Antelope Woman

There are several facets of Indigenous history and folklore that play heavy roles in the story of The Antelope Woman. Understanding these pieces of Indigenous history is vital to understanding the novel. Below, this folklore and history are contextualized:

The Wiindigoo

The Wiindigoo (sometimes spelled Windigo or Wendigo) is an important figure in Indigenous myth. Stories of the Wiindigoo are present in the oral history of the Ojibwe people, but they are also found in other Indigenous traditions, although variations between different versions of the Wiindigoo myth do occur. The Wiindigoo is a malevolent spirit and is sometimes depicted with human or semi-human characteristics. It has the power to possess human bodies, and bodies who are possessed by the spirit of the Wiindigoo are said to be overcome by a hunger so insatiable that they are driven toward cannibalism. The Wiindigoo is often said to have a heart of ice, and it is frequently associated with winter and winter storms. Its foul odor precedes its approach, and there are stories in which individuals who become lost in the woods are alerted to its presence because they hear it call their name on the wind. The Wiindigoo myth is a kind of warning against selfishness, obsession, and greed, and Erdrich engages with it in Antelope Woman in part to help illustrate the danger of the kind of obsessive fixation that Klaus has for the antelope women and Sweetheart Calico in particular. In a novel deeply invested in fusing myth with history, the Wiindigoo becomes an important nod to the way that traditional Ojibwe folklore can speak to the problems of the present day.

The Dawes Act of 1887

The Dawes Act of 1887 was an assimilationist policy that sought to re-regulate land rights on Indigenous territories within the United States. Prior to the Dawes Act, reservation holdings had been communally owned by tribes. In a move meant to disrupt the cultural practice of collective ownership, the US Government parceled out individual reservation lots to families and then created a system of incentives to encourage a transition from hunting and gathering to subsistence farming. The Dawes Act is now understood to have been part of the US Government’s broader assimilationist policy in that it forced Indigenous people to acclimate to private ownership, agriculture, and a capitalistic relationship to property not present within Indigenous cultures. The characters Giizis and Noodin still live on their families’ original allotment, and although the novel itself is much more interested in the impact of the Indian Relocation Act, their portion of the plot is an important piece of engagement with 19th-century Indigenous history.

The Indian Relocation Act of 1956

Although enacted more than 75 years after the Dawes Act, the Indian Relocation Act was similarly assimilationist in nature. The impact of this policy on Ojibwe families and their communities is thematically central to Antelope Woman, and understanding it sheds further light on the narrative. The Indian Relocation Act encouraged Indigenous men and women to leave reservation lands and move to urban areas by creating vocational training programs in urban centers like Minneapolis. Indigenous people were additionally offered relocation funds, housing assistance in cities, and financial help purchasing tools or equipment needed for jobs and job training. The impetus behind this piece of legislation was the further assimilation of Indigenous people through encouraging them to separate themselves from their communities and cultural groups. It was thought that by providing Indigenous men and women with job training, placing them into jobs in mainstream (white) society, and removing them from tribal lands, assimilation could be accelerated. At the same time that movement into cities was incentivized, the government began to decrease subsidies and other forms of financial assistance to Indigenous people who chose to remain on reservation land. The Dawes Act ultimately resulted in more than 70% of the Indigenous population of the United States leaving their reservations. Cut off from their families and without community support, many individuals experienced difficulties in their new, urban lives. Sweetheart Calico, Richard Whiteheart Beads, and Klaus all struggle with substance use disorder and mental health issues, and these depictions are an accurate reflection of the difficulties faced by many who were coerced into relocating by the Indian Relocation Act.

The American Indian Movement

AIM was a grassroots civil rights organization founded in Minneapolis in 1968. Concurrent with other civil rights movements, it sought to address systemic issues like inequality, poverty, discrimination, and policy brutality against Indigenous peoples in the United States. Notable figures from AIM include Dennis Banks, Russel Means, Clyde Bellecourt, Vernon Bellecourt, and Anna Mae Aquash. AIM was, in part, a response to the Indian Relocation Act of 1958, which had concentrated many men of working age in cities where they struggled to gain a foothold, falling victim to unequal labor and housing policies, police brutality, and mass incarceration. Although AIM’s activity was far reaching and it staged countless protests and actions, it is best known for the 1969-71 occupation of Alcatraz Island, for a large march on Washington called the Trail of Broken Treaties, and for the occupation of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1973. The occupation began as a response to corruption and the US government’s failure to honor local treaty rights, and the location was chosen to honor Indigenous victims of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, one of the largest mass killings in US history. The FBI, using a network of paid informants, infiltrated AIM and were able to gain valuable information about the operation on Pine Ridge. It then dispatched its own agents as well as a team of US Marshalls, and after a 71-day siege in which individuals from both AIM and the US government were killed, the occupation ended. A fictionalized version of the occupation of Wounded Knee was dramatized in the 1992 film Thunderheart starring Val Kilmer. There are still various chapters and offshoots of AIM in operation, although the movement is most often associated with its Civil Rights–era activities.