Analysis Of The Book Of Medicines By Margaret Hogan

What created this narrowing circle was the European invasion of the Americas and the fear the newcomers perpetuated. In her collection of poetry The Book of Medicines, Hogan writes, “But the new people, / whatever stepped inside their shadow, / they would kill, / whatever crossed their path, / they came to fear.” In this history of violence and fear so much destruction came about in the Americas. “Humans colonizing and conquering others have a propensity for this,” Hogan reminds the reader, “for burning behind them what they cannot possess or control, as if their conflicts are not with themselves and their own way of being, but with the land itself.” Critiquing Western notions of privilege and progress, Hogan writes to create understandings

of the violence perpetuated against indigenous people and their land.
Ideas of control and progress are inherent in another site of confrontation Hogan constructs in her writing; the boarding school issue.

This system of forced education was used to eradicate indigenous cultures and languages, in a desperate assimilation campaign seeking to “kill the Indian and save the man.” Hogan confronts the issue within much of her work, creating characters who underscore the effects of boarding schools on indigenous communities and people. Dora-Rouge speaks to the horror of having to leave one’s family and go to the schools in Solar Storms. Having escaped the agents one year she says, “The next year, when they came again to round up children for school, I was slower. They caught me. I held to my little sister tight and wouldn’t let go. The men hit us to get us apart. It was so sad.” Later in the novel, boarding schools are mentioned again when talking about a young man named Eron. His character was raised by traditional people that “stayed to the old ways…they knew things, they believed things.” He was their “chosen one” to carry forth their traditional ways, but he was forced to go to boarding school. “When he came back from school, that’s when his troubles started,” a woman in the community points out. “At school they told him everything that he had learned was wrong, and with these two knowings, that’s when he got

lost.”
In Mean Spirit, Hogan’s character Ben is also forced to go to a boarding school. He was once a close-knit member of his family, but when he comes back he spends all of his time with other young men that had similar experiences in the schools. They drink and cause trouble, and at one point even start shooting a gun at his family’s home. One of his family members, Lettie, states very matter-of-factly, “Ben’s not himself, not since he went away to school.” In using these elements in her stories, Hogan transforms a common experience for many indigenous peoples into a reality for the reader. Using fictional characters, Hogan shows quite strongly how the boarding schools affected indigenous people and communities to readers outside of this familiarity.
Additionally, Hogan touches briefly on issues surrounding grave-robbing and repatriation in Mean Spirit. John Stink, a character who dies in the book, has his body robbed from the grave. Unable to rest properly, his spirit is left to roam aimlessly around the community. Hogan speaks to this issue writing, “The bodies of Indians were at a premium for displays across the country and in Europe, so it was likely that the same grave-robbers who’d stolen poor Grace Blanket’s human remains had also auctioned Stink’s body off to one of the museums…leaving his unhappy spirit to wander the land.” Through her story, Hogan fashions a space from which to speak about the problems of stolen human remains. Despite the fact that the novel is set in the 1920s, the issue continues to the present day, allowing the work to have a greater impact on how readers potentially react to contemporary issues.