The Chippewa Tribe In Erdrich's Tracks

In Erdrich’s Tracks, the novel tells a story of a Chippewa tribe that is forced to adapt to colonizers in the post-colonization state of America. Through the eyes of two distinct narrators, Nanapush and Pauline, the reader gets an inside view of the perspective of a Native-American tribe in post-colonial America. At the very beginning of the novel, Nanapush describes Native Americans dying from the spotted fever (or yellow fever) due to the colonizers bringing disease as they intermingle with the tribe. This is just the first of many references to disease throughout the story as Erdrich formulates her narrative with the use of symbolism of disease to describe the effects of colonization on the Chippewa tribe. This colonization forces the tribe to change and adapt as they are forced to interact with their colonizers, and while at times these interactions can be beneficial, more often than not, they result negatively for the Chippewa tribe. The first lines of the novel are narrated by Nanapush, an elder tribal leader, whom members of the tribe look up to: “We started dying before the snow, and like snow, we continued to fall “(1). This shows the state of peril of the tribe as a result of disease. Nanapush then goes on to describe how the spotted sickness and tuberculosis have killed off much of the tribe, these sicknesses being foreign to the Native Americans, as the colonizers had brought over the sickness. Because the …show more content…
This is foreshadowing to the rationalization techniques that Pauline uses later to try to free herself from mental illness. At this point and time, Pauline does not yet believe that she is perfect in the eyes of God and thus actually feels remorse from the deaths of the three men, even though they harmed Fleur.. This is yet just another example of how Pauline is trying to adapt to colonization even though she has been affected by