Truth-Language of the Almanac

In the passages from "Imagined Communities", Benedict Anderson describes the way that sacred languages held together classical communities of the sort that faded as nationalism rose to prominence. The power he ascribes to languages is illustrated and becomes an integral part of "Almanac of the Dead". Native American culture is characterized as a traditional community, where language plays a vital role in keeping the culture alive, particularly in the form of the novel's namesake, the almanac.

The almanac Yoeme passed down to Zeta and Lecha is in the form of loose papers and notebooks covered in writing and drawings. To an outside observer unversed in the Native American lore the sisters grew up with, the contents of the almanac would be nonsense. In this way, the text operates as a "truth-language" just like "Church Latin, Qur'anic Arabic, or Examination Chinese" in that it determines, in part, the membership of the group (Anderson 14). For example, Menardo chose to ignore his Indian ancestry and his grandfather's stories and so is not versed in the sacred language. In contrast, since Zeta and Lecha were very close to Yoeme, they learned the language and claimed their membership in the group.

It is also significant that the drawings of snakes were so important to Yoeme. According to Zeta, "the notebook of the snakes was the key to understanding all the rest of the old almanac" (Silko 134). Similarly, Anderson states that the vital difference between the sacred languages and other more modern languages was "the non-arbitrariness of the sign" and the belief that all the symbols were "emanations of reality, not randomly fabricated representations of it" (14). The snakes are important because the drawings themselves mean something and do not just stand in as representations for an unrelated idea. The power of the almanac requires its reader to understand the depth of meaning behind a seemingly simple drawing.

"Almanac of the Dead" also illustrates Anderson's idea that "the bilingual intelligentsia, by mediating between vernacular and Latin, mediated between earth and heaven" (14-15). This explanation, when applied to the women in "Almanac" who used Native American languages to evoke a specific mystical occurrence, explains their power. Lecha discovered what happened to murdered people and exerted control over others' lives using what we are lead to believe are traditional Native American methods. When discussing their work on the almanac, Lecha tells Zeta, "once the notebooks are transcribed, I will figure out how to use the old almanac. Then we will foresee the months and years to come- everything" (Silko 137). Lecha truly believes in the almanac's power, the power instilled in mere pages by the words inscribed on them.

According to Anderson, "the fall of Latin exemplified a larger process in which the sacred communities integrated by old sacred languages were gradually fragmented, pluralized, and territorialized" (19). This fall also applies to the language of the almanac. In the past, as described by Silko, the Indians of the Southwest United States and Mexico was divided into villages with similarities in culture. However, in the portions of "Almanac of the Dead" focusing on Menardo, the reader becomes familiar with the characterization of Native Americans as territorial revolutionaries, desiring an overthrow of the government to reclaim their land. While they may maintain their knowledge of traditional culture and lore, their mindset has become one of nationalism. They turned away from the power of their language to the power of guns and explosives, and in the process, lost a vital part of their culture.