Fools Crow

Fools Crow has been described as a bildungsroman, a type of novel that chronicles the protagonist’s growth into maturity and journey toward personal and social fulfillment. Like the heroes of many classic bildungsroman in the Western canon, Fools Crow goes on important journeys and faces trials, acquires an important mentor, finds a suitable marriage partner, and gradually realizes his potential as an individual and as a member of his community. He develops from an unpromising and fearful youth into a respected warrior, devoted husband and father, and budding spiritual leader in the Lone Eaters band. After he successfully leads the taking of horses during the raid, Fools Crow begins to demonstrate his strong sense of honor and responsibility. He provides meat for Yellow Kidney’s family, takes a wife, becomes an apprentice of the healer Mik-api, participates in the traditional torture dance, and kills the great Crow warrior, Bull Shield. Later, he is chosen to receive the vision of the Pikunis’ future and to use this knowledge to help his people prepare for the future. By making Fools Crow’s coming-of-age story resemble the trajectory of a traditional bildungsroman, Welch combines the European tradition of the novel with the values and beliefs of the Pikuni.

The Napikwan presence on Pikuni lands threatens to destroy their way of life forever. In his vision, Fools Crow witnesses the way in which future generations of Pikunis will be forced to assimilate into Napikwan culture. He sees their children being forced to attend Napikwan schools and worries that they will lose their way as they become cut off from their heritage. Even before Fools Crow’s vision, however, the novel reveals that the clash between the Pikuni and Napikwan societies has caused some people to stray from their cultural identity. Some Pikunis have left their tribes to attend Napikwan schools and now live among the white settlers; others have become addicted to “white man’s water,” and now depend on the Napikwans for alcohol; and some Pikuni women have left their bands to marry Napikwan men. Although Owl Child and Fast Horse despise the Napikwans, their hatred for the white settlers leads them to abandon Pikuni customs and beliefs; they even stop wearing traditional Pikuni clothes. In this sense, the Napikwans also cause these characters to lose their culture.

Nonetheless, Feather Woman tells Fools Crow that all is not lost for the Pikunis. They will be able to continue their way of life in the Sand Hills, and future generations will still retain a knowledge of their heritage. Indeed, the novel becomes proof that the traditions and stories of the Pikunis have been kept alive. Welch, a member of the Blackfeet nation himself, preserves the heritage of his people by reimagining the events leading up to the Marias Massacre through their perspective. By using Pikuni names for objects and places, he represents the white men through Pikuni eyes and in terms of their values and traditions. Consequently, the novel defamiliarizes the culture and identity of white Americans; it is the Napikwans’ society, not that of the Native Americans, that is represented as strange, exotic, and often barbaric.