Catherine Rainwater developed one of the more insightful analyses of Louise Erdrich's writing, arguing that the cultural codes at conflict within the characters of her novels leave the reader with a sense of alienation (442). Reading her essay, however, it is evident she was ad dressing an audience that did not have personal knowledge of or ex perience with the social and political traumas presented in Erdrich's works, particularly the loss of land and genocide of a people. There is a group of individuals, however, who can relate firsthand to the events in Erdrich's writing: American Indians in general and the Anishinaabe in particular. If Erdrich's writing is supposed to gener ate a feeling of alienation on the part of the reader, what about those readers? American Indians? who already feel a sense of alienation? Is the expectation that Indians reading her works will become more alienated? Or, is it the assumption that Indians have no interest in written literature, do not participate in mainstream culture at all, and so will not read Erdrich in the first place? The challenge, then, is not to contradict Rainwater's interpreta tion; in fact, she makes a valuable contribution to understanding the writings of Erdrich. The analysis can be expanded, however, by pro viding a reading from an Anishinaabe point of view, a reading that generates within the reader a feeling of empowerment, not alien ation. If there is one overriding characteristic of the characters in the corpus of Erdrich's works, it is that they are survivors. Despite all the attempts by the government and mainstream society to undermine Anishinaabe culture and, essentially, conduct genocide against the