The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

“Agnes looked into his face, openly at last, showing him the great weight of feeling she carried, though not for him. As she had for her Mother Superior, she removed her clothing carefully and folded it, only she did not stop undressing at her shift but continued until she slipped off her large tissue-thin bloomers and seated herself naked at the piano. Her body was a pale blush of silver, and her hands, when they began to move, rose and fell with the simplicity of water.”

When Agnes strips naked and plays the piano for Berndt, she transforms a potentially sexual encounter into a transcendent artistic performance. Her methodical act of undressing and folding her clothes reveals her calm, ordered mind and the ritualistic nature of her art. When Erdrich indulges in lyrical descriptions of Agnes’s body, speaking caressingly of the “pale blush of silver” of Agnes’s skin and the hands that move with “the simplicity of water,” these images imbue the protagonist with an ethereal quality that elevates the scene beyond mere sexuality. The piano functions as a symbol of Agnes’s passionate inner life, and her decision to share this moment with Berndt represents a form of trust even more profound than a sexual encounter.

“Having met Him just that once, having known Him in a man’s body, how could I not love Him until death? How could I not follow Him? Be thou like as me, were His words, and I took them literally to mean that I should attend Him as a loving woman follows her soldier into the battle of life, dressed as He is dressed, suffering the same hardships.”

Agnes interprets her mystical experience after the flood as a divine form of validation for her decision to assume Father Damien’s identity. The passage blends religious devotion with romantic language, creating ambiguity about whether Agnes had a genuine spiritual encounter or merely rationalized her decision to become Damien. Erdrich also employs biblical cadence and repetition (“Having met Him […] having known Him”) to give Agnes’s narrative the weight of spiritual testimony. The phrase “Be thou like as me” thus becomes Agnes’s justification for undergoing a form of gender transformation, and she reframes her decision as a form of religious devotion.

“Not far up the river Agnes DeWitt came upon poor Father Damien Modeste, whom she freely admitted she disliked even as she pitied him now. The drowned man was snagged in a tree, gaping down at her with a wide-eyed and upside-down quizzicality […] His clothing, his cassock, and the small bundle tangled about him, a traveler’s pouch tied underneath all else, Agnes put on in the exact order he had worn them.”

This scene depicts the literal moment when Agnes assumes Father Damien’s identity. The physical description of the corpse as “gaping down at her” from an “upside-down” position creates the sense that Agnes is about to turn convention on its head by undergoing an inversion of identity. As she methodically dons his clothes “in the exact order” that he wears them, this act emphasizes the ceremonial nature of her transformation.

“And lifted his eyes and said the words ‘Hoc est enim corpus meum,’ and the bread was flesh. Of course it was, as it always was. […] On her lips, in her mouth. Real and rich, heavy, good. Agnes choked with startled shock. She hesitated, put the food to her mouth again. Real! Real! Hunger roared in her as she broke the bread. Ate the flesh.”

This passage describes Agnes/Father Damien’s first experience of a literal miracle—the transformation of communion bread into actual, nourishing food for the starving community. The shift from Latin ritual to visceral experience (“Real! Real!”) emphasizes Agnes’s shock at the physical evidence of the miracle. With this intense scene, Erdrich deliberately blurs the line between metaphorical and literal transubstantiation, challenging the distinctions between symbolic faith and material needs. This moment also introduces the novel’s focus on The Ambiguous Nature of Faith and Sainthood, for although Agnes’s priesthood is technically fraudulent, she nonetheless brings about genuine miracles.

“She transformed herself each morning with a feeling of loss that she finally defined as the loss of Agnes. Ah, Agnes! She lived at night in the shelter of bedclothes. Disappeared in daylight, bandages wrapped as when she had been a nun. As she left the cabin, her thoughts became Damien’s thoughts. Her voice his voice, which deepened as his stride lengthened and grew bold. […] Between these two, where was the real self? It came to her that both Sister Cecilia and then Agnes were as heavily manufactured of gesture and pose as was Father Damien. And within this, what sifting of identity was she? What mote? What nothing?”

Agnes’s conscious transformation into Father Damien involves the adoption of a complete psychological shift, and her ruminations reveal that identity itself is performative rather than innate. The repetition of traditionally “masculine” bodily actions—such as bolder ways of walking, speaking, and gesturing—demonstrates that the social understanding of gender is constructed through deliberate movements and habits. The final questions (“What mote? What nothing?”) expose Agnes’s existential crisis as she realizes that all of her identities—nun, farm wife, and priest—are all artificial constructs, and her realization challenges the notion that a separate, authentic self lies beneath the performance.

“‘I am still interested in this god who kills off his favorites, wipes them from the earth. I would like to know’—here he eyed Damien with frank curiosity—‘what makes you walk behind this Jesus?’ This question of great simplicity caused the priest’s thoughts to wheel together like a flock of startled birds. What indeed? What cause? All Father Damien could do at first was contemplate the pattern of the flock out of which the great logos of his passion was written. ‘It is love,’ he said. ‘That is the sole reason. Love.’”

Kashpaw’s direct questioning gives rise to a culture clash and creates a moment of spiritual crisis for Father Damien, forcing him to articulate his faith in terms that transcend his disguise. The simile comparing his thoughts to “startled birds” visually captures his mental disorientation while suggesting the Holy Spirit’s presence. Notably, the linguistic and cultural gap between the Catholic and the Ojibwe concepts of love also exposes the limitations of understanding between cultures, for Agnes’s sacrifice of her female identity for the sake of an untranslatable “love” cannot be fully understood within the context of the Ojibwe worldview.

“Just as he went to earth, the presence white as flowers and dead as bone, the Puyat woman with buffalo skulls and jackal face, emerged from a hidden spot. Barefoot, dragging the skulls on thongs fastened somewhere within her habit, she raised her arms in horror to see the Host defiled. She bounded forward just before the garlanded wagon bearing the brooding statue, the children, Quill, and Kashpaw. Her oversize habit flapped like a sail. She flung herself into the wagon’s path. The horses panicked and reared in their traces.”

This scene establishes Pauline Puyat (the future Sister Leopolda) as a malicious, predatory presence. To this end, Erdrich employs grotesque imagery that fuses Catholic and Indigenous symbolism. By describing Pauline as having a “jackal face,” the author implies that the girl’s disruptive actions in this scene are calculated and deliberate, not accidental. Ironically, the juxtaposition between holy procession and chaotic disaster also demonstrates the ambiguous nature of faith and sainthood, for in this instance, Pauline’s supposed religious devotion leads to the deaths of Kashpaw and his wife Quill, conferring destruction rather than salvation. Erdrich’s visual details also create a near-cinematic sequence in which a single disastrous action can trigger catastrophic consequences. This scene therefore serves as a microcosm that reflects the broader historical pattern of missionaries’ deleterious impact on Indigenous communities.

“In that strange light, Agnes saw beneath the girl’s disguise. She saw that the face of her constant companion, Mary Kashpaw, was the face of the man with the horn spoon. Then she knew. Christ had gone before the priest, stamping down snow. Christ had bent low and on that broad, angry back carried Father Damien through sloughs. Covered him when he collapsed at the bedsides of the ill. Christ had fed him hot gruel from a spoon of black iron. Protected him so that he never sickened even when the dying kissed his hands or coughed their last prayers into his face.”

This revelation transforms Mary Kashpaw from a traumatized orphan into a Christ figure, inverting traditional power dynamics as the Indigenous girl becomes the steadfast savior to the white priest. The passage employs anaphora—repeating the phrase “Christ had” at the beginning of multiple sentences—to emphasize Agnes’s religious epiphany with a distinctly rhythmic cadence. Although Agnes interprets her survival of the influenza epidemic as a form of divine protection, Erdrich frames this vision more ambiguously, allowing the space for multiple interpretations; the scene could either be a genuine spiritual revelation or a moment in which Agnes’s mind desperately spins meaning from the irrationality of suffering.

“‘I do not condone,’ said Damien. ‘It would be more accurate to say that I’—here he paused to choose the word—‘cherish. Yes. I cherish such occurrences, or help my charges to, at least. Unless they keep them safely in their hearts, how else can they give them up? I tenderly cherish such attractions the way I look fondly upon a child’s exuberant compulsion to play. There is nothing more important, yet it is insignificant. God will still be there when the child is exhausted, eh?’”

The elderly Father Damien’s carefully chosen word “cherish” reveals a compassionate theology that embraces human desire rather than condemning it. His explanation shows his evolution from rigid Catholic doctrine toward a more nuanced moral understanding that encompasses many forms of faith. The passage also employs paradox—“nothing more important, yet it is insignificant”—to reconcile earthly passion with divine permanence, suggesting that human love can be both sacred and temporary. This conversation between the older priest and the younger priest represents different generations of Catholic thought, with Damien’s unorthodox views reflecting his lifetime of living in the liminal spaces between genders and cultures.

“That night, in the trembling radiance of candles, Agnes laid the rosary out before her on the covers of the bed and then sat next to it, looking at it, imagining just how it had been shaped. A pair of pliers, certainly, to untwist the wire. The beads were about a half inch in diameter as on a rope rosary, and they had accommodated—either naturally or by being enlarged—the wire and the barbs between. For the rosary had been cleverly planned to utilize the spun steel thorns, perhaps to prick a finger between each decade or perhaps…Here Agnes picked up the rosary dangling stiff by the crucifix, swept it over her shoulder so it caught in the flap of the overcoat that she still wore. She frowned at herself and disentangled it—a flagellant’s whip.”

The barbed-wire rosary embodies the novel’s exploration of religious duality, for although it was originally intended to be an object of devotion, it also doubles as a cruel instrument of murder. Erdrich employs vivid tactile imagery to describe the “steel thorns” and outline Agnes’s physical investigation of the object’s traits, emphasizing her serious role as an investigator. Her tentative explorations also reflect her understanding that this particular rosary functions as a symbol of both faith and violence.

“Nector typed from her writing and restored. He had done a great many of these old transactions, and he had a great many more to go, when he made the following important decision: he destroyed the originals. He was now in charge of history, which suited him just fine, and he was only a boy.”

This passage illustrates the power of written documentation in determining historical narrative and land ownership—a central concern on the reservation. The short, declarative statement about being “in charge of history” emphasizes the profound implications of Nector’s seemingly simple clerical act. Erdrich also employs dramatic irony when Nector, an Ojibwe youth, decisively takes control of the very mechanisms that white people have used to disenfranchise his community. His resolution to take back this power for himself and his family shows that even oppressive colonial systems can be subverted by the very groups that find themselves marginalized.

“She was filled with rattles, with clicking bones, with small ticking husks and vibrations of bees. Her vision snuffed out, she whipped along blindly through undergrowth until she came to the end of the lake. She stayed there long into the night […] She had exactly two dollars in an old snuff can, and she needed one hundred and ninety-eight more. She opened her mouth and the night bees burst out, swarmed over the rough surface of the lake, roared in a black cloud toward the spirit island.”

Erdrich uses visceral imagery to convey Fleur Pillager’s incandescent rage at losing her land, and the descriptions of “rattles” and “clicking bones” suggest that even in her fury, she remains deeply connected to the ancestral spirits whom the treacherous pacts of the white colonizers have betrayed. The supernatural image of bees swarming from Fleur’s mouth represents her channeling of spiritual power, illustrating the novel’s exploration of Indigenous people’s resistance to colonization.

“In wild hopelessness Gregory now blurted the thing they’d said between them with physical eloquence only. ‘You are a woman.’ The word seemed large in the dark cabin, its vowels voluptuous and thick with the burden of secret life. Both were silent but the word hung between them like a great flesh doll. They closed their eyes and the word spread open between them, hot and red. Gregory sank his head into his hands and tasted the word and there was nothing like its exalted spice. He wanted her in his mouth. But then she spoke, and said, ‘I am a priest.’”

This confrontation crystallizes the novel’s exploration of The Fluidity of Gender and Identity. Erdrich’s sensual description of the word “woman” as having “voluptuous” vowels creates a vivid synesthetic experience that emphasizes Gregory’s desire for Agnes’s physical form. However, his longing fails to account for all that she is, and her quiet rejoinder, “I am a priest,” firmly reminds him that her identity transcends the cultural limitations implicit in the word “woman” as Gregory understands it.

“It wasn’t until she saw a twist of movement from the corner of her eye that she looked down and saw the snakes. The rhapsody woke them, Debussy drew them forth, Chopin made them listen, and Schubert put them back to sleep. It was luck that Agnes was alone that day, for the nuns, except for Hildegarde, screamed for the hoe whenever they saw a serpent and killed it on the spot. The occurrence explained, anyway, the reason that so many snakes did appear in their garden—the rock beneath the church sheltered their ancient nest.”

As Agnes plays the piano to reconnect with her true artistic self, the appearance of the snakes takes on a tone of ambiguity that reappears throughout the novel. The passage initially suggests that Agnes is engaging in a mystical communion with nature through the snakes, and when Erdrich rapidly invokes the names of multiple composers whose works have variable effects on the serpents, this moment emphasizes music’s power as a universal language. However, the casual mention of the fact that the church was built above the snakes’ ancient nest provides a more realistic explanation for the snakes’ presence, even as it metaphorically suggests that Christianity itself has been superimposed upon the Ojibwe people’s original spiritual grounds.

“‘What are you?’ he said to Damien, who was deep in a meditation over his bishop’s trajectory. ‘A priest,’ said Father Damien. ‘A man priest or a woman priest?’ Agnes’s hand froze, pinching the knight, and her mental processes collapsed. A hollow roaring noise began around her, swirling, a confusion of sounds. Her mouth opened but no word emerged and slowly, very slowly, she drew back from the table and raised her eyes to Nanapush, who was simply looking at the priest as though that was not the one question in the world that would most upset Father Damien.”

Nanapush’s strategic question during a chess game represents the first direct challenge to Agnes’s carefully maintained disguise. The chess pieces function symbolically, with Agnes literally caught “pinching the knight” while her opponent makes a strategic move that threatens her position. Her physical reaction—frozen hand, mental collapse, and “hollow roaring noise”—reveals her terror of being found out and the profound psychological weight of maintaining her identity as a priest for years. Nanapush’s casual demeanor also contrasts sharply with Agnes’s internal panic, suggesting that his Ojibwe perspective allows for a more fluid understanding of gender than Agnes’s internalized Western binaries.

“So you’re not a woman-acting man, you’re a man-acting woman. We don’t get so many of those lately. Between us, Margaret and me, we couldn’t think of more than a couple.”

Nanapush’s matter-of-fact acceptance of Agnes’s decision to live her life as a man allays her intense fear of discovery and makes her realize that her longtime friend is casually extending her a powerful form of acknowledgement and respect. His offhand phrasing, in which he distinguishes between a “woman-acting man” and a “man-acting woman,” suggests that both categories are known to exist in his culture and are not worth excessive commentary or shock. By adopting a conversational tone to discuss a topic that Agnes considers catastrophic, Nanapush shows that the Ojibwe culture holds a much more expansive view of gender fluidity.

“She released Damien and took Jude in, then, took him in. He felt it. Her drenched black eyes rubbed him all over with a curious heat. She absorbed him with her eyes and then, as though waiting for him to say something, fixed her gaze upon his mouth. Her gaze had a physical effect. As though he’d bitten into a hot pepper, his lips tingled and he broke into a light, fresh sweat.”

The repetition of “took him in” creates a double meaning and indulges in a form of indirect sexual innuendo. In the scene itself, Lulu “takes Jude in” by observing him, but the intensity of this moment of mutual regard suggests that she would be equally willing to take him into herself in a much more carnal sense. As she metaphorically consumes him through her gaze, Erdrich merges visual and tactile sensations as Lulu’s eyes “rub” Jude with “heat.” This charged moment inverts traditional power dynamics in which men objectify women with their eyes. On another level, this passage introduces a parallel narrative of spiritual conflict through physical desire, with Father Jude experiencing the same challenge to his vocation that Agnes once faced with Gregory.

“What I never forgot, what I’ll always remember, was my mother stroking the soles of my feet. She woke me gently that morning. I hated her for it later. She was tender, yet she knew just exactly what she was doing. The only way I could keep from despair was to hate my mother’s rough hand, the sinewy palm, hard as rawhide, the fingers of steel, grace, and lies. A mother’s hand should not be like that, Father Jude. A mother’s hand should never lie to a child.”

Lulu’s testimony reveals how her mother’s decision to abandon her transformed an intimate maternal gesture into a symbol of betrayal. By describing Fleur’s hand as “rough” yet “tender” and containing both “grace” and “lies,” Lulu obliquely articulates her complex emotions toward her mother, and it is clear that this memory has become foundational to Lulu’s identity and her lifelong refusal to forgive others for their transgressions against her.

“As I understand the place of the noun in the Ojibwe mind, it is unprejudiced by gender distinctions. That is some relief. Yet there occurs something more mysterious. Alive or dead. Each thing is either animate or inanimate, which would at first seem remarkably simple and sensible, for in the western mind the quality of aliveness or deadness seems easy to discern. Not so. For the Anishinaabeg, the quality of animation from within, or harboring spirit, is not limited to animals and plants. Stones, asiniig, are animate, and kettles, akikoog, alive as well.”

Agnes’s linguistic observation provides a metaphorical framework for understanding her own ability to transcend the arbitrary gender boundaries of her own culture. The contrast between her categorical thinking and the Ojibwe’s more expansive understanding of animacy parallels the novel’s exploration of identity that resists rigid classification. Agnes’s statement that the absence of gender distinctions is “some relief” subtly reflects her personal stake in language systems that allow greater fluidity. Thus, Erdrich uses linguistic anthropology to suggest that Agnes’s disguise might be better understood through Ojibwe categories than through the binary oppositions with which she was originally raised.

“Over the years, the log walls of Father Damien’s cabin had been plastered over, then Sheetrocked and Sheetrocked again, wallpapered, rewallpapered, painted and painted over, then bookshelved, so that the little house was now thickly insulated as a bear’s den. It was painted white on the inside, but contained a sweeping array of intensely colored beadwork and Ojibwe paintings.”

By enumerating the various evolutions that Father Damien’s cabin has seen, the author creates a physical metaphor for Agnes’s layered identity, with each renovation representing another year of her experience as Damien. The accumulated layers create a “bear’s den” of insulation, suggesting that she is now protected from the outside world that might discover her secret. The juxtaposition between the white walls and vibrant Ojibwe art exemplifies Agnes’s dual existence, for although Damien maintains the outward trappings of a Catholic priest, Agnes’s innermost self has willingly embraced many aspects of Ojibwe spirituality.

“‘I can’t,’ said the dog, wheezing with a sly and malevolent sympathy. ‘I am yours, and don’t think I enjoy my work! Watching over you has been infuriating, though it had its moments. I did enjoy tickling Berndt with those bullets, and Gregory with the black knives of cancer. Recall when you made love how dutifully their hearts beat under your hand—how steady and warm? I stopped them. I shut their dear eyes.’”

The black dog serves as a manifestation of death and demonic intelligence, personifying the novel’s preoccupation with The Intertwining of Love, Sacrifice, and Suffering. The dog’s possessive language (“I am yours”) and its detailed recollection of Agnes’s losses establish the idea of death as an intimate adversary. The violent imagery of “bullets” and “black knives” contrasts with the tender memory of heartbeats, creating a rhetorical rhythm that mirrors the heartbeats that the dog claims to have stopped.

“‘She witched me! She stole my virginity!’ Sophie started laughing until she choked. ‘To be a Puyat is to be a thing not of this earth. Down below it’—she spat—‘down where they put together dead bones and skin and hair and raise things up—witch creatures.’”

Sophie’s testimony reveals that Pauline/Sister Leopolda exists between competing spiritual worlds, and it is clear that the ominous, liminal figure of the cruel potential saint is caught between the categories of Catholic sanctity and Ojibwe “witchcraft.” Sophie’s accusatory language and physical reaction demonstrate that Leopolda inspires both fear and ridicule in the community, a factor that complicates her potential sainthood. Through figurative language that places the Puyats in the role of necromantic, arcane conjurors who exist “below” earth and assemble creatures from dead parts, Sophie’s diatribe suggests that Leopolda’s very piety is just another artificial identity.

“I kept the barbed-wire rosary in a drawer all by itself, fittingly, and from time to time I looked at it and speculated on its use. One day, in frustration, I gripped it in my own hands and doubled it, then swung it around the post to my bed until the barbs nearly pierced my hands, went deep enough anyway to leave blue marks of bruises.”

Father Damien’s methodical investigation of the barbed-wire rosary reflects his disquiet that a symbol of devotion has become a tool of murder, and as he draws closer to the truth of Sister Leopolda’s guilt in this matter, his detective work upends her saintly reputation. By physically reenacting the murder, Damien shows his commitment to uncovering the truth, even at great personal risk. The barbed-wire rosary functions as a symbolic perversion of faith, showing that religious devotion can be twisted to violent ends.