Essay Questions

What three items of indigenous agriculture constitute the Three Sisters?

The first mention of the Three Sisters identifies them quite distinctly as the plants which can be harvested to “feed the people wish such abundance.” Like most of the images in the story, the Three Sisters derive from the origin myths of indigenous North American tribal culture. The symbolic significance of the sisterhood is that three specific crops are singled out as being of most value for attacking the single most significant problem for any society: having enough food to make sure nobody starves. Thus, the inherent idea here is not simply one based on food, but sustenance for everybody requiring the least harm to nature and labor neither unendurable nor overly subject to the dictates of climate. Thus, the Three Sisters are constituted by, not surprisingly, three of the simplest crops to raise successfully in vast numbers: corn, beans, and squash. Of significance is that three crops can be planted close together without any one of the three presenting a threat to the others.

What is the ritual of the Words That Come Before All Else?

Within the context of the book, this ritual is situated as something along the lines of the anti-Pledge of Allegiance. The narrator discusses how her young daughter had kinda/sorta gotten into trouble at school for deciding to silently opt out of the ritualistic recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at school because of its distinctly hypocritical and paradoxical nature. This act of civil disobedience leads to a discussion of and—for many readers—revelation of indigenous tribal ritualistic recitation known as The Words That Come Before All Else. It is, quite simply, a rite spoken in tribal language that rather than asking for uncritical allegiance to a flag instead offers tanks to Mother Earth for providing everything required for the sustenance of life.

What is the metaphorical significance of the ancient indigenous mythic creature known as the Windigo?

Although Hollywood interpretations have sought to refashion the Windigo as a kind of werewolf-esque hybrid of human/beast, in the ancient traditions of indigenous tribal myth, its appearance is pretty straightforward across the board: enormous body, rotten breath, a heart made of ice and fangs which have been used (not purposely) to chew its own lips away from a maw gaping from a hunger impossible to sate. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how this creature can be metaphorically repurposed to become a symbol for capitalist greed, western imperialism, Manifest Destiny and all those other wonderful attributes brought to the New World by European settlers.

The insatiable hunger represented by a mouth which has destroyed itself is easily translated into a metaphor for self-destructive greed which does not possess the ability to appease desire. The enormity of the beast represents the gigantic shadow cast over indigenous culture by the white Christian-Democratic America. And as for the heart which is as cold as ice, one need only look to such historical events as the Trail of Tears and, well, literally everything else that went on between the American government and the native inhabitants encountered in the westward spread.