Shared Language In The Pillager Family

Nanapush remarks about the importance of shared language, “Once they live in our lives and speak our language, they slowly become like us” (169). Shared language connects the people in a community. It constitutes a common cultural identity among the people. For Nanapush, the oral tradition links human to human, past to present, physical to spiritual. It is a fluid and vital force which binds people. Nanapush is re-creating the history and culture of the clan and its family unit. He believes that his story will re-create the Chippewa cultural identity for the sake of the future.

In Pillager family, Fleur and her cousin Moses are the only remaining members after the epidemic. The Pillager family is the most colonized and the most struggled

to retain their Chippewa culture. Nanapush finds Fleur in the cabin and he says:
She was wild as a filthy wolf, a big bony girl whose sudden bursts of strength and snarling cries terrified the listening Pukwan. So again I was the one who struggled to lash her to the sacks of supplies and to the boards of the sled. I wrapped more blankets over her and tried them down as well. (3)
Throughout the novel, Fleur is described as a powerful, independent and strong character.

Everyone in the novel except Fleur plunges into a confused clash between the Ojibwa and Euro-American culture. Nanapush says “a young girl had never done such a thing before” (8). She derives strength from her connection to the earth and the forces of nature. Fleur is a Native American woman who is believed to have supernatural powers, with which she saves Marie's life in birth. All the characters in the novel, especially Fleur is closely associated with nature. She has medicine power. She is the central character in both narrators’ story. She is an excellent hunter than all the men on the

reservation.
When Fleur returns to the reservation, Nanapush inquires about her rape. But she simply says “Uncle, the Puyat lies” (38). She tries to hide the tragedy that had happened to her from others. She tries to overcome the crisis she faces. Fleur fails in many circumstances. Fleur loses everything in her life - her family is killed by consumption, her land is lost, her forest is leveled, she is alienated from her family, she falls victim to gang rape, her second child dies and her first child is not ready to accept her as a mother. However, even when she is defeated at the end of the novel she keeps her strength to fight. Nanapush remarks about Fleur: “In my mind she was huge and, she was endless. There was no room for the failure of anyone else. At the same time, she was the funnel of our history” (178). In his opinion, Fleur is a very different person.
When Fleur plunges into deep depression and loses the faith in her supernatural power, Nanapush motives her.

She fails all her faith in her supernatural power. He says to Fleur that:

Power dies, power goes under and gutter out, ungraspable. It is momentary, quick of flight and liable to deceive. As soon as you rely on the possession it is gone. Forget that it ever existed, and it returns. I never made the mistake of thinking that I owned my own strength that was my secret. And so I never was alone in my failure. I was never to blame entirely when all was lost, when my desperate cures had no effect on the suffering of those I loved. For who can blame a man waiting, the door open, the windows open, food offered, arms stretched wide? Who can blame him if the visitor does not arrive? (177).

Here Nanapush is a scaffolder to Fleur. He says to Fleur that “You will not be to blame if the land is lost” (178). The strength of community life is evident in this communication. Fleur restores her physical and spiritual health by Nanapush’s traditional healing ceremony which centers on a sweat lodge containing a drum of water over a fire. She attains a power to resist adverse

situations.