The Border Underground: Indigenous Cosmovisions in the Migration Narratives of Leslie Marmon Silko and Yuri Herrera

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between storytelling and prophecy by reading narratives of extractivism in the US-Mexico borderlands that raise questions about the apocalyptic aftermaths of colonialism. Specifically, it analyzes contemporary migration stories narrated through Indigenous cosmovisions in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead (1991) and Yuri Herrera’s Señales que precederán el fin del mundo (2009). It contends that Silko and Herrera’s novels employ Maya, Nahua, Yaqui, and Laguna Pueblo migration narratives to eschew colonial cartographic portrayals of the borderlands and reclaim them as dynamic spaces of mobility, as opposed to static cartographic lines. The article demonstrates how Indigenous epistemologies afford Silko and Herrera opportunities to extend their stories into underground spaces and lay bare a history of extractivism—specifically of mining. In doing so, the novels materialize the land’s colonial history and lay out prophecies for the end of our present world.