Not Recommended: CODE WORD COURAGE by Kirby Larson

Code Word Courage
Written by Kirby Larson
Published in 2018
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Reviewer: Debbie Reese
Status: Not Recommended

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In 2018, a reader wrote to ask me about Kirby Larson's Code Word Courage. Here's the description:

Billie has lived with her great-aunt ever since her mom passed away and her dad left. Billie's big brother, Leo, is about to leave, too, for the warfront. But first, she gets one more weekend with him at the ranch.

Billie's surprised when Leo brings home a fellow Marine from boot camp, Denny. She has so much to ask Leo -- about losing her best friend and trying to find their father -- but Denny, who is Navajo, or Diné, comes with something special: a gorgeous, but injured, stray dog. As Billie cares for the dog, whom they name Bear, she and Bear grow deeply attached to each other.

Soon enough, it's time for Leo and Denny, a Navajo Code Talker, to ship out. Billie does her part for the war effort, but she worries whether Leo and Denny will make it home, whether she'll find a new friend, and if her father will ever come back. Can Bear help Billie -- and Denny -- find what's most important?

A powerful tale about unsung heroism on the WWII battlefield and the home front.

In May (of 2019), I saw Code Word Courage on the International Literacy Association's "Teachers' Choices 2019 Reading List" of books. Books on it are described as being "exceptional for curriculum use." That means that teachers are being encouraged to use the book to teach children. What do they learn from Larson's book?

Code Word Courage is a story about a White girl named Billie, a dog named Bear, and a Diné (Navajo) man named Denny Begay (and Denny's friend, Jesse, who is also a Code Talker).

The author, Kirby Larson, is White.

What we have in Code Word Courage is a White woman of the present day (Larson), creating dialogue, thoughts, emotions and actions of Native men who were born on the Navajo reservation in about 1926.

That is a difficult task.

In her Author's note, Larson writes:

Though I had tremendous input from people like Dr. Roy Hawthorne, one of the Navajo Code Talkers, and Michael Smith, son of Code Talker Samuel "Jesse" Smith, Sr., it is possible that I have made some mistakes in relating this story. I beg forgiveness in advance.

She says in that note, that it is possible she has made some mistakes and she begs forgiveness if those mistakes are there. Sounds good, but that disclaimer doesn't work for teachers in a classroom who don't know the mistakes are there. And if those mistakes are there, she's asking teachers--and students--to forgive her for making them. She wants them to feel bad for her--not for the people who are misrepresented by her errors.

In her Acknowledgements, Larson writes that she asked Michael Smith to read the parts about Denny. She said that she's

"so grateful for his guidance, corrections, and encouragement. In honor of his kindness, and with his permission, I have named one of the characters in this book after his father." 

See "corrections" in that first sentence? Michael Smith told her some things she had written were in need of correction. We can assume that she made those corrections, but she didn't say something like 'I made every correction he asked for' -- so, we don't know for sure. Instead, she tells us that she named a character after his father. What is the impact of that naming, on him? Is it something he feels good about? Maybe. But maybe not--and if he doesn't like what she did--is his dad's name in the book causing him to be quiet about problems that didn't get corrected?

I know--that's a lot of speculation on my part but I find it unsettling.

In the story Larson tells, we learn that Denny spent his early years with his family and then went to boarding school when he was eight. In chapter 7, we read his thoughts about "customs" his people did "after the Long Walk."

This is the text on page 49 (the first page of chapter 7):

"His mother had awakened him before dawn since he could remember, sometimes throwing him in winter's first snow to toughen him up, sometimes urging him to run east as far and as fast as he could. His grandmother said these customs started after the Long Walk, when so many People perished. Every Diné mother wanted her children strong enough to survive should such an atrocity ever happen again." 

Through Denny, Larson is telling readers that an event that took place in 1864 led the Navajo people to create two "customs" so they would be able to survive "atrocity" if it happened again. The two "customs", she says, are 1) throwing a child in winter's first snow to toughen them up, and 2) running east as far and as fast as they can.

Fact: tribal nations have cultural ways and traditions going back centuries. We have words--in our languages--for things we do. White writers (especially anthropologists) use "custom" for some of these things. Sometimes, Native scholars and writers use that word, too. So, presumably Larson is using "custom" because that is what she read in her sources.

Larson tells us that one of her sources is Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir by One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII by Chester Nez, with Judith Schiess Avila. In that book, Nez wrote about his childhood. In that book, Nez writes (Kindle location 969):

Grandma told us about her childhood. My eyes drifted close. It had been a long day. In less than a month, school would resume for me, Coolidge, and Dora. I wished that I could stay home and spend the winter with my family. As I drifted to sleep, I pictured snow, deep around the hogan. When I was very young, sometimes my brothers and I stripped naked in the snow, and Father rolled us in a snowbank. This Navajo tradition toughed us children against winter cold. 

I highlighted those last two sentences. Remember, Larson tells us that children were "thrown" into the snow. Nez says they were rolled in a snowbank. He also says it was done to toughen them against winter cold. No mention of anything to do with the Long Walk. Nez talks about directions (east, especially) several times in his book, but none of those instances have anything to do with the Long Walk.

I think the information Larson presented in chapter 7 is incorrect. It will, however, be the sort of thing that students will "learn" as they read this book--especially given that the International Literacy Association is encouraging use of the book in schools.

There are other problems in the book. I did a Twitter thread on May 11, 2019, as I read Larson's book. I'm pasting it below, for your reference. In short, I do not recommend Code Word Courage.

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Twitter Thread by Debbie Reese

May 11, 2019

Been unable to get to CODE WORD COURAGE by Kirby Larson for too long. It is top of the stack today. 

One of the resources I'll use as I read it is Laura Tohe's CODE TALKER STORIES. Tohe is Diné. (Kirby Larson is not.)

I'm on page 32 of Larson's book. I have many post it notes in the book already but am pausing on page 32 because of the way the Diné (Navajo) character's identity is presented in the book. "Big-Water Clan" and "Red-Cheek-People Clan." It is the hyphens that give me pause.

One reason I'm reading CODE WORD COURAGE today is because it is on the International Literacy Association's "Teachers Choices" book list.

Re Larson's use of hyphens, I don't see them used in Tohe's book or in Jennifer Denetdale's RECLAIMING DINÉ HISTORY, where she writes that she "was born for 'Áshiihí (Salt People).

I wonder why they're in Larson's book? An editor's decision, maybe?

Finished rdg CODE WORD COURAGE by Kirby Larson. Now, adding my notes/thoughts to this thread.

On page 13, we meet Denny Begay, the Diné (Navajo) character. He's been at boot camp with a white guy named Leo. They're on their way to see Leo's aunt and sister.

The book is arranged (mostly) in alternating chapters. Chapter 1 is "Billie" (Leo's sister) and chapter 2 is "Denny" and so on thru the rest of the book.

Leo and Denny are hitchhiking but cars pass them by. Leo is surprised because that hasn't happened to him before. We're reading Denny's thoughts. He's surprised Leo doesn't realize that he (Denny)--an Indian--is the reason people are not picking them up.

He thinks abt being taken to boarding school when when he was 8, where the principal would wash his mouth w soap when he spoke Navajo.

Denny hears a sound that Leo can't hear. "All those years of watching his mother's sheep had trained him to recognize the sound of an injured animal" (p. 14).

CODE WORD COURAGE is one bk in Larson's series of dog stories. The sound Denny hears is a dog.

What we have in these chapters about Denny is Larson imagining his thoughts and feelings. In short: a white woman of the present day is imagining the words, thoughts and feelings of a Diné man of the 1940s.

In her Acknowledgements, Larson writes that Michael Smith, son of Code Talker Samuel Jesse Smith, "read the Denny portions of this book." He gave her "guidance, corrections, and encouragement."

To "honor his kindness, and with his permission," she named a character after his father. That character is with Denny in the chapters where Denny is learning the code and then on a ship and finally, on shore at Iwo Jima.

Jesse and Denny both have corn pollen with them. Jesse uses his and says Diné prayers; Denny does not.

Those parts (use of the corn pollen, words spoken) make me uneasy. Are they accurate? Did Michael Smith say anything about that being in the bk?

My personal and professional preference is that content specific to a Native peoples' spiritual ways NOT be in a bk written by someone who is not of that tribal nation.

Last yr I thought that what Roanhorse had in TRAIL OF LIGHTNING was ok because she had a Diné reader.

And so, I recommended the book. I came to regret that recommendation, as I've written, here. Please follow that link. Many Diné writers feel that Roanhorse appropriated their ways.

And they feel that she mis-used those ways, too. For your convenience, here's a letter they wrote about her and her book: Trail of Lightning is an appropriation of Diné cultural beliefs.

I wonder how they'd feel about what Larson has done? She says Michael Smith guided her. Roanhorse had a Navajo reader, too. It didn't matter. It is an example of disagreements within a specific group.

My position is to protect religious ways from being exploited.

I think Larson is on slippery ground with those parts of her book. Jesse's praying (with corn pollen) could have been included without any of those details.

As noted in tweet 8, Denny finds a dog. In its eyes, Denny sees the "familiar pain of rejection." He thinks they have rejection in common and "In eighteen years, the first time he'd felt accepted was at boot camp" (p. 15) where everyone was treated like crap.

That "eighteen years" is a problem for me. He lived at home until he was eight, remember? So... did he feel rejection when living at home as a child? (Answer is, no.) That "eighteen years" is something an editor should have caught.

Something passes between the dog and Denny as they look at each other. I'm noting that moment because later in the story when Denny is at Iwo Jima, the dog seems to appear to him.

I haven't read Larson's other dog bks. Is that a theme in them (a special relationship between a person and a dog, and then the dog appearing in a spiritual way, later)?

Once they get to Leo's house and are eating dinner, Denny tells Billie that his dad's favorite author was Jules Verne. That's possible but it stuck out to me, especially when later, Denny thinks about a John Wayne movie. To many Native ppl, John Wayne gets a thumbs down.

Denny says that "Uncle Sam put all us Navajos in the Marines" (p. 32). I don't think that is accurate. Thousands of Navajos enlisted. I doubt every one of them was put in the Marines.

How would Denny have that information? He just got out of boot camp.

On page 49, Denny is remembering his mother waking him before dawn, sometimes throwing him in the snow "to toughen him up" and sometimes telling him to run east as fast and as far as he could. His grandmother said they started doing these "customs" after the Long Walk.

Getting up and facing east every morning, and running is something he still does. It is habit.

That feels to me like a consistency error. He probably did that before boarding school but once there, could he have done that running east? Doubtful.

And I'd like to know Larson's source for that "custom." Why run east, fast? To get away from the soldiers who were forcing the Navajos on that Long Walk? Something feels off about "east" and these "customs" after the Long Walk.

On p. 68 Denny reaches into the buckskin bag he wears around his neck (on p. 33 when Billie saw it, he could tell she wondered what was inside; what he kept in it was personal/private but that he could tell her a little--that it has "corn pollen and tokens") and gives her a turquoise stone as a way of thanking her for being so nice to him while he was visiting them.

Billie wonders if it is magic and can grant wishes.

I wonder how kids are interpreting that? There's no check on that idea on the page (or elsewhere).

On p 103, Denny is on duty, in a room where there will be a "little test" of the code, which is in development.

The way he and the other 18 Diné men reply to the Lieutenant reminds him of boarding school where people "could see only skin color."

That's a bit slippery, too. The boarding schools weren't about the color of Native people's skin. They were about their status as tribal members/citizens of sovereign nations. The schools were a govt assimilation program to undermine Native nationhood status.

Denny remembers getting to the school and the matron examining his long hair for lice three times. She didn't find any but cut his hair anyway.

I don't think that's accurate. Hair was cut, no matter what. The way Larson writes that part suggests that if a person had long hair and no lice, they could keep their hair long. That did not happen. Hair was cut, period.

There's a Mexican American family in Larson's bk, too. The father works for Billie's aunt, managing her ranch. The boy, Tito, is in Billie's class at school. They become friends. The bully in the story picks on Tito a lot.

The bully picks on Billie, too, but the taunts at Tito are because of his identity. At Valentines Day the class makes heart cards to send to the hospital at Camp Pendleton. Tito writes a message in Spanish.

The bully tells their teacher that the cards are "going to Americans" and "should be in American." The teacher tells him "you mean English" and then realizes why the bully is asking the question.

It is good that she's not racist like the bully, but her pushback on him is not ok. She talks abt a newsreel that had "white faces, brown faces, black faces. Even the faces of men of Japanese heritage." (p. 162).

She pats her heart and says "It reminded me that, here in America, we may all come from different places" (p. 162).

No. That sounds like the "we are all immigrants" thinking that, in essence, erases Indigenous people.

Several times, Billie refers to things that Tito's family makes, like tamales. The references to food are superficial decorative in nature. And the references to "home made tortillas" are odd. The story is set in 1944. Were there factory-made tortillas then?

Some of the things I'm pointing out might seem picky, but if you're of the people whose ways are being used by Larson in ways that don't jibe with you and what you know, they are not small problems.

On page 168 is a chapter for the dog. Oh! I should have said earlier. His name is Bear. In this chapter, Larson imagines Bear's thinking. It is nighttime and he's uneasy. He feels like he is being called. He paces. "Soon, he must answer that call."

Immediately following that line is a Denny chapter, dated Feb 19, 1945. He's heading to Iwo Jima. Skipping past some Billie chapters, there's another Denny chapter, dated Feb 19 to Feb 22. That's when he imagines Bear is with him.

And Bear, as Larson told us in the Bear chapter, feels that he is being called. Way back in the early part of this thread, I noted that when Bear and Denny first made eye-contact, Larson wrote that some thing passed between them.

I think we're supposed to feel the love of a dog/human relationship. Maybe that's what this whole WWII Dogs series is about, but given Billie's wonderings abt magic (the turquoise stone), how are kid-readers making sense of all this?

CODE WORD COURAGE ends somewhat abruptly. There's some chapters near the end abt Tito getting hurt and rescued, with Bear playing a role in that. But then it leaps ahead about 30 years. Denny is living in a hogan on the reservation. Billie (now a woman in her 40s) visits him.

They sit to have coffee; she pulls a book from her bag: NAVAJO CODE TALKERS. He hadn't talked with the author but some of his friends had. Billie asks if this is his story, too. He says yes.

She says "When you were little, they tried to prevent you from speaking Navajo, and then the language ends up winning the war for us." He says he wouldn't say that. She wants to know what he would say...

Denny pats his pouch. The last words on page 233 are:

"The Diné custom was to tell stories during the winter, when snow blanketed the ground. But Denny decided today he could make an exception. For Billie."

Indigenous people tell stories at certain times of the year. But I think that is certain kinds of stories, not all stories.

In this ending (created by a White woman), a Diné man is going to break his peoples custom to tell a White woman a story that we're supposed to believe should not be told till winter?

I really don't like White people creating stories where their Indigenous characters break traditional teachings.

Conclusion, now that I'm finished reading and thinking about Kirby Larson's CODE WORD COURAGE? When I pull these thoughts into a review on American Indians in Children's Literature, it will have a NOT RECOMMENDED tag.

Beverly Slapin's review of Paul Goble's CUSTER'S LAST BATTLE: RED HAWK'S ACCOUNT OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN

Editor's Note: Beverly Slapin submitted this review essay of Paul Goble's Custer's Last Battle: Red Hawk's Account of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Slapin uses quotation marks around the name "Red Hawk" because that is a fictional character. Slapin's review may not be used elsewhere without her written permission. All rights reserved. Copyright 2016. Slapin is currently the publisher/editor of De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children.

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Goble, Paul, Custer’s Last Battle: Red Hawk’s Account of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, with an introduction by Joe Medicine Crow. Wisdom Tales / World Wisdom, 2013.

Each year on June 25, Oglala Lakota families at Pine Ridge gather to celebrate the Lakota people’s victory at the Battle of the Greasy Grass, where, in 1876, as Oglala author and activist Debra White Plume says, “Custer wore an Arrow Shirt.”

“Warriors get ready,” the announcer calls. “Be safe, and thank your horse when you’re done.” The warriors, mostly teens, race off to find and count coup on the white guy who’s volunteered to stand in for Custer. No one knocks him off his horse, but they take his flag. “Our ancestors took that flag from the United States of America,” White Plume says, smiling. “We’re the only people who ever did.”

“I think it’s important,” she continues, “for the young men and young women to receive the training of the Warrior Society as our ancestors lived it, because that’s where the important values are played out, like courage and helping your relative and taking care of your horse and taking care of the land. All of that was important to us then and is important to us now.”[1]

How different the people’s reality is from “Red Hawk’s” lament at the beginning of Goble’s story:

We won a great victory. But when you look about you [sic] today you can see that it meant little. The White Men, who were then few, have spread over the earth like fallen leaves driven before the wind.

Goble’s new edition of his first-published book contains a revised “narrative,” a new Author’s Introduction, and a short Foreword by Crow historian Joe Medicine Crow, whose grandfather had been one of Custer’s scouts. According to Goble himself, “The inclusion of the Foreword by Joe Medicine Crow… gives the book a stronger Indian perspective.” Of the 20 sources in Goble’s reference section, only two are Indian-authored—My People, the Sioux and My Indian Boyhood—both by Luther Standing Bear, who was not at the Greasy Grass Battle (because he was only eight years old at the time).

In the two previous editions of Red Hawk’s Account of Custer’s Last Battle, Goble acknowledges the aid of “Lakota Isnala,” whom one might presume to be a Lakota historian. He was not. In this 2013 edition, Goble finally discloses that “Lakota Isnala” was, in fact, a Belgian Trappist monk named Gall Schuon[2], who was adopted[3] by Nicolas Black Elk. Custer’s Last Battle, writes Goble, is his fictional interpretation of Fr. Gall Schuon’s interpretation of John G. Neihardt’s interpretation of Nicolas Black Elk’s story. (And there has been much criticism by scholars—and by Black Elk’s family—of Neihardt’s exaggerating and altering Black Elk’s story in order to increase the marketability of Black Elk Speaks.)[4] In other words, Goble’s book is a white guy’s interpretation of a white guy’s interpretation of a white guy’s controversial interpretation of an elder Lakota historian’s oral story, which he related in Lakota.[5] Finally, at the end of his introduction, Goble writes, “Wopila ate,” which is probably supposed to mean, “Thank you, father.” Except it doesn’t. “Wopila” is a noun and means “gift.” So, “wopila ate” would mean, “gift father,” which is just a joining of two unrelated words. “Pilamaya,” which is a verb, means “thank you.”

Returning to Goble’s introduction, there’s this:

Because no single Indian account gives a complete picture of the battle, Indian people telling only what they had seen and done, I added explanatory passages in italics to give the reader an overview of what might have taken place…

In truth, Native traditionalists in the 1800s[6] did not offer linear recitations of events. Rather, they narrated only those events in which they had participated. Sometimes historical records consisted entirely of these narratives. Sometimes contemporaneous Indian historians, such as Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa)[7], assembled credible historical records. Sometimes persons from outside the culture, who knew and respected the Indian traditionalists, successfully assembled written records of oral narratives.[8] And there certainly is, today, a wealth of material, much of it put together by descendants of those who fought in the Greasy Grass Battle.[9]

In the same paragraph, Goble writes,

[T]here were no survivors of Custer’s immediate command, and there has always been considerable controversy about exactly what happened.

By limiting his discussion (and the story) to the casualties of Custer’s “immediate” command, Goble sidesteps the reality that, although five of the 12 Seventh Cavalry companies were completely destroyed, there were many survivors in the other seven. And, according to the histories passed down by Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho traditionalists, there was never any “considerable controversy about exactly what happened.” In one of the major battles, for instance, it’s said that as the fighting was coming to an end, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse saw no sense in continuing. Rather, Crazy Horse posted snipers to keep the surviving Blue Coats behind their barricades—watching helplessly as he and his thousands of warriors returned to camp to help take down their lodges and move south.[10]

So, to be clear, there is nothing in Goble’s fictional Indian narrator’s voice, accompanied by Goble’s explanatory passages—even if they were accurate and appropriate, which they’re not—that might add anything of value for children or anyone else.

Piling romantic metaphor onto romantic metaphor appears to be Goble’s way of trying to imitate “Indian” storytelling style, which it doesn’t. Toward the beginning of the story, for instance, “Red Hawk” describes Crazy Horse: “A tomahawk in his hand gave him the power of the thunder and a war-bonnet of eagle feathers gave him the speed of the eagle.” Goble’s magical tomahawk stuff notwithstanding, Crazy Horse never wore a headdress. Following instructions given to him in an early vision, Crazy Horse wore the tail feathers from a red-tailed hawk at the back of his head, and a reddish-brown stone behind his left ear; his battle paint was a lightning mark across one side of his face, and blue hailstones on his chest.* 

Besides being mired down with cringe-worthy metaphor and misinformation, Goble’s fictional narrative paints the Lakota people as “brave yet doomed.” Here, for instance, “Red Hawk” relates the camp’s panicked response to an impending cavalry attack:

In an instant everyone was running in different directions…. The air was suddenly filled with dust and the sound of shouting and horses neighing. Dogs were running in every direction not knowing where to go…. Warriors struggled to mount their horses, which reared and stamped in excitement, while women grabbed up their babies and shrieked for their children as they ran down the valley away from the oncoming soldiers. Old men and women with half-seeing eyes followed after, stumbling through the dust-filled air. Medicine Bear, too old to run, sat by his tipi as the bullets from the soldiers’ guns already splintered the tipi-poles around him. “Warriors take courage!” he shouted. “It is better to die young for the people than to grow old.”

Goble’s melodrama notwithstanding, the Indian camps were extremely well organized. In times of war, everyone knew what to do. Children were protected, as were elders—not abandoned, helplessly sitting around “splintered tipi poles” or “stumbling through the dust-filled air.” Compare Goble’s fictional “narrative” above with a piece from Joseph Marshall III’s In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse, in which Grandpa Nyles explains what happened to his grandson:

It was customary for Lakota wives and mothers to hand weapons to their husbands and sons. And they had a saying that gave them encouragement and reminded them of their duty as warriors…. The women would say, “Have courage and be the first to charge the enemy, for it is better to lie a warrior naked in death than it is to run away from the battle.”…It means that courage was a warrior’s best weapon, and that it was the highest honor to give your life for your people.

And. Goble’s description of “shrieking” women is taken from the many outsider accounts of “wailing” women. In reality, the camp women were singing Strong Heart songs to give their warriors courage as they rode off to battle.

And. “Red Hawk’s” recounting of what Medicine Bear said seems to have been “borrowed” from Luther Standing Bear’s Land of the Spotted Eagle. But what Standing Bear really wrote was this:

When (I was) but a mere child, father inspired me by often saying: “Son, I never want to see you live to be an old man. Die young on the battlefield. That is the way a Lakota dies.” The full intent of this advice was that I must never shirk my duty to my tribe no matter what price in sacrifice I paid…. If I failed in duty, I simply failed to meet a test of manhood, and a man living in his tribe without respect was a nonentity.

More misinformation: Toward the end of “Red Hawk’s” story, he says, “White Men have asked me which man it was who killed Long Hair. We have talked among ourselves about this but we do not know. No man can say.”

Although there may not be written narrative accounts of who killed Custer, Indian people know it was Rain-In-The-Face. Besides the oral stories that have been handed down, there exist Winter Count histories in pictographs, which are at least, if not more, reliable than histories written by outsiders.[11] On one particular Winter Count, the pictograph detailing the most important event of that specific year, or winter, shows Rain-In-The-Face (along with his name glyph, or signature tag, of rain falling in his face) firing a rifle (with smoke coming out of it) directly at Custer (who is shown with long hair, falling backwards).

For the most part, and for cultural and pragmatic reasons, Indian people at the time did not have a lot to say to white people about their participation in the Battle of the Greasy Grass. Dewey Beard, for instance, said only that: “The sun shone. It was a good day.” But Goble chose to rely on the easily available written versions, rather than on the oral and pictograph versions—which he probably would not have understood or respected anyway.

In what has come to be known as ledger art, the Indian artists used basic media of whatever was available—crayon, colored pencil, and sometimes ink—on pages torn out of discarded ledger books. What they created was art of great beauty. Early ledger art related the histories of the great battles, the buffalo hunts, and other scenes from their lives. In the battle scenes, there were iconic name glyphs over the heads of individual warriors to identify them. There were handprints on their horses—coup marks—to show that these horses were war ponies, that they and their riders had previously seen battle. There were horses of many colors—reds, yellows, purples, and blues—because people who really knew horses could see their many shades. There were hoof prints at the bottom of the pages to denote action. The warriors shown often carried the prizes of war that they had taken from the enemy—US flags, cavalry sabers and bugles—that represented power. And often, there were wavy lines coming out of the mouths of the warriors as they charged, to symbolize that they were “talking” to the enemy—“I’m not afraid of you!” “I’m coming to get you!”

Although the details were generally the same or similar, techniques varied from tribe to tribe. According to Michael Horse, a talented contemporary ledger artist and historian, Cheyenne and Lakota styles, for example, were mostly stick figures, while Kiowa and Comanche styles were more realistic.

Even after people had been incarcerated in the prisons and on the reservations, these ledger paintings represented freedom and bravery.

On the other hand, Goble, as a European transplant, has transplanted his European aesthetic and style onto his “Indian ledger art.” It’s clear that he has looked at—maybe even studied—the old ledger paintings, taken what elements or designs he considers important or typical or romantic, and discarded the rest. His paintings are devoid of the historical and cultural content that were so important in the originals—they have no story and no spirit. All of Goble’s warriors are decked out in regalia and carrying weaponry—much of it unbelievably cumbersome—yet none of the warriors is identified by a name glyph, so we don’t know who they are. The warriors are not shouting at their enemies—they don’t even appear to have mouths. There are no symbolic, brightly colored war ponies—Goble’s “Indian” ponies exist only as blacks, browns, roans and an occasional gray. None of the ponies has a coup sign. There are no hoof prints, so there is no motion—just ponies and their riders suspended in space and time. They are indistinguishable, with a lack of identity, a lack of action, and a lack of Indian reality.

It would not be a stretch to say that Paul Goble does not know—and probably does not care to know—how to read Indian ledger art. Rather, it would seem that he perused actual direct statements from the original artists and saw only “decorative motifs” to be kept or discarded. I would also opine that Goble does not regard Indian ledger artists—traditional or contemporary—as artists.

Speaking at a conference a few years ago, Joseph Bruchac coined the term, “cultural ventriloquism,” to refer to the many non-Native authors who create “Native” characters that function as dummies to voice the authors’ own worldviews. So it would not be a stretch to imagine that Goble’s “using the voice of a (fictional) Indian participant” and “illustrat[ing] the picture pages in the style of ledger-book painting” are to showcase his own art by pretending to make this whole thing authentic. As such, Custer’s Last Battle can in no way be considered an Indian perspective of an historical event. It’s not even a well-told story that approximates an Indian perspective. It wasn’t successful in 1969 and it’s not successful now.

Returning for a moment to Goble’s introduction. He writes,

I grew up believing that Indian people had been shamefully treated, their beliefs mocked, their ways of life destroyed. I tried to be objective in writing this book, but for me the battle represented a moment of triumph, and I wanted Indian children to be proud of it. (italics mine)

Plains perspectives of the Battle of the Greasy Grass are not difficult to understand and do not need to be interpreted by someone from outside the culture. Plains traditional narratives are not incomplete and do not need to be rewritten by someone from outside the culture. Plains traditional and contemporary ledger art forms are not primitive and do not need to be fixed by someone from outside the culture. The children at Pine Ridge, against all odds, are holding on to their traditions, histories, arts, and cultures. The last things they need are fake narratives and fake art, combined with a cultural outsider’s arrogance and sense of entitlement—to “give” them pride.

—Beverly Slapin

References

There are many excellent sources of information about the Battle of the Greasy Grass; biography, fiction and nonfiction about the people who lived in that time period; and historic and contemporary ledger art. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

An outstanding short film, produced by the Smithsonian and from an Oglala perspective, is “The Battle of the Greasy Grass,” and might be a good beginning for study (grades 4-p). 

An important documentary, from American Experience and produced by James Welch and Paul Stekler, is “Last Stand at Little Big Horn—Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse Battle Custer”. 

For information about the Battle of the Greasy Grass or that era, see:

Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa), Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains

Edward and Mabel Kadlecek, To Kill an Eagle: Indian Views on the Last Days of Crazy Horse

Joseph Marshall III:

The Day the World Ended at Little Big Horn: A Lakota History (2007)

In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse (2015)

The Long Knives are Crying (2008)

Soldiers Falling Into Camp: The Battles at the Little Rosebud and the Little Big Horn (2006)

Luther Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle

James Welch and Paul Stekler, Killing Custer: The Battle of Little Big Horn and the Fate of the Plains Indians

For examples of, and information about, traditional ledger art, see:

Howling Wolf and the History of Ledger Art by Joyce M. Szabo (University of New Mexico Press, 1994)

Keeping History: Plains Indian Ledger Drawings (Smithsonian, November 2009-January 2010). 

The Ledger Art Collection, Milwaukee Art Museum. 

Ledger Narratives: The Plains Indian Drawings in the Mark Landsburgh Collection at Dartmouth College, by Colin G. Calloway and Michael Paul Jordan (University of Oklahoma Press, 2012).

The Schild Ledger Book: Drawing a Culture in Transition, in Texas Beyond History, University of Texas.

For examples of, and information about, contemporary ledger art, see:

“Ledger Art: Looking Between the Lines” by Gussie Fauntleroy, in Native Peoples Magazine, September-October 2011.

“This is Not Your Great-Great-Grandfather’s Ledger Art” by Wilhelm Murg, In Indian Country Today, 10/25/13.

Women and Ledger Art: Four Contemporary NativeAmerican Artists by Richard Pearce (University of Arizona Press, 2013).

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[1] Quotes here are from the short video, “The Battle of the Greasy Grass,” produced by Smithsonian Magazine. 

[2] Goble writes, “Father Gall spoke Lakota fluently and was steeped in all things related to Lakota people. While working on the book many letters passed between us to verify one thing or another.”

[3] While Father Gall Schuon appears to be an interesting character, we don’t know in what sense he was “adopted.”

[4] The full title of this book is Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of an Oglala Holy Man, as told through John G. Neihardt (Flaming Rainbow).

[5] As Black Elk told his story, his son, Ben Black Elk, translated.

[6] On both sides of the Greasy Grass Battle, these might include Lakota traditionalists Sitting Bull, Two Moon, Gall, Crazy Horse, as well as Cheyenne, Arapaho and Crow traditionalists.

[7] See, for example, Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, vivid biographical sketches of people Eastman knew well: Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Rain-in-the-Face, Sitting Bull, Little Crow, Chief Joseph and others.

[8] See To Kill an Eagle: Indian Views on the Last Days of Crazy Horse by Edward and Mabel Kadlecek, who lived near Pine Ridge and listened to the stories of Indian elders who had known Crazy Horse.

[9] Some of the best accounts of this historic battle, in fiction and nonfiction, include: Killing Custer: The Battle of Little Big Horn and the Fate of the Plains Indians by James Welch (Blackfeet / Gros Ventre) and Paul Stekler (1994); Welch and Stekler also collaborated on the important documentary, “Last Stand at Little Bighorn.” There’s also The Day the World Ended at Little Big Horn: A Lakota History (2007), The Long Knives are Crying (2008) and Soldiers Falling Into Camp: The Battles at the Little Rosebud and the Little Big Horn (2006) by Joseph Marshall III (Sicangu Lakota), as well as Marshall’s new children’s book, In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse (2015).

[10] See a description of this maneuver, for example, in Marshall’s In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse, pp. 120-121.

[11] Each Winter Count pictograph portrays the most important event that occurred in a particular winter, or year. It could be a major battle, or an outbreak of disease, or the death of a leader, or something else. The pictograph that represents 1876 shows the killing of Custer at the Battle of Greasy Grass.

*Edits to this paragraph made on Feb 8 2016 at the request of Beverly Slapin. 

Not recommended: THE COURAGE TEST by James Preller

People have been asking me about James Preller's The Courage Test. I got a copy of it, and it was in line for a "Debbie--have you seen" post. On September 20, 2016, a conversation on Facebook prompted me to move it up in the line.  

Here's the synopsis:

Will has no choice. His father drags him along on a wilderness adventure in the footsteps of legendary explorers Lewis and Clark--whether he likes it or not. All the while, Will senses that something about this trip isn't quite right. 

Along the journey, Will meets fascinating strangers and experiences new thrills, including mountain cliffs, whitewater rapids, and a heart-hammering bear encounter.

It is a journey into the soul of America's past, and the meaning of family in the future. In the end, Will must face his own, life-changing test of courage.

A father-and-son journey along the Lewis and Clark Trail--from Fort Mandan to the shining sea--offers readers a genre-bending blend of American history, thrilling action, and personal discovery.

Will's dad, Bruce, is a history professor. He's into Lewis and Clark so much, that he named his son William Meriwether Miller (William for William Clark, and Meriwether for Meriwether Lewis). 

Bruce's reverence for the expedition is evident as I read The Courage Test. As they travel, Bruce tells Will about the expedition, how Lewis and Clark were seeing a "new world" (p. 22) and "things that had never before been seen by white men" (p. 27). He gives Will a copy of O'Dell and Hall's Thunder Rolling in the Mountains to read. If it is anything like what I read in Island of the Blue Dolphins, it is a poor choice if Bruce's intent is for Will to learn about the Nez Perce people. 

Time and again as I read The Courage Test, I thought "oh come on..." But, there it is. In some places, Will says or thinks something that puts a bit of a check on his dad's reverence, but for the most part, he's in awe, too, and uses the same kind of words his dad uses. Scattered throughout, for example, are pages from a journal Will uses. In the first one, "My Summer Assignment" he writes that (p. 17):

When Thomas Jefferson was president, a lot of North America was unexplored. No white American had ever seen huge parts of it.

I grew tired of all that pretty quickly. I stuck with it, though, right to the end, to Preller's notes in the final pages. There, Preller wrote (p. 209):

I owe the greatest debt to Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose, The Journals of Lewis Clark edited by Bernard DeVoto, Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition by Alvin M. Josephy Jr., Lewis and Clark Among the Indians by James P. Ronda, and Traveling the Lewis and Clark Trail by Julie Fanselow.

Of that list, the one edited by Alvin Josephy, Jr. stands out. The first Native writer in Josephy's book is Vine Deloria, Jr. Deloria's work is of fundamental importance to Native peoples, and to Native studies. Have you read, for example, his Custer Died For Your Sins? The first sentence in his chapter, “Frenchmen, Bears, and Sandbars” is this (p. 5):

Exaggeration of the importance of the expedition of Lewis and Clark is a typical American response to mythology.

If Preller read Deloria carefully, how is it that he has such celebratory language all through The Courage Test? And, there's this, on page 6-7 (bold is mine) in Deloria's chapter:

We have traditionally been taught to believe that the Lewis and Clark expedition was the first penetration of white men into the western lands. This belief is totally unfounded. The location of the Mandan villages, scattered from the present North Dakota-South Dakota line along the Missouri River to some distance above present-day Bismarck, were already common knowledge. French and British traders had already established a thriving commerce with these villages and the sedentary Indians were accustomed to dealing with foreigners.

Did Preller choose to ignore that? Or... did Will (writing in his journal) think that the French and British didn't count as "White Americans"? It just doesn't seem to me that Preller actually brought any of the writings in Josephy's book to bear on what he wrote in The Courage Test. Listing Josephy's book, then, feels... not right. 

Jumping back into the story of Bruce and Will on their journey, we meet a guy with broad shoulders, high cheekbones, tanned/rugged/deeply lined skin, black hair in two long thick braids, wearing a beaded necklace. Of course, he's Native. His name is Ollie. He's Bruce's friend, from grad school. Ollie is Nez Perce. When he tells Will about his ancestors, I think it would work better if he used "us" words rather than "them" words:

"My people, the Nez Perce, crossed this river not far from here in 1877. They hoped the Crow would join them in their fight against the U.S. Army, but the Crow turned their backs."

I'm not keen on his characterization of the Nez Perce being like deer grazing on the grass, while the white people were like the grizzly. It has a doomed quality to it that--while plausible--doesn't work for me. Later when Bruce and Ollie share a drink of whiskey, they tell Will that soldiers got flogged for getting drunk. Bruce goes on, saying (p. 69):

Remember, Will, this was a military operation. They were headed into hostile territory.

Bruce says "hostile territory" with his Nez Perce friend, sitting right there, beside him. Don't his words, then, seem.... odd? Let me frame it this way, for clarity. Let's say I'm camping on my homelands. One of my dear friends and her kid are there, too. We're sharing a drink and talking about colonization. That dear friend would not say to her kid "Remember, ___, this was a military operation. They were headed into hostile territory." She might do it out of the blue in a cafe in a city somewhere, but if we were having a drink around a campfire ON MY HOMELAND and talking about something like the Lewis and Clark expedition... that friend wouldn't do that! And if she did, I'd say something. So---why didn't Ollie say something?! 

And then later, Will watches Ollie fix his hair (p. 74):

He fusses with his front forelock, stylishly sweeping it up and to the back.

"Going for a different look today?" I joked.

Ollie frowns. "It is the style of my people. Goes back generations. Don't you like it?"

"I definitely do," I say.

You know what "style" he's trying to do? Do a search on Chief Joseph, and you'll see. Now it is plausible that a Nez Perce man who is an investment banker in Brooklyn might go home and do his hair that way, but I'm kind of doubtful. (Also, though "forelock" is also used to refer to hair people have, it comes across more strongly for me as specific to horses, so that is a bit odd, too. Not that he's equating Ollie with animals, but that it is just an unusual word.)

I said above that I stuck with this book. That hair style part was tough. So is the part where Ollie tells Will that the bear he thinks he saw the night before was not a real bear (Will didn't see any tracks)... it was probably a spirit animal. They, Ollie tells Will, occur when someone is on a vision quest. It comes, he says, to "bestow the animal's power" and is a "great gift" that he must accept (p. 81). Later in the story, Will has an encounter with a bear. He froze, unable to do what he planned to do if he came across a bear (he's prepped for it), and thinks he's a failure. So.... I guess the power of the "spirit animal" didn't work... in that moment. Will's major task in this book is to be ready for dealing with his mother's cancer. Maybe that's what he'll need the power of that "spirit animal" for, but, really. This is all a mess. So is how the dreamcatcher is shown, later. So is the "illegal" they meet and help out. 

I've got more notes, but I think what I've shared here is enough. Published in 2016 by Feiwel and Friends--an imprint of MacMillan--I do not recommend James Preller's The Courage Test. 

James Crowley's STARFISH

I recently picked up James Crowley's Starfish.... My comments (below), as I read the book are in red. (Update---September 28. I'm adding more to this post. New information is in purple.)

I wanted to quit reading early on, but I've seen a couple of references to the book as a contender for the Newbery Medal, so I forced myself to read the entire book. It is about two Blackfeet children in 1915. They've run away from their boarding school in the winter. Unlike the "Frozen Man" who Crowley introduces at the beginning of the story, the children survive the Montana winters. Thinking about that, I'm reminded of the Kiowa children in Oklahoma who ran away from their boarding school in 1891and froze to death. N. Scott Momaday has a play about them. It is in Three Plays.

Chiori Santiago and Judith Lowry's picture book, Home to Medicine Mountain recounts the story of Lowry's father and uncle. They ran away and got home safely.

Starfish isn't deserving of the Newbery medal (or any medal at all). It isn't plausible, and it is downright awful in many places. From the posture of the frozen body at the start of the book to the alcohol the kids drink near the end, I found myself wondering why it got published. What does it seek to add to anyone's "knowledge" of American Indians?

Doing some research on Crowley (the author), I see he makes films.

The book is published by Disney/Hyperion Books. Maybe Crowley wants to make a movie and is starting that project with this book. I hope not, but I can see why it would work. On page after page, its one "white man's Indian" after another. That phrase---white man's Indian---is actually the title of a book by Robert Berkhofer. He took great care to document the images of American Indians from early days of America to more recent times,  demonstrating that they aren't really American Indian images---they're only Indians of a white-imagination. Get a copy of The White Man's Indian and study it. It'll help you do your own analyses of books like Starfish.

My analysis is in a chapter-by-chapter format. I invite you to read what I've managed to write.

Debbie

------------------------
James Crowley's Starfish, published by Disney/Hyperion, 2010.

Setting: the "Chalk Bluff Indian reservation" in Montana.

As far as I know, there isn't a reservation named that.  In my research I found a place called the "Chalk Bluff Indian Trail" in Kentucky, and, another site called the "Chalk Bluff Indian Massacre" in Texas where twenty Indian men attacked and killed two Indian hunters. There was also a Civil War battle at a place called Chalk Bluff.

State: Montana


Prologue

It is winter and snowing heavily. An old man walks through the snow alongside the "government barracks and outbuildings of the Chalk Bluff Indian reservation."

That doesn't quite make sense.  A reservation is a big place. Today, the Blackfeet Reservation is over a million acres in size. Maybe I'm reading the sentence wrong. To me it seems like Crowley is telling us that the reservation is a single building and that it has barracks and outbuildings near it.

The old man carries a bottle of "corn liquor" in one hand. He drinks from it and:

He remembered the days before there were buildings like this, or of any kind, on the land--the days when he had been known as a great warrior, a great hunter. But that was a long time ago. Now he was known as a drunk.

Woah. The book is being marketed as for children in fourth through eighth grade. I wonder if, by that age, a typical nine-year-old has the drunken-Indian stereotype as part of his "knowledge" of American Indians? While alcoholism is something we contend with in American Indian communities, it is a part of all-of-America. Will a teacher who uses this book point that out?

I wonder who this great warrior is? I wonder what tribe he is?  Did Crowley base him on a real person? We never learn who the name of this great warrior. Crowley doesn't tell us. Given the way Crowley portrays the soldiers (Jenkins and Lumpkin), it seems to me they would have heralded the conditions under which the life of this "great warrior" came to an end. They would know who he was.  

The old man gets to a corral and falls down to his knees in the snow. He mumbles a song that seems to call a "shadowy presence" from the darkness. The old man drops the blanket from his shoulders, takes a string of bear claws from his neck and holds it out to the presence. Then, he collapses.

Chapter One 

Lionel is in the "Chalk Bluff boarding school."  

Ok! That makes sense. The "Chalk Bluff reservation" in the prologue is an error. The author meant to say "Chalk Bluff boarding school."

Lionel's older sister is also there. Her name is Beatrice. She's 12 and he's nine. Their mother died of tuberculosis in 1903.

That information provides the year. Doing the math, the year is 1915. 

Beatrice says their mother died long before 1903. She says her mother died "the day they started calling our land this-here reservation." Lionel and Beatrice were sent to the boarding school shortly after she died and have been there now for six years.

According to the timeline on the Blackfeet Nation's website, the reservation was established in 1873.  In order for her to be somewhat aware of the impact of what the reservation meant to the Blackfeet, she would need to be a pre-teen or teen, born in the late 1860s. That would mean that she gave birth to the children when she was in her thirties. Doing the math, Beatrice was born in 1897 and Lionel in 1900.

The school the children are at is "run by the Brothers from the church, but overseen by the government men, soldiers who were charged with maintaining the peace and some semblance of order."

"Brothers" tells me Chalk Bluff is might be a mission school. Again referring to the Blackfeet Nation timeline, Chalk Bluff could be based on St. Peter's Mission, established in 1879. It is no longer in use as either a school or church.   

Beatrice speaks to Lionel in their language. Lionel tells her she'll get whipped if they hear her doing that. She is rebellious, not wearing the clothes they want her to wear. And, she's got long hair. She had been sick when "the new regulations came from the East." The regulations dictate how girls' hair would be cut.

I'm guessing Crowley (the author) used some of Darrel Kipp's work on language to get this information. Kipp is Blackfeet and runs a Blackfeet language immersion school. I wonder if I can find a copy of those regulations? Cutting hair was standard practice when the government boarding schools were established in the early 1880s. Was that not the standard at all the schools? Was there a directive in 1915 about that?

Chapter Two

Lionel sits up. Brother Finn has shoved his bed and is shouting in Latin, "Up. Up. Today is your day to serve your Lord our Savior!"

Latin? Hmmm... Not sure about that. I'll see what I can find out. 

Lionel and Beatrice go outside. He thinks about their grandfather, who lives a day's ride from the school. Beatrice makes an offering using tobacco.  He taught Beatrice to do that when she was nine years old. She's been doing it now for three years "despite the Brothers' and soldiers' rules." Lionel hopes that nobody sees her.

Crowley doesn't say she tries to do it secretly, just that she does it. That surprises me. 

Lionel sees a man kneeling in the snow at the far end of the corral. He goes to the man, says hello, and asks the man if he's all right. Lionel realizes that

The kneeling man was frozen. Frozen solid. His exposed skin was the facing gray color of the morning, and a silver layer of frost covered him from head to toe. In one hand, almost as though he were handing it to Lionel, was a string of bear claws; in the other hand was a green glass bottle.

Lionel takes the bear claw necklace and puts it in his pocket just as Sargeant Haskell Jenkins walks up.

I find it hard to believe that a person could freeze in that position... 

Jenkins' face has a scar on it. He tells ladies he got it from "fierce savages" in "the defense of this Great Nation" but Lionel knows it came from a "drunken debacle" with a log-cutting machine at the Wyoming State Fair.  Lionel starts thinking of the man as "the Frozen Man." Jenkins kicks the body and then takes money from the man's pocket and the man's hunting knife. Jenkins' friend (also a soldier), Lumpkin, appears and takes the bottle. He looks up and sees Beatrice sitting on the corral fence watching him. Lionel is sure that she will stay there to make sure the men do nothing else to the corpse.

Lumpkin reaches out and grabs Beatrice's jacket and the horse, Ulysses, rears up as though by her will. Brother Finn arrives, goes to the Frozen Man, and "knelt down to feel his forehead."  Finn and the children start to the chapel for Mass and Jenkins says they'll bury the man.  Jenkins calls out to Beatrice that her hair is too long and that he will cut it for her. Lionel sees him "give Beatrice a scalping sign behind Brother Finn's back."

I don't know what a scalping sign is...

Chapter Three 

From inside the chapel, Lionel watches Jenkins and Lumpkin. First they drank the rest of the liquor, and then tried to lift the body. But the kneeling position with arm outstretched made it difficult. Instead of praying, Beatrice starts singing a song. Lionel joins her. They sing louder and won't stop when the priest tells them to stop. He grabs both children. The priest tells her the song is gibberish, and Beatrice counters by calling the Latin prayers gibberish. The priest says

I will not have you disrespecting the Lord with some half-cocked pagan philosophies in His house---or anywhere else, for that matter.

The priest and Beatrice continue to trade words. The priest throws her out the church door and calls to the soldiers to come get her and cut her hair. They keep Lionel in the church.
 
Chapter Four 

Still inside the chapel, Lionel sees the soldiers grab Beatrice and use her head to break the ice in the trough. Her ear is bleeding and he sees the blood on the white snow. One of them has sheep shears they plan to use to cut her hair. They force her head under the water twice. Lionel runs from the chapel to her, with Brother Thomas behind him. The horse, Ulysses, is rearing near the trough. When the soldiers bring Beatrice up out of the water again, she grabs the sheers and rams them through Jenkins hand, pinning his hand to the wood of the trough. Beatrice scrambles away, but Jenkins frees his hand and goes after her. Lionel, now riding Ulysses, races to her and they ride away.

That's a really intense scene. Intense and violent.

Chapter Five

Lionel and Beatrice spend a night outside and the next day they arrive at the "two hundred forty acre plot of Big Bull Boss Ribs."

Chapter Six

Big Bull Boss Ribs is Blackfeet. As Lionel and Beatrice ride up, a boy named Corn Poe (the son of Big Bull Boss Ribs) tells them that his pa is not fond of trespassers. Corn Poe is the ninth of thirteen children. He was born prematurely, is small, has poor lungs, and is considered a runt. Big Bull considers his premature birth a bad sign. 

Big Bull Boss Ribs, wearing a bowler derby with "a cluster of goose feathers trailing off the back brim" is "gnawing" on an old ham bone. He throws it aside to some dogs and asks about Ulysses. As Lionel and Beatrice tell him they're looking for Milk River, Big Bull's wife appears in the doorway. Lionel is surprised that she is white.

Big Bull tells Lionel and Beatrice they may be hung for stealing the horse because the soldiers are trying to break the Blackfeet from stealing horses. Corn Poe says "They'll hang ya, alright" and Big Bull says to him "Who asked you anything?" He throws a second ham hock at Corn Poe and hits him in the head. Corn Poe "eagerly picked it up and began to gnaw at it much like his father." Big Bull then calls his son a "little half-breeded sonuvabitch." Big Bull laughs and laughs at Beatrice and Lionel as they ride away.

I'm not sure what bothers me more... "Gnaw" on bones? Come on, Crowley (and editors)! Why are you, in 2010, using language that is most often used to describe the ways that animals eat? And how is it that Big Bull Boss Ribs treats his son that way? He sounds more like a person from one of those peoples that would leave a baby like that to die of exposure! 

Chapter Seven

Beatrice figures out someone is following them. It turns out to be Corn Poe. Beatrice knocks him down in the snow. He tries to fight back but she's got the best of him. She asks why he is following them, and he says "Get offa me you chicken-livered jack---" She pushes his face into the snow and he calls out "You're gonna freeze my eyeballs right out of my head, you idjit!" She lets him up. He is crying and takes a small knife from his pocket and tells her "I'll teach you to mess with Corn Poe Boss Ribs" and tries to jab her with the knife. She easily knocks it from his hand. He cries and tells her that she's lucky he's all wet or she'd be dead.

Next he pulls out half of a ham hock. Lionel thinks he's going to try to kill Beatrice with the ham hock. Corn Poe says he was only trying to help them by giving them food and asks why they shoved him in the snow. Lionel says "Hell, you was trying to kill us."

I find the dialog between the three a bit ludicrous. Does Lionel really think Corn Poe was going to use the ham hock to kill his sister?! And what happened there with Lionel's more correct manner of speaking?! He sounds like Corn Poe now!

Beatrice offers Corn Poe a hand up. They apologize, and he gives Lionel the ham. He eats some, she eats some, and Corn Poe eats some of it, too.  As Corn Poe finishes (again gnawing) the ham hock he tells them that his father would skin him alive if he found out that a girl had beat him, and that he'd given them the ham hock. Corn Poe says "He hates Injuns, despitin' the fact that he is one." The three get on Ulysses and continue on.

I wonder if, later in the book, we'll learn just why Big Boss hates "Injuns?!"  Is this a case of internalized racism?

Chapter Eight

The three children continue on their way to find Lionel and Beatrice's grandfather. At one point, Lionel and Beatrice (but not Corn Poe) see what seems to be "a deer with very large antlers looking at them, almost spying on them." It comes closer to them. Beatrice sets out to investigate, telling Lionel and Corn Poe to wait there. The two boys wait... "As it got closer, it began to look more and more like the body of a man with a deer's head." Corn Poe thinks its an apparition. It calls out to them in a language they don't understand. Corn Poe runs, telling Lionel it is going to kill them.

Then the creature spoke again, this time in English. As it came closer Lionel could see that it was "definitely some sort of man." It moves easily on the deep snow that the children have been floundering through, which seems to confirm Corn Poe's assertion that it is a ghost. As Lionel waits, it comes closer and he sees it is wearing snowshoes, and that's why it was able to move so quickly over the snow.

At ten paces away, it asks "What in the hell are you children doing way out here in weather like this, anyhow?" Lionel sees that the deer head was actually a hood---a hood worn by an old man. The cowl covered the sides of his face and was fashioned from hide and antlers to mimic a deer's head. Beneath the hood, his face was dark with deep creases around his eyes and mouth. Two thick braids with feathers woven into them fell onto his broad shoulders.

He continues to question Lionel (Corn Poe has run off):

"Well, what's it going to be? You gonna run off like your friend over there and hide in a hole like a rabbit, or are you gonna stand up and tell me what the hell you're doing out here? Out here on my land?"

At that point, Beatrice comes up behind the man, riding a mule. He spins around, pulling a pistol from his coat. Lionel lunges at the man, but he keeps Lionel at bay as he points the pistol at Beatrice. He tells her to get off his mule, but she rides closer to them. The man recognizes her:

"Beatrice?" the man stuttered in disbelief, then spun to face Lionel. "So... you're Lionel. I should have seen it in your eyes. I'm slippin' in my old age, I tell ya."

The man is their grandfather. He tells Lionel that last time he saw Lionel, he was two feet tall. 

There's a lot going on there, in chapter eight! This man sounds (in speech and disposition) just like Big Bull Boss Ribs! And then he recognizes Beatrice. Recall that in an earlier chapter, Crowley says that the grandfather saw Beatrice when she was nine years old, and spent enough time with her then to teach her some Blackfeet ways.  I'm guessing he would also have seen Lionel at that same time. Lionel would have been six years old....  But, the grandfather says, last time he saw Lionel he was two feet tall. That sounds to me like a toddler... (barely). Maybe this past meeting will be fleshed out later in the novel.

I can't move to the next chapter without commenting on that hood! What was Crowley looking at when he developed that item? Looking around my sources, I see some Blackfeet headdresses with buffalo horns, but none with deer antlers. I suppose it is possible, but, why is this grandfather wearing it? He's hunting, so maybe he's trying to be in camouflage? And the feathers "woven" into the braids? Not sure about that either. Maybe "woven" was just a poor word choice.  


Chapter Nine

The grandfather (now called "Grandpa") takes the children to his cabin where they eat. Beatrice tells Grandpa what happened, starting with the Frozen Man. He tells Beatrice that the government "can't be too happy" that the kids ran off, and that he's sure the soldiers will come looking for the kids. Beatrice says she's never going back.  Lionel, thinking about the bear claws in his pocket, asks Grandpa where the Frozen Man went to when he died. Lionel starts to say what they were told at school, but Grandpa cuts him off. He then tells the children the Blackfeet creation story about Napi, the Old Man. Lionel falls asleep.


Chapter Ten

Lionel wakes and sees that Grandpa has woven red and blue flannel strips into Beatrice's braids. She also has one of Grandpa's hunting knives, hung from a beaded belt, around her waist. Grandpa then lends Beatrice a red-tailed hawk feather, tying it onto her braid. Lionel goes outside to the outhouse, thinking about the creation story he heard at school compared to the one Grandpa told him. When he gets back inside, he sees bundles of provisions (including a rifle) that he and Beatrice will need for their travels. Grandpa will take Corn Poe back to his family and, hopefully, draw the soldiers after them, thereby giving the children some more time to get away. He tells the children that once he leaves Corn Poe, he'll try to find them.

Grandpa notes that a snow storm is coming. Before sending them off, he tells them to pay attention to what's around them:

That school and them government men tried to kill that in ya. You've got to find and listen to it. Listen to the animals, the wind, the mountains. We may not speak the same language no more, but they're talkin' to ya. It's up to you if you choose to listen."

Grandpa then:

took a long braid of twisted sweet grass from his jacket and lit the end. He raised it high above his head and began to sing.

Grandpa gives the children advice and a blessing and sends them off, alone? I'm not sure how likely that is, but for Crowley, I guess it makes for a good story!

Chapter Eleven

As they ride Ulysses, Beatrice tells Lionel that a long time ago, their grandfather had been forced to join the "new government's army, and that he had been taking by a large boat across a great body of water where  they fought other men who spoke different languages." Grandpa's brothers died there, and the army gave Grandpa a medal. He didn't want it, though, and buried it for his brothers on the river bank.

What war was that?  Grandpa must be between 50 and 80 years old. It is 1915, so, it had to be a war fought somewhere between 1850 and  1900. Could it be the Spanish-American War? Or the Philippine-American War?

Beatrice also tells Lionel more about Napi. Late that day they reach a barbed wire fence that Beatrice thinks is the boundary of the reservation. Neither one had ever crossed that boundary before. Beatrice asks Lionel if he is ready to do it, because they might never be allowed to come back to the reservation. Lionel says "I guess" and they crossed through "a gaping hole in the fence, leaving the reservation and all that they had ever known." That night, wrapped in a buffalo robe, they "slept off the reservation for the first time in their lives."

According to the Blackfeet Nation timeline, a fence was built around their entire reservation in 1903. It was removed in 1909. Recall Starfish is set in 1915. I wonder if "off the reservation" was a phrase the children would have used at that time?

Chapter Twelve 

The children ride on...

Chapter Thirteen  

The children find a cabin in a snow-covered meadow that provides shelter from the storm. They start a fire.

PART TWO

A man with a "slight Caribbean accent" looks down into the meadow. He cups his hands, makes the sound of a barred owl. A small boy replies and then appears. He's on horseback, leading two other horses laden with "loads wrapped in heavy waxed canvas." The man says they best not stop at the cabin because someone is there. The boy doesn't speak. He nods. The man smiles and they move on. The man's name is Avery John Hawkins.

A lot of info! It is provided before the next chapter starts. I guess all of that will make sense later...

Chapter Fourteen

A wolverine is in the cabin with the children. The chapter is about how they get it out. At the close of the chapter, Lionel says he's going to do as Grandpa told them, and think about that wolverine, that he's going to keep his eyes open and listen.

Chapter Fifteen

The children explore the cabin and find an old trunk and a phonograph and hard wax cylinders. They figure out how to work it. They put on clothes they found in the trunk (a silk gown and a coat with long tails and a top hat) and dance to the music. Three weeks pass. Their provisions run low and Beatrice decides they should hunt for food. Beatrice fired the rifle twice but missed the animals she'd been aiming at. Suddenly she froze and tells Lionel there's someone else in the woods. He listens, doesn't hear anything, and then heard or felt someone behind him. He turns around, and two paces away is their grandfather.

So, he snuck up on them? They had a rifle. Wasn't he worried they'd shoot at him? Seems to me he'd call out to them, glad to see them. Instead, he does what Indians in westerns do.... silently sneaks up... 

Chapter Sixteen

Grandpa kills a deer using a bow and arrow that he had made "based on what Napi the Old Man had taught the Blackfeet a long time ago." He tells the children killing the deer with the bow and arrow instead of a rifle is more honorable, that it shows a mutual respect for the deer because its more difficult to use. It gives the deer "a fighting chance."

Is that really a Blackfeet view of bow and arrow versus rifle? Throughout this book, Crowley is imparting a lot of what passes as Blackfeet ways, but are they? I wish this book had a "for further reading" list...

As they eat, Grandpa tells them about being at Boss Ribs' place. Corn Poe got a beating from his father. Then he went to the outpost to get news about the school and the children and Ulysses. He pretended that he was there to visit the children, and feigned anger at Brother Finn and the captain for losing the children. Grandpa tells the children he doesn't like to lie, but this instance called for it, and that he enjoyed doing it in this case.

He learns that several parties went in search of the children but turned back due to bad weather. They plan to go search again in the spring. Grandpa seems happier now than before. And, he's wearing a second hawk's feather in his hair.

A second feather? Earlier he has feathers woven into both braids. What's with the second feather? And specifying that its a hawk feather?

Beatrice and Grandpa go outside to unload supplies. Inside the cabin, Lionel picks up Grandpa's bow and arrow, fixes an arrow to the bow. Just then, Grandpa and Beatrice enter the cabin. Lionel is startled and lets the arrow fly. Grandpa leaps aside and then laughs, telling him he could get hurt messing with something he knows nothing about. He says that he'll show Lionel how to make his own bow and teach him how to shoot it. 

Chapter Seventeen

The day starts with Grandpa how to smoke the deer meat (to preserve it). He tells them they'll use the bones to make tools "for ya" and the hide to make a shirt and maybe leggings. Lionel is anxious to get started on the arrows, but Grandpa says that has to wait because they need to reinforce the roof of the cabin. They go into the woods where Grandpa selects two trees. He "thanked the pines for their service" and cut them down. They tie the trees to Grandpa's mule and drag them to the cabin and hoist them upright. They spend the next few days working on a new outhouse and repairing other outbuildings near the cabin.

Crowley is attempting, here and elsewhere, to convey a Blackfeet reverence and worldview for life in the trees and animals. In some instances he's trying to do this in a matter of fact way, which is good, but again, I wonder what his source for this material is? 

Grandpa tells Lionel that Napi told the "first people, the ones with the stone knives, to use this to make their arrows."


Napi told the people to go to the Great Plains and hunt buffalo. They did, but, the buffalo killed and ate the people. When Old Man found the dead hunting party, he felt bad, and decided that buffalo should not eat men. Instead, men should kill and eat buffalo.

Napi finds some of his people---ones who were still alive---and tells them he doesn't understand why they let the buffalo kill and eat them. He says that he had created the buffalo to be food for the people. One of the men says that they don't have weapons, and the buffalo does (his horns). So, Napi made a bow, and an arrow (using feathers from birds to help the arrow fly straight) and sent the people to hunt the buffalo.


Most of this Napi material is from George Bird Grinnell. Stories he recorded are linked to from the Blackfeet Nation website. The bow and arrow making, however, seems compressed. The sticks used to make the arrows have to be dried out over time before they're used for arrows.

Grandpa shows the children how to prepare the ground for planting. As the children work, Grandpa is weaving grass, leaves, and tree branches together. The children wonder what he's making. When he's finished, its a straw man (scarecrow). One night, Grandpa tells the children that the soldiers never made them leave, that he's pretty sure they're the only tribe whose reservation is on their own hunting grounds rather than where the government told them to go. He says "We stayed where we were, and although our land is a bit smaller, we're still here."

Grandpa may not know it, but they aren't the only tribe who was moved. Crowley knows it (I hope), but he chooses to have Grandpa not know.

Chapter Eighteen

The next morning, when its still dark, Grandpa wakes up covered in sweat. He's been having a dream, Grandpa tells him. The two go outside, leaving Beatrice sleeping inside. Lionel thinks about his dream. In it, he's alone (no Grandpa, Beatrice, or Corn Poe). The Frozen Man, however, is in the dream, walking toward Lionel. Lionel is afraid, wondering about the bear claw necklace, that perhaps the man is angry at him. But, the man holds out his arm towards Lionel, and in his hand is the bear claw necklace. Suddenly Jenkins approaches on his horse. Lionel steps in front of the Froze Man to protect him. That's when he woke up from the dream.

Grandpa tells him dreams are powerful, and that he should pay attention to them, just the same as he does to the trees, mountains, and animals. They sit down. Lionel starts crying, and decides to tell Grandpa about the bear claws. He hands them to Grandpa who studies the beading and the leather. He tells Lionel its better than Lionel have it (rather than the government men).

Lionel asks again about where the Frozen Man went, and Grandpa says nobody really knows for sure. He tells Lionel he's sorry that Lionel has had to see "this side of our people" (the old man as a drunk?) and the governments side, too. That he is confused and that they should sit and think about it for awhile.

They sit for awhile, and then Grandpa says in a low whisper "do you smell that?" It turns out to be a grizzly bear, two hundred paces away, in the river, fishing. The bear looks at the two and walks away with a fish in its mouth. Grandpa tells Lionel "I think we can take that to mean that you have their blessings." He then ties the necklace around Lionel's neck and they go back to the cabin.


Chapter Nineteen

They figure out where the bear's den is, and Grandpa is sure the bear won't hurt them. As they walk back to the meadow, Grandpa tells them another Blackfeet story.

Chapter Twenty

When the children wake up, grandfather has new clothes for them, made from deerskin. Lionel has buckskin lettings, and Beatrice has a new shirt. Lionel thinks

with her long braids and hawk feathers, Beatrice looked like a page from the painted picture book of savages that the Brothers had showed Lionel once in the library at the boarding school.

Unlike the savage in the book who scowls, Beatrice grins. Grandpa then loads his mule and says he best get back to his cabin. He's been counting the days, and figures the soldiers are due to stop by "day after next". They do this regularly, about every ten days. Grandpa says he'll be back as soon as he can.

Hmmm....  They've done a LOT in the days since Grandpa arrived and this departure...  It is not plausible! If it takes four days of travel, that means Grandpa was with the children for six days. In that time, they killed and tanned two deer, cut trees and fixed the roof, built an out house, cleaned and repaired the cabin, planted a garden, learned how to make bows and arrows, how to shoot them, found a grizzly den... 

Chapter Twenty-One

Spring turns to summer. The children thrive. Their hair grows longer. They work the garden, hunt, and fish. They tan more hides and make more clothes. Still, Beatrice is worried that they don't have enough food and that they should go deeper into the woods to hunt and to see if there's any signs of the government from the school. They prepare food for their journey. Beatrice weaves feathers into Ulysses's mane. When they start out, they look like "young wanted warrior outlaws." As they travel, they're surprised there is little game. In the afternoon, they hear drumming. They sit, listening, when they're knocked from Ulysses's back.  Lionel looks over and sees a "large, fat boy" standing over Beatrice,

clucking and pawing at the dirt like an overstuffed prairie chicken. The boy had feathers in his hair, and he began to squawk and occasionally jumped sideways, striking Beatrice with the end of a short stick as he did.

I think Crowley is trying to portray the boy's idea of a chicken dance and counting coup. Or is it Crowley's idea?! There is a Prairie Chicken dance, but it is not one in which the dancer acts like a chicken, clucking or squawking. Later in the book, Lionel thinks that the kids from Heart Butte are making things up. 

Giving that thought to Lionel lets Crowley off the hook. It is possible that the children at an early boarding school did not know their dances and ceremonies and would have tried to recreate them in some way, but the way Crowley does it here is troubling for two reasons. First, he makes what they do sound ludicrous, which, in my view, mocks what was happening to (in this case) the Blackfeet people. Second, by placing these ideas in the heads of the children, it lets Crowley off the hook when the things the children do are, in fact, incorrect. He didn't have to do the research to get it right. 

Do we have a writer who wants to create a story about a Blackfeet child, but, since he can't really get the insider-info he needs, he has his characters "playing Indian" in the way that white children would ignorantly play Indian? Do we have, in the end, "the white man's Indian" Berkhoffer writes about in his book?   

There are ten more children, Lionel's age and older than Beatrice. Among them is Corn Poe. They were wearing a combination of clothes Lionel recognizes as the uniform the children at Heart Butte boarding school wear. Note: in chapter three, Lionel recounts when Chalk Bluff and Heart Butte played against each other in a football game.

Chapter Twenty-two

Corn Poe tells Lionel and Beatrice that he got tired of his father's  beatings. He stole a horse and ran away. The horse died, and Corn Poe ate some of it and wandered around for three days when he came upon the group of children from Heart Butte. They had run away from school because they weren't given permission to go to fourth of July horse races and a pow wow.

That may be the Arlee Pow Wow, which has been going on for 112 years.

The Heart Butte children take Lionel and Beatrice to their camp, where they've made what they call a sweat lodge.  Corn Poe says he had a vision the night before, and that they haven't eaten in two days, or had much water either, because it "helps you get your vision." They plan to do a sweat and then dance. The Heart Butte children say a few words in Blackfeet.

That they remember words but not ceremony and dance doesn't quite make sense to me...

Chapter Twenty-three

They go into the sweat lodge at sunset. Inside, Corn Poe lights sweet grass, which they pass around, inhaling the smoke. They pass around a small wooden bowl holding a paste of black ashes. They smear the paste on their faces. Lionel watches and

wasn't sure what they were trying to do, and this was the first time that it occurred to him that neither Barney nor Corn Poe did, either. It seemed like they were making this up as they went along.

I don't know if that is what happens inside a sweat. I've never done one. As noted earlier, I find Crowley's technique here problematic (saying the kids don't know what they're doing.)

Corn Poe says its time to dance. They leave the sweat lodge. It is dark night now. They go to the river, jump in, and then go back to the fire by the lodge, and begin to "shuffle around the fire to the drum, stopping occasionally to let out a yell of one sort or another." Lionel joins them and they dance, but Lionel isn't sure how long. He notices Corn Poe leave the circle and return with a bottle of corn alcohol. He takes a drink of it and lets out a yelp. He hands it to the next boy and the next, and they take turns drinking until the bottle is empty. They continue to dance, now drunk, nearly falling into the fire. Lionel and Beatrice do not drink. After a while, the kids all collapse, sleeping.

Why did Crowley introduce the drinking? What is the point? I don't know... 

And now, I quit. I've given this book a careful read, from beginning to end, but I'm going to stop making detailed notes here.

In the remaining chapters (twenty-four through thirty-six), Lionel and Beatrice and Corn Poe take off, meet a man named Avery John Hawkins and his son who they spend the summer with in the cabin  (they're black and Lionel is surprised that Avery's blood is red), are pursued by the soldiers who whip Lionel, and then saved by the Captain (who is the original owner of Ulysses). With Brother Finn (he was also in the pursuit), all but Hawkins and his son go back to the cabin. Throughout the story, the illness for which Beatrice was in the infirmary at the beginning of the book has continued (she coughs a lot), and she dies that night. The next day, they bury her in a traditional Blackfeet way (place her body in a tree) and Lionel, Corn Poe, and Grandpa return to Chalk Bluff where Lionel and Corn Poe's long hair is cut and their clothes replaced with uniforms. The two boys look at each and laugh "beyond control" thinking about the last year and their experiences. Eventually, the boys and Grandpa buy some cattle and have a small herd. That's it. The end. 

Oh! I didn't mention the STARFISH, for which the book is named. It appears in chapter 27.  It is, in fact, a starfish that Avery John Hawkins has in his bag. It was given to him by his mother. It came from the island where she was born. Hawkins tells Lionel it was a fish in the ocean one time, but now it is dead because "Sometimes when you take something out of where or how it's supposed to be, it'll just... well... it just dies." Lionel asks "everything?" and Hawkins says "Naw, not everything, some things change, they adapt." I guess Lionel's people and way of life is like the starfish... Not dead, but adapting.