Distinguished American author James Welch spent his life weaving stories, and through his study of poetry, he was encouraged to find his roots in his work, to “write about home”. For Welch, who had spent his formative years on his parents’ respective reservations of the Gros Ventre and the Blackfeet, his home was in the rich traditions and religions of his people. Usually a contemporary fiction writer or poet, his third novel, Fools Crow, was Welch’s way of passing down the history of this critical time for the Blackfeet in the lead-up to the Marias Massacre, creating his own folklore as a vessel. Fools Crow and the rest of his bibliography would earn Welch the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas before his passing in 2003 in his ancestral land and home in Montana.
Two Pikuni (Blackfeet) youth set out across the Montana Territory with a horse-stealing party to prove their might against the enemy Crow, where one fateful misstep propels them towards different destinies. Fast Horse, haunted by his failed mission, abandons his band to join a rogue group of Pikuni who are wanted for the murder of a white man. While White Man’s Dog, who grew up in the shadow of his friend, takes down a Crow chief in a bold move of revenge, earning his new name- Fools Crow. Now, a respected hunter, medicine man, and husband, Fools Crow sees firsthand the pressure and bloodshed of colonization nipping at his tribe’s heels. And the tribal leaders who cannot choose whether to fight a losing war or to trust the Napikwans’ promise of peace at the expense of their culture.
“We will go on, he thought; as long as Mother Earth smiles on her children, we will continue to be a people. We will live and die and live on. It is the Pikuni Way.”
– James Welch
Fools Crow is a beautiful and haunting look into the daily lives of the late 1880s Western Indian, and what brought them to being given a false choice of assimilation into the white man’s world or war, either choice meaning certain death to their culture and their people. Mature-level readers will be deeply moved by this tale of humanity’s persistence in the face of destruction and hardship. Welch writes with compassion and understanding, but not a sanitized lens. His Pikuni are not always upright moral people; they are fallible and will make ugly decisions on the way. But he argues that they are no less deserving of recognition of their personhood and their way of life than any other. Weaving in the real figures of Mountain Chief, Owl Child, Joe Kipp, and more, Fools Crow, while a fictional account, is steeped in history, culture, and language. To aid your group’s discussion, I have compiled two helpful guides: Characters and Glossary and Discussion Questions.
Many of the stories and legends found in Fools Crow were passed down to Welch through his great-grandmother, Red Paint Woman. As a member of Heavy Runner’s band, she survived the Marias Massacre and passed her stories down through the generations. Storytelling is a foundation of many cultures, and the Blackfeet are no exception. Despite the federal dispossession of their lands, the murder of their people, and the U.S. Indian Boarding Schools, the perseverance of the Blackfeet lives on in their descendants today. Despite it all, their culture survived. A great example of the continued tradition of Blackfeet storytellers is author Stephan Graham Jones, whose recent novel The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, runs parallel to the real historical events found in Fools Crow, and broadens the legend for a modern audience.
If you’re interested in requesting Fools Crow for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 10 copies (A librarian must request items)
Welch, James. Fools Crow. Penguin Books. (1986)
