Written In Stone by Rosanne Parry

Written In Stone  is the story of thirteen-year-old Pearl Carver, a member of the Makah tribe. The story begins in 1999 with eighty-nine-year-old Pearl walking to the beach with her great-granddaughter, Ruby to see the whales. The smell of the beach and of the whales bring back memories of the summer when Pearl was thirteen.

The story flashes back to the summer of 1923. Pearl's father is Victor Carver, the best whaler of the Makah Nation. Her father and grandfather were Makah whalers, her "mother was a Tlingit princess from the northern tribes, a weaver of the famous Chilkat blankets." Her grandmother was from the Quinault Nation in the south. Pearl's mother and baby sister died five years ago, in 1918, leaving just Pearl and her father. The war in Europe was over and returning soldiers brought home the deadly influenza. For two days her mother and sister were sick before they finally died. In their village of one hundred, sixty-one graves were dug.

Now Pearl and her village, including her uncle and her grandmother, are anxiously awaiting the return of the whalers who left three days ago. After relieving her cousin Charlie from watching at the look-out, Pearl thinks back to how her people have given up their traditions. On her watch, Pearl spots the returning whalers and runs home to inform the village. But when the whalers arrive, Pearl's father is not among them.

Reeling from this loss, the village is visited two days later by the Indian agent on a "condolence" call. Instead, he dishonours  Pearl's dead father with the frequent use of his name and suggests that Pearl be sent to the Indian school, Chemawa in Oregon since she is now an orphan. 

Because holding a potlatch leads to jail and the confiscating of tribal regalia, Pearl and her family decide to have a secret one. The feast and gift-giving is held in a secret location in a cave,  on Tatoosh Island with only the men in attendance. But Pearl makes a plan to secretly attend. Having witnessed her father burning all of her mother's clothing and belongings, she desperately wants "something of my father's to keep". 

At the feast in their longhouse, Pearl learns what happened on the whale hunt, how they saw an old scarred whale with a fresh wound. Her father was about to drive the harpoon into the whale when Uncle Jeremiah's son, Henry yelled and the whale dove deep. Pearl's father leapt into the water hoping to harpoon the whale but it dove deep taking him with it and overturning their boat. All that surfaced was the harpoon broken into two pieces. On their way home, they encountered a whaling ship that has hunted more than twenty whales. Stunned by this waste, the Makah whalers now know where their whales have gone.

 

When her grandmother realizes that Pearl intends to secretly travel to the potlatch, she offers something better for her: she has Pearl do a naming of family attending the potlatch while Grandma tells her the gifts they will receive.

After the potlatch and the feast, Pearl and her family must now decide how they will survive, without the prospect of whale meat and oil. Pearl considers whether she should live as the white man does or is there perhaps another way? As she struggles to deal with her own inner conflict, a deceitful wildcatter looking for oil and gas but masquerading as an art dealer, shows up. In a race to return home to protect her father's Raven masks, Pearl unexpectedly gets marooned at the Seal Hunter's Beach, where she makes a startling discovery that changes everything.

Discussion

Written In Stone is the heart-stirring fictional story of a young Makah girl who's determined to preserve her way of life and the memory of her culture for herself and her future children during a time of enormous change. In this beautifully written novel, Parry portrays an Indigenous way of life deeply connected to the natural world while greatly at odds with the European culture overtaking them.

The story is set in 1923, in the Makah village of Ozette located on the Pacific Northwest Coast in Washington state.  Pearl has lost her father, the best Makah harpooner, at sea. This means there is no whale meat for her village, no oil to trade and possibly a hungry winter ahead. Faced with an uncertain future, Pearl and her grandparents, and extended family consider their options. One of these options is to sell her father's Raven regalia, which angers and upsets Pearl. Another option, which her family comes to plan out, is to harvest and sell oysters. 

But as Parry shows, Pearl's struggle is not just to find a way to earn money for her family. It is also about saving  herself , preserving her way of life and the culture she belongs to. This sets up a fierce inner conflict within Pearl that she wrestles to resolve.  

After her family makes enough money to support themselves through the winter by selling oysters, they decide to visit the theatre. It is while in the theatre where she notices how they are shunned, that Pearl considers what living like the white man might  cost her. "I could do it if I wanted to. I could put on a white woman's clothes and high voice and little steps. But then I would never be able to sing or dance in my own language, never be able to bring a visitor or a token from home to the boardinghouse in town."

When Pearl struggles to teach herself how to weave she comes to realize that she may be losing all that is dear to her and that those who follow her may having nothing of their culture to learn and instead become part of the white man's world. "What if I couldn't remember my father's dances either? What if I could only see how beautiful they were and how easy he'd make it look to dance like Raven? What if my sons received the masks and never learned to dance?

I thought of the footprints of my descendants on the beach. Would those feet ever dance, or would they trudge after me to factories and lumber camps and cities far from home?"   The mention of footprints on the beach is foreshadowing the novel's framing story which is set years later in 1999 when Pearl is on the beach with her granddaughter Ruby.

Pearl already knows every song and dance of her tribe, every birth and marriage in the family and could recite all of her grandmother's stories. However, when she is stranded on the Seal Hunter's Beach she discovers a hidden carvings of Chitwin the bear and of a whale in the sea above two whaling boats facing a human face with closed eyes and open mouth. Pearl wonders why she has never known about these carvings and what they might mean. "Every other carving my family made - totem, mask, canoe - was a public work mean to proclaim the strength and prosperity of our name. Why would this stone carving be kept a secret from all but passing birds? Then she realizes that the whale hunt is made real by the teller, the whale hunter who tells what happened on the hunt. Pearl's father was that teller. She decides that now she will be the teller of the Makah stories.  The decision to become the storyteller offers her a resolution to her internal conflict, and leads her to immediately begin writing down what she has seen and all she knows about her tribe's stories.

Experiencing once more the beauty of her own culture and traditions reinforces what Pearl felt earlier about living as the white man does. "I imagined that life. Me, alone in the city, working as a washerwoman or living in one of those orphanages where they taught you to be a white person. How to stand and dress and pray, until the bread-loaf brown faded from my skin and the words of my childhood were erased like chalk marks. What a grub they would make of me, a pale, blind weevil that thinks of filling its belly and nothing more. I raised a fist against that path. Something worse than the Pitch Woman would be waiting for me at the end of that road." She now knows she doesn't need to go down this path. There is another - that of being the teller of her people's traditions, stories and families.

Pearl's story is one of courage, determination and integrity. She and the other Indigenous peoples of the Pacific coast struggle with deep distrust of the white man and outsiders whom they view as dishonoring the land. This is shown in the story of the whale hunt that her Uncle Jeremiah tells. He explains that they saw "...a battleship making war on the whales. The cannon held a harpoon. Dead whales were pumped full of air, chained up, and dragged along behind, only to be eaten away by sharks. Twenty whales were pouring out their blood, and still they steamed after more. The waste. The dishonor. We wanted to curse their white greed, but these sailors had faces like ours. They flew the red sun of Japan. Hours later, we passed more battleship whalers, one from America, one from Russia. We saw more dead whales in one day than this village has seen in three generations."  

This distrust is also portrayed by the events surrounding the visit by an "art dealer" seeking carved Totem poles and masks. When Arthur Glen shows up at the post office in Kalaloch looking to travel to Ozette, Pearl believes that he is after her father's Raven masks. However, with the help of Henry, Pearl learns that Glen is actually a wildcatter, looking for oil and gas resources under the pretext of being an art dealer and a photographer. Pearl knows well what will happen to them if Glen's discoveries are made known, because she knows the treaties they have signed are worthless when there is something the white man wants. "My friend Anita from Nitinat had cousins in Montana. They used to live in the Black Hills, but gold miners came and now they live in a rail-yard shack in Helena with strangers all around them and no clean water or view of the mountains. The schoolmaster called it assimilation. He called it admirable. I knew piracy when I saw it."

It is Susi who tells Pearl that despite what they have discovered about Mr. Glen, they cannot act with dishonor but instead should use her words to tell the truth - about the "art dealer". Her stories help save her culture. In the end, Pearl lives long enough to see the whale hunt resume and her own granddaughter learn the traditional weaving lost so long ago with the death of her own mother.

Rosanne Parry includes a map of the story's setting as well as an extensive Author's Note that covers many different topics mentioned in the novel including the potlatch, petroglyphs, Makah and Quinault rituals and stories and much more. There is a list of resources as well as a Glossary of the Quinault words used in the story. Parry spent some of her first years as a teacher on the Quinault Reservation in Washington state. She writes, "The resumption of whaling was a key inspiration for this story, and I am grateful to the Makah Nation for having kept their whaling history alive for all the generations it took  for the whales to recover from near extinction by industrial whaling."

Written In Stone is a captivating story that offers readers a strong female Indigenous main character and plenty of themes to explore including the intergenerational relationships within Indigenous culture, the exploitation of the Indigenous people of North American, racism, Pacific Coast Indigenous tribes and culture and its preservation and the relationship of man to the natural world. This well-written short novel will appeal especially to readers in Grades 6 to 8. Yet another thought-provoking novel by author Rosanne Parry.

Book Details:

Written In Stone by Rosanne Parry
New York: Yearling    2013
196 pp.

The Fire Horse Girl by Kay Honeyman

Chan Jan Wai lost his wife when she gave birth to their only surviving child, a daughter named Jade Moon. Jade Moon was born during the Year of the Fire Horse - a bad omen for her family. Girls born during such a year were said to be dangerous, bringing tragedy to their families and Jade did just that, for her mother died giving birth to her.

Now seventeen years old, Jade lives with her father and grandfather and their servant, Nushi,  in the small village of Jinjiu on their family's ancestral lands. Because she was born in the year of the Fire Horse Jade has been told that she is cursed, that she brings bad luck to everyone she meets by her strong will. As a result, she has a reputation for being wild and headstrong. She cannot be what others want her to be - quiet, soft spoken and agreeable. Instead, she is outspoken and challenging. Jade finds her life in China like a prison with no future and a fiery reputation that she seems to live up to. Jade's father had intended to marry off Jade but no one will marry a Fire Horse girl.

Jade's future is about to change though, when a stranger, Sterling Promise, arrives in Jinjiu, claiming to be the adopted son of her father's brother, Chan Jan Keung - an uncle she did not know. Sterling has come to convince Jade's father to travel with him to America to start a business. When Jade learns of Sterling's plans to travel to America, she is resentful because she knows she will never be allowed such an opportunity.  Jade dreams of a life bigger than that found in her village. She believes that living in America would present her with the chance to finally be who she truly is without the judgement of others.

At first Chan Jan Wai is reluctant to accompany Sterling, but he changes his mind and also announces that Jade will travel with them to America. They travel to Hong Kong to board a ship that will take them to America. But first they meet Master Yue, for whom Sterling worked when he was younger. This is when Jade learns about Sterling's past and begins to distrust his motives for traveling to America.

When Jade, her father and Sterling board the steamer to take them to America, Jade is sent to bunk with Mrs. Ying and several other women passengers. Mrs. Ying tells Jade about America and how the Chinese are poorly treated there and how Americans do not want the Chinese in their country. She also warns Jade to learn what plans her Father has for her as most Chinese women who travel to America are either married off or forced into prostitution.

Jade learns from Sterling Promise that she must study and learn her "story" in order to get into America. After the 1906 fire in San Francisco, the list of American citizens was lost. The list needed to be remade so when the Chinese were asked if they were born in America, they all answered yes, meaning even those not born in America became American citizens since there was no way to disprove their claims. When they were asked if they had children, the Chinese increased the number of children they had in their families saying that some sons were born in America but sent back to China. These sons became known as "paper sons" because the American Chinese sell their identities to those back in China trying to come to America. They do not exist except on paper. This is how Jade's uncle was able to go to America for Mr. Yue.

Jade also discovers that her father plans to marry her off to Sterling Promise. When the three reach America, they are sent to Angel Island, an immigration station to process immigrants from Asia. Jade is separated from her father and Sterling and eventually interviewed. When Jade and her father are refused entry, but Sterling is allowed to do so, Jade uncovers the terrible truth about what the two men had planned for her.

Jade's father had no intention of staying in America and deliberately thwarted their entry by giving incorrect information to immigration officers. The plan was to have Jade marry Sterling Promise in America and return to China with her father. She was brought to America to ensure that this would happen - that Sterling would keep his promise and that Jade would actually marry him. To get her back to China, the father would have suggested they return for a visit and then Jade would not have been allowed to return to America. She would have provided a son so that the Chan family line could continue. However since Jade and her father must now return to China, things must change. Jade's father tells Sterling Promise that he expects him to return to China in a year to marry Jade.

When Sterling and Jade discuss their future, Jade tells Sterling that she only wishes to be allowed into America. She refuses his offer of marriage and furious that he has abandoned her and her father, devises a brilliant plan to escape from Angel Island. Stealing Sterling's immigration papers and disguising herself as a young man, Jade makes it to San Francisco only to be caught up in a war between two tongs (criminal organizations) who are fighting for control of Chinatown. She is taken in by the leader of one of the tongs, Mr. Hon and is trained to be a fighter. Hon runs many gambling houses but is looking to expand his business into prostitution. As tensions escalate, Jade must use all of  her characteristic wit and fiery determination as a Fire Horse to save herself, a friend and possibly many others too.

Discussion

The Fire Horse is a wonderful novel about a young woman's struggle to find her identity, to accept who she is and to have others accept her as well. This struggle is set against the backdrop of China and America in the early 20th century. China is a place where tradition and family duty still take precedence in contrast to America where new ways quickly replace tradition. In China, Jade cannot be true to herself, and she hopes that in America it will be different. However, once in America, circumstances quickly force Jade to outwardly change who she is in order to survive while staying true to her Fire Horse qualities. This is the reverse of what her existence in China was;outwardly she was Jade Moon but inside she had to pretend to be someone else. This double identity is reflected in the cover of the novel which gives readers hint of what is to happen in the novel.

Woven into all of this is the background historical setting of life in Chinatown in San Francisco in 1923. The Chinese immigrants have not integrated into American society but have their own area of the city and it is rife with gambling and the trafficking of women for prostitution. Making this setting more believable is the inclusion of the character Miss Donaldson, who is a stand in for the real life Miss Donaldina Cameron, an activist who helped trafficked Asian women. 

Born in New Zealand, Miss Cameron was a devout Presbyterian who ran the Occidental Mission Home in San Francisco, providing a safe place for Chinese women who were trafficked and abused. She had a reputation for being very kind and courageous, often breaking into brothels to rescue young women.

The author accurately portrays how difficult it was for Chinese immigrants to come to America during this time. As a result of deeply rooted racial prejudice, they were not welcome in the country and it took weeks, even years to be processed at Angel Island, often leading them to commit suicide. They were grilled over the most minute details, in contrast to white European immigrants who were processed on the other side of the continent, at Ellis Island, in a matter of hours.

Honeyman does an excellent job of developing her characters. Jade Moon is a terrific protagonist, strong, full of life, and fiery. She grows throughout the novel, coming to believe in herself, recognizing and accepting her weaknesses and her strengths. Sterling Promise helps Jade in her journey, while also developing himself. He comes to see Jade's temperament not as a curse, but as a gift that has helped him learn about himself.

With its upbeat conclusion and unusual subject, The Fire Horse Girl is an intriguing, well written novel that will appeal to many historical fiction fans.

Book Details:
The Fire Horse Girl by Kay Honeyman
Arthur A. Levine Books: An imprint of Scholastic Books    2013
321 pp.