I read it as being very much rooted in the European invasion/conquest of the Americas - and in particular, the experiences of the Cherokee nation.
I was very much struck by the author's decision to make the Kyn - the analogues of the indigenous people in the trilogy - distinctly non-human and the invaders distinctly human.
I don't know why the author chose to write the story this way, but I have several ideas why a First Nations author might make such a decision. He might be underscoring the white cultural assumptions that the Eurpoeans were the civilised humans and the indigenous peoples "inhuman" savages in order to subvert them. He might be making a conscious use of the SFF trope that often has aliens standing in for people of colour when an author wants to discuss race without being too "real" about it. He might be making a comment on internalisation of white cultural sterotypes by indigenous peoples. He might have been drawing on indigenous spiritual traditions, which from my limited understanding, do not always make the kinds of concrete distinctions between humans and other animals that European tradition generally does, in order to create diversity among his Kyn characters.
And there's probably a number of other possible reasons for such a choice that haven't occurred to me.
This is actually one of the artistic choices made by the author that fascinated me - I know there is something behind this choice, and part of the gift the books offer is the opportunity to work it out.
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I was very much struck by the author's decision to make the Kyn - the analogues of the indigenous people in the trilogy - distinctly non-human and the invaders distinctly human.
I don't know why the author chose to write the story this way, but I have several ideas why a First Nations author might make such a decision. He might be underscoring the white cultural assumptions that the Eurpoeans were the civilised humans and the indigenous peoples "inhuman" savages in order to subvert them. He might be making a conscious use of the SFF trope that often has aliens standing in for people of colour when an author wants to discuss race without being too "real" about it. He might be making a comment on internalisation of white cultural sterotypes by indigenous peoples. He might have been drawing on indigenous spiritual traditions, which from my limited understanding, do not always make the kinds of concrete distinctions between humans and other animals that European tradition generally does, in order to create diversity among his Kyn characters.
And there's probably a number of other possible reasons for such a choice that haven't occurred to me.
This is actually one of the artistic choices made by the author that fascinated me - I know there is something behind this choice, and part of the gift the books offer is the opportunity to work it out.