54 pages • 1 hour read
LeAnne HoweShell Shaker
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 3-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “Intek Aliha, The Sisterhood”
Dallas, Texas
Sunday Evening, September 22, 1991
Autumnal Equinox
In Dallas, Texas, Auda’s sister Tema is performing as Nora Helmer in Henrik Ibsen’s 19th-century stage play, A Doll’s House. As Tema prepares to go on stage, the stage door sticks, and she falls onto the stage in front of everyone, and then hears a “bodiless voice” which “calls to her in Choctaw” calling her “Hatak abi” meaning “[m]ankiller” (loc 635). Tema is paralyzed with fright but repels the voice and finishes the scene. Afterwards, she tells her husband Borden Beane, an English actor playing Nora’s husband Torvald, that she must go home. He doesn’t believe that she heard anything, and convinces her she must just be tired and nervous. The next morning, however, her son Hopaii Iskitini, called Hoppy, hands her a fax from her Uncle Isaac in Oklahoma telling her about Redford’s death, and the arrest of her mother and sister. Borden apologizes for not believing her, and Tema and Hoppy prepare to leave for Oklahoma.
New Orleans, Louisiana
Monday, September 23, 1991
In New Orleans, Adair Billy, sister of Auda and Tema, prepares for her day. Adair is a stock broker, very well respected, and known as the “Wall Street Shaman” (loc 801). Adair is very successful, and attributes this, as do her clients, to her “Native upbringing” (loc 812), which seems to give her almost clairvoyant skills. Adair has settled in New Orleans “where so much Choctaw history occurred” though “there remains no trace of her people” (loc 812-823). Nonetheless, historians understand that the “founder of New Orleans” (loc 823), Jean Baptiste Le Moyne Sieur de Bienville, worked with the Choctaw when he built New Orleans; they provided security for the settlers in exchange for material goods. Adair sees herself as continuing this tradition and considers “Indians the first commodity traders of the New World” (loc 845).
Adair remembers a lecture Auda gave after which many members of the mainly white audience argued with her assertions, including that 4,000 Choctaws were killed in the 19th century after being “removed from [their] ancient homelands” (loc 856). Auda gets very angry, and the crowd responds in kind. Adair and one of the staff of the Oklahoma Historical Society, which had hosted the lecture, get Auda, who is very drunk, to leave. Adair falls in love with the man, an aspiring lawyer named Gore Battiste, and they spend the night together. However, he never called her again, and Adair completely changed her appearance after that, cutting her hair short and dressing in men’s clothes.
Adair saves newspaper clippings about “uncommon deaths” (loc 982), like a boy killed by his pet python and a man killed when his spaniel “stepped on the trigger of a shotgun and blasted [him] in both legs” (loc 982). She also saves clippings about Redford McAlester, and thinks about how her mother and other elders are “working to undo McAlester” (loc 982). Adair then hears three gun shots, and the sound of a body being moved before receiving the fax about McAlester’s death and her mother and sister’s arrests. She has her assistant call Battiste to defend them, and toasts her sister “who finally killed the bastard” (loc 1016).
Chapter 4 Summary: “Choctough”
Durant, Oklahoma
Monday, September 23, 1991
Isaac Billy, uncle to Auda, Adair, and Tema, is overwhelmed by all that has happened: his sister and niece accused of murder, and “[t]wo thousand five hundred acres surrounding his hometown were burned up in a prairie fire” (loc 1024). Isaac avoids talking to the press by pretending to be senile, and goes to tribal headquarters, where the acting chief, Carl Tonica, tells him that he and his family have been “de-tribed” (loc 1114). Isaac knows that sentiment is against his family, but also feels guilty for not getting more involved in tribal politics.
He goes to his sister’s home, and two police officers, who at first seem to be Doberman Pinschers, execute a search warrant. He again pretends to be senile, and returns to his home. Hoppy, Tema’s son, and his friend Nick arrive, and Isaac takes them to see Divine Sarah. Divine Sarah is an old woman, a former actress, but is also what Isaac refers to as a trickster; she refers to herself as Big Mother Porcupine, guardian spirit of the Choctaw. At her home, Isaac, Nick, and Hoppy have a vision, and Divine Sarah explains that the trouble they now face is an old one. In fact, the trouble stems from the conflict Shakbatina tried to settle so many years ago by sacrificing herself for her daughter, Anoleta. Anoleta married Red Shoes, who pretended to be “Imataha Chitto, the greatest giver, the red leader who could unite the people against the foreigners, but in truth he was a bloodsucker” (loc 1416-1426).
Red Shoes’ spirit returned in Redford McAlester, and it is this old battle that faces Isaac and his family now. Everyone will play a part, Divine Sarah tells them, and she warns Isaac that though she still protects the family “sacrifice is coming” (loc 1449). When Isaac, Nick, and Hoppy return to town, the jail is on fire, but his niece and sister have returned home, and Tema, Adair, and the lawyer have arrived. Isaac tells them that he has also asked Delores and Dovie to come. His sister, Susan, insists again that she was the one who killed Redford, but in Isaac’s vision, two men were standing over Redford’s body, and Auda was on the floor in a daze.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Prayers for the Mother”
Durant, Oklahoma
Tuesday, September 24, 1991
Auda dreams that she is with Red Shoes. They make love, and she questions him about what happens to their people. He tells her of the ways in which the Inkilish okla and Filanchi okla will harm their people, that “they will crowd us out of our homelands. Also everyone in the world will eat our foods […] but they will be called potatoes, corn, beans, squash, and peanut butter. Everything we have they will claim as theirs” (loc 1577). Auda asks him to reassure her that she will have children, that she will have “married the warrior Red Shoes, the Imataha Chitto, the greatest giver” (loc 1589) but he cannot say it, and Auda wakes up crying.
Adair comes to comfort her, and when Auda mentions her dream, Adair tells her that they’ve “all been having weird dreams and hearing voices” (loc 1612), and says she must come meet her lawyer. After she leaves, Auda remembers the beginning of her feud with her mother, Susan. When Redford was first elected chief, her mother hosted a feast to celebrate and then told Auda, in front of all their guests, that she must “[f]inish with that man […] McAlester is a Osano. End of story” (loc 1647). Auda was mortified, and their relationship deteriorated until they were no longer speaking. However, Redford’s death has reconciled mother and daughter.
When Auda meets Battiste, she immediately confesses to killing Redford, but no one believes her. After Battiste begins questioning her, Auda reveals the rape. She also tells them Redford was in league with the mafia, and was funneling money to the IRA. Auda has documents to prove this, and Battiste begins to plan their defense, noting that with Auda’s proof they “can offer alternative scenarios as to who else might have killed him. Since there were no powder burns on Auda’s hands, and no gloves found at the scene, that might be enough to get the murder charge against her dropped” (loc 1867-loc 1878). However, Auda insists that she is “responsible for what [she] did to the Chief of the Choctaw Nation” (loc 1878) and if Battiste does not agree with her, he cannot represent her.
Chapters 3-5 Analysis
In this section, Howe introduces the characters who will play the largest roles in the story: Auda’s sisters, Adair and Tema; her mother, Susan; her Uncle Isaac; and her nephew, Hoppy. The characters coming to defend and help Auda and Susan represent the traditions of the Choctaw, a matrilineal society. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the women of the Choctaw were considered respected elders, with power in council meetings, and some even went into battle. However, the influence of Western culture’s rigid understanding of appropriate gender roles affected the ways in which the Choctaw women were treated, particularly after they were removed from the homelands in the Southeastern United States in the 19th century.
Susan’s brother, Isaac, also plays an important role in the story that reflects Choctaw tradition: The mother’s brother often played a large part in the lives of his nieces and nephews, mentoring and caring for them. In addition to reflecting Choctaw traditions and beliefs, the characters also introduce one of the central themes of the text, namely, the intersection between Western culture and Choctaw culture. All the characters are wildly successful in the dominant culture: Adair as a stockbroker, Tema as an actress, and Auda as a professor. Isaac is a former veteran, serving the United States during World War II, though he often pretends to be dumb or senile when dealing with white people. He is also a successful rancher who writes and publishes a newspaper for the tribe, in which he has an advice column: He mentors his own young family members as well as many other Choctaw.
In addition to introducing the main characters in ways that reflect Choctaw beliefs and traditions, Howe introduces how the Choctaw have suffered at the hands of whites. For example, Auda argues in her lecture that the Indigenous people tried to help the white settlers, adopting them, in a sense, but were repaid with death and disease. In fact, “hundreds and hundreds of Indians died in the effort to acculturate their foreign adoptees” (loc 883). Furthermore, they were then forced to give up their lands and marched thousands of miles away to what is now Oklahoma. During this march, some 4,000 Choctaw died. The crowd listening to Auda’s lecture refuses to believe her.
Auda never mentions the other ways in which the Indigenous people suffered, such as having their culture appropriated by whites without either credit or compensation. Nor does she mention the boarding schools, a system established in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Indigenous children were removed from their families and forced to attend boarding schools. They were not allowed to practice any cultural or religious traditions and were often subject to abuse. Many Indigenous children died in the boarding schools, either from abuse and neglect, or from diseases spread by constant overcrowding and poor sanitation. Both Isaac and Susan attended one of these schools, and what they suffered there had lasting effects on both.
Howe also introduces another motif, the importance of love. Adair’s relationship with Gore introduces the importance of true love. This is also evident in Isaac’s discussion with Hoppy about love. Isaac reveals that he was once in love with someone but couldn’t be with that person. He advises Hoppy, telling him “when you have nan i hullo, which means ‘true love,’ then traces of that one woman linger on you the rest of your life. Every other relationship is doomed.” Indeed, Isaac states, “when you find nan i hullo, make sure you marry her […]” (loc 1320).
Howe elaborates on the theme of how the past intersects with the present through the character of Divine Sarah, a trickster or shape shifter. Sarah is both Sarah Bernhardt, a legendary French actress well known for her brilliant acting, born in 1844, as well as the spirit of Big Mother Porcupine. Here, she shows Isaac, Hoppy, and Hoppy’s friend Nick the story of Red Shoes and Anoleta and refers to Hoppy’s mother Tema, as Haya, Anoleta’s sister. In a sense, Howe is saying they are both reenacting the story of Red Shoes but also resolving it so that Osano like Red Shoes and Redford can no longer harm their own people.
