Motherhood begins from the moment a woman conceives. Mother and child have an immediate bond. The ability to create life and bring it into the world is magical and changes a woman emotionally, physically and mentally. An example of a remarkable mother-daughter bond in history would be that of Native American women and their daughters. In A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris, the connections between the three main characters, Rayona, Christine, and Ida, are in complete contrast to those of the Native American women. The first part of the story begins with Rayona's point of view. She is a fifteen-year-old girl, half black and half Native American. Rayona's mother, Christine is an alcoholic and is extremely ill because of it. She makes immature decisions and Rayona is forced to follow. Christine and Rayona do not communicate, they are completely different from each other. Christine runs away from her problems while Rayona tries to solve them. An example is in the novel where Christine decides to leave Seattle and return to her old reservation. When they arrive, Aunt Ida, Christine's mother, is upset to see her there, so Christine runs away and Rayona chases after her because she longs for her love. Upset that her mother left for no reason, she looks down and hates it. She finds it ugly and to get rid of it, she pulls it in frustration while thinking: “No matter how much I pull, there is more.” I’ll never clean it all up and yet I can’t stop” (Dorris 32). Here, the dirt symbolizes the ugliness of Rayona's life and how much she wants to clean it up but she never will. Christine's behavior towards Rayona is anything but maternal. She is an alcoholic pill user who... middle of paper ... the individual stories of Da, Christine and Rayona” (Roby64). Their stories correlate with each other, keeping them together in a bond so strong that they themselves cannot separate. Ida ends the novel with a stunning statement about their life-calling stories, "three strands, the whispers of coming and going, of twisting, of tying and bending, of catching and letting go, of braiding" (Dorris372 ). Although their relationships are not exactly what Native American women would consider ideal, they are lovingly applied. Ida, Christine, and Rayona each struggle with something different because they have different personalities. But through their differences arises a similarity, love, which ultimately binds these three women as a whole. These are three Native American women whose lives intertwine and create this absolutely beautiful bond..