Kathleen C. Arceneaux

Jukima Kathleen C. Arceneaux

Jukima is a story about survival, cultural collision, self-discovery, and magic. How would you adapt in order to survive, in a culture very different from the one you have taken for granted as normal and correct? How would you cope if all the modern technologies you took for-granted were stripped away, and if all that you had, you must construct for yourself? In confrontations with profound differences, what values would you continue to cherish as foundational to your identity? That is the situation that faced Noelle, a young anthropologist who became stranded in the rain-forest in South America; a flood marooned her with the people she had been studying as a project. The roles have been reversed; the indigenous people become the experts, and Noelle, the student. The Jukima who became her family are an ancient, isolated people who have evolved very differently from others. They have learned the power of imagination, and invisibility, and the realities to be found in dreaming.