Story of inhabitant crossing a river repeatedly (9)
I believe the answer is:
narrative
'story' is the definition.
(I know that story can be written as narrative)
'inhabitant crossing a river repeatedly' is the wordplay.
'inhabitant' becomes 'native' (I have seen 'Original inhabitant ' mean 'native' so perhaps 'inhabitant' could also mean 'native').
'crossing' means one lot of letters goes inside another (to cross can mean to go over or around).
'river' becomes 'r' (abbreviation for river).
'repeatedly' indicates the doubling of some letters.
'r' duplicated is 'rr'.
'a'+'rr'='arr'
'native' placed around 'arr' is 'NARRATIVE'.
'of' is the link.
(Other definitions for narrative that I've seen before include "Story recounting events" , "Report" , "Popeye's vegetable" , "Story line" , "relation" .)