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Chapter 18
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sign of the Beaver, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival and Indigenous Knowledge
Colonialism, Land Rights, and Entitlement
Nature
Friendship and Respect
Coming of Age and Manhood
Summary
Analysis
Two days later, Attean arrives at Matt’s cabin and says his grandmother wants Matt to come to the village today—and not for more medicine. Matt is welcome now after he saved Attean’s dog. So Matt follows Attean to the village and eats a fish stew with Attean and Saknis while Attean’s grandmother and Marie stand by. Then, Attean shows Matt around the village. Matt studies the women at their work carefully so that he too can pound corn into flour, dry berries, and create birchbark baskets. When Attean gets tired of “squaw work,” though, he leads Matt to some boys playing a game in the dirt.
Matt has now earned trust and respect—what he’s wanted from Attean the entire time. More importantly for Matt, though, is that his visit to the village allows him to continue learning. In this case, he learns how to perform tasks normally associated with women—but as Matt is on his own, those gender divisions aren’t useful or appropriate. He has to learn it all to survive. (It’s also worth noting that “squaw” is considered a slur—and interestingly, contemporary scholars believe Europeans coined the term.)
Themes
The boys are playing a game with painted discs. The loser, Matt learns, has to give up a possession—and soon, Matt loses and must give up his shirt. He’s not sure what he’ll do without it. Next, Attean leads all the boys to play a new game, this time with a leather ball and bats that have a flat curve at the top. Matt figures he'll be great at this game, but he’s wrong: it’s hard to keep the ball aloft using just the stick, and it’s never an accident when the other boys elbow him or hit him with their sticks. The game ends when Matt finally gets the ball in the hole that marks the goal. Next, the boys all race for the river and dive in. They begin trying to push one another under. To Matt, it feels almost like being back in Quincy.
These games with Attean and his friends are clearly a test. The boys are willing to accept Matt into their midst—but Matt has to prove that he’s game and essentially undergo a hazing ritual. Making Matt give up his shirt, in particular, seems designed to see just how committed Matt is to becoming “one of the boys.” Still, though losing his shirt will no doubt present problems later, Matt desperately wants to be accepted. That Matt has gotten to this point speaks to how much he’s learning to accept and appreciate his Native American friends and their way of life.
Themes
It’s late afternoon when Matt follows Attean to say goodbye to Attean’s grandmother. She looks Matt up and down, no doubt noticing his black eye and the goose egg on his forehead, and fetches Matt’s shirt from her cabin. Attean says the boys played a joke on Matt, and Matt wishes he could proudly refuse to take his shirt back. Attean’s grandmother sends them on their way with slices of fruit and nut cake, and Matt recognizes the look she gives Attean—Matt’s mother looks at Matt the same way at times.
It hurts Matt’s pride to have to accept his shirt back because he’s very concerned with not looking weak or needy. He absolutely needs a shirt going into winter, but a lot of the games he played with Attean and the boys seemed designed to see how stereotypically masculine Matt can be—and Matt doesn’t want to fall short in front of his new friends. Recognizing the look in Attean’s grandmother’s eyes shows that Matt is continuing to humanize Native Americans. Some things, he’s realizing, are exactly the same in both cultures—parents and guardians loving their children, for instance.
Themes
Attean’s dog follows the boys to the river and settles close to Matt in the canoe. Attean says the dog remembers, which seems unlikely to Matt. But Matt reaches out and gently touches and then scratches the dog. Its tail thumps happily. On the other side of the river, Matt gets out of the canoe; Attean clearly believes Matt is ready to head home on his own. Hurrying home, tired and exhausted, Matt is nevertheless content. Attean’s dog accepted him, but more importantly, Matt knows he passed a test of sorts and didn’t embarrass Attean. Even better, Matt no longer feels like he’s alone in the woods.
Nearly everything that happens in this passage (the dog accepting Matt, Attean sending Matt home alone) represents a huge shift for Matt. Matt is now accepted among Attean’s friends and family, while his solo trip home illustrates how competent he now is at putting all the things Attean taught him into practice. This all makes Matt feel a lot better about being alone in the wilderness, because he’s not alone anymore—he has friends and allies who will help him, and who he can try to help in return.
Themes
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