loss at the dissolution of culture and traditions. In When the Legends Die, Borland repeatedly emphasizes the importance of the concept of "roundness," or the continuity and eternity of old ways, in Ute culture. He recognizes the threat modern American society presents to this continuity.Borland has made important contributions to the literary world. He is most remembered for his ability to paint vivid pictures of specific geographical areas, through dialect and in-depth visual description. This local color plays prominently in When the Legends Die, which takes place in the southwestern United States.When the Legends Die traces the life path of the novel's protagonist Thomas Black Bull, a Native American Ute from Southwestern Colorado. As a young boy, Tom lives with his mother Bessie and his father George Black Bull in Pagosa. However, when George Black Bull kills Frank No Deer for having repeatedly stolen money from him, the family must flee the town. Returning to the wilderness, they live happily in the old Ute way. One winter day, an avalanche kills Tom's father as he hunts in a valley. Tom adopts the name "Bear's Brother," as well as the role of the man of the family. When Bessie returns to Pagosa to visit the general store, she learns that her husband's name has been cleared but still hesitates to move back into town. The following winter, Bessie becomes ill and dies. Living alone in the wilderness, Tom befriends many animals and becomes particularly close to a bear cub whom he considers his closest friend and his brother.The most prominent theme of the novel involves Tom's lifelong struggle to find meaning, happiness, and peace in his life. While all human beings struggle with this search, Tom's position, as a Ute Native American and as a child whose parents have both died young, renders his path toward meaning particularly difficult. Tom must negotiate countless societal pressures as he leaves the wilderness and enters the civilized world. As a Ute Native American living in the beginning of the twentieth century, the new life he begins in Pagosa forces him to reconsider his entire value system as well as the details of his daily patterns. The next phase of his life, in which he becomes a wild bronco rider in the rodeo, does not provide the peace and sense of accomplishment he has expected. Despite his fame, success, and relatively comfortable existence, Tom finds himself continually dissatisfied, angry, and in search of greater meaning in his life. After years of struggling with fundamental questions about his identity, Tom finally comes to terms with himself when he accepts a job herding sheep in the same area in which he spent his childhood. By facing his fears and painful memories, he overcomes them and learns that an embrace of his heritage and a new, simple lifestyle in the wilderness can provide him with the most contentment he has felt since his childhood. Because this theme provides the novel's central conflict, the novel concludes as soon as his search for his identity concludes.Linked to Tom's search for his own identity is his search for his true home. Bald Mountain and the surrounding wilderness provide Tom with a sense of home and of belonging during his childhood years. Even in the painful time following the death of his mother, Tom lives peacefully in the wilderness, befriending the animals with whom he shares the woods. However, when Blue Elk persuades him to leave the woods and enroll in the local reservation school, Tom first experiences the acute pain of displacement and will continue to experience it for most of his life, until he returns to the wilderness at the end of the novel. As Tom's teachers and bosses become increasingly frustrated with Tom's inability to complete certain tasks or with his passionate will to return to his old ways, they send him from place to place. As a result, Tom does not feel welcomed in by any environment or by any individual. When he begins his career as a bronco rider, this pattern only perpetuates itself, as his competition takes him to many cities across the country. He lives a life on the road, with no sense of attachment to place or people. While he hungers for the comfort and ease a sense of home provides, he know not how to seek it until his return to the mountains.From his very first interactions with the townspeople of Pagosa upon his arrival at the reservation school, Tom reacts to authority figures with resentment, hostility, and distrust. However, his experiences with these authority figures justify his behavior toward them. They have deprived him of the lifestyle of his heritage and treat him with prejudice because of his status as a Native American. Tom also feels as though these authority figures continually attempt to control his life in various ways. They exploit his abilities for their own material gain or for their own sense of worth. Tom's resentment of authority becomes so pronounced, however, that it sometimes causes him to distance himself from people who may genuinely try to help him. For example, the nurse Mary Redmond, who appears later in the novel, strives to comfort and care for Tom. Because of his fear of her control over him, he automatically assumes she has selfish motives. Borland writes, "Then he remembered and the whole pattern fell into place. Blue Elk, Benny Grayback, Rowena Ellis, Red Dillon—they had trapped him, every one of them, had tried to run his life, make him do things their way. And now Mary Redmond."The title of the novel, When the Legends Die, plays an important role in its themes and lessons and speaks to the dangers of forgetting one's heritage. When Tom distances himself from his Ute traditions, he loses his identity and becomes bitter and lonely. While the author addresses the universal need for people to embrace and remember their roots, he speaks more particularly to the situation of Native Americans in the United States. As government and private interests force them off their land, they become assimilated to the mainstream culture and often lose the positive aspects of their heritage.
Thomas Black Bull and his parents return to the wilderness to live in the old way after Thomas' father kills a man. When his father dies in an accident and his mother follows as a result of illness and grief soon after, Thomas is left alone. He has no desire to return to the white man's world and lives peacefully on his own for several years, befriending an orphaned bear cub along the way and renaming himself Bear's Brother.Eventually, he is discovered and forced to attend school in town, where he is miserable. The teachers and officials at the school, some well-meaning and some not, try to "help" and "civilize" him. In the process, they make him ever more angry and miserable as they take away his connection with the old ways.I loved the first and last parts of this book, but the middle, where Thomas becomes a brutal bronco rider known as Killer Tom, lost me. Readers who enjoy action may well like this part, but I was appalled at Thomas' brutality and had a hard time feeling sympathetic towards him. In the end, Thomas is redeemed and manages to recapture his connection to his past. While the "happy" ending may be perceived as a bit too neat, I like to believe that this is how life is--that we all have the ability, however deeply it hides inside of us, to be true to ourselves.Overall, I highly recommend this book.
Do You like book When The Legends Die (1984)?
This book is my favorite book of all time. I've read a lot of books. This book has stayed with me all throughout my life. I built up a huge library of books and then decided to live a simpler life and got rid of all of them, except this book, Spider, the Terrible Cat, and A Clockwork Orange.I read this book for the first time when I was twelve. The first part of the book held a resonance for me that I find it hard to explain. I am not an American Indian. I am not a boy. There were ten children in my family. However, I was often alone by choice, and never lonely, and I was often angry and confused. I see things concretely, and the ways of society were hard for me to decipher. People were often not what they said they were. Animals were easier to deal with. Nature was always a balm for me when the world was too hard to deal with.I read this book again in my twenties. The second part of the book at that point held a resonance for me that I can more easily explain. I also rode dangerous paths in order to kill the demons that pushed against the insides as I raged against the world, and against my sense of hopelessness and displacement within it. I didn't care, because it hurt to much to look at what was hurting. I didn't plan much for the future, because I didn't have one. When I got injured, whether inside or out, I got up and continued my destructive ways. People said I was crazy; they didn't understand what drove me. I read this book again in my thirties. The third part of the book pulled me into its center; how to let go of the anger in the realization that it is killing you. Accepting the healing that love can provide. Returning in some ways to the good that you once knew. Accepting your history and moving on. Forgiving and trying to understand the people that have failed you. Learning to separate yourself from toxic people. Deciding to live a simple, low key life. Accepting the damage that you've done to yourself and others.Nowadays, I wonder what the life of old Meo was about. What were his thoughts? What were his realizations? Who did he understand himself to be? Did he forgive and understand others, or was he a stunted, degenerate person who didn't think much about anything? This book is, strangely, a reflection of who I am. Not many books can travel along with you throughout your life and still resonate within you. For that reason, it is a treasure that I hold dear.
—Heidi Boardman
I read this book in high school as a required read and read it again for my masters class (Native American novel). The book is about the life of Tom Black Bull and his struggles to find his identity. He begins in the mountains with his parents after his father kills another man. Then he is taken to the reservation and forced to attend school. He did all he could to not lose his old ways at a Ute. Finally, he began riding the ponies on the reservation and found that he could ride them until a standstill. When in town with the sheepherder, two men paid him to ride their horses in (in hopes that he would be thrown and humiliated), and he did to their surprise. He caught the eye of Red Dillion and began his life as a bronc rider. Red was a drunk and a gambler who told Tom how to ride and when to win. Tom obeyed and the pair traveled the countryside. It was like that until Tom was tired of listening to Red and decided to make his own decisions and ride to win. Red and Meo eventually expired and Tom traveled the rodeo circuit alone trying to win the big purses. He did well but didn't ride to win, he rode for revenge and to punish the horses. He continued this cycle until he was crushed when riding at the Garden in New York City. He was laid up in the hospital for many weeks and his future of a bronc rider were slim. But Tom was determined to ride again and prove everyone wrong. He recovered enough to leave the hospital and traveled to Colorado back to the reservation. He became a sheepherder and was again with nature and lived in solitary among the animals and vegetation. His path crossed with a grizzly bear while watching the sheep and he was determined to kill it, kill his boyhood. But once he encountered the bear again he couldn't shoot him. He knew he must purify himself and lived from the land and reconnected with the old ways. This was a story of identity and belonging. Throughout the story he continually tried to find himself.
—Taya
I read this book in six grade. It was gripping. I've read it once since, & I would like to visit it again. It follows the story of an Indian boy who is raised by his mother in the mountains after his father is killed in an avalanche. A few years later his mother takes ill & dies. He fends for himself for a few years & is questioned one day when he goes to town to trade his baskets for cloth. The police seize him (and his bear cub!!!) & make him go to school. Eventually, he becomes a bullriding rodeo star who ends up riding a few to their death. And that's all I'm gonna say.
—Amy Johnson
