A Tapestry of History and Reimagination: Women's Place in James Welch's Fools Crow

A people is not defeated until the hearts of its women
Are on the ground.

Traditional Cheyenne saying

In novels such as Winter in the Blood, The Indian Lawyer, and The Death of Jim Loney, James Welch has painted vivid and compelling portraits of the individual Native American's struggle for survival in a postmodern world. However, with Fools Crow, Welch draws on historical sources and Blackfeet cultural stories in order to explore the past of his ancestors. As a result, he provides a basis for a new understanding of the past and the forces that led to the decimation 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 economic changes during this period. The prosperity created by the hide trade does not ultimately protect the tribe from massacre by the white soldiers. It does, however, effectively change the Blackfeet economy and women's 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 ways this strength and centrality provide background for the strength of the women depicted in his more contemporary novels. Welch's examination of the past leads to a clearer understanding of the present Blackfeet world presented throughout his work.

History Revisited, the Past Reimagined

In fact, many historians are now reevaluating written historical accounts, searching for the underlying political and philosophical biases of the writer in the way literary critics have long evaluated works of imagination. Alan Velie asserts that historical fiction based on those historical accounts is always "consciously or unconsciously based on an underlying philosophy of history." ¹ But what happens when a historical novel is based on both original ethnographic works and a historical re-evaluation of those works as well as family and tribal stories? In Fools Crow, James Welch relies heavily on documented Blackfeet history and family stories, but he merges those actual events and people with his imagination and thus creates a tension between fiction and history, weaving a tapestry that reflects a vital tribal community under pressure from outside forces. Welch reimagines 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 women's roles in the tribe, and leads to a recovery of identity. Louis Owens writes, "By reimagining or re-membering the traditional Blackfoot world, Welch attempts to recover the center--to revitalize the 'myths of identity and authenticity'--and thus reclaim the possibility of a coherent identity for himself and all contemporary Blackfoot people." ² As N. Scott Momaday has discussed in The Man Made of Words, the art of reimagination has the power to connect the past and the present for readers as the text activates the reader's imagination. ³ Our imagination, then, "has the power to transcend time, to transcend us through history." ⁴

The Blackfeet in the Nineteenth Century: A Changing World

In Fools Crow, Welch creates a reimagined 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 encroachment of the white invaders or "seizers" as Welch identifies them. In an interview, Welch said of Fools Crow:

I'm trying to write from the inside out, because most historical novels are written from the outside looking in. My main character is a member of a particular band, and I'm talking a lot about camp life and ceremonial life, those day to day practical things that they did...