There There

In the Prologue of There There, Orange introduces several key themes of the novel using a poetic series of descriptions separated by subheadings. The opening pages are dedicated to the “head of an Indian” that appeared on TV sets from the 1940s to the 1970s in the US whenever programming ended for the day (3). The section transitions to discussing the “land-deal meal” that is now celebrated as Thanksgiving (4). Orange describes several moments in history when the heads of Indigenous people were cut off by colonists, comparing these to the “Indian Head test pattern” (5-6). Orange mentions stories about “heads rolling” and connects the physical murder of Indigenous people to the metaphorical use of the “Indian silhouette” in American culture (7).

The Prologue moves on to the idea of “Massacre as Prologue” and lists a series of murderous images. Then the narrative shifts to discuss the migration of Indigenous Americans into cities, which “was supposed to be the final, necessary step in our assimilation, absorption, erasure” (8). The section closes on a description of “Urban Indians” who are the generation “born in the city” (11).