The Game of Silence by Louise Erdrich

Author:Louise Erdrich
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins

THE BLACK GOWN

After they had dried off, arranged their hair, and said good-bye to their friend, Omakayas and Angeline walked through the town of LaPointe to the black gown’s praying house. The Catholic black gown, Father Baraga, insisted that the Catholic Indians decorate the inside of their praying house with flowers and cloth. The girls wanted to peek inside, for they’d heard it was a pretty sight. Standing on her tiptoes, her hands cupped to the glass of the window, Omakayas peered into the quiet room. There were ribbons draping the walls, it was true. Big fancy arrangements of ribbons and flowers decked the table in front of the praying house. On the wall, the two sticks of wood, nailed together, that Angeline called a cross were surrounded with glittering balls of some substance that Omakayas had never seen before. She tried to get a better look, strained forward, stood taller. Suddenly, as though lifted by a wind, she was hoisted into the air by a pair of strong hands!

It was Father Baraga himself, lifting her closer.

“Peendigen!” He invited. He spoke the language of the Anishinabeg and although the words stuck in his mouth as though he carried a pebble under his tongue, Angeline and Omakayas understood most of what he said. He wanted them to enter this beautiful praying house and listen to his God, or Manidoo.

“Meegwech, meegwech,” they said, thanking him as they backed away. They didn’t really want to go inside. Father Baraga’s face was grim even when he smiled, and he was something of an awesome and forbidding sight. In that black robe, for which he was known, he stalked the streets of LaPointe looking for people to join in his praying house, and he ranged far and wide visiting Anishinabeg in their camps. Father Baraga made Omakayas uncomfortable, and she was glad that her family clung to their own ways. Although they were not interested in his white God, however, Deydey respected the hardy priest. He liked that the priest had troubled to learn their language and could speak so well with them.

“Aneendi g’deydey?” Father Baraga asked the girls. He wanted to know where their father was. He spoke to them for a while. The girls easily understood that Father Baraga wanted Mikwam to come visit the church and see the special decorations. They told the priest that their father was hunting, and that when he returned they would give him the message. Then they both felt a huge well of laughter bubbling up inside. There was no reason for the laughter, but it almost overtook them. Before they embarrassed themselves, they said good-bye and ran swiftly off.

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