45 pages • 1 hour read
Susan PowerThe Grass Dancer
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1994A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “A Hole in the Sheets”
It is the 1960s, and Jeanette McVay is on the reservation to study anthropology. However, she is surprised to find what she calls “living mythology” (162) in the spiritual practices of the community. She attempts to study under Herod Small War but is turned away. Jeanette attributes his refusal to allow her access to his spiritual rites to sexism. This prompts her to seek out Anna Thunder. She wants to know why Herod is seen as a healer while Anna is seen as a witch by the community.
Anna is flattered by Jeanette’s interest; it is certainly preferable to the disdain many of her neighbors show toward her. She allows Jeanette to move in with her so Jeanette may observe Anna more closely. Anna flexes her talents by enchanting a man for an evening. He is willing to go to extremes to impress her, even defying death by doing a handstand on a Ferris wheel at the carnival. The next day, he awakes at Anna’s home. He is terrified and flees.
Anna does not mind him leaving. She is more interested in Calvin Wind Soldier. She knows Calvin’s ancestor, Ghost Horse, loved her ancestor, Red Dress. These ancestral lovers never successfully united, so Anna believes she and Calvin together would “close the unhappy circle” (176) and resolve the affair of the past. However, Calvin is happily married to his wife, Lydia. Anna attempts to enchant Calvin to no avail. Herod anticipated her actions and gave Calvin a charmed snakeskin belt to protect him from Anna’s spells.
Anna finds she cannot have Calvin herself, so she endeavors to destroy his life with Lydia as revenge. She conducts a ritual meant to form a romance between Calvin and his sister-in-law, Evelyn. The charm works, and an affair begins that will eventually result in a pregnancy. Anna is pleased Lydia is now also deprived of Calvin’s attentions.
Once these events unfold, Jeanette is truly convinced of Anna’s power. The next morning, Jeanette tries to leave the reservation. However, Anna cast a charm to prevent her escape, secretly sealing reservation soil in Jeanette’s shoes. Jeanette may leave Anna’s house, but she will never be able to leave the reservation.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Honor Song”
Lydia Many Wounds loved Calvin Wind Soldier since she was a little girl. She therefore wastes no time when she comes across him in the road in the winter of 1964. Lydia almost hits him with her car while driving home from work. She picks him up and takes him to his home. She spends the night caring for Calvin as he recuperates from exposure to the freezing temperatures. By morning, they are engaged.
Two months later they marry. Calvin gives up drinking, gets a job, and builds Lydia a modern home. However, he is plagued by bad dreams. He tells Lydia that before he left for the Korean War, his father made him promise to “go for a vision” (205). He conducted the ritual and met the spirit of Red Dress, who warned Calvin that her descendant Anna would try to entrap him. Calvin told Herod what he saw, and Herod made him a snake skin belt to protect him from Anna. Calvin wears it daily once married to Lydia.
Lydia knows Anna tried and failed to seduce her husband, but she still has nightmares about Anna’s presence. When Calvin has his affair with Evelyn, Lydia knows Anna’s spellwork is to blame. Despite this knowledge, she is still heartbroken by Calvin’s betrayal.
Evelyn gives birth to Calvin’s child, Duane. However, she does not wish to raise the child and leaves the reservation. The community thinks of Lydia as Duane’s mother. Lydia accepts the child into her home but feels Anna is the child’s true mother.
One day, Duane is sick and particularly fussy. Lydia is pregnant with Harley and, when Duane kicks her in the stomach during a tantrum, she reaches her breaking point. She tells Calvin to take Duane and leave for a while. Calvin and his son go for a drive and do not return.
Lydia feels her anger caused Calvin and Duane’s deaths. Because she spoke in anger, she vows to remain mute, saying, “I won’t unleash the killing voice” (216) except at powwows, where she will sing the honor song for Calvin, her lover and warrior. Aside from these occasions, Lydia will not speak even to her beloved son Harley.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Red Moccasins”
In 1935, Anna Thunder is caring for her sick son Chaske with some assistance from her cousin, Joyce Blue Kettle, and niece, Bernadine. Anna has been a widow for two months. Anna’s late husband Emery had consumption, and now their son is showing symptoms of the illness.
Emery was a white man who spoiled Anna with love and material possessions. He built her a modern home and gave her several dresses. When he was diagnosed as consumptive, the family decided not to send him to a sanitorium, knowing it would mean their family would be permanently divided. In the end, he was killed in a horseback riding accident. Anna is grateful his passing was quick and not the drawn-out death tuberculosis would have caused.
Chaske is now very ill, so when Joyce comes to visit, Anna sees an opportunity to seek help. Joyce asks Anna if she has finished beading a traditional Sioux dress for Bernadine that Anna has been working on for some time. Joyce and Bernadine are going to a powwow, and Bernadine would like to wear it. Anna says the dress is not ready but asks Joyce to fetch the doctor for Chaske. Joyce says she will get help but does not follow through. Instead, she and Bernadine go to the powwow and dance.
That night Anna has a vision of the two dancing instead of seeking help. When she rises from bed, she finds her son is dead. Anna’s loss triggers her next steps. She has never used the magic that allegedly runs in her family, but now she decides she will. She takes Bernadine’s dress and moccasins and goes to her home at night. Using her magic, she summons Bernadine from the house. She dresses Bernadine in the regalia and says to her, “You dance” (235).
Bernadine dances all night. In the morning she is found frozen to death. There is a double funeral for both children. Anna knows that Bernadine, although dead, is still dancing. She even finds the red beads from her moccasins from time to time, scattered around her home.
Chapters 6-8 Analysis
This section focuses on the traumatic origins that underlie Anna Thunder and Lydia Wind Soldier’s character arcs. Both women experience loss, but their reactions to their grief differ immensely.
The women have similar starts in life, although during different time periods. Lydia and Anna fall in love with Calvin and Emery, respectively. These men become ideal husbands and providers. Lydia and Anna are given homes with modern conveniences that starkly contrast with the living situations to which they were previously accustomed. Their success in domestic matters is to such a degree that both women suffer the envy of close relatives. In Lydia’s case, Evelyn feels she is living in her twin sister’s shadow. Similarly, Joyce (who is like a sister to Anna) is openly envious of Anna’s newfound material wealth.
Anna’s husband and son die as an indirect result of racial tension and inequality. Emery’s decision to not seek medical care at a facility only for white people is made in an attempt to keep their mixed-race family together. However, this sacrifice only contributes to the inevitable separation of death. While Emery does not die of the disease he carries, their son cannot survive the consumption. As an Indigenous child, he is never offered the same level of medical care for which his father is eligible. These deaths change Anna into the dangerous woman she becomes, making her tragedy the root of her villain origin story.
Lydia’s loss is an indirect result of Anna’s. Duane’s entire presence in the home occurs only because of Anna’s magical interference. Lydia knows this but holds herself accountable for the events that led up to Calvin’s and Duane’s deaths, thus taking her vow of silence.
These women’s stories show the interconnected nature of the individual narratives in the community. The causes and effects that stretch across decades and different family units reflects the communal values in Indigenous culture. The community itself is a living entity that each individual is part of and has the power to affect, for better or worse.
However, the way Lydia and Anna cope with their grief demonstrates an individualist view of identity. Anna chooses to seek revenge for her son’s death. By killing Bernadine, she hurts Joyce by forcing her to experience the loss of a child, and she also lashes out against the community. Angry that a powwow was prioritized over bringing Chaske medical assistance, Anna weaponizes traditional dress and dance to murder Bernadine. This choice foreshadows her future use of spiritual practice at others’ expense.
Lydia, conversely, becomes a protector after her own loss. Her vow of silence alters her identity to such a degree that she now identifies as “Silent Woman” (126). This alteration is misunderstood by those around her, but the choice is motivated by the desire to harness her anger. She believes in the power her words hold and will do everything she can to prevent that power from causing harm.
