Who Is Native American Humor In Louise Erdrich's Tracks

Native American Humor in Louise Erdrich’s Tracks
Humor is a core value of Native American life. It can also be considered a form of survival in some ways, which is why most of their humor can best be defined as survival humor. “As expressed by survivors of tragedy, nonvanishing Native Americans, this humor transcends the void, questions fatalism, and outlasts suffering….At cultural ground zero, it means that Indians are still here, laughing to survive” (Lincoln 45-96). Louise Erdrich’s Tracks exposes this power of humor being able to affect ones experiences through the characters of Nanapush and Fleur.
Throughout the book, the Chippewa Indians are caught in conflicts with the “whites”. They attempt to convert their religion to Christianity,

change their government, and change their culture. By the end of the novel, the “whites” have appeared to won when Fleur loses her land. Lulu, Fleur’s daughter, gets sent to a government school, and Fleur leaves Eli, Lulu’s father and what we assume to be Fleur’s husband. The characters Nanapush and Margaret end up living together though and are able to keep in touch with Lulu in hopes they will be able to take her in once she graduated. Through this time, Erdrich uses Nanapush to keep the Chippewa Indians having a good spirit.
In this novel, Nanapush is known for his jokes and is considered the “trickster”.

He offends the purity of marriage and the religion of Christianity by making remarks such as when he is approached by Father Damien about Margaret and him getting married, he says “I’m having relations with Margaret already…That’s the way we do things.” (Erdrich 123) He emphasized the fact that he has another way of living he doesn’t want to intrude upon. He insults Father Damien when he confesses he stole the wire from his piano. Father Damien becomes frusterated and says “Discord is hateful to God. You have offended His ear,” Nanapush just tells Father Damien “You can have the wire back,” (Erdrich

124).
He directs most of his jokes (which consist greatly of raucous bantering) at Margaret.

Through loads of boasting of his sexual abilities, he tries to lead her into a romantic relationship with him. While Nanapush describes Margret as “headlong, bossy, scared of nobody and full of vinegar” (Erdrich 47), she described him as an “old man…two wrinkled berries and a twig.”
When Margaret comes to Nanapush extremely mad saying “Who learned my Eli to make love standing up!” Nanapush did not respond so Margret would say “Old, man, two wrinkled barriers and a twig.” Nanapush scoffs, “A twig can grow,” and Margret would laugh “Only in the spring,” (Erdrich 48), suggesting that Nanapushes time to grow was over. Through the two’s taunting and teasing, a deep relationship evolved throughout the novel.
Along with such situations, Nanapush uses humor in many other parts of the novel to lighten the mood as well as downplay his wrongs in the past. Nanapush recalls his father saying “Because it’s got to do with something a girl can’t resist. The first Nanapush stole fire. You will steal hearts,” (Erdrish 33) and later senses Eli wants to hear about how he had satisfied three wives, he would avoiding the subject by turning to Eli’s sex life “I won’t bite you like the little girls,” (Erdrich 41) he said to Eli. Through this, he was able to take the focus off of the fact he has slept with married

women.
Nanapush isn’t the only one we see humor from though. In chapter 6, we see some of Pauline’s action to become close to Christ. Though she doesn’t mean to, her seriousness becomes a big source of humor. Pauline was born one-quarter white, so she has this obsession with becoming “white” in every way possible, most noticeably the religious aspects of the “whites”. Along with going to such lengths to experience Christ’s suffering by simply wearing her shoes on the wrong feet, in one part of the chapter, Pauline says that she “…made a set of underwear from potato sacks…” and when she wore them “…the chafing reminded me of Christ’s sacrifice,” (Erdrich 143). After much dedication, she thinks she is finally able to show it through not bathing. “[God] would rather have a good soul that stank like a cheese then a bad soul fragranced with rose oil and myrrh. My rank aroma was the perfume my soul exuded, devotion’s air,” (Erdrich 153). Everything she does humorously shows how desperate she is to leave her Native American character.
For the Chippewa tribe, this humor is essential, providing strength as well as medicine for cultural and spiritual conservation within the tribe. In this novel, humor even challenges fate.