Saturday, January 06, 2007
The Birch Bark House - YA Book Review
Louise Erdrich is of the Ojibwa and a member of the Turtle Mountain Band, the Native North American people she writes about in The Birch Bark House.
The Ojibwas live in Minnesota on and near Lake Superior. Omakayas enters the story as a toddler and as the lone survivor of smallpox in her clan. Omakayas’ new family takes her into their already full home.
Nokomis, Omakayas’ grandmother, has many important duties. Nokomis creates healing potions, builds and repairs the summer and winter homes of the family, packs dry fish, weaves fishing nets, cooks, wears a large hunting knife on her hip, and does any task that’s required.
Yellow Kettle, Omakayas’ adopted mother gets the fire going in the morning, takes care of the children and keeps them busy with work required to keep the family fed and clothed. Omakayas helps her mother tan hides that are eventually sewn into clothes.
DeyDey is a trapper and father to Angelina, Pinch, baby Neewo and his adopted daughter Omakayas. Neewo is the infant’s temporary name for only certain people of the village are permitted to name the babies. DeyDey is half French and half Ojibwas. DeyDey spends a majority of his time away from the house trapping animals, in order to trade the pelts at the store for food and cloths.
The children are taught skills that will enhance their lives. However not all the children are instructed in the same areas. Omakayas helps her mother in tanning, but Angelina has other chores. However all are taught to work as a unit. At harvest time everyone must help, except those out hunting or trapping. During the growing season the children are sent out to the fields to chase away the greedy birds. All children are taught to respect the land and what it provides and always give thanks of tobacco when they take from the spirits. Children are also taught to respect and not disagree with their elders.
When DeyDey is home the rules of the house are very strict. A meal is cooked by both Nokomis and Yellow Kettle to celebrate his arrival. After dinner Nokomis and DeyDey smoke their pipes. DeyDey is seen as strength and protection for the family and homes. His trapping partners, Fishtail and LaPointe talk about their fears of the white people moving on to their land and forcing the Ojibwas to move. The men see the whites as “greedy children” who will not be satisfied until the have taken and own everything. While DeyDey seems strong and important to the family, I see the women as even stronger for their efforts hold the household together while DeyDey is “gone hunting.” The women are flexible and able to perform many tasks at one time. No culture is by any means perfect!
Small pox enters their village and kills many, including Omakaya’s love, Neewo. Everyone is left extremely weak form this white disease. An unforgiving winter follows with bitter temperatures and hunger. DeyDey is too weak to hunt or to trap and the heavy snows make game scarce. Omakaya wishes ice could be a meal for there is ice everywhere. When DeyDey becomes strong, he is forced to borrow on his next year’s trappings to secure some food for his family. Food brings back the body and laughter brings back the spirit, a spirit that endured great suffering from a disease the Ojibwas has no medicine to prevent or cure for it came from whites. Gary Larson was my spirit enhancer.
Sickness is that cursed surprise that saunters into a home and turns it on its head. While expecting one danger, and even more insidious demon arrives. When people endure a severe illness the consequences of their disease is never truly known to others until they themselves are confronted with it. After Chernobyl a very wise woman wrote a book A Day in the News. Her underlying theme was that the nuclear accident did not last for one day, but still effects lives today and for a long time to come. Such is the case of disease.
The smallpox disease that took over DeyDey and his family did not affect the family with merely the fever and the itching, but it weakened them, and brought starvation to their door during a brutal winter. It deformed their faces, and enhanced their anger toward the white people for it was the immigrants’ disease.
To this day, the Native North American lands are used and abused by the immigrants who came to this country and saw the indigenous people as intruders and obstacles to the white desire, i.e.: to own and control everything. It is regrettable that Ms. LaDuke is not yet our president. Louise Erdrich’s The Birch Bark House was a book to which one can readily relate and enjoy.
The Ojibwas live in Minnesota on and near Lake Superior. Omakayas enters the story as a toddler and as the lone survivor of smallpox in her clan. Omakayas’ new family takes her into their already full home.
Nokomis, Omakayas’ grandmother, has many important duties. Nokomis creates healing potions, builds and repairs the summer and winter homes of the family, packs dry fish, weaves fishing nets, cooks, wears a large hunting knife on her hip, and does any task that’s required.
Yellow Kettle, Omakayas’ adopted mother gets the fire going in the morning, takes care of the children and keeps them busy with work required to keep the family fed and clothed. Omakayas helps her mother tan hides that are eventually sewn into clothes.
DeyDey is a trapper and father to Angelina, Pinch, baby Neewo and his adopted daughter Omakayas. Neewo is the infant’s temporary name for only certain people of the village are permitted to name the babies. DeyDey is half French and half Ojibwas. DeyDey spends a majority of his time away from the house trapping animals, in order to trade the pelts at the store for food and cloths.
The children are taught skills that will enhance their lives. However not all the children are instructed in the same areas. Omakayas helps her mother in tanning, but Angelina has other chores. However all are taught to work as a unit. At harvest time everyone must help, except those out hunting or trapping. During the growing season the children are sent out to the fields to chase away the greedy birds. All children are taught to respect the land and what it provides and always give thanks of tobacco when they take from the spirits. Children are also taught to respect and not disagree with their elders.
When DeyDey is home the rules of the house are very strict. A meal is cooked by both Nokomis and Yellow Kettle to celebrate his arrival. After dinner Nokomis and DeyDey smoke their pipes. DeyDey is seen as strength and protection for the family and homes. His trapping partners, Fishtail and LaPointe talk about their fears of the white people moving on to their land and forcing the Ojibwas to move. The men see the whites as “greedy children” who will not be satisfied until the have taken and own everything. While DeyDey seems strong and important to the family, I see the women as even stronger for their efforts hold the household together while DeyDey is “gone hunting.” The women are flexible and able to perform many tasks at one time. No culture is by any means perfect!
Small pox enters their village and kills many, including Omakaya’s love, Neewo. Everyone is left extremely weak form this white disease. An unforgiving winter follows with bitter temperatures and hunger. DeyDey is too weak to hunt or to trap and the heavy snows make game scarce. Omakaya wishes ice could be a meal for there is ice everywhere. When DeyDey becomes strong, he is forced to borrow on his next year’s trappings to secure some food for his family. Food brings back the body and laughter brings back the spirit, a spirit that endured great suffering from a disease the Ojibwas has no medicine to prevent or cure for it came from whites. Gary Larson was my spirit enhancer.
Sickness is that cursed surprise that saunters into a home and turns it on its head. While expecting one danger, and even more insidious demon arrives. When people endure a severe illness the consequences of their disease is never truly known to others until they themselves are confronted with it. After Chernobyl a very wise woman wrote a book A Day in the News. Her underlying theme was that the nuclear accident did not last for one day, but still effects lives today and for a long time to come. Such is the case of disease.
The smallpox disease that took over DeyDey and his family did not affect the family with merely the fever and the itching, but it weakened them, and brought starvation to their door during a brutal winter. It deformed their faces, and enhanced their anger toward the white people for it was the immigrants’ disease.
To this day, the Native North American lands are used and abused by the immigrants who came to this country and saw the indigenous people as intruders and obstacles to the white desire, i.e.: to own and control everything. It is regrettable that Ms. LaDuke is not yet our president. Louise Erdrich’s The Birch Bark House was a book to which one can readily relate and enjoy.
# posted by Bite Me Kissimmee @ 12:40 PM 
