Abstract
In this paper, I examine how famed Native American novelist Louise Erdrich incorporates Ojibwe religious and spiritual beliefs in her narrative fiction to counter hegemonic Western representations of indigenous women and their struggle to find agency in a predominantly white, male and Christian dominated world. While this is a major theme in many of Erdrich’s novels and short stories, I focus primarily on the character Fleur Pillager and her appearance in Erdrich’s 1988 novel Tracks. In this text, Erdrich positions Fleur as a liminal character who flits between the Anishinaabe spiritual world and North Dakota, USA. Fleur, according to members of her tribe, has had a relationship with the Ojibwe water monster Misshepeshu and, through this spiritual encounter, is rumored to have gained some of his powers that she uses in a fight to protect the sovereignty of her body and tribal land throughout the novel. Through her use of indigenous spirituality in her text, Erdrich interrogates the enduring power of traditional Anishinaabe belief systems and the confusion leaning on these causes both the white characters and members of her own tribe in the novel. The power of Erdrich’s work is seen in her ability to not undercut the transformative role these traditional religious beliefs can play in the modern, Western world; rather, that all should remain open to the transformative wisdom of indigenous belief systems.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2026 Special Focus—Indigenous Spiritualities in Global Perspective
KEYWORDS
Erdrich, America, Literature, Spirituality, Feminism, Ojibwe, Anishinaabe
