Fools Crow by James Welch Essays -- Fools Crow James Welch Essays

Fools Crow by James Welch We turn back the clock as Welch draws on historical sources and Blackfeet cultural stories in influence to explore the past tense of his ancestors. As a result, he provides a basis for a new understanding of the past and the forces that led to the deciding factor of the Plains Indian tribes. Although Fools Crow reflects the pressure to assimilate inflicted by the white colonizers on the Blackfeet tribes, it also portrays the influence of scotch changes during this period. The prosperity created by the hide trade does not lastly protect the tribe from massacre by the white soldiers. It does, however, effectively change the Blackfeet economy and womens place in their society. Thus, it sets the stage for the continued deterioration of their societal system. Although their economic value is decreased, women still represent an important cog in the economic structure. Indeed, women are central to the survival of the Blackfeet tribal community that Welch creates and in many ship canal this strength and centrality provide background for the strength of the women depicted in his more contemporary novels. Welchs examination of the past leads to a clearer understanding of the present Blackfeet world presented passim his work. James Welch relies heavily on documented Blackfeet bill and family stories, but he merges those actual events and people with his imagination and thus creates a tension between simile and history, weaving a tapestry that reflects a vital tribal community under pressure from outside forces. Welch re-imagines the past in order to document history in a way that includes past and future generations, offers readers insight into the tribal world-views of the Blackfeet, examines womens roles in the tribe, and leads to a recovery of identity. Welch also creates a Blackfeet world of the late 1800s--a tribal culture in the process of economic and social change as a result of the introduction of the horse and gun and the encroach ment of the white invaders or seizers as Welch identifies them. Significantly, Welch deconstructs the myth that Plains Indian women were just slaves and beasts of burden and presents them as fully rounded women, women who were crucial to the survival of the tribal community. In fact, it is the women who perform the day-to-day duties and rituals that alter cultural survival for the tribes of... ...Just as Fools Crow reaches back to the past in an effort to provide for Yellow Kidneys family, he looks to the future near the residual of the novel and tells the survivor of the massacre at Marias River It is good you are alive. You will have much to teach the young ones about the Napikwans. He remembers Feather Womans hatful of Pikuni children, quiet and huddled together, alone and foreign in their own country and says, We must think of our children. Transcending time through imagination leads to a unification of past and present, and reflecting on the roles women fulfilled in the pas t and their relative position of balance in contemporary Blackfeet society leads to the conclusion that it is the day-to-day functions they performed that enabled cultural survival. Tribal world-view demands fear to everyday tasks to achieve the balance needed for survival and it was the women who were grounded and provided the center for the community. The theme that James Welch has presented to us about a Blackfeet world endangered but sacrosanct where men and women know who and where they are. Plays a big part in our own lives we all need to find our self in this world and act upon it.