Fire Keeper's Daughter Review 9
Book: Fire Keeper’s Daughter Review 9
Author: Angeline Boulley
Publishers: Henry Holt and Company
Reviewed by: Nonqaba waka Msimang
“We are descendants - rather than enrolled - members of the Sugar Island Ojibwe Tribe …. even though our faces are pressed against the glass, looking in from outside.” Page 18.
Daunis is talking about herself and her best friend Lily, because both have one Ojibwe parent and one white parent. This review will concentrate on ‘looking in from outside.’
Although it’s fiction, the author seamlessly knits the story about hockey players doing meth a hard drug, with real life for indigenous people in Canada and U.S.
Because readers like me are ‘looking in from outside’ we tend to think most Anishinaabe - indigenous people - live in “Indian reservations.” We tend to think they are terrible places where Anishinaabe are dumped and forgotten.
Sugar Island is the reservation in the book. Daunis is no stranger there because it’s where her Ojibwe grandmother lives. Daunis also goes there to look for mushrooms that give people hallucinations, the book’s main problem.
Daunis the storyteller presents reservations as normal habitats, like small towns. The first few pages show Daunis and Lily in a space where Elders are voting in local elections.
Teddie Firekeeper, her father’s sister is a judge on the Sugar Island Tribal Council. Reservations have local police like any town. One of them is TD Kewadin, who used to go out with Daunis. Anishinaabe have their own health and wellness programs.
“Seeney recently turned sixty, officially making her an Elder. She’s a mentor to Auntie and works for the Tribe’s Traditional Medicine Program.” Page 29.
The reader is ‘looking in from outside’ so it’s important to remember what the author says about living on rez. That’s what Daunis and her friends call the reservation.
Failure to do so, will lead to reading potholes.
By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.
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