The 7 Stages of Grieving: Scene 16: Home Story Summary & Analysis

The Woman makes a pile on the ground using red earth from the grave. She tells a story to the audience in the way it was told to her long ago. The Woman warns the audience that the story is complicated—she may get some things wrong but she is going to do her best. The pile of earth, she says, is the land, which is the spirit and the core of everything. She makes a circle around the pile—this circle, she says, represents culture, family, tradition, and song and dance. The story, the Woman warns, is about to get more complicated.

The Woman makes eight smaller piles around the central pile. Because her people have been told they must marry within their “own skin,” marriage becomes complicated. She cannot marry from her own pile of brothers and sisters, but she can marry from another pile of cousins. The woman admits that her logic is growing complicated and she continues working to explain whom she can and cannot marry within her people’s matrilineal society—but she ends up confusing even herself at times.

At last, the Woman gathers up the smaller piles and puts them on the white border of the black performance area. She asks the audience to imagine what happens when the children are “taken away from this.” She dashes the remaining large pile of red earth, destroying it.