James Welch's Novel Fools Crow

James Welch's novel Fools Crow recounts the experiences of a young Blackfoot man, White Man's Dog (later renamed Fools Crow), who struggles from adolescence into adulthood as his people struggle to maintain their way of life and physical safety despite growing threats from white society and the United States government. The plot is propelled both by historical events and by the feelings and actions of Welch's invented characters. Because Welch bases this work of fiction on historical fact, Fools Crow is an accurate and touching record of a culture that no longer exists. Within the confines of his story, Welch thoroughly details many aspects of Blackfeet society in the late nineteenth century but pays particular attention to the culture's religious rituals and beliefs. The most notable feature of Blackfeet religious life in Fools Crow is the significance placed on dreams and visions.

The Blackfeet "are firm believers in dreams," as George Bird Grinnell wrote in 1892, and a powerful dream could not be ignored by the dreamer or those with whom he shared it (263). In Fools Crow, the dream described by Fast Horse must be obeyed by the group he accompanies on a horse raid, despite the leader's doubts about the moral character of the dreamer himself: "He couldn't help being skeptical . . . [yet] such a power dream could not be ignored" (Welch 14). Cold Maker, the minor deity who controls winter weather, has instructed Fast Horse to locate a certain spring covered with ice and remove the large rock that blocks the water's flow; if the group succeeds in this feat, their raid will be successful (13-14). But the icy spring cannot be found, and it is uncertain what has gone wrong. The raiders decide to continue on their journey despite feelings of apprehension (21). The raid proves to be both successful and tragic: the group steals dozens of horses, but Yellow Kidney, the leader, does not return from the enemy camp. In this case, Fast Horse's failure to carry out the orders set forth in his dream results in the punishment of a member of his group.

Dreams often prove in Fools Crow to be prophetic. On the way home, a member of the horse-raiding party dreams of a small white horse with split hooves, unseeing eyes, and blood across its back-a symbol the others recognize as a messenger of death (Welch 35). They interpret this dream to mean that Yellow Kidney is dead, but they are only partly correct: at the time that the dream takes place, Yellow Kidney is in danger of dying from smallpox (80). Meanwhile, Yellow Kidney's wife Heavy Shield Woman has dreamed that her husband is still alive; in her dream, he has instructed her to set out food for him at each meal so he may gain his strength and asked her to vow to become medicine woman at the tribe's next Sun Dance, an offering to the Sun that will allow him to return home alive (42).

Prophecy abounds in the dreams of White Man's Dog. During the journey to the enemy camp to raid horses, he dreams repeatedly of looking into an enemy lodge and finding it full of desirable but white-faced young girls: "He wanted to go to the white-faced girl but knew that there was danger in that direction" (18). Later, Yellow Kidney returns home and describes how, trapped in a lodge full of apparently sleeping young girls, he becomes aroused and rapes one of them, only to discover that each of them is dying of smallpox-thus experiencing the situation White Man's Dog had dreamed about (74-5). The last part of the novel focuses on a journey undertaken by White Man's Dog, now known as Fools Crow, where he meets the mythological Feather Woman and is shown a canvas with designs of the future painted on it. In this vision within a vision, Fools Crow sees the fate of his people: deaths from smallpox and starvation, attacks by soldiers, and the eventual assimilation and isolation of Blackfeet children (353-8).

Animals with innate powers played a vital role in the dreams and visions of young Blackfeet men: "Every man of consequence is supposed to have one experience in which he acquired a supernatural helper and received a song" (Wissler 104). When a young man dreamed of his power animal, a ritualistic transfer of the animal's supernatural power took place (Ewers 162). This animal may also be referred to in a general way as Nitsokan, or dream helper (Welch 249; Grinnell 263). White Man's Dog has the help of the powerful many-faces man Mik-api in finding his helper: Raven, who is greatly admired for his cunning (Grinnell 262), comes to the old man in a dream and tells him of a wolverine stuck in the trap of a Napikwan (white man). Raven urges Mik-api to send White Man's Dog to free the wolverine and be granted Wolverine's power. When Mik-api awakens, he finds a strange pine cone "dancing above the fire" which "came from Raven's house up in the Backbone [of the World-the Rocky Mountains]" (Welch 52). After White Man's Dog follows Raven to the place where Wolverine is trapped and frees the animal, he is promised both Wolverine's power and Raven's favor.

Soon afterward, the young man dreams of a world where river, ground, and sky are all white. Wolverine appears and asks to be freed from another trap; when White Man's Dog complies, Wolverine gives him a slender white stone to carry into battle with him and an accompanying song he must sing (Welch 117-18). Then Wolverine disappears. White Man's Dog, who has been fighting off taboo feelings of desire for his father's young wife Kills-close-to-the-lake, then sees the young woman arrive upon the shore, strip, and dive into the lake. He moves to join her, then turns away. She reminds him that taboos do not apply in the land of dreams, and they make love. Awakening in his lodge, White Man's Dog finds a slender white stone hidden among his robes (118-19). Puzzled by this dream and the stone, White Man's Dog is startled when, soon afterward, Kills-close-to-the-lake approaches him to describe a similar dream. In this version, the young woman went to swim in the white river and felt White Man's Dog's eyes on her. She turned to look but found Wolverine standing there instead. Wolverine ravished her and then bit off her finger; he threw the finger to the ground and it turned into a slender white stone, which he said would remind her of her wicked desire to be with White Man's Dog. When the young woman awoke, she found the white stone and carried it to where White Man's Dog was sleeping "so that you would be reminded of your good fortune" (124-25). This joint dream served both to cleanse the two would-be lovers of their guilt and to transfer Wolverine's power to White Man's Dog (125).

Both Raven and Wolverine make repeat appearances in the dreams and visions of White Man's Dog/Fools Crow. In another example of dreams being too powerful to ignore, Raven visits White Man's Dog and informs him that he must kill a certain Napikwan who hunts for fun rather than for food and always leaves the carcasses behind. Even though the young man knows that the men of his band disapprove of killing Napikwans because of the trouble it causes for all the people, White Man's Dog cannot disobey Raven's instructions (Welch 161-66). It is interesting to note that Welch presents many of these dreams and visions as a believable part of the story's narrative, going so far as to describe the preparations for the Napikwan's death from Raven's own point of view (166). Also, Mik-api knows of Fools Crow's secret journey to find Fast Horse; when Fools Crow asks who gave the secret away, Mik-api replies, "One who flies far and sees many things" (250).

The last part of the novel focuses on an extended vision quest undertaken by Fools Crow. Wissler notes that the typical vision quest among the Blackfeet involved setting off for some lonely place where one would fast day and night until one had the dream or vision sought (103). Fools Crow's journey begins in the same way: in a dream, he is instructed to go on a long journey and ride for three days and nights without stopping, bringing no food or weapons with him (315-17). During this extended vision, Fools Crow meets Feather Woman, a deity from ancient times. She tells the story of how she long ago disobeyed her mother-in-law by accidentally digging up a sacred turnip; as punishment, she was separated from her husband, Morning Star, and left to grieve for him each morning at dawn (351-2). The vision climaxes with Fools Crow's prophetic glimpse into his people's future with the help of Feather Woman's painted buffalo skin (353).

All of the events Fools Crow saw on the skin have come to pass, of course, since the novel's author had the advantage of hindsight. But the most touching expression of the defeat and resignation some Blackfeet people must have felt in their growing dilemma is echoed when Fools Crow's father, Rides-at-the-door, speaks of the future:
We will lose our grandchildren, Three Bears. They will be wiped out or they will turn into Napikwans. Already some of our children attend their school at the agency. Our men wear trousers and the women prefer the trade-cloth to skins. We wear their blankets, cook in their kettles and kill the blackhorns with their bullets. Soon our young women will marry them... (255)
Rides-at-the-door concludes that whether the tribes decide to fight the Napikwan forces or allow their fate to be controlled by them, "Either way, we will lose" (255).

Works Cited Ewers, John C. The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains. Oklahoma: U. of Oklahoma, 1958. Grinnell, George Bird. Blackfoot Lodge Tales: The Story of a Prairie People. Williamstown, Mass.: Corner House, 1972. Wissler, Clark. The Social Life of the Blackfoot Indians. New York: AMS Press, 1975.