64 pages • 2 hours read
Cherie DimalineHunting by Stars
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Jingle Dress Dance
The “Jingle Dress” dance refers to a women’s regalia and powwow dance in many Indigenous Canadian and American cultures. A Jingle Dress is made by taping or sewing hundreds of jingles—silver cones—onto fabric. The jingles are sewn in a specific pattern, and the accompanying dance is performed with light footwork. When the jingles move, they create a sound that is believed to have curative properties. Stories from different communities describe how the performance of the dance heals a sick girl. A Jingle Dress is often passed from grandmother to granddaughter, signifying a continuity of tradition and healing. In Hunting by Stars, Jingle Dress dances and powwows are a thing of the past, as the novel’s Indigenous peoples have been forced to go into hiding. This fictional phenomenon draws from history, for the 1925 Canadian “Indian act” outlawed Indigenous dances and regalia and forced Indigenous peoples to assimilate with white settler culture. Only the Métis jig and Inuit dances were permitted, since these groups were not classified as “Indian.” Just as the dances persisted in real life, the novel also provides hope that such traditions will live on.
Even though Rose has never seen a Jingle Dress dancer or attended a powwow, she knows the pattern of the dress by heart. The pattern has been taught to her by her grandmother, which means that the dance is not a thing of the past, for it has been preserved in memory and stories and is waiting to be given over to the girls and women of the future. The Jingle Dress dance is therefore a powerful symbol of hope and cultural continuity. It also represents the assertion of Indigenous identities. Because the Jingle Dress makes a tinkling sound when the dancer moves, it commands attention. In Rose’s world, Indigenous people must stay quiet in order to survive, but when Rose passes Minerva’s jingles to Ishkode, her action shows that this unnatural silence will not be not permanent. Ishkode will have her jingles, and she will dance and be loud, proclaiming her place in the world. For Rose, the Jingle Dress represents the choreography of life holding everything in place. Rose has not been able to dance, but she is a fighter. Fighting is her dance, and it has been choreographed by her need to survive. For Ishkode, being born is itself a way of dancing the choreography of the dreams of her ancestors.
Moccasin Telegraph
In the chapter titled “Moccasin Telegraph,” French discovers that the inmates’ napkins are really messages to their loved ones. The phrase is a reference to a popular Métis saying about sharing the news of the day through word of mouth. As an in-joke, it means sharing rumors and gossip. The reference to moccasins refers to a pre-digital time when the best way to pass information was on foot. People literally walked across the wilderness in moccasin shoes to pass news. In the novel’s context, the napkins constitute a “moccasin” telegraph. With technological systems of message-passing now vanished, French must relay the messages himself. When the danger of storing the physical messages becomes too great, he commits them to memory and flushes the napkins down the toilet, effectively turning himself into a living telegraph. This moment symbolizes the power of old, oral storytelling and news-sharing methods. When all other methods of communication fail, memory and speech remain effective. As the novel ends, French recalls the message of Marguerite Eliot, who is looking for her mother. Because their Elder Minerva’s last name was Eliot, French deduces that Marguerite is Minerva’s daughter. For French and Miig, this means that Marguerite must be rescued. As they say, “We have one more reason to survive. One more responsibility to take care of” (381). The moccasin telegraph has worked, though in a way different than Marguerite may have envisioned.
Birds
Birds are a recurrent motif in the text and are linked with the theme of confinement, hope, and survival. However, in the novel, birds, specifically crows, are implied to represent the trickster spirit in a range of different Indigenous mythologies. This is alluded to in the novel when the cawing of a crow gives away Rose’s position outside the Chief’s house. As Rose wryly notes, “Crows are prone to assholery” (129). Despite the crow’s trickster nature, it is considered a positive spirit by the novel’s Indigenous characters, since it also symbolizes intelligence. Rose often follows the direction in which crows fly to improve her navigation. Other mentions of birds sometime coincide with images of confinement. When French first searches around his dark cell, he feels like “a frightened bird in a cage” (25). Similarly, the Chief names all his wives after birds, which is fitting, as these women are metaphorically caged in his house, trapped by their dependence on him. The Chief likewise refers to Nam as “little bird” (194), a phrase that seems to be affectionate, but which sours considerably given the reality of the Chief’s sexual abuse. Within this context, the Chief’s endearment becomes a symbol for his attempt to clip Nam’s wings, and Nam literally and figuratively escapes the Chief’s cage by killing him. Significantly, when they leave the Chief’s house, Nam runs off into the woods “like a bird from an open cage” (196).
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By Cherie Dimaline
