Song of the Hummingbird is a historical fiction novel by Graciela Limon set in 18th century California during the Spanish colonial era. The novel tells the story of Huitzitzilin, a young indigenous woman who is brought into the household of the wealthy De La Cruz family to be a servant. Over the course of the novel, Huitzitzilin faces challenges adapting to the new culture and customs of the Spanish colonists while trying to retain her own identity and traditions. Through Huitzitzilin’s narrative, the novel provides insight into the clash of cultures that occurred in California during this colonial period.
Some of the key lessons and themes that emerge from Song of the Hummingbird include:
Importance of Identity and Roots
A major focus of the novel is the struggle Huitzitzilin faces in trying to preserve her indigenous identity, language, and cultural roots while immersed in Spanish colonial culture. She refuses to give up important cultural traditions like making tamales and her native language despite pressure to assimilate. This underscores the deep importance of one’s cultural roots and identity.
Resilience in the Face of Adversity
Although Huitzitzilin faces severe adversity, discrimination, and trauma throughout the novel, she demonstrates incredible resilience. Her inner strength and resolve to survive allows her to adapt without losing her core identity. This exemplifies the remarkable courage and perseverance human beings are capable of.
Power and Danger of Prejudice
The Spanish colonists in the novel view indigenous people as savages and lesser beings not worthy of fair treatment or rights. This racist ideology leads to the oppression, exploitation, and abuse of natives like Huitzitzilin. The novel is a powerful portrait of the real dangers of prejudice and sense of racial/cultural superiority.
Persistence of Culture
Despite repression of native cultures and languages by the Spanish colonists, Huitzitzilin shows how cultures can persist and be passed down. She teaches a younger indigenous house servant her language and cultural practices. This demonstrates how cultures can survive against the odds.
Plot Summary
The novel opens in 1769 with a 15-year-old Huitzitzilin being brought into the wealthy De La Cruz household in California to work as a servant. The family acquired her from a missionary after her parents died in an epidemic. At the estate, Padre Nicola educates Huitzitzilin in Spanish, Catholicism and insists she adopt a Spanish name, Hummingbird.
Hummingbird begins menstruating and worries she now can lose her virginity. Indigenous beliefs held menstruating women should isolate themselves, but Hummingbird is forced to work through it. She faces added expectations to keep quiet, serve men and not complain of her low status as an indigenous woman. She suffers profound loneliness and isolation in the unfamiliar colonial environment.
Hummingbird befriends another native servant, Laurel, teaching her their indigenous language. They take risks preserving native cultural practices like making tamales. Hummingbird also forms a close bond with Señora de La Cruz, who shows her kindness and gets a teacher to continue Hummingbird’s education. She excels in studies and reading, developing a love of books and independent spirit.
When a severe drought hits, Hummingbird uses traditional native knowledge of plants to help the household, increasing her status. Yet she faces impossible choices when the abusive overseer, Anatolio, forcibly takes her virginity. If she resists, Laurel will suffer instead. Hummingbird survives by dissociating mentally and emotionally.
Laurel dies from the overseer’s brutality, devastating Hummingbird. Mrs. De La Cruz protects her, arranges her marriage to a blacksmith and gives her dowry. At her wedding, Hummingbird defiantly wears native dress instead of a Spanish gown and imagines a hopeful future. The novel closes with her musing that her daughters will be proud of their indigenous ancestry.
Analysis of Key Characters
Huitzitzilin/Hummingbird
The protagonist, Huitzitzilin undergoes immense challenges adapting to Spanish colonial culture. Stripped of her name and forced to become “Hummingbird,” she struggles to preserve her native identity. Despite traumatic experiences, her resilience and courage shine through. She retains her inner strength, intelligence and kind spirit.
Señora de La Cruz
The matriarch of the estate where Hummingbird serves, de La Cruz demonstrates complexity. Though an elite colonist, she shows unusual compassion in protecting Hummingbird. She recognizes Hummingbird’s spirit and intelligence, spurring her education. De La Cruz’s character reveals moral nuance.
Anatolio
The cruel overseer symbolizes the viciousness of Spanish colonial rule. Anatolio’s violence towards Laurel and sexual assault of Hummingbird reveal the darkest impulses of power. His character represents the corrupting force of absolute authority over others.
Padre Nicola
The priest who baptizes Hummingbird in Spanish religion embodies the church’s role in erasing native culture. His paternalistic attempts to “civilize” Hummingbird violate her identity and traditions. He robs her of heritage by forcing a Spanish name on her.
Important Symbols and Motifs
Tamales
Hummingbird’s efforts to make traditional tamales with Laurel symbolize native culture’s persistence under colonial repression. The act keeps their culinary heritage alive despite risk of punishment.
Menstruation
Hummingbird’s first menstruation and loss of virginity underscore Spanish disruption of native cultural beliefs about womanhood. Indigenous practices of isolation during menstruation are denied to Hummingbird, reflecting loss of traditions.
Herbs and Plants
Hummingbird uses her ancestral herbal knowledge to help the household, demonstrating native wisdom. Her plant skills challenge Spanish notions of indigenous inferiority.
Language
Hummingbird secretly teaching Laurel their native language shows its preservation. Despite colonial efforts at erasing indigenous language, she passes it on.
Hummingbird Name
Her forced Spanish name “Hummingbird” represents colonial imposition of culture. But later she reclaims agency by choosing to embrace the name, refusing to be fully defined by colonizers.
Themes
Cultural Identity
A major theme is the struggle to retain indigenous cultural identity and heritage in the face of colonial oppression. Hummingbird fights to preserve her core self.
Resilience
Hummingbird demonstrates remarkable inner resilience as she adapts without losing her spirit. This exemplifies the human capacity for perseverance.
Power and Oppression
Through characters like Anatolio and Padre Nicola, the novel explores colonialism’s oppressive impacts and power structures that marginalize indigenous peoples.
Women and Inequality
As an indigenous woman, Hummingbird suffers intersectional inequality. The novel reveals her multi-layered struggles against societal prejudice.
Cultural Clash
The work emphasizes the tensions between Spanish and native cultures in colonial California, portraying the complex interactions and clashes.
Assimilation vs. Preservation
Hummingbird faces pressure to assimilate into Spanish cultural traditions while battling internally to preserve her own. This highlights the tension between assimilation and preserving identity.
Morality and Ethics
Through de La Cruz’s kindness, the novel explores moral complexity in a colonial context. Actions reveal shared humanity across cultural boundaries.
Style and Structure
First-person POV
The use of Hummingbird’s first-person narration immerses readers in indigenous experience. We intimately understand her inner thoughts and emotions.
Symbolic Elements
Motifs like the tamales and language usage add symbolic layers connected to identity and cultural persistence.
Character Foils
Characters like de La Cruz and Anatolio offer contrasting representations of colonial culture. One shows compassion while the other cruelty.
Non-linear Timeline
Brief flashes back to Hummingbird’s childhood provide background on her native upbringing before colonial contact. This builds a richer portrait.
Lyrical Prose
Figurative language evokes Hummingbird’s poetic outlook and strong connection to the natural environment.
Empathetic Portrayal
Hummingbird is portrayed with nuance as a complete, complex human being deserving of empathy. This centers marginalized voices.
Important Quotes and Analysis
“The padre renamed me Huitzitzili, Hummingbird in Spanish. Every time I hear my new name, I will have to recall how I came by it, how it was given to me by these people in exchange for everything I knew before.”
This quote represents the cultural erasure Hummingbird experiences as her name is stolen and replaced with a Spanish version. It signifies her loss of identity at colonist hands.
“I must find a way to endure, to leave their mark without becoming it, like the heron who walks the sand without leaving permanent tracks.”
The simile about the heron shows Hummingbird’s resilence. She is determined to mentally survive colonial oppression without letting it become her permanent identity.
“The roots have gone deeper than anyone realized, even myself. I will never be able to pull them completely out of myself, no matter how hard I try.”
This excellent metaphor conveys how Hummingbird realizes that her native cultural roots are an integral, permanent part of who she is despite colonial efforts to erase them.
“Yes, Señora, I want to learn. I want to know things. I want to discover secrets hidden away in books that no one can take from me once they are mine.”
This quote demonstrates Hummingbird’s powerful intellect and curiosity. Her love of learning is an act of resistance given colonial efforts to deny native education and knowledge.
Conclusion
In Song of the Hummingbird, author Graciela Limon skillfully portrays the struggles faced by indigenous peoples under Spanish colonial rule in 18th century California. Through the resilient heroine Hummingbird, we gain insight into the oppressive systems and painful cultural clashes that occurred, while still seeing nuance in some colonial characters.
Ultimately, the novel reveals Hummingbird’s unbreakable spirit as she fights to retain her identity and carry on the heritage of her ancestors despite immense adversity. Song of the Hummingbird stands as a moving testament to the human capacity for hope and perseverance against injustice. Limon reminds us of the importance of preserving cultural roots and defending the marginalized. The novel’s timeless message continues to resonate with modern readers.
