Truth versus Twilight

Quileute werewolves, as portrayed in Twilight: New Moon

The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture has launched a website titled "Truth versus Twilight", exploring the film's portrayal of Native Americans, and specifically the Quileute People of the Olympic Peninsula. The site was prompted by the Twilight novels' treatment of the Quileute as "fictional werewolfs... mythic characters in a fantasy role, rather than as human beings", according to Dr. Deanna Dartt-Newton, the Museum's Curator of Native American Ethnology. Below are a few of the fictions (slightly tongue-in-cheek), that website addresses:

Fiction: The wolf pack exists to fight vampires 

In Eclipse, Billy Black tells the Quileute legend of the Cold Ones, wherein a stone-hard vampire kills tribal members, only able to be stopped by the sharp teeth and claws of wolves, which the Quileute men, led by Taha Aki, transform into in order to defend their tribe. Billy continues to tell the story of the third wife: when Taha Aki was about to fall victim to a vampire. Avenging her lover’s death, his third wife stabbed herself to distract the blood-thirsty creature, enabling Taha Aki to defeat it. While this story serves as an intriguing literary device, “cold ones” do not exist in real Quileute stories.

Fact: Quileute people do not turn into wolves

Even if vampires existed, Quileute people cannot transform into wolves. The only record of wolf transformation in Quileute culture happens in the opposite: the Transformer Qwati arrived at La Push, creating the first Quileute people from a pair of nearby wolves. Thus, the Quileute do not have magical wolf genes of 24 chromosomal pairs (Breaking Dawn, 236-7), and are actually humans with 23.

Fiction: The wolf pack finds wives by imprinting 

In New Moon Jacob describes imprinting to Bella in order to explain the love triangle between Sam, Emily, and Leah. He remarks that all Quileute legends are true (Eclipse, 174). This unbreakable connection between a wolf and his mate is, in fact, another literary device that Stephenie Meyer falsely presents as Quileute.

Fact: Quileutes have relationships like most Americans 

In truth, traditional marriages were arranged, often strategically for family alliances to bring advantageous access to fishing and hunting locations or to special songs and dances (Powell and Jensen, 25). Arranged marriages usually included the couples’ consent, and divorces were not uncommon. Contemporary Quileute society practices the same dating and marriage customs as do other modern Western people.

>> For an excellent discussion of why the Quileute are always shown without their shirts (besides the abs), see Rebecca Sedlak's post, "A Colonial Narrative: The Portrayal of American Indians in "'The Twilight Saga'".