Shaman’s Daughter by Nan F. Salerno and Rosamond M. Vanderburgh (review)

230 Western American Literature moving consideration of conflicts deeply set in western experience, here seen from distanced, nostalgic perspective. People of the Sun lets us look at landscapes and faces which could serve as visual backdrop for several sections of Powell’s novel. It is a simple and direct book for the general reader. Marc Simmons’ text intro­ duces three groups whose styles have greatly affected the atmosphere of the southwest: Indian, Hispano, and cowboy. His chapters on each group make for pleasant, anecdotal reading. His opening chapter gives a brief but helpful overview of southwestern culture. He is especially good on Indian culture, as in a passage underscoring the nonlinear historical sense of the Indian. Buddy Mays’ black and white photographs are enjoyable for the most part, especially the candid portraits of young and old southwestern faces. Mays’ best photographs are extremely simple in composition, under­ scoring the austerity which lies behind the personalities he is photographing. RICHARD MOSELEY, West Texas State University Shaman’s Daughter. By Nan F. Salerno and Rosamond M. Vanderburgh. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1980. 404 pages, list of char­ acters, glossary, $12.50.) Shaman’s Daughter is a carefully structured novel of a determined and intelligent Ojibwa woman, Supava Cedar. The Prologue and Epilogue take place in 1967 with Parts 1-5 chronologically arranged from 1897-1967. In the Prologue we meet Supaya as an old woman as she opens her trunk and views its treasures: The bear claw necklace, a bundle of hair, a gold pocket watch, and a small stone bear. The old woman places these in her medicine bag and leaves her home to climb a hill in the grey dawn. In chapters one through five authors Nan Salerno, an English teacher and magazine editor, and Rosamond Vanderburgh, an anthropologist, develop the story of Supaya and her people and explain the significance of these objects. In the book the Ojibwa elders speak of life as having four hills that men must climb. The first is in infancy, the second in youth, the third in middle age, and the fourth in old age. Not everyone is able to climb all four hills. Much sorrow and pain is felt as loved ones fall, never to get up. But the most frightening is the last hill for the sharpest rocks lie there. Those who climb the fourth hill become the wise elders. Supaya climbed the fourth hill with the strength gained from her vision. After she received her vision when she was twelve years old, her father, Jules, gave her the bear claw necklace which represented the power of her guardian Great Bear. In her remaining journey she buried three husbands, a son, and many, many friends. Reviews 231 As the years pass, Suppy sees her children age and stumble. Her daughter, Shooskonee, becomes a prostitute. Her first son, Little Waboose, returns from the war disillusioned as his father, Kineu, once was. At fortyeight Waboose says, “I went to school, got an education. . . . I’ve got no purpose! Hell, I’ve got two names, but I don’t even know who I am!” (p. 390.) Suppy replies, “You are an Indian, that’s who you are, and they are your heritage!” Then with pride Supaya smiles and says, “There is only one man — Waboose. Walter is like a coat that Waboose wears when he goes among white men. Because we live in a white world, you have to live and work with white people. That is why I sent you to school, so you could learn to be part of this world. But you are still Indian!” (p. 391.) The Epilogue begins where the Prologue ends: The old woman Supaya is climbing a hill for the last time. In the gray dawn she secretly buries her medicine bag that Negik, her great grandfather, gave her. Suppy had to bury the medicine bag for there was no one trained in the old ways to receive it, no one left with a vision, no one blessed by Grandfather with great power. Flooded by the joy of her vision seventy years before, Suppy meets her ancestors. This novel is not merely the story of...