Okla Hannali

Okla Hannali

The first persons on our earth were two brothers—Chatah and Chickasah. They emerged onto land from a cavern under the Gulf of Mexico. (Prologue)

The map follows Hannali Innominee through the four parts of the book: the old country in Mississippi, the new country in the Indian Territory from 1828 to 1860, the Thirteen Civil Wars of 1861 to 1865, and the latter days to his death at the Big House about January 1900. The chapters in which Lafferty tells the nation’s history apart from Hannali’s are episodes of their own, marked “The nation’s story.”

Places are set where Lafferty identifies them, and positions he gives by measure, such as Round Mountain Landing “twenty miles upriver from Fort Coffee,” are measured on the map. Where he gives only a direction, an arrow points the way; where he gives only a distance from the house, a ring marks it. Places he names but does not locate are listed rather than drawn, and the notes under “Lafferty and the record” mark where he argues with the historians or with legend.