The Painted Drum

“Still, I try to at least record connections.”

Referring to the confusing path of her road and of the lives lived there, Faye identifies herself as an observer trying to establish and record stabilizing connections. Connections between people as a source of healing and growth is an important theme in the novel, but here, Faye implies she is outside the community looking in. Because she resists making connections with others, Faye is isolated with the pain of her past.

“Formerly much celebrated for his work in assemblages of stone, he has fallen into what he calls the Zwischenraum, the space between things.”

Kurt Krahe, Faye’s German lover, was once famous for his art pieces, but hasn’t produced anything of note for years. In many ways, he represents the European culture that spread across North America centuries ago, imposing its values of orderliness, individualism, and wealth. For Kurt, falling in between is a metaphor for disorderliness, for a loss of individuality, and for failure itself. Only after vandals destroy his work in progress does Kurt connect meaningfully with Faye, suggesting that an emphasis on order and individualism can prevent a full understanding of oneself and others.

“If only we did not have to die at all. Instead, become ravens.”

Faye subscribes to the belief, common if not dominant in 21st-century American culture, that death forces our departure from the world of the living. After expressing regret that death will separate her from ravens, she wishes the opposite were true—that death would make her one with the ravens. Bernard’s storytelling will give Faye insight into Ojibwe cosmology and precipitate the recovery of her childhood belief that all life is one, and she is one with it.

“But our fascination for the stuff of life, or more precisely, the afterlife of stuff, has always set us apart.”

For two decades, Faye and her mother have jointly run an estate appraisal business. Their work reflects their disconnection from their community and from life, in general. They involve themselves in other people’s affairs only after death has dispatched them, and then, only to dispense with the objects left behind. Flouting their Ojibwe ancestors’ belief that life is an infinite cycle with no end, Elsie and Faye have made it their business to remove any material trace that the deceased ever lived. Ironically, their business will reconnect them with those traditional beliefs.

“I’m not a sentimental person and I don’t believe old things hold the life of people.”

Before Faye reveals how the drum called to her in the Tatro attic, she feels compelled to assert she is rational and has no truck with notions of spirits lingering in “old things.” This assertion signals Faye’s assimilation into white culture and demonstrates the success of the government campaign to alienate people like Faye’s grandmother from their Indigenous belief systems. As Faye will discover, the drum holds the spirit of the little girl whose bones dwell inside it, and it affects the lives of those it gathers into its circle.

“I have stepped out of rules and laws and am breathing thin, new air.”

Faye has stolen the painted drum, an act that confounds the rational part of her mind. The imagery she invokes here, however, figures the theft as an act of escape. By taking the drum, she defies the “rules and laws” the dominant culture implements to preserve its order and power. The theft marks the beginning of Faye’s break from enforced ways of thinking and precipitates a new connection to her ancestry.

“For it seems that my sorrow is deep in my bones and I’d have to break every single one to let it out.”

When Faye’s sister died, Faye internalized her grief and guilt. She has harbored her sorrow for so long, she imagines it has permeated her very bones. If it has not literally fossilized her core, her sorrow has crippled her emotional development. She cannot share her feelings with others and considers her grief too entrenched to ever free herself of it. The Ojibwe tradition of storytelling (including the more ritualized stories of the drum ceremony) shows Faye how storytelling can facilitate healing.

“With their deadwood sawed away, the trees have come alive.”

Netta died in the orchard, as did Faye, in some respects. Faye has allowed the trees to go dormant and wants them to remain that way to memorialize and mirror her sister’s lost life. When Kurt cuts away the deadwood, restoring life to the orchard despite Faye’s wishes, his actions parallel his campaign to raze the emotional barriers in their relationship and revive it.

“The mind is a wolf” 

Faye’s father, a frustrated philosophy professor, often couched his banal ideas in cryptic pronouncements, as his words here illustrate. To convey his theory that faith in an afterlife is simply a remnant in the human mind of the animal survival instinct, he identifies the mind with a wolf. His argument privileges humans over animals and contrasts sharply with traditional Ojibwe beliefs, which uphold the value of all life and the particular perspective of every mind.

“They don’t know the whole story, but I do know it. So I tell them.”

Bernard knows that Elsie and Faye Travers are unaware of their ties to the painted drum. He resolves to tell them “the whole story,” thereby heralding the importance of storytelling in his Ojibwe community. His stories serve as a record of his people’s history, a means to transmit their belief system, and a way to discern connections between people that stretch across time.

“And in that moment of knowledge, don’t you think being who she was, of the old sort of Anishinaabeg who thinks of the good of the people first, she jumped, my father, n’deydey, brother to that little girl, don’t you think she lifted her shawl and flew?”

The thought that his mother threw his sister to hungry wolves has tormented Bernard’s father all his life. Bernard here urges his father to revise that horrifying story into one that pays tribute to the selflessness of his sister, and indeed, to the traditional emphasis on community welfare over that of the individual. This exchange demonstrates how sharing stories can foster change and healing.

“‘Aaniin izhinikaazoyen?’ she asked the woman in a pleasant voice.”

Bernard’s storytelling occasionally includes Ojibwe words and phrases. Although context always provides clues to the words’ meanings (in this case, Anaquot is asking the woman her name), by punctuating English with Ojibwe, the narrative momentarily alienates the English-speaking reader. This underscores the essential role language plays in our relationship with the world and draws attention to the boarding school practice of punishing children for speaking their native languages.

“She grew up in the twilight time when her people, the Anishinaabeg, were battling great waves of disease.”

Ziigwan’aage is extremely solicitous of her children’s health, partly because, in her lifetime, the Europeans introduced diseases that decimated Indigenous populations. While the novel does not dwell heavily on this effect of colonization, it had devastating consequences, as Ziigwan’aage’s apprehension confirms. Disease ultimately kills Ziigwan’aage and Anaquot.

“A spirit comes into the world and disrupts the flow of things.”

These are Anaquot’s thoughts regarding the tempestuous circumstances surrounding and following her baby’s birth. Integrated into her reflections are the Ojibwe views on the interconnectedness of life and of events. Life continuously cycles through different forms. As one “spirit comes into the world,” another must depart. While individual lives are disrupted, life as a whole remains constant.

“She had given him a task that was meant to keep him here upon the earth.”

When Old Shaawano’s despair over his daughter’s death drives him to consider suicide, his daughter appears and tasks him with making a ceremonial drum. She represents the persistence of life. The girl’s spirit eases her father’s misery by guiding him to re-connect with his community, just as the drum will free people of sorrows by facilitating community and catharsis.

“His skin had grown around the threads and beads in some places.”

Simon Jack represents the antithesis of the traditional Ojibwe belief that collectivity supersedes individuality. He touts his own accomplishments and is vain about his appearance. The beaded costume Anaquot and Ziigwan’aage make for him swells his vanity, and when he dies, he cannot be separated from his flashy appearance.

“‘The dead are drinking here tonight,’ said Ira as she joined the man at the table.”

Ira’s assessment of the people in the bar applies equally to herself and her community in general. As the events in Part 3 show, the Ojibwe people of the 21st century have largely abandoned their traditional way of life, their spiritual practices, and their sense of community. Their Ojibwe identity is stalled in many ways. The drum has returned, however, and, through its agency, community connections will reemerge.

“So I get by, you know, I sell my beadwork and stuff. If I moved into town, I guess I could do pretty well.”

Whereas many people on the reservation live in the town, in pre-fab houses, and work nine-to-five jobs, Ira is determined to stay in the house her father built, far outside town, and support herself using traditional Ojibwe skills. She does not “get by” this way, however, and she must apply for aid at the social service agency.

“It isn’t given to us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal.”

Morris quotes this line from an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story to persuade Ira to kiss him. While Morris’s intentions are suspect, his evident appreciation for the idea that connecting with others can promote healing reveals his affinity for traditional Ojibwe beliefs. Ira is drawn to Morris because she shares this affinity.

“They cocked their black skulls, and the ice in the eye sockets gleamed with raw curiosity.”

The vivid, haunting imagery in this line depicts the dream-like, near-death experience of Shawnee and her siblings as they succumb to hypothermia in the dark woods. Hovering between life and death, Shawnee sees herself, along with her sister and brother, as raven-like creatures floating in the treetops above their frozen bodies. The symbolic association of ravens with life after death recurs throughout the novel.

“Roused by the drum whenever she almost quit, Shawnee went on until she bumped flat into a wall.”

The beating of the painted drum wakes Shawnee from her death-dream and guides her through the woods to Bernard’s house. Like Old Shaawano’s daughter, Shawnee saves the lives of her younger siblings, by pulling them with her. Both are selfless and concern themselves with the well-being of others. 

“He’d stayed for the drum. He had the most intimate knowledge of it, knew the sequence of all the songs, could bring together those who possessed those songs he’d forgotten. He alone could fit the scraps together.”

When Bernard’s wife moved to Fargo, he remained on the Ojibwe reservation, and now he knows why. Bernard’s grandfather had brought together the Ojibwe people and alleviated their suffering using the painted drum; it now falls on Bernard to reunite the drum and its songs so that, together, they can restore wholeness to his broken community.

“We must see what each of us is made of, what differing stories. I have always been afraid of talking to my mother on this level, of breaking through the comforting web of our safe behavior.” 

Fearful of exploring the grief she has buried within her, Faye has cultivated a routine in her relationships with her mother and Kurt that limits their interactions to what is familiar and expected. After hearing the story of the painted drum, however, she understands that storytelling and elicit new and perhaps more insightful perspectives emerge. This prompts her to finally talk tell Elsie the truth about Netta’s death.