Fools Crow Book Review
Fools Crow is a history based fiction novel written by James Welch. Within the book is the story of White Man's Dog, a young adult (early twenties) man in the Lone Eater's tribe on the plains of the American Frontier shortly after the American Civil War. In addition to White Man's Dog's personal story is an excellent view into the Native American way of thought; where their reverence for nature, dreams, kinship bonds, and dis-taste for unnecessary bloodshed and loss become clear through inside thought and vernacular. So, with great adherence to cultural relativity and historical accuracy, Welch tells a story of an unfortunate Native American Man's life and the general demise of Native American culture.
Summary
In the beginning of the story, White Man's Dog is teased and taunted by his peers and fellow tribesmen because of his misfortune and lack of wealth. While most of it is in jest or at his expense for a cheap laugh, some of the remarks do hit his insecurities. Right away, during one of his internal monologues in the beginning chapter, he rationalizes his lack of capital due to his inexperience in raiding and generally short lived life so far. What does bother him during his monologue is his loneliness and lack of experience with women. He then explains his concern that the teasing of him for not having a partner may become a self fulfilling prophecy if that status quo is left unchanged. Specifically he notes how the other men in the group call him a “near-woman”, implying his is both not masculine and thus incapable of doing things expected of a man at the time, and how when the women nearby hear that they typically favor other guys over him. Truly an empathetic anecdote and feeling. However, his thoughts are interrupted when a fellow young man, also inexperienced in warfare, approaches him named Fast Horse. Fast Horse's significance in the group so far is his lineage of his father who holds “powerful medicine” in the form of the beaver bundle. Because of the constant reminder of his lineage, Fast Horse is eager and almost naive about obtaining his own glory. With this goal and knowledge of misfortune for his friend, he tells him of another member's plan to raid another Native American group named the Crows because of the groups history of attacking each other. The third member is named Yellow Kidney who is experienced in warfare and general life experience due to his age of about forty. The two young men become excited about the prospect of wealth and glory and eagerly join in on Yellow Kidney's plan.
The raid by Yellow Kidney is the first key event in the story. Leading up to the raid, Yellow Kidney notes through monologue that he is concerned at the success of the young people in the raiding party, but sees improvement in likelihood for survival when they show their true colors on the path into enemy territory. He explicitly states how calm and collected White Man's Dog is during the journey and gives him the honor of executing the most profitable part of the raid which is herding away the horses from the Crow encampment. After the raid, and White Man's Dog success in herding a whole drive of horses it is discovered back at home camp that Yellow Kidney did not make it back from the raid. This brings hardship on Yellow Kidney's family and White Man's dog takes it upon himself to support the family because he feels it is his fault due to a small skirmish he had with a young crow boy that ended in the boy's death. However, it is revealed that his mistake did not matter at all; it was actually Fast Horse's fault because in his overconfidence in stealing a horse he boasted loudly to the enemy camp and gave away his and Yellow Kidney's location. After this revelation Fast Horse banishes himself from the camp and joins Owl Child's gang, a violent gang that specifically target white men when raiding.
After these events, life goes on for White Man's Dog as he becomes a more respected member of his community. He gained wealth and glory in his first raid and put aside his shame for Yellow Kidney because he learned it was not his fault. Additionally, the problems he listed in the beginning of the novel disappear one by one as he grows as a person. With his wealth and respect from Yellow Kidney due to White Man Dog's care taking of the family in Yellow Kidney's absence, he is is allowed to marry Red Paint, the daughter of Yellow Kidney that is well known for her beauty and crafting skills. So he finds himself no longer lonely, married to the arguably most sought after girl in the tribe, and obtaining more and more respect from his actions. He also finds spiritual growth as he befriends the many faced man Mik Api who is a powerful medicine man within the tribe and eventually becomes apprenticed to the man. Through his he gains the powers of the wolverine who grants him a “battle song” which will aid his war medicine. Unfortunately for him, he will have to use this newly acquired gift soon due to his position in family and the tribe.
The next climatic event of the novel is the raid on the Crow's camp to avenge Yellow Kidney. During the raid, White Man's Dog is shot by Bull Shield, one of the leader of the Crows and the torturer of Yellow Kidney, and falls off his horse. Onlookers do not see him get shot, but interpret him falling off his horse as a strategy, namely “playing dead”. Another member of the tribe goes to attack Bull Shield seeing White Man's Horse fall which distracts Bull Shield long enough for White Man's Dog to get a clean shot at Bull Shield. He takes his shot, killing Bull Shield and successfully avenges his now Father-in-Law Yellow Kidney. With the raid concluding as a success he returns to camp and is renamed in honor to Fools Crow because everyone who saw this showdown thought he was being clever which is a highly respected character trait among Native Americans. However, White Man's Dog, now Fools Crow, is torn between shame and honor because he feels his new name is undeserved because he was not clever, just incredibly lucky, but still proud in his accomplishment of avenging the wounded old man.
After that climactic raid he become a leader within the tribe leading more and more raids he soon comes to dislike raiding. This is because of his belief in unnecessary bloodshed even if it is for the benefit of his people. This feeling is expanded upon when Red Paint tells him she is pregnant and thus worries that with all the raiding he will not come home to be a father to their son because with each raid runs a risk to his own life. However, she knows that in order to sustain their people's way of life, resources must be obtained in some fashion. This is resource management is becoming harder and harder as the white men encroach on their land through observed and minor use of force and the disappearance of the blackhorn's that the plain's people rely on so heavily for food, tools, and trade. To help come to a solution to all these problems he seeks guidance in a journey called a vision quest.
The final climactic even in the story is Fools Crow's vision quest. On his journey, the skunk bear returns to him and guides him to the feathered woman, who is the mortal Pikuni wife of Morning Star who is the son of Sun Chief (the sun) and Night Red Light (the moon). After meeting her she helps him by painting on a hide which reveal a series of visions to Fools Crow. These visions include the destruction of his tribe's camp to the white scabs disease (smallpox), blue coat seizers (American military men) heading towards their lands to take it, animals disappearing from the ecology of the land (notably the blackhorn is gone and is especially troubling to him), and the forced death to the Native American culture complete with boarding schools and assimilation into the American way of life for their children. These visions sadden and distress Fools Crow on his way back to his camp. Soon after, smallpox does break out in his camp and wiping out about half the tribe. Additionally, another vision is revealed as truth as he finds another Pikuni camp that was massacred by American troops. Seeing these visions to reality he makes the hard decision to move the rest of his people North to Canada and carry on their history through the act of story telling, as instructed by the Feathered Woman.
Analysis
Throughout the novel, James Welch gives excelling insight into the Native American view of life. One of the major focuses in Native American culture is placed on dreams. To them, dreams are visions that come to them at night, omens of what is to come, and guiding stories for them to follow. Very early on the story, Fast Horse is given a vision in the form of a dream where Cold Maker, the embodiment of winter, comes to him and gives him an ultimatum on the success of the first raid against the Crows. The deal is, if a frozen lake nearby the Crow's camp is cleared of a boulder and two blackhorns are sacrificed to Cold Maker, then he will cover their tracks and ensure success of the raid and give him the glory he desperately seeks. Fast Horse interprets this as a good omen because he simply has to dislodge a boulder at an unknown lake to achieve easy glory. In contrast, Yellow Kidney sees this as a bad omen because he was simply relying on his war medicine and skill to achieve success on this raid full of inexperienced warriors and now has to deal with the extra task of dislodging this boulder. Yellow Kidney also doubts the validity of this dream because while he is aware that winter is coming he does not think Fast Horse is being entirely truthful about the ease of success. Yellow Kidney even feels shame in doubting another tribe member's dreams which shows the importance dreams are given in their culture. Another important example of dreams is the dream Mik Api reveals to Fools Crow before he sets out to obtain his war song from the Wolverine. Miraculously, the dream set Fools Crow on a correct path with excellent directions and he found a trapped skunk bear that granted him these powers. At any point Fools Crow could have doubted the dream and died to loss of direction or mauled to death by the wounded and scared skunk bear. Throughout that journey he persists, talks to a raven, finds the trapped animal, and helps it out; all as foretold by Mik Api. Both of these dreams and the results show how dreams in this culture hold incredible power over these people's lives.
Fools Crow by James Welch gives excellent insight and reasoning behind the thought processes of the Native Americans on the plains. Within the novel, a charming story of growth and development of a young man is told and a well detailed review of the mechanisms of Native American culture is relayed to the reader. In particular, the importance of dreams in their culture is shown multiple times with excruciating detail given to his imagery and description of both the dreams and inner monologues of the characters to explain their reasoning. In short, the relatively short reading time coupled with entertaining and insightful dialogue makes Fools Crow an excellent and recommended read.