Narratives of four generations of Cherokee women violated in ritual parodies of romance who yield pride of place to four generations of White men who settle lands west of the Mississippi River and bequeath to their posterity an uncertain identity. The main characters include Rachel Fawn (Awi) born in 1812 in the Old Cherokee Nation; Joseph, Calvin, Aaron, and Dennis Baldd McKinney, pioneers and original settlers of the New Cherokee Nation from 1837 to 1908. Their amorous and sometimes violent lives are recounted in episodes of irony with commentary by the ghosts of Tecumseh and John Sevier, damned in hell for their murderous roles in the making of America.