How does Silko justify the woman's betrayal of her family in "Yellow Woman" by Leslie Marmon Silko?

Leslie Marmon Silko writes about the Native American
folklore that follows the oral tradition of her Laguna Pueblo culture.  “Yellow Woman”
illustrates Silko’s skills in transferring a legend into the contemporary world.  The
truth of the legend comes through the realism and confrontations of the emotional truth
and  the characters in the story.

The narrator of the story
is a young Indian woman who remains nameless except for the name given her by Silva, the
representative of the ka’tsina spirit in Indian lore.  “Yellow Woman’’ is set along a
river, on mountain trails,  and in Silva's mountain dwelling. 
 

The young woman seems typical of her heritage. 
Attractive, unsophisticated, vulnerable, and sexual—these words describe the narrator
caught up in an unknown world that her grandfather told her about,  but strikingly
different than the reality of her own life.  She does not come across as a role model
for Laguna women,  but more as the spirit for womankind who dream of adventure in their
lives.  In reality, the narrator lives with her family in
the pueblo, where life is safe, limited, and
comfortable.

Her sexual attraction to the mysterious Silva
goes beyond the normal man-woman connection.  She feels a part of him when they are
together.  He is irresistible to “Yellow Woman.” The narrator presents herself as a
willing participant in the sexual encounters as she wants not to go with him; however,
she cannot pull away. 

Her world is dream-like. The
narrator finds herself between two worlds: the real time of her twentieth century life
and family where she is educated and a wife, mother, daughter, and granddaughter; and
the mythic world that is timeless.  (1) She progresses
through the story with no boundaries between time and place.  She wants the contact of
the spiritual world in which the human, animal, and nature are
one. 

“Yellow Woman” is not just common version of the old
story of a married woman seeking to escape from her boring and unfulfilled family life
by having an affair with an exciting, eccentric man. (2)
The woman does not decide to do things with Silva but is forced to go
along with him.  She lives in the realistic world of Jell-O, paved roads, and screen
doors. 

I
wondered what they were doing at home now—my mother, my grandmother, my husband, and the
baby.  Cooking breakfast, saying ‘Where did she go?—may kidnapped,’ and Al going to the
tribal police with the
details.

(3)
Her thinking indicates that she does not appear to have a very strong attachment to her
husband or child, nor does she believe that they will mourn her loss very
much.

When the woman realizes that Silva is not the benign,
wonderful lover, her dream is quickly shattered by the understanding that this man is a
thief and a murderer. Without hesitation, she turns back to the other world: children,
husband, responsibility, routine.  She will lie to her family and they will believe
her.  Who would believe the truth? When she does return to her pueblo, she holds on to
the belief that the “strange” man will come back to get her one day when she walks again
along the river.

The narrator will not be punished for her
infidelities. (4)This was a woman in search of her
spiritual, native world.  Encompassed by the traditions of her people, she will be
protected by her other self: Yellow Woman.