Chancers: A Novel

Centered on the volatile issue of the repatriation of Native American skeletal remains, Chancers follows a group of student Solar Dancers who set out to resurrect native remains housed in the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Possessed by the demonic wiindigoo, a mythic monster, the Solar Dancers, in a gruesome ritual, sacrifice faculty and administrators associated with the collection and storage of native remains. The Dancers replace stored native skulls with those of the academics, and the resurrected natives become the Chancers.

The Round Dancers, humane and erotic trickster figures, are natural opponents of the morbid Solar Dancers. The war between the two groups comes to a comic conclusion at a graduation ceremony attended by Pocahontas; Phoebe Hearst; Alfred Kroeber, the anthropologist; Ishi, the native who actually lived and worked in the university museum; and many Chancers.

Gerald Vizenor is Professor of American Studies and Native American Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Griever: An American Monkey King in China (winner of the American Book Award); Dead Voices: Natural Agonies in the New World; and Chancers: A Novel. He resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.