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Naatamaasowin: Revenge
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Three Day Road, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Isolation vs. Community
Racism and Assimilation
Language and Storytelling
Nature, War, and Survival
Summary
Analysis
Near dark, Niska finds a place to camp. The first day on the river has been “strange” for her. Twice, Niska did not recognize her surroundings and is “surprised to feel lost.” The journey feels “very different” from the one they began. Xavier won’t eat, so Niska “feeds him with [her] story instead.”
Boyden draws a parallel between the “three-day paddle” home and Niska’s story of the “three day road,” which is the journey through death to the afterlife. Xavier may be dying, which might explain why Niska doesn’t recognize her surroundings. Their trip may not necessarily be just another trip down a familiar river, it may be Xavier’s journey down the “three day road.”
Themes
“We weren’t always alone out in the bush,” Niska says to Xavier. There were others, “roving bands of hunters,” who still “lived in the old way.” Their Indian name was “awawatuk,” and they “had the unfair reputation of being thieves and murderers” because they rejected wemistikoshiw ways.
By claiming they “weren’t always alone” in the bush, Niska implies that it is difficult, impossible even, to be alone all the time, which lends insight into Xavier’s feelings for Lisette later in the book. This passage also reflects the racism of the wemistikoshiw and the ways in which they force Indigenous people to assimilate. Those who refuse are made out to be criminals.
Themes
Niska’s mother taught Niska to build a matatosowin, or sweat lodge, and showed her which plants have healing powers. She showed Niska which part of the skunk heals “snowblindness” and which portion of the owl gives night vision. Niska was seen by the other awawatuk as “the natural extension of [her] father,” so she “divined for them.” She placed a shoulder blade on the coals as he did and dripped water onto the bone as she “summoned the spirits of the forest.” The first night, it was a lynx that came to her, and it showed Niska “the secrets of the forest.”
Sweat lodge ceremonies are done for many reasons in Indigenous culture. Ceremonies are held to purify the body, mind, and soul; or they are done for spiritual purposes, to give thanks or ask for guidance. Here, the ceremony is held so Niska can “divine” the location of game through the cultural practice of scapulimancy. This also highlights Niska connection to nature, especially the lynx, which seems to be her spirit animal of sorts.
Themes
Niska first came across the wemistikoshiw trapper in the days following her first “fit” in the matatosowin. She “played tricks on him,” putting marten and fox legs in his traps so he would think they had escaped, and she walked his traplines in snowshoes only to “swing clear of [her] own tracks” to “leave him wondering how [she’d] disappeared.” Niska was “invisible.” One day, she did not hide her tracks but led him straight to her lodge. “The rest of this story belongs only to me,” Niska says to Xavier, “and so I let my voice rest.”
Niska’s trick on the trapper harkens to Xavier and Elijah’s experience with the lynx tracks. If the lynx is Niska’s spirit animal and she can summon its spirit in some way, that explains how the lynx’s tracks disappeared so suddenly. Niska’s story of the trapper also suggests it is impossible to be alone all the time. As her clan’s hookimaw and windigo killer, Niska’s life is bound to be solitary and full of pain, just as Xavier’s is, but she still craves human contact and must have it occasionally.
Themes
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