Erdrich’s Representation of Ojibwe Ontologies in English

this is the first paper i wrote in the 2nd semester of my 2nd year of college for a class about the works of the author Louise Erdrich with prof Pence

    Louise Erdrich begins her book The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse with an epigraph that quotes Nanapush. The quote reads: “In saying the word ninadinamaganidok, or my relatives, we speak of everything that has existed in time, the known and the unknown, the unseen, the obvious, all that lived before or is living now in the worlds above and below.” Erdrich prefaces her book with this quote about language as a way to introduce her readers to a problem that she contends with in her writing. Erdrich’s literature challenges her to communicate Ojibwe ontology through the use of the English language. In her books The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse and Love Medicine, Erdrich contends with the English language and its Anglo-American ontologies by writing inanimate objects and natural phenomena as equal in power, autonomy, and spirituality to the novels’ human characters.

    When we say in English ‘my relatives,’ we typically imagine or refer to the dictionary definition of the word. We speak of and consider “a person connected by blood or marriage.” Yet when ‘ninadinamaganidok,’ the Ojibwe translation of ‘my relatives,’ is spoken, there are different connotations invoked. The English language generally attempts to make things objects or objective. The English language is one of capture, its attempts to make the material counterparts of words subject to the speaker or writer. The Ojibwe language, inversely, is a code of action and interaction. Ojibwe ontology is embedded in its language, but it is also this language that is the creator of this ontology in which thingness is spiritual and alive.

    In the first chapter of Love Medicine Erdrich crafts a scene in which Albertine lies in the grass and stares at the stars as she grieves the death of her aunt June. Albertine thinks that “everything seemed to be one piece… As if the sky were a pattern of nerves and our thoughts and memories traveled across it. As if the sky were one gigantic memory” (LM, 37). Erdrich, here, introduces the notion that space has the capacity to possess its own spiritual, emotional, and potentially even embodied memory. Erdrich’s description of the sky as a ‘pattern of nerves’ suggests a sensitivity and responsiveness that the English language regularly reserves for what the language ontologically conceives of as a living being. By likening the sky to a biological structure, Erdrich anthropomorphizes the sky. This literary device is used to shape the English language to align with Ojibwe ontologies, where natural phenomena is perceived as possessive of spirit and consciousness.

    The Collins dictionary defines the English word ‘sky’ as “the space around the earth which you can see when you stand outside and look upward.” This definition points to the English language’s formation of a cultural ontology in which the individual human is centered. This is an ontology where the human body, or, potentially even more so, the human mind, is omnipotent. The English sky’s existence is contingent upon humanity’s epistemological gaze upon it. Erdrich’s definition of the sky as a space in which ‘thoughts and memories traveled,’ a cosmic materiality that is history and memory itself, inverts the notion that the sky is defined by its engagement with humanity. These anthropomorphic descriptions attribute cognitive functions to nature’s fundamental structure. Erdrich’s representation of the sky as a repository of collective memory aligns with Ojibwe ontologies of natural phenomena not as passive objects but active participants in the world.

    Erdrich continues the establishment of Ojibwe ontology with the English language in a chapter of The Last Report titled ‘The Sacrament.’ This chapter finds a hopeless Father Damien/Agnes after concluding an affair with Father Gregory. Damien goes to say goodbye to Nanapush, and intends to commit suicide following this farewell, she instead finds help from Nanapush. Nanapush brings Damien into a sweat lodge; he explains to Damien that “this is our church,” and performs an Ojibwe healing ceremony to ground and bring peace to Damien and himself (TLR, 214). As Nanapush begins to pray, Damien considers that “according to Church doctrine, it was wrong for a priest to undertake God’s worship in so alien a place. Was it more wrong, yet, to feel suddenly at peace? It wasn’t as though she made a choice to do it - Agnes simply found herself comforted… After returning from despair, Father Damien loved not only the people but also the very thingness of the world… Thus was her salvation composed of the very great and very small…The bread of life. The gold orange of washed carrots and the taste of salt.” (TLR, 215-216). Damien/Agnes is transformed not by will or logic, but by the feeling of complete coexistence with her natural-material surroundings. 

    Erdrich’s phrasing of ‘it wasn’t as though she made a choice… [she] simply found herself comforted’ alludes to and represents the expressive and transformative powers of nature. In Love Medicine, we meet Moses Pillager who does not “exist from the inside out but from the outside in” (LM, 83). Later on we encounter Lulu, who “was in love with the whole world and all that lived in its rainy arms. Sometimes I’d look out on my yard and the green leaves would be glowing. I’d see the oil slick on the wing of a grackle, I’d hear the wind rushing, rolling, like the far-off sound of waterfalls. Then I’d open my mouth wide, my ears wide, my heart, and I’d let everything inside” (LM, 276). Erdrich’s word choices give pieces of the material world autonomy. Materiality has motion with intentionality and it has an impact on humanity. Here, Erdrich’s English words convey the Ojibwe ontological notion of the natural that shapes and makes a decision to enter the human, as well as challenges the anthropocentric ontology of the English language.

    Additionally, in The Last Report’s chapter ‘The Sacrament,’ Erdrich makes an authorial decision to represent the earthly materials that are a means to salvation through a spiritual ontology that differs from the Catholic doctrine that the chapter’s title refers to. Damien/Agnes’s salvation comes from the loving understanding of the ‘thingness’ of bread, salt, and carrots. Ojibwe language and ontology recognizes that materiality is synonymous with spirituality, that thingness is “composed of the very great and very small” (TLR, 215). In the sweat lodge Damien/Agnes submits herself to and allows her identity to become equal with the minutiae of the material world. This particular engagement with her surroundings refreshes her memory; she thinks of a woman who, in Agnes’ childhood, would give Agnes bread and carrots when she was hungry. This act of eating, especially the act of eating bread, nearly resembles the Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion. However, this catholic sacrament understands bread and wine as metaphor for the body and blood of Christ. Agnes/Damien’s sacrament contains no metaphor. Agnes is saved by what the material world has decided to give her. Additionally, Agnes’ sacrament exemplifies the Ojibwe ontological conception of interconnectivity. The bread and carrots’ materiality is still able to bring Agnes salvation despite her experience in the sweat lodge’s different temporal location from that of the food. Erdrich’s use of the English language to describe a materiality that maintains its spiritual functions throughout temporal history illustrates the resilience and adaptability of Ojibwe ontology, spirituality, and life in the face of colonialism.

    Erdrich’s exploration of language and ontology in The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse and Love Medicine illuminates the complexities of cultural identity and resistance. Through her nuanced use of English, Erdrich challenges dominant narratives and affirms the vitality of Indigenous knowledge systems. By depicting the natural world as alive with spirit and significance, she invites readers to reconsider their relationship to the land and its inhabitants. In doing so, Erdrich not only honors Ojibwe traditions but also inspires a deeper appreciation for the interconnectedness of all life forms and the enduring power of storytelling to bridge cultural divides.