Louise Erdrich is a Native American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota, a federally recognized Ojibwe people. She is a prolific author and in 2021, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel
The Night Watchman. I have read a few of her novels including
The Night Watchman and always find them to be vivid portrayals of Native American life.
In THE PAINTED DRUM, Faye Travers, of mixed ethnic origin including Native American, is living in New Hampshire along with her mother, Elsie. They work together in Elsie's estate business where they buy artifacts after the passing of a family. At one such location, Faye comes upon a beautiful painted drum, a very powerful Native American object. This was found at the home of a family that descended from a former Indian Agent who had amassed a collection of artifacts. Since the family was white, Faye feels justified in taking the drum which she feels was stolen and returning to its rightful owners, the Ojibwe in North Dakota. The novel goes on to tell the story of the drum from its origins to the present and how it had affected the people who have come in contact with it.
This was a very moving novel telling of the hardships associated with the drum and especially how children were affected by their very hard lives in the cold and wildness of North Dakota. Erdrich shows the world of traditions and ancestry including both humans and animals such as wolves and ravens. I'll definitely be looking forward to reading more of Erdrich.
