In the novel “Fools Crow,” James Welch, the author, expounded on the connections between animals and the Pikunis, a tribe of the Blackfoot people. Likewise, in the novel “Things Fall Apart,” Chinua Achebe, the author, dived into the ibos lives expounding on their connection with their chi which either causes them good or bad fortune. The Pikunis considered the animals as their helpers and believed in partnering up with the animals (one animal per a Pikuni) to garner up their powers and yield to their calling of help in time of these animals’ needs. The Pikunis believed the animals to be their “Animal helpers” since, they had helped this indigenous group of people during wars and crisis by equipping the Pikunis with their powers. Although not as much as in “Fools Crow,” both authors, through the use of magic realism, showed the relationship between White Man’s Dog, the protagonist who was later known as Fools Crow, and his animal helper, the wolverine, and the relationship between Okonkwo and his chi and the benefits of these relationships.
Fools
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Seeing as how Skunk Bear had told Fools Crow that “I help you because twice you have rescued me from the Napikwan’s steel jaws” (Welch 120). Not only did Skunk Bear endow Fools Crow with his animal power by giving him “the white stone and the song” (Welch 127), he also cleansed him of his lust for his father’s third wife, “Kills-close-to-the-lake. Furthermore, through the marsh of the mundane and the spiritual realm, the importance of these human-animal connections was emphasized. In addition, it shows the significance of the powers acquired by the human leg of this relationship. Although, in “Things Fall Apart,” it is not an animal-human relationship, Okonkwo’s achievements were due to his chi: “That was not luck. At the most one could say that his chi or personal god was good (Achebe