Bad Weather The Natural Problems Faced by Karana
that the cave provides her with warmness which is essential to give her comfort in the winter season. She does not need to build the shelter because the cave gives
her everything she needs. Moreover, it is available to straightly being a shelter for her. She depends her life on the nature which has provided a great place where
she can stay and sleep. Furthermore, Karana also makes another house which she can use in the nice
weather. She builds a house from materials which she can find in her surroundings. These materials are ribs of the whale, wild grasses, kelps, rocks and
others. Furthermore, she uses poles as a fence to protect her from the wild dogs. Karana does not need to pay for those materials as nature provides them for free.
Humans only need to utilize them and maintain the nature.
On the third day the rain ceased and I went out to look for things which I would need in building the house.
I like wise needed poles for a fence. O’Dell, 1960: 73
In addition, for her comfortable life in the cave or on the Coral Cove, she
makes a bed from dry seaweeds. After the first night I spent there, which was uncomfortable because of the
uneven places in the rock, I carried dry seaweed up from the beach and made a bed for myself.
O’Dell, 1960: 56. It means that Karana tries hard to face the difficulty bravely. Everything should be
the same though now she should fulfill everything alone by utilizing the food, water, canoe, a companion and shelter by herself. Karana can represent how a
human cannot separate herhimself from the nature.
3 Needing Natural Materials to Make Life Necessities
By materials which have been provided by nature, Karana is able to make various life necessities that she needs. She needs necessities which are available or
proper to store water, cover her body and protect her from animal threats. Those things are a tight basket, clothes, and arrows. One of the things is presented in the
following statement
For cooking seeds and roots I wove a tight basket of fine reeds, which was easy because I had learned how to do it from my sister Ulape. After the
basket had dried in the sun, I gathered lumps of pitch on the shore, softened them over the fire, and rubbed them on the side of the basket so
that it would hold water
. By heating small stones and dropping them into a mixture of water and seeds in the basket I could make gruel. O’Dell, 1960:
77
Karana is able to make life necessities which are useful to store her foods and belongings. She tries to utilize the pitch which is very useful as waterproof
materials to make things. Karana learns how to utilize those things from her sister, Ulape.
She also needs clothes to protect her from cold and heat. Thus, she makes her own cloth from yucca fibers which come from the otters and sealskin which
comes from the seal. She can make the clothes by taking its material from the nature. This condition can be seen below.
During the time that I was taming the birds, I made another skirt. This one I also made a yucca fibers softened in water and braided into twine
. I made it just like the others, with folds running lengthwise. It was open on both sides
and hung to my knees. The belt I made of sealskin which could be tied in a knot
. I also made a pair of sandals from sealskin for walking over the dunes when the sun was hot
, or just to be dressed up when I wore my new skirt of yucca twine. O’Dell, 1960: 114
Furthermore, she also depends on natural resources to make weapons such as spare, bow, arrows, string and lamps in order to protect herself. This condition is
stated in this following datum. It was now time to make plans for getting rid of the wild dogs which had
killed my brother and would kill should they ever come upon me unarmed. I needed another and heavier spear, also a larger bow and sharper arrows.
To collect the material for these weapons,
I searched the whole island, taking many suns to do it. This left only the nights to work on them. Since I
could not see well by the dim fire I used for cooking, I made lamps of the dried bodies of little fish which we call
sai- sai.
O’Dell, 1960: 78
Living alone means that she has to struggle to protect and fulfill her own necessities. As wild dogs threaten her live, she must make the weapons in order to
make them scared. That is why, she tries to utilize everything surrounding her to make those weapons. Therefore, she makes some plans and collects some things.
In sum, she is able to make those weapons and lamps by utilizing woods and dried bodies of fish. Without nature, she cannot make those things.
In conclusion, the above explanations are useful to explain Karana’s dependencies on nature especially in order to make some useful life necessities.
Karana by depending on the nature is able to make appliances, clothes, weapons and lamps. In addition, these life necessities
are essential to Karana’s life to make her warm, comfortable and safe.