At first he brung me out all the time when I was small. Showed me plants and how to gather them. Everything a guy would need is here if you want it and know how to look for it, he said. You gotta spend time gatherin' what you need. What you need to keep you strong. He called it a medicine walk.Medicine Walk is the story of a 16-year-old Native boy, Franklin Starlight, who was raised by an old white man; with occasional and disastrous visits from his alcoholic father, Eldon. As the story begins, Eldon has summoned Franklin to visit him in a remote lumber town, and when the boy arrives on horseback, Eldon explains that he is dying and wants his son to bring him to a particular mountain ridge and bury him in "the warrior way"; sitting up and facing the sunrise. Franklin agrees, and as they make their way to the ridge 40 miles away -- Franklin on foot and Eldon tied into the saddle -- Eldon finally tells his son his life story: about his own parents and childhood; his military service during the Korean War; who Franklin's mother was; and who the old man was who raised him. As in the quote above, Franklin is adept at gathering the food and shelter that they need to keep themselves alive on the journey, and as a bigger metaphor, the stories that the boy is able to gather from his father are what he needs to make himself strong going forward; this is in every sense a medicine walk.
In the Acknowledgments, Richard Wagamese says:
In the Ojibway world you go inward in order to express outward. That journey can be harrowing sometimes but it can also be the source of much joy, freedom, and light. There are many who have been there to share in my inward journey and without their light I may not have found the wherewithal and courage to brave the darkness and shadows. Suffice to say, the re-emergence has been amazing and this story was born out of long nights of soul searching and reflection.I understand that as a child, Wagamese was taken from his family by Social Services, and after spending time in foster homes in Northwestern Ontario, he was eventually adopted by a family in Southern Ontario. I am going to infer from this afterword that Wagamese was exploring his own experiences with Medicine Walk, but despite this talk of a harrowing inward journey, this book seems to be the least personal and emotional of all the books I've read by this author; the characters the least like real people (and I thought Wagamese did a better job of evoking emotion in Ragged Company).
According to this review, Medicine Walk is primarily "a complex study in how identities are formed and also (a) magnificent illustration of complex ancestry", where the central fact that the reader should realise is that, although Eldon self-identifies as an Ojibway, the Ojibway have no tradition of this warrior burial he wants. So, we have Eldon -- with a white father he didn't know and a mother who raised him in lumber and mining camps without any Native traditions -- who at the end of his life wants to grasp a Native rite, but one that is not authentic to his ancestry. And then there's Franklin -- who was raised by a white man whose survival lessons taught the boy to recover a connection to nature that had been lost to his own ancestors. That's some complex identity-formation, but these facts aren't ever filtered through insight into the characters' inner lives. None of these three are chatty characters, often replying to questions with one word or non-responsive answers, and other than often walking off bursts of anger, none of them have real emotional reactions to anything. (But at least they're a bit more real than the few Native women who are introduced in the book, all of whom are powerless to stop giving themselves to men who will leave or beat or otherwise disappoint them.)
There didn't feel to be much at stake in Medicine Walk: Eldon's life story didn't shatter me, and other than feeling sorry that he had to wait sixteen years to learn where he came from, the information didn't seem to shatter Franklin either (and if it was really eating him up inside, Franklin could have insisted the old man tell him earlier). For a journey-in-the-wilderness book, the nature writing was very basic and spare (and I thought Wagamese did a better job of evoking nature in Indian Horse). And a last complaint: there was something derivatively Cormac McCarthyesque in the way that the three main characters were constantly referred to as "the kid", "his father", and "the old man" (even though we know the actual names of the first two and are forced to wait until near the end to learn the last), and that didn't work for me.
This is not my favourite book by Richard Wagamese, but I'll still look forward to reading whatever he comes out with next.
Two more points:
After reading a poor report card together, the old man and Franklin have this conversation:
"Do your best at what you can, Frank. There's better and more important learning to be had out here on the land. That's one thing for sure. But somethings you just gotta learn to stand."
"What I figure," the kid would say, "there ain't one of those little towheads would know how to square a half-hitch or get a hackamore on a green broke colt. But they make fun of me cuz I won't do the math or read out loud."
"How come you won't do none of that?"
"I don't know. I can get the numbers sorted around in my head without scratching around on paper, and I guess if a guy's to read he oughta be able to do it alone and quiet. Works best for me, least ways."
This reminded me of a conversation I had with Rudy again this past weekend. Again, she was incensed about a client of hers, a contractor, who had attempted to give a plumbing course on the nearby Six Nations Reserve -- unemployed youths would be paid to attend his course, and when they were done, they would be employable apprentice plumbers -- but none of the youths were interested. She was angry that the youths would rather collect welfare and remain unemployed, but again I replied that the youths simply may not have had the aptitude. Who are we to say, "You youths there. You have no job, so you will be a plumber. You will be a landscape architect. And you will be a screenwriter." That's a colonial-type attitude that doesn't do anyone any good. Perhaps, like the Franklin character (is this Wagamese recording his own experience?), perhaps these kids on the Six Nations Reserve just don't have the interest in the maths and book work that a course in plumbing would entail (and of course I'm not saying that Natives have lesser minds than those of settlers; just that everyone has a right to decide for themselves what path they'll take.)
Another interesting passage:
Jimmy said Starlight was the name given to them that got teachin's from Star People. Long ago. Way back. Legend goes that they come outta the stars on a night like this. Clear night. Sat with the people and told 'em stuff. Stories mostly, about the way of things. The wisest ones got taught more. Our people. Starlights. We're meant to be teachers and storytellers. They say nights like this bring them teachin's and stories back and that's when they oughtta be passed on again.I know it makes me look looney when I talk about watching the show Ancient Aliens, but this is the kind of story they like to take as proof of their "Ancient Astronaut Theory" and I find the whole thing fascinating: I mostly watch the show because they bring up interesting old mysteries and show intriguing ancient structures that it boggles the modern mind to imagine Stone Age people building. Like everyone else, I shake my head when the people on the show then conclude that aliens must have constructed the pyramids or Stonehenge, but when it comes to oral traditions about being visited by Star People, isn't it interesting to imagine that that could be meant literally? And I'm just saying imagine here, it's not what I believe, but Richard Wagamese must be aware of Ancient Aliens, too. Does he mean us to take a visit from Star People (otherworldly beings that impart wisdom to selected humans) literally? Just something to think about...
