There are many instances Leslie Marmon Silko writes about, in her book storyteller, where Indian and White people meet. They usually meet in a common place known as contact zones. The meetings between the Indians and the Whites are almost never pleasant. There is a lot of animosity towards the Indian race from the white people. In Silko's story, storyteller, the contact zone is at a general store. The contact zone in the Silko's story Lullaby was a little different because they came to the house and that is where they interacted. Even though the contact zones were two different places the end result was not good.
Nothing good came from the meeting between the girl in the story, storyteller, and the storeowner. The story is set in a rural town in Alaska and there is a general store that is on the border of the Eskimo and white villages. The storeowner did not like Indians or Eskimos, and whenever the girl went to the store he watched her like a hawk. It was very clear that he did not like her there, and he was furious when one of the Gussicks let her sit at a table. Due to the hostility between the girl and the storeowner a tragic event occurred. One night the girl went into the store and the storeowner chased her out of the store because he wanted to do her harm. She ran across the river, however she had an advantage over the storeowner, she knew exactly where the ice would break. Well the storeowner did not know where the ice would break, and he fell into the river and died. In light of this she was charged with his murder and put into jail. .
No one went to jail in the story Lullaby, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a tragedy that occurred. In this story an Indian mother named Ayah, loses her children to the government, also known as the white man. Even though there wasn't a physical injury that occurred, there was considerable damage caused by the white man to Ayah.
