Antelope Woman

Scranton Roy is a white soldier in the United States Army. The son of a Quaker father and a poet mother, he grew up on the East Coast before heading west with the military. He is horrified by the role that he plays in the destruction of an Ojibwe village and subsequently adopts a young Ojibwe girl whom he finds strapped to a dog in her cradle board. He remains unable to shake the guilt he feels for having killed an old woman, unbeknownst to him the grandmother of the young girl he “saved.” Even years after the killing, he reflects, “Although I have tried to absolve myself repeatedly, I still see the old woman’s face” (27). That he ultimately seeks out the family of this woman to ask their forgiveness speaks to the author’s interest in forgiveness and redemption: Although he cannot forgive himself and dies by his own hand, the family of the woman he killed does try to absolve him of his guilt. The patriarch of the sprawling family clan that his son Augustus gives birth to, Scranton Roy symbolizes the way that pain and suffering are passed down through families: His act of violence and the guilt that he feels will reverberate through each successive generation of his descendants.

Matilda Roy is the young Indigenous girl found by Scranton Roy tied to a cradleboard on the back of a dog. Named Other Side of the Earth in honor of her grandmother, she is christened Matilda by Scranton Roy. Rescued by her mother at the age of 10, she ends up living with the antelope. Like her mother, she becomes a mythic figure, and her importance within the Roy and Shawano families is to provide them with a connection to their history and to the traditional elements of Ojibwe culture that have been imperiled by years of assimilationist policies and by the families’ own moves to the city. There is an unbroken line of resilient women within this family network, and figures like Blue Prairie Woman’s daughter connect the younger generations with their ancestors. Cally, Deanna, their mother Rozin, and their aunt Cecile all retain various aspects of their ancestors’ characterizations, and these traits allow them to hold onto their cultural identity even as they navigate a much more modern world.

Augustus is the daughter of Scranton Roy and Peace McKnight. He fathers four children by Josephette and Mary. Biracial families comprised of Ojibwe men and women who marry Swedish, German, and Norwegian settlers are typical in Erdrich’s work. Through these kinds of depictions, Erdrich seeks to create an accurate reflection of the family trees of many Ojibwe people in North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Augustus is a reflection of that broader trend within her work and is thus a figure that is rooted both within Erdrich’s oeuvre as a whole and within the history of the Ojibwe. Within the narrative, his character additionally engages with the historical phenomenon of government-run boarding schools for Indigenous children. These institutions were known for their brutality: Abuse, sexual assault, and even starvation were common, and it is no wonder that Augustus is depicted as having been “determined to educate his children at home” (48). He thus additionally represents agency, resilience, and resistance.

Klaus is Augustus Roy’s grandson. At the start of the narrative, he is a self-described “urban Indian” and a trader on the powwow circuit. He becomes entranced by the antelope women and kidnaps Sweetheart Calico, drugging her and taking her to Minneapolis. He is “lazy, needy, skilled from a tender age at self-deceptions” (79). Klaus embodies the perils of relocation policies both through his own status as an urbanite and through his act of kidnapping Sweetheart Calico. He also speaks to the novel’s interest in fraught, all-consuming obsession, for he refuses to let Sweetheart Calico go even though it is obvious that she is declining in the city, separated from her family and her culture. Klaus also speaks to the novel’s interest in the difficulties faced by Ojibwe men in Minneapolis. Although he and Richard become unhoused as a way to evade capture by the authorities, their experiences while living on the streets are a reflection of the experiences of many Indigenous men and women in Minnesota who have been disenfranchised by years of hostile government policies and inequality. He is another character who speaks to both the narrative of the novel and to the broader experiences of the Ojibwe in 20th-century American society.

Sweetheart Calico is an embodied representation of the dangers of relocation policies. Through her identity as an antelope woman, she is connected to traditional Ojibwe culture and myth, and the difficulties that she faces in Minneapolis alongside the trials and tribulations that her family experience in her absence both speak to the experiences of many Ojibwe men and women separated from their families and homelands after having been coerced off of their reservations and into cities. It is important to note that Sweetheart Calico never forgets her home or her family: “At night she remembers running beside her mother” (98). Her children in particular are constantly at the forefront of her mind, and her many peregrinations through the city of Minneapolis can be read as an attempt to reconnect with the spirit of antelope women: Sweetheart Calico is meant to be running free through the traditional homeland of her clan, and although she is not able to find her way out of the city, she runs through its streets in a desperate attempt to both retain her own identity and to escape. That she is ultimately freed and allowed to return home is one of the novel’s gestures towards hope: Erdrich argues that it is possible to retain connections to traditional culture, even in modernity.

Richard Whiteheart Beads is Rozin’s husband. He owns a waste-disposal business in which Klaus is employed, and the two men illegally dispose of carpets soaked in toxic chemicals, setting off a chain of events that results in the two trying to evade capture by the authorities by living on the streets of Minneapolis. He is a problematic figure who is shown to mistreat his wife on multiple occasions. Rozin recalls their early days together, when both were involved in AIM. Richard serially cheated on Rozin and used the patriarchal structure of AIM to disempower her. He is not a sympathetic character and speaks to the theme of Gender and Indigeneity in that he represents the inequality that the author identifies in many Ojibwe families and communities. Still, there is also the sense that Richard suffers as a result of separation from his culture. He lives in the city and acutely feels the detriment that an urban childhood became for him. He repeatedly thinks about what kind of life he might have had if he had the opportunity to grow up surrounded by other Ojibwe men and women on traditional reservation land, and often “visualizes himself in his natural state. Not naked, he is wearing a loincloth” (131). In these dreams and visions, he sees himself wearing traditional dress and thinks that he might have been an entirely different person if he had grown up with a better understanding of his Indigeneity and his Indigenous history.

Rozin is the great-great-granddaughter of Augustus Roy. She is married at the beginning of the narrative to Richard Whiteheart Beads, although she ultimately divorces him after falling in love with baker Frank Shawano. Rozin is a complex figure, and the author acknowledges that “[i]t is not so simple being Rozin Roy” (168). Rozin owns a home in Minneapolis but chooses to move up to her aunt Giizis and mother Noodin’s house on the reservation after experiencing family difficulties. She thus represents the movement of Ojibwe men and women both off of and back onto their reservations and speaks to broader trends within Indigenous communities in Minnesota as a whole. Because she is so invested in daughters’ cultural development, she is a vessel for the author to engage with the theme of Traditional Ojibwe Culture in Modernity: She wrestles with the decision of which Ojibwe names to give her daughters, and for a time moves them back to the reservation in order to preserve their connection to tradition.

Rozin’s character is also a way for the author to explore the theme of Gender and Indigeneity. She is a strong, resilient woman who is deeply committed to the health and happiness of her family, but she still experiences mistreatment and gender-based discrimination both within her community and within American society. It is Rozin who tells the story of the gender disparities within AIM and Rozin who must pick up the pieces after her husband leaves to go and live on the streets with Klaus. Louise Erdrich is particularly interested in the lives of Indigenous women, and characters like Rozin allow her to ground her novels within the lived and gendered experiences of Ojibwe women and girls.

Frank is Rozin’s “ardent baker” (168). He owns a successful bakery and is Rozin’s love interest, even when she and Richard still live together. Frank is a thoughtful, caring, and respectful man who will not speak ill of Richard even as he courts his wife. Frank remains largely in the background throughout the narrative, but his comfort with being out of the spotlight provides a counterpoint to the attention-seeking nature of male characters like Klaus and Richard Whiteheart Beads. In this way, he is a kind of foil for these two men, and he additionally gestures towards the promise of increased equality in Ojibwe relationships: Rozin, whom Frank loves deeply, is as committed as her sister Cecile to gender equality, and it is meaningful within the narrative that she finds a partner who is accepting of these values. Frank is shown to be attentive to and respectful of Giizis and Noodin, and thus is further characterized as a male figure within an Ojibwe family who values the wisdom and lived experience of women.

Giizis and Noodin are the mothers of Cecile and Rozin, respectively: “hardpacked women with wise nimble fingers, heavy ankles, and legs that run straight down like fence posts into their shoes” (152). They live in the parcel of land allotted to their families by the Dawes Act and are thus an important site of connection between the novel and the various moments in history which it depicts. Additionally, they reinforce the idea that culture and tradition can be passed down through Ojibwe families, even as society modernizes and Ojibwe people move off of reservation lands. They give granddaughters their Ojibwe names, and further explore the symbolic function of beads within Ojibwe culture and the novel. Additionally, they are strong, resilient women who carry the strength and resilience of past generations of the Roy and Shawano families forward into the 20th century. They speak to the importance of matriarchy within Ojibwe culture and Ojibwe families.

Cecile is Rozin’s cousin. She has a slender body, which she shows off in leotard tops and long, dark hair. She is hardworking and intelligent and is going to school to be a drug counselor. Her family members note with pride that “Cecile is a success” (157). She lives in an apartment above Frank’s bakery, and her home is filled with textbooks and meditation paraphernalia. She has a strong personality, and she is willing to speak plainly about unpleasant topics, particularly those related to the experiences of Ojibwe women. She is quick to judge the men in their family for their lack of responsibility and the way that they leave parenting to the women. She notes the impact of inequality on Ojibwe families and speaks openly about the risks that Indigenous women face as the result of being disempowered both within American society as a whole and in their families. Like her sister Rozin, she is an important aspect of the author’s discussion of Gender and Indigeneity. She embodies both the traditional and the modern in her attunement to issues related to Ojibwe culture and in her success in contemporary American society.