The novel is the first in a series based on the, mostly fictional, life of a Cherokee Indian mystic and man of action who was born in North Georgia in 1827 and died in Oklahoma in 1906. This novel begins in the year 1838 with 11 year old Qua Nie spying on the Irish woman who will be his father's new wife when his mother's marriage is annulled on the grounds that, being a Cherokee, she will always be a heathen and the new Baptist minister of her father-in-law does not allow marriage to heathens. It closes in 1847 after his having survived the Trail of Tears and before he begins his Wander Years. Most of this story centers around his mother, Atskili, and her ancestors and their attempts to assimilate the European traditions in order to transcend them.