"Your Horses Are Puny and Your Women Make Me Sick!" - "Fools Crow," Part I
When a Blackfeet historical novel sounds like a memo from Mar-a-Lago, can James Welch's characters help us find our way?
Welcome to Enchanted in America, where we search literature for
scenes of enchantment; and
insights about how enchanted states contribute to united states.
Montana Blackfeet/Gros Ventre novelist James Welch may not be well known today outside Native literary circles or western college campuses,1 but he belongs on the short list of keen-sighted authors who can do a great deal of good in difficult times. Welch’s third novel, Fools Crow (1986), is a slow-brewing historical tragedy offering many insights into the dignified maintenance of united states under trying circumstances. It is rich enough to occupy us for two posts this month.2
Welch’s insight for today is that arrogance is not an indifferent character flaw. It harms individuals and communities. Healthy communities therefore need strategies to contain the damage. Maybe we know this all too well in the 2020s. It is always up to the reader of literature to decide how much to apply to present circumstances, and how urgent it is to see how our counterparts in the book make out.
But first, a preview: Regular readers may notice that the theme of enchantment does not figure in today’s post. We’ll see next week that a community still has to manage conflict even after arrogance is out of the way. What, we’ll be asking, do different opinions contribute to united states? And what produces consensus in the midst of those differences? The answer involves ritual, which we’ll discuss in relation to both reason and enchantment. Subscribe if you’d like to be sure to receive that next post.
About author James Welch
Born in 1940 in Browning, Montana, on the Blackfeet reservation, James Welch began writing poetry in his teens, then went on to study the liberal arts and creative writing at the University of Montana (the latter with poet Richard Hugo). His early jobs included firefighting for the U.S Forest Service and counseling for Upward Bound. He published five novels, one book of poetry, and a book of nonfiction, and collaborated on a documentary. He served on the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole, a job he made use of in his fourth novel. He received invitations and honors from the Carter Administration and from the government of France, as well as honorary degrees, teaching stints, and festival appearances. Friends knew him as Jim.
About the Montana historical novel, Fools Crow
James Welch’s third novel imagines the experience of the Pikuni people (Blackfeet) in Montana Territory as U.S. soldiers and settlers arrived in growing numbers after the Civil War. The novel focuses on the maturation of White Man’s Dog, a young man who feels discouraged and unlucky at age eighteen, but with prayer and discipline, his luck changes in a horse-stealing raid. His next raid on a Crow village is even more successful, requiring courage and stealth and earning him a new name, Fools Crow.
While White Man’s Dog begins the novel in a slump, despairing of his future, his peer Fast Horse is pegged early for success because his father holds the Lone Eaters’ Beaver Medicine bundle. Fast Horse is confident and good looking. He brags and slings insults.
As the action of the novel progresses in raids, diplomacy, courtship, and more, Fast Horse remains the same: impulsive, selfish, boastful, and dangerous. In the context of the alarming increase of Americans, Fast Horse’s arrogance escalates the danger both for individuals and for all the Pikuni people.
Two characteristics, in particular, help Fools Crow and the reader understand when it’s time to cut losses with Fast Horse and move on. Fast Horse’s impulsive arrogance is one sign of his flawed character. Repeatedly, too, his choices come from a fundamental rejection of community. These characteristics make him as grave a danger to the Pikuni people as the white interlopers arriving with military protection.
Uncontrolled Boasts and Insults
A recurring sign of Fast Horse’s moral immaturity is his arrogant excess of boasting. When we meet him, he boasts and insults his friend White Man’s Dog. Later, he does not know how to moderate his voice in the middle of the enemy camp, where he is heard exclaiming during a horse-stealing party, “ ‘Oh, you Crows are puny, your horses are puny and your women make me sick!’ ”—and more (p. 73).
To make it clear to us that this is no time for such commotion, the leader of the raid has just explained on the same page why he is foregoing the opportunity to kill a well-known enemy when he is in the middle of camp beside the warrior’s lodge: “ ‘[I]f I had been alone on this raid, I would have gone into the lodge and cut Bull Shield’s throat. . . . But I was responsible for the young men who were with me, so I decided to take the horse and leave” (p. 73). A mature man balances personal pride with responsibility to the group, focusing on the narrow goal of the mission, controlling his impulses, and saving his boasts until every person is clear of danger.
But not Fast Horse. His boasting-out-of-turn produces a catastrophic consequence for another member of his party. Because the young man’s voice has raised an alarm, one Pikuni raider does not make it out of camp with the others; he is caught, mutilated, and turned out in the snow. It may or may not be a lucky thing that he survives. When the story of the raid is told in the Lone Eaters’ camp, “there was no doubt that it was Fast Horse’s loud boasting that caused these bad things to happen” (p. 81).
Cutting the Tie
Fast Horse feels sufficiently guilty about his action that he lies about it as long as possible — until the victim of his carelessness comes home and the lie is exposed.
When they hear the truth from the mutilated man, the war chief of the Lone Eaters and head chief Three Bears agree that Fast Horse remains a danger to the band. “‘I fear more bad things will happen,’” broods the war chief. With both Fast Horse and the other man in the same camp, Three Bears believes that feelings of revenge “‘could set off something.’” He adds, “‘Such bad blood in a small group like the Lone Eaters could go hard on everyone’” (p. 82). To prevent the band from festering and dividing over the wrong done to one of their number by another, he decides to banish Fast Horse. But the guilty young man has absconded first.
Fast Horse’s father hopes against hope for his son’s repentant return. Like the father of the Biblical Prodigal Son, he is eager to forgive his son and pass on the spiritual power he enjoys. Having heard that Fast Horse has joined a group of hot young men who rape, murder, and terrorize white settlers, he sends Fools Crow to bring home his son, an errand the latter accepts even though his father believes “‘it is the nature of Fast Horse to be loud and boastful and to hurt others. Some men are just like that’” (p. 85).
Riding alone in search of Fast Horse, Fools Crow gains insight into why his old companion stays away. As the responsible young man feels “the freedom of being alone, of relying only upon himself,” it occurs to him
what Fast Horse found so attractive in running with Owl Child. It was this freedom from responsibility, from accountability to the group, that was so alluring. . . . If one cut the ties, he had the freedom to roam, to think only of himself and not worry about the consequences of his actions. (p. 211)
With this insight, Fools Crow begins to suspect that his task, bringing Fast Horse back home to his father’s lodge, is “hopeless.” And he is right. Even though the murderous actions of Owl Child’s band put all the Pikunis in danger of military retaliation (p. 211), Fast Horse prefers to “run” with other men who have cut their home ties. He cannot go back to a people he has come to despise as weak.
What To Do
While Fast Horse’s father grieves the loss of his son and heir, most of the Lone Eaters seem to understand that the stability of the community depends on expelling the one who will not adhere to norms of conduct, will not respect any authority, and who scorns the spiritual beliefs of his ancestors.
Welch describes the character of Fast Horse with great care, as though to help readers recognize the next lone actor they meet whose arrogance spreads only harm. The wisest men, such as chief Three Bears and the war chief who is also Fools Crow’s father, distance themselves and their people from direct contact with Fast Horse.
As for Fools Crow himself, the young man who grows in wisdom with self-discipline, responsibility, effort, and honesty, when he finds Fast Horse,
he studied his friend’s face and saw that they were truly not friends anymore. They had chosen different lives, and the burning eyes told him that the break was as final as death. He felt no sorrow inside himself. (pp. 234-35)
For those who loved him once, it is painful and hard to break with a Fast Horse, until all at once it is not.
The James Welch Native Lit Festival was held in Missoula, Montana, last July, with an extensive lineup of Native authors participating and paying respects to the festival namesake. Four of Welch’s novels and one book of poetry are available from Penguin Random House, twenty years after his death. He may not be a household literary name, but he continues to be held in high regard by those who know his work.
For information on Welch, see his New York Times obituary and bios at the 2022 James Welch Native Lit Fest and at Colorado State University. The Poetry Foundation provides an excellent brief overview of each of Welch’s books, with an emphasis on reviews and reception.
Nice. I grew up in Montana and this book was very controversial because many religious folks hated it. It was long before current times, but there was a book ban drive for this one similar to today. Can't remember if that initiative was successful.
I've never hear of James Welch so thanks for this amazing article. I loved it and can't wait for the next installment.
I am just over the border in British Columbia, home of Ktunaxa ɁamakɁis and Secwepemcúl'ecw bands who I work closely with. I enjoy reading the work of indigenous authors to learn more about their history.
This story seems very relevant to today's current events all over the globe...arrogant individual affecting the entire community.