Background Information
We are starting out with background information the building of Kerr Dam on the Flathead Indian Reservation. This is the historical context for the novel.
The article we read is from the book The Lower Flathead River Flathead Indian Reservation, and the section is titled "A Brief History of Kerr Dam and the Reservation." We first read part 1.
(.pdf format) -- a scan of the article
Then, the students responded to 4 discussion questions about the article.
Next, we watched the first part of the documentary "The Place of the Falling Waters." And the students responded to 4 discussion questions about the article.
Literary Journal Assignment
While they are reading, students need to keep track of what is going on in the book through a literary journal.
Found Poem Assessment
Students will need to use their literary journals as a resource to write their found poems. Found Poems will be due on May 21.
Vocabulary
Helpful list of vocabulary words; listed in order of appearance but WITHOUT page numbers.
Chapter 1
Characters:
Bull, the chief of the Little Elk people
Antoine, his grandson.
Summary:
Antoine has just returned from Indian Boarding School in Oregon. He and his grandfather hike to their “place ofpower” where they see where the white man has “killed the water” and built a dam. Powerless to do anything else,Bull fires his gun into the concrete. Bull’s mentoring of his grandson provides hope.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“Water just swallows everything and waits for more. . . The water was there when the world began. What kind of foolwould want to stop it!” (1)
"He was named Bull--that was the English form of it. But the words men speak never pass from one language to another without some loss of flavor and ultimate meaning. Bull, it was, the animal, but really something that was man and animal, and neither." (2)
“[Bull] had always been this man who ‘lives inside,’ as they said.” (2)
“Grandson, when a man goes anyplace, whether to hunt or to visit relatives, he should think about the things he sees, or maybe the words somebody speaks to him. He asks himself, ‘What did I learn from this? What should I remember?’ Now, I will ask, What did you see today?” (8)
“The white man makes us forget our holy places. He makes us small.” (9)
Chapter 2
Characters:
Bull, the younger brother and chief of the tribe
Antoine
Basil, Antoine’s tall, emaciated and pleasant great uncle
Louis, Antoine’s “small, dainty, and bitter‐speaking” great uncle
Two Sleeps, the oldest grandfather in camp and a “holy man”
Henry Jim, Bull’s elder estranged brother.
Summary:
As The Little Elk men gather in Bull’s teepee, they discuss and disagree about the best way to help Antoine become a man. They hear singing, and Henry Jim appears to ask Bull’s help in recovering the sacred medicine bundle. Despitetheir quarrels over one following the white man’s way, and the other keeping to tradition, they choose to listen andrespect each other, to find a way to get their power back. The chapter is positive and hopeful, and it ends with HenryJim agreeing to speak to the agent on behalf of the Little Elk people.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
"Bull sat at the head of the circle, opposite the entrance, where recently he had made a place at his side for his grandson, home from school. He said nothing to the camp, but everybody talked about it and it pleased them. The boy would grow up to be a leader. [...] For Antoine, it wasn't always a good thing to be sitting next to his grandfather. [...] To sit at the top was to be among men." (10-11)
“ A little scolding, a little pushing and pinching, a little hunger and thirst – these make a boy grow.” (13)
"How can a stream out of the mountains be killed? [...] what can we do against these men who dry up a stream and make new rivers where none were meant to be?" (14)
"he is coming to talk about something that troubles us more deeply than the water in the canyon. It has troubled us for a long time, even when we don't talk about it." (15)
"A man who speaks his own name is one who asks no favors for himself--he speaks out of weakness and shame and expects insults, if any should come." (17)
"Why did we quarrel, Brother? [...] These thing happened, and we all know them. [...] I tried to take away your power. [...] Let's bring back our medicine, our power. Let's bring Feather Boy back to this country, to protect it for our children." (18)
"Even a kinsman could be despised, but when such a man became a touch of warm flesh, a faltering voice, then you had to hold on to him. You could not throw him away." (19)
Chapter 3
Characters:
Henry Jim
Toby Rafferty, “superintendent of Little Elk Indian Agency and Special Disbursing Agent;”
White men, card players who watch with surprise as the “Indian” Henry Jim mounts a horse and rides off.
Summary:
Henry Jim first rides to ask Rafferty for help because he believes he is a white man who will listen. Rafferty says hewill try. To himself, Henry Jim recalls times previous when “the understanding fell apart afterwards.” Still he’shopeful, knowing the critical importance of “a good understanding” for success in resolutions to conflicts and hopefor a beneficial future for his people.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“Henry Jim right away noticed one good thing in this man. He did not insist on talking all at once, or all the time.” (27)
“a white man, a government man, might not understand the importance of the thing he asked unless the story was carried back to the beginnings. Today talks in yesterday’s voice, the old people said. The white man must hear yesterday’s voice.” (28)
“So many times when the understanding fell apart afterward. […] It was so important this time – so much depended on a good understanding.” (28)
“And bitter times! When the belly hungered and quaked. When winter sickness came and people tumbled dazed out of their tepees. When quarrels rose to sharp hard tones and children ran to their mother’s skirts. A gun spoke in firs and there was blood on a gooseberry bush. And the soldiers dragged guns over the road and turned them toward the people.” (30)
“The time of confusion was the hardest time. Kinship lines were broken. Children went against their own relatives. The people, left to themselves, could have saved themselves, as they had against days of hunger and winter sickness. But the new men, […] only scattered the people.” (31)
Chapter 4
Characters:
Toby Rafferty
Doc Edwards, “the agency physician” . . . who was “devoted to the Indians;”
Summary:
Sympathy is created for Rafferty as he wrestles with Henry Jim’s question and evaluates his role and effectivenessregarding his efforts to do what Washington D.C. expects him to do. To help him think this through, Rafferty visitswith Doc Edwards who listens and asks questions to help Rafferty better understand the Indians, and himself.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“Edwards, the agency physician, was the oldest employee, in age and years of service. He knew most of the Indian families—their ailments, marital complications, feuds, and credibility. He knew Little Elk history and tradition. […] Rafferty saw him as a small, graying, but quick-moving man, […] devoted to the Indian people.” (35)
“Nobody in Washington tells you about medicine bundles or culture heroes or folk ways.” (35)
“‘Sometimes I think you fellows expect these people to apologize.’ ‘Apologize? What for?’ ‘For being redskins.’” (37)
“Old Henry asked you something he considers important. After all these years of doing what the white man said was important, you have to stop and try to figure out whether he knows what he’s doing. Don’t you think he’s already done a lot of thinking about it?” (37)
“Henry Jim has been watching you. They all have, be sure. If you’ve never hunted wild horses, you’ve no idea what these people are like. […] If you want to bring these people around to ranching and farming, I suggest you start by taking this request seriously. […] If you can persuade an Indian you aren’t laughing at him, you’ve got a friend.” (38)
Chapter 5
Characters:
Bull
Antoine
Pock Face, an “uncle” ‐‐ son of Louis
Theobold, an “uncle” – son of Basil
Pock Face and Theobold are an “unpredictable pair" who play jokes, drink and gamble, ride horses and end up inbrawls.
Summary:
This chapter may be called “the beginning of the end.” Trusting his grandson, Bull leaves Antoine in charge of thecamp and his gun. But Antoine’s reckless uncles disturb the peace. Without thinking about the consequences, PockFace decides to go up to the dam to see where “white people fish,” and to shoot the man who made the dam. Havinggambled away their guns in a stick game, Theobold and Pock Face walk into Bull’s lodge to “borrow” Bull’s gun.Antoine is powerless to stop him. On the mountain overlooking the dam, Pock Face sees a man walking on the top.He shoots and kills him as snow begins to fall.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“At time, meanness broke out right in the middle of fun‐making.” (44)
Chapter 6
Characters:
Toby Rafferty
Reverend Stephen Welles, a missionary priest
Summary:
Rafferty asks the priest about a story he’s heard regarding how the medicine bundle was taken from the Little Elkpeople 30 years ago. The story reveals that Henry Jim had given the bundle to Welles, and Welles had sent it to Adam Pell, director of the Americana Institute. Welles refuses to help Rafferty get the bundle back, and Rafferty feelslike an outsider to Welles’ ways and an outsider to the Indians as well. Clearly, church or mission, as well as thefederal government, exert power and control over the Indians.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“[. . .] here he was an outsider, trying to find his way inside.” (46)
“Our race, and the Indian race, will never come together […] The Indian people start from origins about which we speculate but know next to nothing. We do know they are a people who are unlike us—in attitude, in outlook, and in destination, unless we change that destination.” (51)
Chapter 7
Characters:
Henry Jim
Jerome, the eldest son of his first sister
Iron Child, his relative who sided with Bull in the quarrel
Sid Grant, United States Marshal at the Agency.
Summary:
Henry Jim travels to Indians living in the foothills and he tells how his separation with his brother, Bull, has been“healed over.” He asks them to “end the quarrel.” In the night, they hear singing in the landscape, and the men begintheir own singing. When the ten men arrive at the agency gate, Sid Grant tells them “there’s been a killing” and theycan’t go in. Although the Indians are turned away in the end, the chapter demonstrates Henry Jim’s effectiveness inbringing a whole community together for a common and positive purpose.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
"[The government man] will go to the dog-faced man and ask him what happened to our Feather boy bundle. He will do this for us. He said so. I believe he is a good man [...] We will have our sacred bundle again, and after that the people will be one, as they were before these troubles came." (54)
Chapter 8
Characters:
Two Sleeps
Veronica, Bull’s respected senior wife
Lucille, “girl‐wife of Pock Face”
Star Head, Basil’s wife
Marie Louise, Theobold’s wife
Evangelique, a woman visiting from another camp
Antoine
Pock Face
Theobold
Summary:
The women arouse Two Sleeps and ask him to settle their questions about the killing. He tells them “there is death onthis wind.” Digging in Pock Face’s tepee, the women find whiskey and begin to drink it themselves. Veronica arrives,takes control, and dumps the whiskey, scolding the women for their behavior. Pock Face and Theobold return andgive the gun to Bull. Bull tells them, “I don’t know what you have done to us . . . I think you have killed us.” Thischapter shows how the rash actions of Pock Face impact the women who feel powerless to control the actions of theirmen.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
"The air smelled of change. [...] 'This is death you smell you foolish women.' [...] 'This day will bring something.'" (59-60)
"The boy would not be like the wild one who fathered him. He would not be touched by the terror that struck his mother. He would be a strong one -- his grandfather said it." (63)
"to grow up under such a man was to learn gentleness toward children, to care for one's kinsmen, to speak strongly and fairly in meetings, and to speak always for others, not for himself or his camp alone. [...] He looked at his action up there on the mountain, and it looked strange." (64)
“'He just came out and looked at the water, like it was his water, not our water--and I shot him.' [...] Words could not follow the thoughts he had, and the thoughts themselves were slipping away.” (65)
"We have lived her a long time. [...] One bad move, and they would come up here and drive us out." (65)
"You were the one who troubled me, because you were the lively one. But I never tried to hold you down. I waited for you to find your own way.... I think you have killed us." (65)
Chapter 9
Characters:
Bartlett, the station engineer
Jimmie Cooke, the victim, an engineer and Adam Pell’s nephew, who was leaving his work to get married
Sid Grant, United States Marshal
Ambrose Whiteside, his deputy
Doc Edwards
Rafferty
Antoine
Bull
all the Little Elk people.
Summary:
The Federal officials, Indian agent and doctor, and the station engineer all gather at the crime site. Grant andWhiteside believe it was an Indian; Rafferty and Edwards deny the possibility, and the engineer grieves over the deathof his employee and holds himself responsible. With the discovery of a boot print and a 30‐30 cartridge from an oldgun, the marshal and his men descend on Bull’s camp. Despite Bull’s efforts to resist, Grant succeeds in overpowering and shaming Bull and his people using verbal intimidation and force. Even though they don’t find the boots, they finda single shot 22, and that’s enough for them to try to hold and investigate Bull and others for the killing. This is a verydark moment for the Little Elk.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
"It would be an eagle feather in his Stetson if he could pin it on Bull or one of his men. Every lawman who's ever been in here has been after him." (70)
“No one spoke harshly about Pock Face for causing the trouble.” (77)
Chapter 10
Characters:
The Boy (Sun Child), the tribal police chief
Rafferty
Henry Jim
Iron Child
Summary:
While Grant and Rafferty argue behind closed doors, The Boy tries to settle the unrest of Indians waiting to find outwhat will happen to Bull. Rafferty has been trying to keep Grant at bay, and Rafferty hopes The Boy will help himdiscover the truth. Rafferty wants The Boy to explain to Bull how the “white man’s law works,” so the Indians won’tget hurt. But a culture conflict surfaces between the two when Rafferty asks The Boy to tell Bull not to say anythingthat might incriminate him. The Boy simply states that Bull will tell him if he’s done it. If he killed that man, he musthave “had a reason.” Henry Jim’s men enter Rafferty’s office. They put their hats on the floor, and each, beginning with Iron Child, states why the medicine bundle should be returned to their people. Henry Jim will stay alive as longas the singing continues.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
"Bull asked the people to wait and see how it would be -- but I didn't tell you he wasn't mad." (79)
“If they don’t understand the language or our legal procedure, they might act foolishly or get hurt.” (81)
"If he killed that man he won't say no. He'll say it right out. Why should he lie? If he killed that man, he had a reason, and he will tell me why it was." (82)
"we lost the Feather boy bundle. Maybe this white man won't understand what I mean. Just tell him we lost our Indian flag, our Indian Lord Jesus, maybe he'll understand it better." (84)
“We knew the white man was too strong for us, we couldn’t fight him, so we began to fight among ourselves, and we blamed Henry Jim.” (85)
Original Picture Archives Writing Activity
Chapter 11
Characters:
The Boy
Bull
Pock Face
Two Sleeps
Louis, Pock Face’s father
and others.
Summary:
Because of Rafferty’s intervention, Bull and his men are kept in the basement of the schoolhouse, under Rafferty’swatch, rather than jail. The Boy goes to Bull and his men to explain their situation, but Bull drills him about Raffertyand whether he’s a man they can trust. The Indians also distrust The Boy because he’s an Indian who’s taken a jobwith the government. As they argue the differences between Indian and white man’s justice and consider how all of their people will suffer, Pock Face stands and confesses. Louis denies his guilt or culpability, and so does Bull, even though Pock Face has told Bull he killed the man. Bull concludes that they will let the white man solve his ownproblem and find the killer himself. Then he instructs The Boy to tell Rafferty they want to let Henry Jim see that theyare “one people.”
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“I want no such law if it tells you to hurt everybody because one person is at fault.” (89)
“We are one people here together. […] My kinsmen, it is too much to pay. What if we give up this boy, or this old man—[…] One of us will be taken, and we will be one less.” (92)
“But the white man means, ‘You’ll be a strong man when you become a white man.’ It’s his way of offering me friendship. He looks, but doesn’t see me.” (93)
Chapter 12
Characters:
Veronica
Marie Louise
Antoine
Star Head
Lucille
Sid Grant
Ambrose
Summary:
This chapter provides some comic relief. The women are packing up to leave camp on horseback, and Antoine, “theirman,” will accompany them and their children. They discuss what they should take, primarily what their horses cancarry. But Marie Louise, insisting on taking everything she owns, suffers natural consequences when the bundle, toogreat for the horse, is tossed into the brush, and the horse bounds off without his saddle and cinch. Sid Grant andAmbrose find the tracks they’ve been following completely obliterated with the women’s horse’s tracks. Withoutintention, the women have successfully foiled the government man.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“Antoine had already learned that women sometimes accomplish what a man knows to be impossible, and he thought maybe this was one of those times.” (98)
“Sid Grant and his deputy, Ambrose, Arived soon […] and saw the trail of many horses leading off to the west. The marshal stared at the tracks, and cursed steadily for several minutes. The trail of the two horse-men he had followed the previous day was completely obliterated.” (100)
Chapter 13
Characters:
Thomas and Mrs. Cooke, Jimmie Cooke’s parents
Bert Smiley, station agent.
Summary:
Mr. and Mrs. Cooke, in all their eastern finery, arrive by train to “take their boy home.” The station agent fumblesover what to say and excuses himself after telling them that Mrs. Cooke’s brother, Adam Pell, will arrive shortly in hisprivate railroad car.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“Expense means nothing. It’s just his way of showing his importance. It’s been that way since our childhood. He had other ways of putting on airs those days.” (103)
“[Pell] has made a hobby of Indians. Ever since he dug up arrowheads.” (104)
Chapter 14
Characters:
Antoine
Veronica
Boarding school people
the Boy (Sun Child)
Summary:
Having accompanied the women to Jerome’s camp, Antoine will ride to the agency where Bull and his men are kept.Veronica warns Antoine to keep quiet to avoid anyone noticing him as he waits to hear some news about hisgrandfather. As he approaches the settlement, memories of boarding school return – rules, discipline, separation, and shaming. After four years, the superintendent told him he could go home because his mother had died, never having recovered from her loss when he was taken to boarding school. To her, her son had died. At the agency, TheBoy sees Antoine and tells him that Bull and his men have left to be with Henry Jim, and Antoine looks forward tobeing “with his own people again.”
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“Your name will be Antoine Brown.” (107)
“they found ways to work together against the common enemy. In spite of what Long-Armed-Man said, they had no desire to forget where they came from.” (107)
“It would not be necessary, after all, to get too close or stay too long in the country of the strangers. He could be with his own people again.” (111)
Montana Mosaics "Relocation and Dislocation" response
Chapter 15
Characters:
Antoine
Henry Jim
Bull
Iron Child
Louis
Basil
Pock Face
Theobold
Two Sleeps
Summary:
Antoine rides into Henry Jim’s camp, with wire fences, posts, harvested fields and machinery. Antoine recognizesthis landscape; it resembles those near the boarding school. But the more familiar welcomes him—teepees and firesin the hay meadow. Henry Jim has moved out of his house to lie in a teepee with his relatives surrounding him, evenPock Face and Theobold. They welcome Antoine, and Henry Jim tells his relatives how hard it was to live in this place, separated from his relatives. The noise of a car disturbs the singing and talking, and the children fear the “government man is coming.”
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“What did you see? What did you learn? What will you remember? The words were with him as he heard them on the trail. Learn something from everything that happens and soon you will be a man.” (116)
“I had the foolish thought that a man stands by himself, that his kinsmen are no part of him. One day I could see that I was alone. That first government man had said my people would be proud of me, but […] I was lonesome. My old woman was gone and I was alone.” (117-118)
Chapter 16
Characters:
the Boy, Sun Child
Rafferty
Doc Edwards
Henry Jim
Two Sleeps
Bull
Summary:
The Boy drives Rafferty and Doc Edwards to see Henry Jim because they hear he’s dying. On the way, Raffertywrestles with three issues: his uncertainty about his decision to allow Bull to leave so he can be with Henry Jim; hisuncertainty about who killed Cooke and what The Boy might know. Doc Edwards talks about Henry Jim and Bull and the consequences of Bull staying behind. When Rafferty and Edwards arrive, they enter Henry Jim’s teepee, despitethe obvious disturbance it makes. Two Sleeps explains why they are all there, clarifies the difference between their“small world” and the white world, and he tells Rafferty and Edwards how the white world has impacted the Little Elkpeople. Then Henry Jim tells the story of how he came to leave the Indian ways and why he is back again now. Henow understands why his people didn’t follow him: they would rather starve together than survive alone. Raffertyreflects on what distinguishes individuals from each other and what prevents understanding. He’s satisfied that he letBull go to Henry Jim who is now near death and is still asking about the medicine bundle. Bull appreciates Rafferty’ssoftness and attempt at understanding.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“I hope you realize that bull is one Indian this country would like to put behind bars, guilty or not. […] If it hadn’t been for him, more of this Indian land would be in white ownership. . . If the others had followed [Henry Jim], if they had tried, that is, they would have been suckered out of everything.” (121)
“What a man learned, and it was all he learned in a lifetime, was a degree of fitness for the things he had to do.” (125)
Chapter 17
Characters:
Bull
Antoine
Summary:
Bull and Antoine are riding toward the Little Elk Agency, and Bull is thinking to himself about his relationship withHenry Jim and about how all this conflict started. He regrets that he didn’t approach Henry Jim first after theseparation, even though Two Sleeps had kept after him about it. In this history chapter, Bull remembers his childhood, when two white people first came to his father and asked for a child to teach in their school. Bull wastricked, and they took him away. But he ran away when the woman tried to dress him for bed in a “woman’s dress.”It meant laughter for Bull’s father at the time, but the white people still came and anger took over. Now Bull has toface those white people and he’s concerned about the fear Antoine must feel as they approach the agency.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“[White men] were a people without respect, but they managed to get what they wanted. […] How could one tell this to a boy, not to raise him up in anger, not to feed him thoughts that would eat out the guts, but to give him understanding of what it was like in those first days?” (131)
“We laughed when we should have been angry, right there at the start.” (136)
Chapter 18
Characters:
Adam Pell, the elder brother of Mrs. Cooke
Geneva Cooke, the mother of the man who was killed
Thomas Cooke, the father of the man who was killed
Summary:
Geneva Cooke and Adam Pell have been in conflict from the time they were children, with Geneva not appreciatingAdam’s interests in relics. Their disconnect may be compared to Bull and Henry Jim’s, but the way they deal with itdisplays a marked difference to Bull and Henry Jim. Adam Pell tries to explain his interest in Indians to his sister andher husband by telling the story of his relationship with Carlos, a Mestizo Indian from Peru. The pillaging of Carlos’people’s lands compares with that of the Little Elk, but Carlos wants to build a hydro‐electric dam for his people. Divided forces in Peru reconcile to raise money for the dam, and Pell is called upon to design it. He views Indianpeople as “extraordinary” and admires their tradition as well as their foresight. His interest in Indians also applies tothe Little Elk people. He feels a kind of “responsibility” for what happened at the dam on the Little Elk Reservation,and he wants to prevent the prejudice against Indians from taking over the investigation of the killing.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“[The natives] were the majority, yet they didn’t exist […] They were like livestock on the land […] they had no voice in the nation and no court of review.” (144)
“After almost four centuries of conquest, which is to say murder, pillage, rape, sacrilege—all those outrageous defilements of the conquered man—these people were discovering what it meant to be human.” (148)
“Murder is not an isolated occurrence. It has its roots, its certain logic. Justice has the task of discovering that logic.” (151)
Chapter 19
Characters:
Rafferty
Mrs. and Mrs. Cooke
Sid Grant
Adam Pell
the Boy
Bull
Antoine
Summary:
Marshal Grant enters Rafferty’s office where the Cookes and Pell are waiting for news about the killing. However,Rafferty ignores Grant and encourages Pell to talk about the dam, the “beautifully simple” system. The nonverbalbetween the marshal and Rafferty reveal their distrust of each other. Despite Rafferty’s attempts at diverting theconversation, Grant gains control of the situation and tells them all how he found the gun‐‐wrapped in a torn blanketin Bull’s camp. Just as he finishes talking, Bull and Antoine walk through the door, and Rafferty is struck with guiltand fear because he made the deal with Bull to come to the agency.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“That still leaves a major question to be answered […] Two questions. Who owns the guy? And after that, you’ll have to ask, Who fired it?” (158)
Chapter 20
Characters:
Rafferty
Mrs. and Mrs. Cooke
Sid Grant
Adam Pell
the Boy
Bull
Antoine
Pock Face
Summary:
This chapter shows the exchange between Grant, Bull, Rafferty, and Pell. Each is most interested in what wouldbenefit himself, but each also wants to appear understanding and sensitive to the others. Grant has concluded thegun is Bull’s, but he doesn’t wait for Bull to speak in response to his accusations. Bull feels trapped and distrusts all. Cooke, Pell, and Rafferty want the truth about who did the killing, but they don’t want to see Indians prosecuted without strong evidence. Grant reveals his prejudice against Indians in his description of how he found the gun. Pock Face enters to tell Bull that Henry Jim has died, and he confesses to the killing. More than anything, Bullwants the Feather Bundle back. At the end of this exchange, Pell has become aware of his own culpability in thekilling of the water, and in the death of his nephew. The chapter closes with his self‐centered hope that the Indiansmight forgive him for killing the water if he returns the medicine bundle.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“Bull met [Adam’s] gaze, and they held each other for a moment. One would have to watch him, listen carefully to what he said, and try to decide what manner of man he was. This one had sharp, clear eyes, the eyes of a man who could find his way.” (160)
“It is all right for white men to have this law among themselves. They grow up together and know what to expect. […] When I hurt somebody, his family knows about it. I have already talked about it in my own family. They know why I did it. […] Then the two families get together, or they call in somebody to listen to both sides. We settle it right there.” (162)
“If I walk in hard shoes, the ground won’t reach me. Then I won’t be Indian.” (167)
Chapter 21
Characters:
Rafferty
Doc Edwards
Henry Two‐Bits
Summary:
After Welles officiates at Henry Jim’s funeral according to his daughter‐in‐law’s wishes, Henry Jim’s people take hispine box into the mountains where he’s buried on the rock slide next to his wife. They shoot his horse in the head,according to tradition. This chapter is about the changes that occur after Henry Jim’s reconciliation with his peopleand his death. Rafferty has a “new consciousness,” a “feel of their perceptive world.” For the first time in three years,Indian men like Henry Two‐Bits come to Rafferty, telling him they need his help to farm. And Bull trusts The Boy totalk to the government man on their behalf. Hope has returned to the Little Elk people and to Rafferty.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“Henry Jim’s body was on its way up the mountain, but he had left something behind that moved in the people’s minds and had to be talked over in quiet language.” (176)
“They had been falling apart, but Henry Jim, even as he was preparing himself to leave them, had pulled them back together.” (177)
“When that old man, Henry Jim, cut up the ground like a white man, that sure made us mad. They said he would get sick. He would have bad luck. Looks like he lived a long time. […] And when he died, he said’ You Indian people hold together. Help each other.’ He didn’t turn his back on us.” (178)
Chapter 22
Characters:
Marie Louise
Lucelle
Veronica
Bull
Catherine
Summary:
The women and men return to Bull’s camp to join Marie Louise who had stayed behind and was present whenMarshall Grant found the gun. In background information about Bull, it is revealed that Bull became more violent after Henry Jim left to build his house and farm. Veronica managed to keep his lodge through those years, and she understood when he was troubled. She recalls the time when he took the girl Catherine as his second wife. It was Veronica’s idea. She was older, and he wouldn’t confide in her. And now, with his younger wife, he can say what troubles him about the change that’s happening with his people and their relationship with the land and the government men. He even considers that Pell “may be a good man, “yet he will destroy us.” Catherine recommends he consult with Two Sleeps, and that eases his worries.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“A woman could draw within, could find ways to limit her needs. But a man was not made to draw within himself. He had to push outwardly, to prod, to discover, to capture. That was the only way he stayed a man.” (183)
“Henry Jim turned back to us at the end, became one of us as in the beginning. How many of these others will turn back once they go away? Just when it began to look good for us, it has all changed.” (186)
Chapter 23
Characters:
Adam Pell
Judge Carruthers
Summary:
In his New York office, Pell is so shocked by the “history events” that he finds in an accumulation of papers on hisdesk that he calls in Judge Carruthers for support or consultation. He finds federal policies impacting Indians andtheir lands from John Marshall (Chief Justice of Supreme Court 1801 – 1835; from a Swiss philosopher Emerich deVattel (1714‐1767) who wrote The Law of Nations; from the Dawes Act that gave the President the right to divide upIndian lands; to the realization that the arid western land would yield no crops for homesteaders or Indians; to theconclusion that dams should be built using the money that homesteaders paid the government for Indian lands; and to the Indian land taken as reservoir sites. Pell’s shock and guilt at his own participation in these events drive him to carefully consider Rafferty’s request about the medicine bundle. But the chapter closes with a foreshadowing of a “final disaster” for the Little Elk.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“the Indians here set great store by the object. It seems to represent a kind of controlling force in their universe—if that is the proper way of expressing it.” (189)
“Indian lands had been taken because they would be put to a higher order of use, because they would contribute to the advancement of a higher order of society—and the law had legitimized such taking.” (190)
“The nation with superior skill could appropriate to its own use the domain of a less accomplished people.” (190)
“But these people should also share in that progress which is not going to happen if they are robbed of their resources and chased off into the desert.” (191)
Chapter 24
Characters:
Two Sleeps
Summary:
Two Sleeps has returned to camp after spending time in the mountains where he listened and learned and dreamed.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“A man learned to be strong in support of his kinsmen. A man by himself was nothing, a shout in the wind. But men together, each acting for each other and as one—even a strong wind from an enemy sky had to respect their power.” (197)
“To be born was not enough. To live in the world was not enough. […] One had to reach. […] He had to reach with his mind into all things […] He had to know more and more, until he himself dissolved and became part of everything else—and then he would know” (197-198)
Chapter 25
Characters:
Bull
Veronica
Celeste
Antoine
Summary:
It’s winter and storytelling time. Two Sleeps has returned from the mountains, but he’s ill and weak. Bull and hismen wait patiently until Two Sleeps is ready to talk. Bull remembers when his oldest daughter, Celeste, loved a manwho got her pregnant and then died in a wreck with a horse. When Celeste’s son is about eight and Bull was gone from camp, “they” came and took the boy to boarding school where he stayed for four years. Celeste died of grief, and now Bull wants to pass the knowledge and wisdom of his people to her boy, Antoine. So Bull tells Antoine the story of Thunderbird who changes himself into a feather, comes down to earth, and leaves a bundle with the Little Elk people with “All the good things of life” inside, saying “My own body is in this forever.”
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“as the days passed and [Two Sleeps] stayed behind his closed eyes, the silence began to speak for itself. The mountain had given no answer, or the answer was something the old one found too disturbing to report.” (199-200)
“A boy should not grow up feeling that his life would be worthless. Bad times would come soon enough, of their own accord, without a grandfather telling how nothing good could be expected.” (203-204)
“A people needed young ones who would put the sun back in the sky.” (204)
Chapter 26
Characters:
Adam Pell
Miss Mason, Pell’s secretary.
Summary:
Pell discovered the medicine bundle in a lumber room where mice have eaten and destroyed the casings.
His guilt over this loss, and his growing sensitivity to the Indians’ experience, make him desperate for a way to repaythe losses of the Little Elk people. His secretary recommends the priceless Peruvian “Virgin of the Andes” gold statuethat had taken him fifteen years to locate and obtain. He doesn’t know how the Little Elk might value it, if at all, buthe doesn’t believe he has another option. So he wraps it in velvet and puts it in a walnut case. This is what he mustdo.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“How far would they go, what price would they pay, to have this totem […] restored? More pointedly, how deeply would they grieve when they learned it would never be restored?” (214)
“He had entered into partnership with the government in taking what was not his, without compensating its proper owners.” (215)
Chapter 27
Characters:
Bull
the Boy
Louis
Two Sleeps
Summary:
The Boy comes to Bull’s camp with two messages from Rafferty: the thin man, Pell, has returned and has a gift forthem, and he has brought a lawyer who will talk to Pock Face. In the circle of men and women talking in Bull’s camp,Louis defends his boy’s action. He expresses his fears about what will happen if Pock Face goes to the lawyer and thegovernment man. When The Boy gives his second part of the message, about the gift, Two Sleeps covers his eyes and weeps. He begins to sing—“My brother, the storm wind, stay with me!” And then he tells them his heart is already dead. Despite Bull’s comment that Louis shouldn’t run away with Pock Face, that they will decide together what isbest for all, Louis speaks again of his fears and picks up his gun saying he will get meat for Pock Face.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“[Pock Face] did it for us, my boy. He knew we were angry about the water, but we were old men and we did nothing. He shot that man to make us feel good.” (218)
“Antoine, watching this, felt his own eyes turn to water […] He had never seen an old man cry, and the world shattered into many pieces as he watched.” (219)
Chapter 28
Characters:
Bull
Louis
Iron Child
Pock Face
Antoine
and others
Summary:
Bull and Louis and others ride to where the men are finding the horses. Bull tells them what they are up against‐‐powers greater than they‐‐and what the government wants them to do. Pock Face agrees to go to the agency, and Louis reminds them of the white man who stole his daughter and killed her. He believes that every time they agree to speak to a white man, they lose something: land, water, children. But Bull must abide by his promise toHenry Jim to complete the task he started—to get the medicine bundle back. Their hopes are raised again as they plan to go to the agency together and sing the song “Feather Boy sang for the people before he left them.”
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“The coming of the fences puzzled, then angered those who stayed with the old style. […] When they did come down from the hills, […] they were reminded all over again that the country was no longer their own.” (222)
“We learned a long time ago that when we talk to the strangers from across the mountains, we lose something – our land, our water, sometimes a daughter.” (225)
“My brothers, I think that has happened. The thin man from the East has our bundle, and our government man has pulled him back here and told him to give it back. That is the gift. Why else would the thin man be here? We are nothing to him.” (226)
Chapter 29
Characters:
Adam Pell
Rafferty
the Boy
Doc Edwards and his wife
John Davis, an attorney Pell has brought to defend Pock Face.
Summary:
Pell has brought the walnut box with the statue in it and an attorney who will defend Pock Face. While the men waitfor the Indians to arrive, The Boy takes Rafferty, Edwards, Pell and the attorney for a drive around the reservationwhere Pell sees for himself how the land has changed. Even more convinced that he must do something to make upfor his wrongs, he shows his “gift” to Edwards and Rafferty, and he tells them the story of how it was made, how heobtained it, and how valuable it is to him. Both Edwards and Rafferty are appalled because they have finally come to understand what the medicine bundle means to these people. They both fear the consequences when Bull and his people find out the medicine bundle is gone. They warn Pell not to give Bull the statue and not to tell him what happened to the bundle. But he insists that he “must be honest,” and ignores their warnings. His focus on himself is most powerful and his misunderstanding of these people beyond measure.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“They have a high regard for their horses […] The Indians seem to prefer them sort of half wild. […] I guess they feel that way aaobut themselves. I didn’t understand that at first.” (227)
“it mortified me to discover that I had been part of the fraud against these people. That dam in the mountains had its place in the pattern of exploitation promoted by government policy.” (228)
“The Indians were robbed, but the ones who came to rob them took a beating in the pocketbook, the kind of hurt they could feel.” (230)
“it would be better if you told them nothing. […] This gift will not give back what they lost. It will only expose them to a terrible truth, destroy hope. Whatever nasty things we did to them in the past, this will be the most devastating.” (235)
Chapter 30
Characters:
Bull
Antoine
Louis
Basil
Pock Face
Iron Child
Frank Charley
Jerome
Theobold
Summary:
With a very high sense of peace and hope, nine Little Elk ride toward the agency, believing this is the good that is coming from Henry Jim’s reconciliation. They imagine how the story of this day will be told for years to come. Insight of the agency, they stop and pull their horses into a circle for a moment of thanks to Henry Jim. Louis breaksthe happiness with his fears that something bad might happen, but the others begin to sing the Feather Boy song untilthey reach the agency.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“It had troubled [Bull] that his grandson would never know that his people had once been strong, had lived well, and had owned their own country. That time would not come back […], but the people could be proud again.” (239)
Chapter 31
Characters:
Two Sleeps
Veronica
Summary:
After the men have gone to the agency, Two Sleeps wakes, knowing what he has to do and starts to walk into thewoods. Veronica sees the tracks of a man and a dog and follows on horseback. After a few miles, she catches up withhim and tries to take him back. But he insists on walking until he grows so weak that she picks him up and puts himon the horse. This is his purpose—to warn Bull and the men about the dream he had, the dream he couldn’t tell them—the Feather Boy medicine bundle is dead. But as he and Veronica come in sight of the agency, they see three puffsof smoke and hear three gunshots. He feels responsible because he didn’t warn them.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“Feather Boy is dead. I saw it on the mountain, in the storm, but I did not tell [Bull]. I did not want him to feel bad. […] He will hear it from a stranger. And he will know what I knew.” (246)
Chapter 32
Characters:
Bull
Louis
The Boy
Pell
Rafferty
Edwards
Antoine
Summary:
Rafferty warns Adam Pell to not tell them what happened to the Feather Boy medicine bundle. When they come outto talk with Bull and his men, The Boy is translating, and Pell only wants to talk the trial and the lawyer for Pock Face.The Indians grow more agitated because they’ve only come for the gift – the medicine bundle. The Boy persists inquestioning Pell about it until Pell tells the whole story about the “accident” and that the bundle is gone. He also tellshow responsible he feels for the killing of the water. They see through his arrogance and self‐centeredness, through istalk about the “great Indian race.” He doesn’t understand the impact of his words. Louis is ready to shoot, butinstead Bull raises his gun, shouts his pride in conquering this man to Antoine, and shoots Pell in the chest. As Rafferty tries to intervene, Bull sees him move and shoots him in the head. The Boy then tells Bull “I have to do this,” and shoots bull. Two Sleeps and Veronica see it all.
Study Guide (.pdf format)
Words for Thought Journal:
“I want no mention of the medicine bundle. That’s out. If Bull or his people ask about it, put them off. […] If you tell what happened to that sacred object, you will break that man’s heart. I won’t have it.” (248)
“No meadowlarks sang, and the world fell apart.” (256)