Thomas Darko is a Mohican for the twentieth century, the last surviving member of the tiny Mosopelea Tribe of the Mississippi Delta, called Ofos by outsiders. Never numbering more than a few hundred people in recorded history, his kinsmen have died away until Thomas comes to think of himself as "a nation of one." Now an old man in the waning years of the century, Thomas tells the story of his rough-and-tumble life--one which saw many of the changes that Indian people have faced in modern America--and he emerges as one of the most endearing characters in contemporary Native American literature. In this subtle but inventive novel, presented as Thomas's memoirs, Geary Hobson offers us a glimpse into a life filled with simple joys and sorrows. In relating his Louisiana childhood, Thomas recalls not just school-learning but being taught Indian ways by the small Ofo community. He tells of his life as a roustabout in the oil fields, of his courtship of the rambunctious Sally Fachette, and of his career as a bootlegger, which landed him in prison. We share Thomas's wartime stint with the Marines--where "for the first time in my life I was treated like a equal"--and his life as a farm laborer and a Hollywood extra portraying warbonneted Cheyennes. Then in his later years, when he truly has become the last of his kind, we find Thomas recruited by an anthropologist from the Smithsonian Institution to preserve his people's culture. In Washington, he is exposed to the vagaries of Indian policy and the emerging Native American movement. Throughout Thomas's story, readers are introduced to a wide-ranging cast of characters, from the outlaws Bonnie and Clyde to a fellow Marine who is wary of Indians, to an uppity anthropologist who doesn't consider Thomas "expert" enough to handle an Ofo flute. Always poor in material wealth but rich in heritage, Thomas Darko is a Native American Everyman whose identity is shaped by family and homeland. His "autobiography" paints a realistic portrait of an Indian confronting the obstacles in his life and the dilemmas of his age as his story reveals the painful legacy of being the last of one's kind.
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In this novella, English professor Hobson, a Cherokee-Quapaw-Chickasaw Indian, pays tribute to those tribes so obscure they have become extinct, or nearly so. Hobson's character, Thomas Darko, represents the last of the Mosopelea tribe, called the Ofo by whites. In this first-person account, Darko looks back on his life from birth in Louisiana in 1905 to young manhood to old age as he settles into the lonely realization that he is the last of his tribe. Through Darko, Hobson traces the Native American experience, touching on the Depression, World War II, current fascination with Native American culture, and the politics surrounding tribal identification. Darko works his way across the U.S., at one point acting in the movies in mostly nonspeaking parts portraying members of other Indian tribes. Years after his family has died, Darko is engaged by the Smithsonian to compile a dictionary of the Ofo language. Emblematic of the relationship between whites and Indians, Darko bridles at being treated like a living artifact rather than a man. Vanessa Bush
--This text refers to the
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paper 0-8165-1959-5 A slender but illuminating debut novel from Cherokee/Chickasaw poet and Oklahoma professor Hobson offers a sympathetic view of a Louisiana man who becomes the last of his kind, with the awful knowledge that no one will ever speak to him in his native tongue again. Looking back on his life from old age, the first years of the 20th century weren't bad for Thomas Darko. Among other things, brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents all lived in what they called ``Ofo Town,'' with other, larger Indian groups as neighbors and relatives in good hunting and fishing country along the Mississippi. After dropping out of elementary school, Thomas even started to make a good living, first in the oilfields, then as a bootlegger. But as he prospered, his family, never huge, began to dwindle from a series of tragedies: One brother died in a New Jersey boot camp during the influenza epidemic of 1917, another in a knife fight, and his father's spirit was crushed by the loss of his sons. Thomas's reputation for first-rate moonshine during Prohibition extended to Texas and even Chicago, but the glory days ended in a raid in 1933 and he went off to jail. There, his high-maintenance wife Sally left him without a word, taking everythingand then the whole of his remaining family was killed when a freight train hit their truck. On his release he found years of solace in his whiskey, but by WWII, Thomas was sober and with the Marines in the Pacific, where he was his unit's sole survivor in the assault on Japanese-held Tarawa. An empty time followed, until Smithsonian ethnographers asked him to record his language for posterity; that too proved a hollow endeavor, leaving the last of the Ofos to end his days alone. A compassionate sketch, and deceptively simple quiet study, that manages to put a human face on the sadly logical outcome of a national history of genocide. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Diogenes of Louisiana,
By roger brown (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Last of the Ofos (Sun Tracks) (Paperback)
The Last of the Ofos gives us a man whose resourcefulness and sense of adventure takes him across much of the 20th Century of the United States. Thomas Darko is innocent and worldly simultaneously, and brings a fresh but honest look at much human foolishness as he runs rum with integrity, searches for the woman who abandons him without sentiment, shows us the best and worst of those who idealize Native American culture and always returns to the life of simple self-sufficiency that gives him more satisfaction than all his adventures. I loved the book and the dignity and truthfulness of the story. I stumbled across it in the University of Oklahoma bookstore and my curiosity was generously rewarded.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Last of the Ofos,
By Geraldine Burke (Ireland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Last of the Ofos (Sun Tracks) (Paperback)
This is an illuminating and thoroughly enjoyable read. Compassionate, sympathetically written, by times heart rending. A tribute to the almost forgotten Mosopelea tribe. Professor Hobson touched all of my emotions with this. I look forward to his next title.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantasttic novel!,
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This review is from: The Last of the Ofos (Sun Tracks) (Paperback)
This novel is inspired by a man, the last of the Ofos, an American Indian tribe of Louisiana! It's a very moving very well written novel. As every book I loved I made this purchase to offer it to friends.
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