The Struggle In James Welch's Fools Crow

In the late 19th century of the United States, there was a push from western culture for the American agenda, which was to indoctrinate the Native Americans through any means necessary, to achieve their Manifest Destiny. This means that the Native Americans faced tragedies beyond imagination: massacre, disease, and assimilation. However, as described in James Welch’ historical fiction novel “Fools Crow”, Native Americans fought for their survival and cultural continuance despite the ultimate destruction. In the book “Fools Crow” the main character and narrator of the story is a young, Pikuni man by the name of Fools Crow and towards the end of the novel Fools Crow goes on a journey to meet a woman named Feather Woman who possesses this strange yellow skin. What made this yellow skin strange was as Fools Crow stared into it, the yellow skin’s designs began to show him visions of his people, “Gradually he began to see the features of the design, and it was the Pikuni country with its creeks and rivers and small mountain ranges,” (Welch, 358). These visions later turn out to be

At the end of the novel, a Thunder Moon ceremony was performed which Fools Crow and the other survivors participated in. At this ceremony Fools Crow comes to realize that not all was lost and that they were still alive, “For even though he was, like Feather Woman, burdened with the knowledge of his people, their lives, and the lives of their children, he knew they would survive, for they were the chosen ones,” (Welch. 392). Then, Welch goes on to describe the return of the blackhorns, how everything was back to how it all should be, “The blackhorns had returned, and, all around, it was as it should be,” (Welch, 393). Just as he used Fools Crow’s vision to foreshadow devastation and destruction for his people, Welch used the return of the blackhorns to foreshadow a future life of hope and