The Grass Dancer

“Herod thanked Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, for bringing them all together, representatives of several tribes and several states. ‘We’re still here,’ he said, and many of the drummers pounded their drums in approval. ‘Our culture is still thriving, and it makes me feel good to look around and see so many young ones taking part.’”

Herod acknowledges the role traditional spirituality plays in the powwow. Without Wakan Tanka, the Indigenous people would not be brought together or, perhaps, would not be extant. He acknowledges the importance of the youths being present, signifying the continuation of their way of life.

“But Harley couldn’t tell her more, even though he could see his mother standing beside the casket. She was big with Harley but carrying him indifferently. She was busy with her first son, her sleeping son… Harley saw his mother press her belly, wanting something more to give Duane. He imagined she located his own spirit membrane, caught her fingernail under its edge and peeled it away from her unborn child. It looked like cellophane and crinkled when she pinched it into a small wafer the size of Father Zimmer’s holy hosts offered at Communion. And so Lydia fed her sleeping son his brother’s soul, forced it between stitched lips.”

Harley feels his mother is unable to love him completely. He believes she would trade his soul to bring back his brother. When Pumpkin gives part of her soul to Harley, she provides him with the nurturing he feels his mother has denied him. However, when the narrative later shifts to Lydia’s perspective, it reveals that Harley is wrong about his mother’s feelings toward Duane and himself.

“‘Those kids. Those four Menominees. Now they’re the true kind of grass dancers. Now they really know how to prepare the way.’ Frank looked skeptical, but Harley believed the old man, because the last time he glanced over his shoulder before climbing into the truck, he thought he saw four figures, graceful as waves, dancing the grass into a carpet.”

Pumpkin and her friends embody grass dancers as eternal spirits. Although she has experienced a physical death, her role in novel and in Harley’s life is not complete. Her continued presence in the narrative reflects the close bond between the living and the dead in their culture.

“Jeanette often wondered what kept her in this isolated territory, where she feared she would always be a stranger. The answer that surface most often was: The children. Who better than an outsider can make them understand the wealth within their poverty?”

Jeanette believes she is superior to the Sioux, although this belief is subconscious. She tells herself she is there to help the children and to learn about Indigenous culture. However, she harbors a savior complex, believing that she is privy to the true meaning of indigeneity.

“Truthfully, I was more than a little afraid that I wouldn’t be able to live up to her expectations, rise to the occasion, so to speak. At seventy-six I was in pretty good shape, but sometimes my body went its own way and wouldn’t listen to me. So after a lifetime of nights spent beside Alberta’s soft form, I escaped into the pantry, where the folding cot was hard and the wind played its tricks one me, but my wife’s small hands couldn’t tease my flesh.”

Herod’s fear of intimacy is rooted in his own insecurities. He can heal others spiritually but is out of touch with his own body and emotions. He must address these feeling of inadequacy and his fear of rejection before finding the medicine hole in himself.

“Margaret had recovered an old faith from her youth, from the days when there was magic, before the concept of sin had washed over Dakota people, just as the Oahe Dam had flooded their reservation with stagnant water […] she had her grandson, Harley Wind Soldier, bury her cedar rosary in the dirt yard. ‘Maybe something useful will grow,’ she told him.”

Margaret’s wish to bury her rosary is a metaphor for the death of her Christian beliefs. She compares Christian theology to stagnant water, which does not give life. By burying those beliefs, she hopes something will grow, that life will now emerge.

“‘Someone got hold of that dress after Grandma died, and now it’s in the Field Museum in Chicago,’ Margaret continued, ‘The Plains Indian section. I was in Chicago just once, years ago, and that was the only thing I wanted to see. I stood there all day practically, trying to figure out how I could get that dress back.’”

Margaret’s inability to reclaim the dress is a metaphor for her inability to claim the culture that was lost through colonization. Her family heirlooms are treated as if they are relics from a people who no longer exist. By asking Harley to take it back from the museum, she displays hope that her grandson will be able to reclaim the history that was taken from them all.

“She had a garden full of remedies, but she never attempted to heal anyone. She could have plucked flat clusters of bloodwort, chewed it to a paste, and prepared a poultice for my sore arms, but the plants remained rooted in the soil. I could have done it, but somehow I understood that the garden was hers and not mine, her collection of hoarded knowledge.”

Crystal resents that her mother has the ability to heal, to do good in the world, but actively refuses to do so. She imagines Anna hoarding any knowledge that could help Crystal, preferring instead to further her own agenda at the entire community’s expense.

“My spirit belonged to me, free and clear, for the first time since I grew in the bowl of my mother’s womb. But the price was my daughter’s soul. Anna Thunder had stolen my child to raise, to cast in her own image so she would never die.”

Crystal sacrifices Charlene to Anna to free herself from Anna’s clutches. This act perpetuates the cycle of violence within the family and indicates Crystal’s desperation to leave the home. Anna sees her daughter and granddaughter as interchangeable. She is only interested in creating a continuation of herself, not in fostering a relationship with either girl.

“Later that day she questioned me: ‘Why is it that people take their spiritual matters to Herod Small War even though he doesn’t have one shred of your control, while your name they speak in whispers? It’s a thing against women, right?’ […] I told Jeanette, ‘Herod waits for them to come to him, waits for their tears and their sad little stories, their confusion and illnesses, their fear of death. I enter before they invite me in.’”

This passage reveals much about Jeanette and Anna’s characters. Jeanette is oblivious to gender-based Sioux customs and views the situation through a lens of colonialism by imposing sexist attitudes onto Herod. This is based the entitlement she feels to access any cultural practice she chooses. Anna, meanwhile, demonstrates a disregard for consent. She will meddle in other’s lives without being asked.

“Later, when I believed that my husband and my twin sister had come together as a result of some sinister medicine, I cannot say their actions grieved me less… When I was little I’d seen a group of traditional elders prepare a dog for a sacred feast. The slaughter was careful, ritual, humane, almost graceful, and then the fur was singed. I remember the acrid smell so clearly, and it came back to me as I struggled with betrayal… The stench began to fade after my husband came back to me, his eyes resuming their former intelligence, the spell shaken from him. It had finally disappeared, when I learned that Evelyn was carrying Calvin’s child. The odor of singed fur did not come flooding back at the news. Instead I lost my sense of smell and the ability to taste, and these two faculties were never to return.”

The smell of singed fur represents the betrayal Lydia feels. When Evelyn becomes pregnant, Lydia loses the ability to smell or taste at all, an indication that this event is beyond betrayal. Her memory of the dog is ritual and humane. Calvin and Evelyn’s affair is not.

“Sometimes I will sing for my husband when the drummers play a good honor song. It can be a song for warriors or lovers, because Calvin Wind Soldier was both to me. But I do not speak to the people around me. I won’t unleash the killing voice, even to soothe my son, who is the only blessing.”

This passage reveals why Lydia is mute. Harley believes his mother’s silence is her way of mourning Duane. In reality, Lydia is trying to protect Harley from herself. To repair their strained relationship, mother and son must find alternative methods of communication that transcend the spoken word.

“I didn’t tell my niece that at her age I had dreamt about Čuwignaka Duta, Red Dress, my grandmother’s sister. I had heard her insistent voice, crackling with energy, murmuring promises of a power passed on through the bloodlines from one woman to the next. I had seen her kneeling beside a fire, feeding it with objects stolen from her victims: buttons, letters, twists of hair. She sang her spells, replacing the words of ancient honor song with those of her own choosing.”

Anna’s character arc begins with a distaste for magic and a belief that Red Dress is a somewhat malicious figure. In the end, Red Dress is the one disapproves of Anna, creating a role reversal.

“Dr. Kessler, a notorious alcoholic but the only doctor in the reservation, had diagnosed Emery as consumptive and told him he should go to the white sanatorium in Rapid City… I could practically read Emery’s mind. He didn’t want to split up our family. If I became ill, I would never be admitted to the hospital Dr. Kessler had suggested; I would be sent to the inferior sanitorium, the one for Sioux, where few patients recovered.”

Segregation is part of the continuation of colonialism. This oppressive force prevents Emery from seeking medical care, eventually resulting in Chaske’s death and Anna’s origins as the antagonist.

“I dressed to go outdoors, wearing Emery’s work boots, and fastened Chaske’s baby rattle to my braid with a leather thong. I tossed the braid over my shoulder and heard its warning rasp… ‘Čuwignaka Duta, you help me now,’ I implored.”

Anna placing Chaske’s rattle in her hair mirrors the rattlesnake rattles that Red Dress wears in her hair. This scene also indicates that Anna’s actions are motivated by the loss of her husband and son.

“After dreaming of the giant thunderbirds who could shoot lightning from their glimmering eyes, Ghost Horse had become heoy’ka, a sacred clown. His behavior was perverse: he wept at social dances, laughed at solemn events, shivered in the hot summer sun, and sweltered in frigid temperatures. He rushed into battle ahead of other warriors, treating war as play, and he always said the opposite of what he meant. I sensed he was lonely, burdened by his powerful dream, which obligated him to appease the thunder-beings through public humiliation.”

This passage defines Ghost Horse as an Indigenous embodiment of the fool archetype. Red Dress and Ghost Horse bond over their shared, but separate, destinies defined by dreams and spirituality. Ironically, it is these destinies that will part the lovers forever.

“I dream of that place where the North Platte River crosses the Laramie […] I’ve never been there in waking life, but I still recognize Fort Laramie. I’ve heard that in the springtime this area is a green blanket of lush buffalo grass, yet in my dream the ground is dead white… I want to leave this nightmare. I look at my feet and notice that each step I take leaves a stunted patch of pale, dry grass, struggling to grow. I am here for a reason, I tell the wind […] I am the uneasy voice of the grass.”

The grass in Red Dress’s dream symbolizes the Sioux people and indicates the importance of their connection the land. When Red Dress says she is the voice of the grass, it means she speaks for her people and for the land itself.

“I was raised to believe that discipline and self-control were signs of maturity, necessitating the suppression of individual desires. My feelings swept over me now; I was in a womb of my affections. Music penetrated the fluid and my wandering soul, a piercing sweetness from our Dakota courting flute. It was a tune composed by Ghost Horse […] This was in the days before our dreams—so devastating in retrospect—set us on divergent courses. […] Ghost Horse and I were victims of utter faith, I realized.”

In death, Red Dress feels victimized by her own destiny. She was raised to put the needs of the collective over her own and it has cost her life. She and Ghost Horse filled the roles that were assigned to them, and, as a result, they can never be together.

“Pumpkin stopped dancing and opened her mouth to speak. Charlene hoped for words, but again, as in her other dreams, only tiny black birds tumbled soundlessly from Pumpkin’s throat… Pumpkin looked at Charlene when the last bird had fallen. There was no anger in her eyes, only sadness. She stepped off the door and Charlene cried in pain, for with the dancer gone, the crushing weight was more than she could bear. Walking was not the relief she expected. The burden she felt turned out to be her grandmother’s sturdy hand resting on her heart.”

Charlene has dreamed about Pumpkin since her death. This time, she realizes the weight she feels is not caused by Pumpkin’s presence; it is Mercury’s hold on her that Charlene finds so constricting.

“You misused the medicine because you have a bad example. If you are selfish with it, someday it will be selfish with you. We do not own the power, we aren’t supposed to direct it ourselves. Give it up if you don’t understand my meaning.”

Red Dress warns Charlene to not repeat her grandmother’s mistakes. The magic that runs in their family is a force that can be weaponized against anyone who mishandles it. This foreshadows Anna’s eventual fate: growing old alone as punishment for her abuse of power.

“It wasn’t your fault, Charlene heard. These things happen. There was nothing you could do. She danced up and down the aisle, from one end of the bus to the other. She swallowed the birds and heard them sing, It wasn’t your fault, over and over again. But because the noise came from her own throat, she couldn’t tell if it was Pumpkin who forgave her, or Charlene forgiving herself.”

The living birds symbolize the freedom Charlene has attained. Her voice and Pumpkin’s are indistinguishable as she frees herself from the guilt she has harbored.

“The woman’s labors had nothing to do with vanity-though her entrance would cause a stir-and everything to do with embracing her past. Lydia would never use her voice to tell Harley what he needed to hear. She would offer a story he could read with his eyes.”

Lydia seeks to communicate with her son without using words. The cultural expression she has made will create a visual representation of what she needs to say. Through Sioux traditions, she communicates with her son in new ways.

“This is not pleasant thing, but then, you aren’t a child. Along time ago, when we vanquished our enemies in battle we would hold a victory dance and flaunt trophies of war-the long hair of our adversaries. So when you move through those old steps, remember that you are dancing a rebellion and that the pretty fringes are hiding blood and flesh and captured hair.”

Red Dress reveals the importance of rebelling against oppressive forces. Harley must not submit to the demands of colonialism or his own feelings of inadequacy. To be a grass dancer, he must stand up for himself, his family, and his people.