The book highlights problems that indigenous individuals face due to the settlers' invasion of

their land. It talks about culture, family and the strength of love and bond that tied Frenchie and
the family together. The group had found Frenchie almost dying due to starvation and cold, they
helped him and he continued his journey with the family as they went up north, learning more
about his culture and how individuals in the indigenous community were treated as inferiors and
discriminated against. My initial thoughts about the novel were that the novel talks about all the
brutality experienced by indigenous people and how their strength gave them the ability to
continue their journey up north while encountering various obstacles, such as recruiters, cold,
starvation etc and fighting such obstacles with the goal in mind to reach north. It's a book about
a dystopian future where satellite schools are set up based on the residential school system of
the past, where the settlers are going after indigenous communities to capture them. I can relate
this book to the Dandi March (Salt March) that was led to break the salt and started the civil
disobedience movement in India. Just like the journey portrayed in the marrow thieves where
the group was moving north and while moving north was getting the opportunity to learn a lot
about indigenous sufferings, culture and their people. During the salt march, many people came
to Mahatma Gandhi to learn about the various movements to attain freedom and how the British
had oppressed the Indians and how they could play their part in helping the country attain
freedom, some people even joined along the way to burn seawater and violate the salt tax law.
The book is a window for me till now but I got the opportunity to understand different
perspectives about indigenous culture and various other issues that surround them and affect
them. Having not experienced such problems like starvation, having to leave family members,
being taken away and trapped in residential schools etc, I can’t really relate to the story with
personal experiences. But something I can relate with is the bond that Miig and the group share.
I can relate to it with the bond that my family and I share by always trusting each other and
sharing stories about various experiences & different topics. We all sit down on the dinner table
interacting with each other, kind of like how Miiig and the family would sit down in front of the fire
and share their coming to stories before they found the group. Me and my family even get to talk
about various things including my parent’s childhood and their stories. One of the major themes
I see developing is hope, motivation and the bond that ties the family together. Miig had a quote
where he said “I think it's more like you do what you need to in order to keep yourself intact. It’s
about motivation” (pg 54). All the things that a person does is because they are motivated to
achieve something and the entire family was motivated to attain freedom that's why they were
moving north. One of the symbols that stood out to me in the book was that Frenchie had
encountered a moose while he was out hunting, “Imagine being here through all- the wars, the
sickness, the earthquakes, the schools- only to come to this?” (pg49). Frenchie decided to
spare the moose and not kill it as the moose resonated with him. He had empathy for the moose
as it was a symbol for all the suffering that indigenous communities had to go through
throughout the years without any change taking place.Moose symbolized his people who were
courageous & battled through all the problems they faced. There had to be change that took
place after so much suffering but we still see the same discriminatory behavior and institutions
based on the residential schools that were present before. My group partner Paul pointed out
how in the Soviet Union during the time his dad/grandfather were growing up there, the
communist society didn’t allow people to practice religion openly or even at all. Just like how the
settlers took so much from the indigenous community, preventing them from practicing and
even engaging in their culture. But both Paul’s ancestors and indigenous people found a way to
practice their religion and culture as that meant a lot to them and gave them a lot of hope &
pleasure. Culture is a necessary means of livelihood for indigenous communities. The purpose
of the book is to educate the society about indigenous issues. We as the settler community
have used & lived on indigenous land for a long time and used their land for economic benefit
and various other commercial purposes. Cherie Dimaline wants to not only raise awareness for
various indigenous issues but also wants these issues to result in change in how indigenous
people are treated to this day. She doesn't want history to repeat itself and actually wants
change to how we treat not only indigenous communities but also various other minorities. The
author was influenced by multiple atrocities & social issues that affect multiple indigenous
communities, these include rape, child abuse, starvation, poverty and multiple other issues. She
wanted to show how these problems like how Wab was affected by intergenerational trauma
and rape that lead to traumatic experiences but could also lead to suicide amongst the various
female population of the indigenous community due to suffering under such levels of harsh
circumstances. The atmosphere of the book shows how the world has been ravaged by various
environmental issues such as global warming, climate change. Due to such extremities, people
have stopped having the ability to dream except the indigenous society. There was a theory that
indigenous people had dreams woven into their webs of bone marrow, for the settlers dreams
were means of livelihood and when they lost the ability to dream large sections of people went
into depression and started satellite school where they extracted bone marrow from indigenous
people in order for them to be able to dream again. For a certain point of time, settlers actually
wanted to humble themselves by attending indigenous rituals. Bone marrow is an essential part
of the human body that helps make essential cells and without it a person would die. The ability
to not dream also resulted in large numbers of people quitting their jobs as they lost their
necessary means of livelihood. The second part of the book shows that indigenous people
started to suffer in a more brutal way, for example: Riri’s death, Minerva’s kidnapping, Wab’s
trauma etc. A major event the book talks about is rising sea levels that led to climate change,
earthquakes, destruction of pipelines, forests etc. The dystopian future is a consequence of
such climate change. This is also largely because of the way the settlers exploited indigenous
land for resources and their benefit . I would still say the book is a window for me, as I have not
been through that kind of sadness and trauma. The family & culture aspect of the book is a
mirror for me, as I can relate to those kinds of ceremonies such as smudging as I have
practiced similar traditions like aarti and prayer that recited the guru granth sahib. Getting the
opportunity to celebrate festivals with my family and learning more about my culture is
something that makes me feel closer to home. Ella had spoken about a point that I found was
very interesting, she talked about how indigenous women lost their status rights if they married
a man who did not have the indigenous status, their children too will lose this status. Whereas if
an indigenous man married a woman who did not have the indigenous status, not only got to
keep his rights to his status but even got to pass it on to the children and wives. This goes to
show how gender discrimination was also one of the problems that affected the community. It
was a paternal society with their fundamental rights being violated and taken away from them
continuously. Now that the book has come to an end, I would argue that the dark parts of the
book were still a window for me but the parts of the book that expressed togetherness, life,
culture & happiness were mirrors for me. The traumatic parts of the book made me feel
empathetic to the indigenous people who suffered such depths of oppression, it made me
understand & become aware of such wrong doings that have occurred on the land that I live on
& realize its importance and acknowledgement. The book had talked about how indigenous
people were severely dehumanized, even though this was not particularly pointed out. But it
showed how indigenous people were used as machines and robots that were born on earth to
fulfill the demands of the settlers. Their identity & culture was forcefully taken from them so that
settlers did not have to remain distraught. Such practices resulted in some portions of the
indigenous society forgetting their true self and becoming snitches in order to stay safe and
have that sense of security, a lot of them sided with the settlers so that they could stop running
& hiding. These people forgot what power they represented and were so scared of death that
they never wanted to be anywhere near it. After the dreams had been extracted the indigenous
peoples life was summarized in a tube that had a specific number, race & gender on it. That's
how the settlers deprived the indigenous of possible human qualities and various other factors
that gave them a unique identity. Even when Minerva was being kidnapped the recruiters kept
telling her that she was destined for this & that she was born to fulfill the demands of the
settlers. This showed that the settlers treated indigenous people like machines, making the
indigenous people do work for them due to fear and then kill them, with characterization that
was nothing more than that of a serial number. “Minerva hummed and drummed out an old song
on her flannel thighs throughout it all. But when the wires were fastened to her own neural
connectors, and the probes reached into her heartbeat and instinct, that's when she opened her
mouth. That's when she called on her blood memory, her teachings, her ancestors. That's when
she brought the whole thing down” pg 172 (Miracle of Minerva). After Minerva was kidnapped
and taken to the schools by the recruiters, she was placed in a seat where the recruiters would
get her bone marrow and extract her dreams. She had behaved very oddly throughout the
journey singing and reciting old indigenous tales and remembering her culture.Minerva had
been collecting dreams as whenever she dreamed she dreamed in her language, she had
collected dreams like beads for this moment, she called on her ancestors & teachings and
eventually burned the entire school down, singing throughout it all. This was her plan all along to
use her “old timey” nature to bring down and defeat the settlers. This shows the power of
indigenous culture, language & tradition. Her language that she had was a very scarce resource
as the language never progressed due to the large number of indigenous deaths. She sacrificed
herself and defeated the settlers by using the one resource that the schools stood for, which
was dreams. Minerva was always underestimated as someone who is useless, slowing the
group down, acting out multiple times but in the end she was the person who was the most
knowledgeable and powerful in the entire group. For me this was one of the most exciting parts
of the book, it helped show that no weapon is more powerful than culture and that the main
reason the settlers weren’t able to handle all the environmental problems was because they
lacked culture that united them together. All of her ancestors helped her in defeating “the
marrow thieves”. The book shows how even during the lowest times, your culture is something
that you keep close to your heart and can help you defeat all the complications in life. The
culture is like medicine. “They stopped dreaming. And a man without dreams is just a meaty
machine with a broken gauge” Miig had decided to tell Riri the story of why they were on the run
as she had overheard some bits of Wab’s coming to story and started asking questions. Miig
talked about how settlers had lost dreams due to environmental degradation. He said that
dreams are something that is required in someone’s life to live. Since the settlers started losing
their dreams, they went into a state of depression. Since the book highlights the importance of
dreams that led the settlers to take part in such extreme cruelty behavior, it was an essential
part of life and without it people were hopeless and life had no meaning.

If I had to describe the book in one sentence I would say the book is about:

● A dystopian future that highlighted real-world problems that indigenous people

encountered & how a bond that tied the indigenous together to their roots, land & their
culture gave them hope for a utopian future.