MASARYK UNIVERSITY The Incredible Story of Agnes de Witt

63 Pages·2008·0.34 MB·English

MASARYK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature

The Incredible Story of Agnes de Witt

Diploma Thesis
Brno 2008

Written by: Alena Němečková Supervisor: Mgr. Pavla Buchtová
DECLARATION
I hereby declare that I have compiled this thesis by myself and that I have used only the
sources listed in the bibliography.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr.Pavla Buchtová, for her kind support, patience and
help. The thesis would have been unlikely to arise without her guidance and encouragement.
TABLE OF CONTENT
1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 4
1.1 The Ojibwa people ......................................................................................................................... 5
1.2.1 What is the right term to use? ........................................................................................................ 6
1.2.2 The great changes brought by Europeans. ..................................................................................... 8
1.2.3 New religion ................................................................................................................................... 8
2. LOUISE ERDRICH .................................................................................................................... 10
3. INTRUDUCTION AND BACKROUND TO THE NOVEL THE LAST REPORT ON THE
MIRACLES AT LITTLE NO HORSE ...................................................................................................... 13
3.1 The origin of the novel’s name ..................................................................................................... 14
3.2 Father Damien’s big secret .......................................................................................................... 16
4. SEARCH FOR IDENTITY – IDENTITY AS A PROCESS ............................................................ 18
4.1 Cecilia’s transformation .............................................................................................................. 18
4.1.1 Saints in the novel The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse ...................................... 19
4.2 Agnes De Witt’s Transformation .................................................................................................. 20
4.2.1 Father Damien Modest (The First) .............................................................................................. 22
4.2.2 Great flood and a dream .............................................................................................................. 23
4.3 Agnes De Witt/Father Damien and her/his conversion to a new religion .................................... 25
4.3.1 Agnes/Father Damien, Ojibwa religion and its impact on her/him ............................................. 28
4.3.2 Agnes’s/Father Damien’s end ...................................................................................................... 30
4.4 Miracles at Little No Horse.......................................................................................................... 31
5. TWO-SPIRITS AND BERDACHE ................................................................................................ 34
5.1 Two spirits in Native American context ....................................................................................... 34
5.2 Distinction between gender and sex category .............................................................................. 36
5.3 The role of two spirits in Native American society ...................................................................... 37
5.4 Two spirits, visions and dreams ................................................................................................... 39
5.5 The variety of names of the main character of the novel ............................................................. 41
6. NATIVE AMERICANS AND CHRISTIANITY .............................................................................. 43
6.1 Basis of Native Religion and different approaches of recording it .............................................. 43
6.2 Basis of Catholic Faith ................................................................................................................ 47
6.3 Differences between Christianity and Native American Religions – Christian’s superiority ...... 51
6.4 Different degrees of acceptance of Christianity among Native Americans .................................. 53
6.4.1 Characters from the novel that never converted .......................................................................... 53
6.4.2 The characters that partially converted or simultaneously practiced Christianity and traditional
religions .................................................................................................................................................. 55
6.4.3 The characters that fully converted .............................................................................................. 56
7. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 58
8. LIST OF SOURCES: .................................................................................................................... 60
1. INTRODUCTION
In my diploma thesis I would like to write about a story of an unbelievable
woman, who so loved and cared of others that she has forsaken herself and lived
her life for other people even though they were entire strangers to her. When I say
‘entire’ I mean that they were as different as they could be. Not only that they were
of a different race and language but also of a different religion. The woman I am
going to write about is a fictional main character from the novel The Last Report
on the Miracles at Little No Horse. The novel was written by my favourite writer
Louise Erdrich.
The woman abandoned her inner essence and accepted a completely new identity.
She put away her very own femaleness and became a male priest. She abandoned
her own world, the world of a nun in a convent and later on a world of an
American settler’s wife and went to a world she had not known before. She
headed north to an Ojibwa Indian reservation where she was to spread a word of
her God. She obeyed a voice of her Spirit and went, where she was told to. In the
Ojibwa reservation called Little No Horse she found her new home, new friends,
her new life, new religion, she found there her new self. As she was able to negate
her prejudices she became an inseparable part of the community, loved and cared
of by Ojibwa people.
On the background of the story of this incredible woman I want to write about
such phenomena as berdache, Native American and Ojibwa religion and
Christianity, particularly Catholicism, and its impact on Native American’s life.
The first part of my diploma thesis is dedicated to the author of the book I have
chosen to work with - Louise Erdrich.
In the second part of the paper I want to focus on the main character of the novel
Agnes/Damien. Further I would like to deal with a phenomenon called berdache or
two-spirit. Next part will be dedicated to Christianity, namely Catholicism and
Ojibwa religion. I would like to mention the main features and elements of both
4
religions and to show principal differences. Also I would like to write about the
impact of Christianity on Native American’s life.
This work is intended to serve as a kind of a guide to Erdrich’s novel The Last
Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, for those who do not have any
cognizance of the above mentioned issues. I want to provide the reader of the book
with some background information that might help better understand all the
connections with the real world of Native Americans.
The Ojibwa people

The Ojibwa are an American Indian ethnolinguistic group centred about the upper
Great Lakes in Canada and the United States. Other names that are used when
referring to this group are Chippewa or Anishinaubaek. They moved to this area
after series of migrations that began at the end of the seventeenth century. For the
most of Ojibwa known history, they have been one of the largest Indian groups in
North America. The Ojibwa speak a Central Algonkian language and are most
closely related to the Ottawa and Potawatomi. There are many sub-groups of
Ojibwa, varying in social organisation, arts, ceremonials and costumes. The
Woodlands Ojibwa represent the classic Ojibwa culture type, which was
popularized by writer Henry M. Schoolcraft and Henry W. Longfellow who used
Schoolcraft’s material and wrote famous poem Hiawatha. (Dunning 1959: 217)
The economy systems of particular Ojibwa groups deviate from the area where
they lived. For example the South-western Ojibwa were mainly farmers, the
harvesting of wild rice and maple sugar was far more important for them than
hunting and fishing. On contrary groups as South-eastern Ojibwa based their
economy system mostly on hunting and fishing. (ibid: 217)
The very brief history of Indigenous people of North America
Before Columbus discovered the new continent, North America was a vast country
where there lived hundreds of various tribes of indigenous people. They lived on
this distant land without being influenced by any other great civilizations as it was
common in Europe for example. In Europe people were aware of other far away
civilisations in China or in India. They traded with those countries, adopted some
great inventions as gun powder, spices, china or delicate fabrics as silk. Europeans
were also aware of religious and cultural differences between those countries. On
the other hand they did not have the slightest idea of a country as different as
North America. (Berkhofer 1978:13) Also Christopher Columbus bumped into
America by chance when he was searching for some new ways to India. This is
another point for the presumption that people from Europe did not suspect the
possibility of such a huge continent as America is. Indigenous peoples of North
America lived without being disturbed for centuries. They practiced a multiplicity
of customs and lifestyles, held an enormous variety of values and beliefs and
spoke numerous languages. The isolation from the rest of the world enabled them
to establish such a culture which was not to be found anywhere on the globe. (ibid:
18)
What is the right term to use?
In the fifteenth century the first Europeans came to North America and found there
a distinguished civilization. Very soon they realized that the new continent is
peopled by a great number of tribes which varied not only in languages spoken but
also in different religions, customs or worldviews. However, they still named all
those indigenous people simply Indians. This general term for all inhabitants of the
North America prevailed till today and is frequently used by Whites (ibid.23). In
my diploma thesis I will rather use terms Native Americans, Natives or Indigenous
people as Natives find the term Indian quite offensive. However, as I realised from
many books I have studied before writing this thesis Natives sometimes call
themselves Indians too. Other terms I am going to use are Ojibwa Indian, Ojibwa
people and so on, when referring to a specific tribe. Louise Erdrich uses terms as
Ojibwa and indigenous people in her novel, too. Sometimes she also uses the term
Indian. I think that it is quite apparent that she does so to show superiority of
whites as in this example:
Father Damien Modeste was a small, prunish, inquisitive man
of middle age who had been called by his God, from a
comfortable parish near Chicago, to missionize Indians. (L.R.
2001: 35)
I am going to use this LR abbreviation when referring to Louise Erdrich’s novel

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse.
The great changes brought by Europeans.
The arrival of European explorers and settlers meant that all this great, genuine
society dramatically and irrecoverably changed. The seventeenth and the
eighteenth centuries were the years of great changes. Huge numbers of Natives
were dying in various wars against English, French and Spanish conquerors.
Many epidemics caused by diseases never known before like black influenza or
smallpox were killing enormous amounts of Native Americans. Remains of tribes
that survived the wars and diseases were forced to leave areas where they lived for
generations and moved to different areas. This caused an avalanche effect because
in those places were other tribes who lived there for generations and now they
were forced to move further on. This transmigration caused numerous wars
between Native tribes.
Many reservations were established in the eighteenth century and a lot of tribes
were constrained to live there on the account of treaties, which were convenient
only to the U.S. government. At the end of the eighteenth century first Indian
boarding schools were opened. They were situated off the reservations usually in
distant places. Those schools were established by the United States Government to
detribalize and individualize Native Americans. They set out to mold a successful
student – obedient, hardworking, Christian, punctual, clean, and neatly groomed –
who would become a successful citizen with the same characteristic. (Philip
Deloria 2004: 209) In those schools children were not allowed to speak their
mother tongue, they could not pray, sing or tell their own stories in their
languages, and they were slowly losing their cultural heritage. (Vine
Deloria1969:16)
New religion
As soon as the first European colonisers arrived on the new continent, the first
Christian missionaries came to the New World to spread the faith too. New
Christian missions were gradually established. In the Southwest were Catholic
missions found by Spanish, in the East were mainly Puritan Protestant missions
found by English Christians and French Jesuits found their missions in the North
East and Canada. In my diploma thesis I would like to focus mainly on
Catholicism as Father Damien from Erdrich’s novel was a Catholic priest.
Many of the new coming priests and nuns were the first of newly coming people
who gave the prime testimonies about Native American’s way of living. Later
those testimonies served as valuable sources of information for anthropologists
and ethnographers. Lots of the Natives converted to the new religion and
incorporated elements of Christianity into their own beliefs. One of the reasons
why they accepted the new religion their hope to get the favour of Christian God,
who they believed was more powerful.