Welcome to Enchanted in America, where twice a month we search literature for
scenes of enchantment; and
insights about how enchanted states contribute to united states.
And once a month, I swoon and chuckle over something that enchants me. Expect more wordplay in the personal essays; more ideas in the literary essays. If lighter works are your style, check out “Stumps” or “Duckling Rescue” or anything under the Personal Essay tab on the home page. For those sticking around, let’s resume last week’s reading of a Very Good Book! Foreshadowing: This post is an enchantment sandwich: beautiful art at the top, beautiful language at the bottom, and serious considerations in between. Enjoy!
Last week’s post introduced the novel Fools Crow (1986) by Montana Blackfeet/Gros Ventre author James Welch (1940-2003). Welch’s third novel is a historical tragedy leavened by the spiritual development of the protagonist and the timeless and resilient language that Welch applies to the natural world of the Pikuni (Blackfeet) people. We saw last week how one character’s pride could harm individuals and the community, leading him to separate himself from his band rather than submit either to traditional ways or to banishment.
Today we continue the two-part discussion of Fools Crow, homing in on the way Welch’s fictional community manages conflict once a rogue individual is removed from the men’s societies. The story takes place in Montana of the late 1860s, where American settlers arrive in growing numbers after the U.S. Civil War. Their presence makes it increasingly difficult for the people of the northern Plains to maintain their traditional way of life. Pikuni men passionately disagree with each other on whether to fight the Americans. And yet, as Mountain Chief states after the Sun Dance, the Pikuni “are at peace with ourselves” (p. 120).
How can this be, when the bands have so much to quarrel about? Our business today is to find out what stabilizes a community of dissenting men in Fools Crow. In this case, it is not enchantment that leads to a united state among the Pikuni; it is adherence to traditional rituals and discursive norms. Still, there is enchantment in Welch’s poetic treatment of his subject — a point that we will save for last.1
Let’s open the book!
Civil Discourse and the United Pikuni
Fools Crow centers on the maturation of White Man’s Dog, an unlucky eighteen-year-old who earns a more dignified name (Fools Crow) and is generally improving his luck, when in chapter fifteen he faces a new problem. He has killed a white man, or Napikwan, and his action may bring retaliation to the band. Hearing Fools Crow describe the incident fully, his fellow Lone Eaters have two decisions to make: whether to punish him, and what to do next. We will devote most of the remainder of this post to a breakdown of this chapter, in which Welch communicates much about the way his Pikuni characters practice free speech.
As Welch writes the council scene, traditional rituals are crucial to help the men listen well and choose wisely. In fact, this scene and others like it reveal four ground rules or practices that underscore male participation in civic life. These practices keep disagreement from crescendoing to bitter discord. The ground rules are:
Speak freely within the structure of prescribed rituals;
Speak honestly for yourself;
Respect the integrity of other honest, individual speakers;
Respect authority.
Rules two and three have a timeless, cross-cultural relevance. Mediators and therapists ask embattled parties to speak honestly, one problem at a time, giving a turn to each speaker. Less familiar to modern Americans are rules one and four. Rituals and authority give necessary boundaries to free and honest speech in Fools Crow. This may seem counterintuitive to Americans until we spend time in the novel.
The Lone Eaters use ritual to overcome the doubts of average humanity, so they can counsel effectively with their best selves. While Fools Crow speaks and shows the dangerous wound he received in fighting the Napikwan, his father wears “a look of consternation”; the chief keeps his eyes on the fire. Other men look skeptical and mutter their disbelief about otherworldly instructions from Raven and the story of self-defense (pp. 172-73). The chief affirms the band’s doubts: “‘If this is the truth,’” he interjects over laughter and muttering, “‘then we must counsel with seriousness.’” A ceremonial pipe settles the question. As everyone knows, “to smoke this red-painted pipe with a deceiving heart surely meant that one’s days were numbered” (p. 173). The first ritual — the lie detector test — depends for success on shared spiritual beliefs around the circle. Once Fools Crow smokes the pipe, the council wastes no more time speculating about facts; the men switch to debating what to do about them.
Again, ritual helps to organize the men’s discussion toward an agreeable outcome:
Many men speak at once, but when one stands, the others stop to listen (p. 174).
The speaker gets to speak his mind without interruption.
When two leaders have spoken fully, chief Three Bears asks, “‘Are there any others who wish to speak on this matter?’” Anyone can speak.
When no one argues with the last speaker, who advised peace, Three Bears voices the decision of the assembly: Fools Crow is praised, but no one else may kill a Napikwan; the band will be known as “‘men of wisdom who put the good of their people before their individual honor,’” he concludes, letting the last speaker’s uncontested argument prevail (p. 178).
The council breaks up with stories and jests, one from the speaker who just conceded the argument (p. 178). The community of trust is stronger than opinions — like having an open mic session for comedy after a divisive public hearing.
Also noteworthy in this scene, both speakers adjust their arguments after listening to the other. War chief Rides-at-the-door finds common ground with his verbal adversary:
“Much of what Young Bird Chief says is as true as the stem of the medicine pipe. Our hearts are full of anger, and I have no doubt we could inflict a great blow on these Napikwans. . . . It would make our people feel good to do these things. It would make me feel good.” (p. 176)
But all of this is preface to a “But”: Times are different now. There are simply too many Napikwans. They would eventually destroy the Pikunis. For his part, “Even Young Bird Chief, who had thought to deny Rides-at-the-door’s estimation of the Napikwans’ strength, could not refute the gravity of these words” (p. 177).
By drawing out the council scene in detail in chapter fifteen, Welch shows what a respectful deliberative body might sound like when strong egos are absent and everyone follows a simple set of common rules.
What passes within the band also occurs between band leaders. As Mountain Chief (head of another band of Pikuni) admits at the Sun Dance,
“ . . . I myself have never liked the Napikwans, and I say to you now I would do anything to rid this land of their presence. But many of our chiefs have spoken against me and I respect their arguments. They say that Napikwan is a way of life now.” (p. 122)
According to their traditions, the Pikuni men in Fools Crow speak their minds freely, within times, places, and rituals appointed for their speech, and with practices of mutual listening.
However, late in the novel, as the bands feel the “impotence” of all their decisions relating to the Napikwans, decisions go longer and louder into the night, or end in impasses (pp. 312-14). “Before the coming of the Napikwans,” thinks Fools Crow,
decisions had been made. There was always the arguing, but in the end, the men had made a decision and all had abided by it. . . . Now, each decision meant a change in their way of life. (p. 314)
The erosion of traditions of civil discourse is one of the consequences Welch highlights in the passing of dominion on the Northern Plains from tribal peoples who have evolved systems of social stability, to a dispersed people whose laws set a lower bar of discursive responsibility.
Speaking of those people, the U.S. Bill of Rights affirms, “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech” (constitution.congress.gov).
While the first part of the clause is often ignored in favor of the single, deracinated phrase “freedom of speech,” there is nothing in the First Amendment to prevent social media platforms, employers, local governments, institutions that bring speakers to their campuses, or anyone else from adopting standards of behavior — ground rules — to regulate speech in the interest of social stability. The law may set a low universal bar, but local institutions can set a higher one. Is this desirable?
Enchantment
There are always people, like Fast Horse, who refuse to participate in civil society. But in the example of Fools Crow, the rules of discourse bring not only security but enchantment to those who follow them. Late in the novel, the men’s societies meet for the old purpose of organizing a hunt. The outcome seems an orderly extension of the council ritual: “One group would go south, another southeast, and the third, of which Fools Crow was a member, would go directly east,” where the buffalo herd is large (p. 374). The hunters were “mostly young and restless and, in spite of the intense cold, ready to risk anything out on the ground-of-many-gifts” (p. 374).
Despite the suffering of the people and their “impotence” facing change, Welch’s choice to write much of Fools Crow in an Anglicized version of Pikuni language means that nature remains as alive, enchanted, and enchanting as ever: Cold-Maker comes back, and the ground is still known for its many gifts. Furthermore, Fools Crow has been given a vision of the devastation ahead, so when it comes, he can meet it with courage: “‘We will see it now,’” he says to a companion. “‘We will take heart from Wolverine, who always faces the wind’” (p. 379).
The last phrase is characteristic of Welch. After everything, Fools Crow still speaks a poetic language that allows him to ravel heart and face and language in the timeless “always” of the wind. The one (Fools Crow) who has moderated his speech and action according to the traditional ways knows “a happiness that sleeps with sadness” (p. 390). The one who knows both the courtesies of civil discourse and the poetry of words is a “chosen one” (p. 390).
No, not all the others, but this one will be okay.
I am aware of the danger of evoking “enchantment” in relation to a Native author. It would be easy to mistake this with the sort of romanticization that many modern authors and scholars have objected to. However, we are in the midst of a multi-author series on enchantment, with entries such as this post about Ursula LeGuin or this and this post putting passages from the 19th-century magazine writer Bret Harte into conversation with modern experience. No one is excluded from this discussion of authors whose artistic language lifts readers beyond our limitations. What this series calls enchantment, others speak of as religious, spiritual, or aesthetic transcendence. We are talking, at least more or less, about an experience that crosses cultural traditions and is known by many names, or by no name. Fools Crow does not name this poetic state, but one feels it pervasively throughout the novel.