































Exploring Religious Animal Symbolism in 
Louise Erdrich’s The Plague of Doves

Katelyn Mathew

• •  • •

Multispecies Encounters

 In her 2009 novel The Plague of 
Doves, Louise Erdrich weaves 

a complex story that demonstrates the 
attempted erasure of Native American 
culture and religion through contrasting 
religious animal motifs. Serpents, doves, 
and lambs have inherent associations 
with biblical and some indigenous reli-
gions that, together, build a conflict that 
is reflected by the tension between the 
occupants of the reservation and by the 
white characters. For example, the Bibli-
cal interpretation of serpents is that they 
are evil spirited and essentially the em-
bodiment of Satan; however, some reli-
gions view serpents as creatures that cast 
out demons. These contrasting beliefs, 
along with other examples in the novel, 
create the religious and spiritual conflict 
that occurs in the novel as the Native 
Americans are bombarded with Cathol-

icism and other pressures to abandon 
their culture. Associating or assigning 
these animals with religious symbolism 
to different characters, both white and 
indigenous, Erdrich enriches the con-
versation surrounding the conversion of 
Native Americans to Catholicism and the 
separation of indigenous peoples with 
their families and culture by exposing 
the entitlement and power imbalances 
present between Native Americans and 
Westerners. 

©2024  Mathew. The Digital Literature Review, 11, 42-57. doi: 
10.33043/a79zb3z77. Shared with CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Liscense.



43

 Religion, especially as it pertains to Catholic conversation and 
influence on Native Americans, is a hallmark of many of Louise 

Erdrich’s works, including Tracks (1988) and The Last Report on the Mir-
acles at Little No Horse (2001). In her 2009 novel The Plague of Doves, 
Erdrich utilizes contrasting religious animal motifs to add to her critical 
commentary on religion in relation to the conversion of Native American 
tribes to Catholicism and other Western practices. These motifs build upon 
religious symbolism to create and demonstrate the colonizer entitlement 
and power imbalances present between Native Americans and Westerners.  
 The Plague of Doves is a 2009 novel set in North Dakota in the fic-
tional town of Pluto, which neighbors an Ojibwe reservation. Throughout 
the novel, white characters and Ojibwe characters collide and interact, in-
tertwining family trees and tragic events from the past, such as the murder 
of an entire white family excluding their baby daughter which led to the 
hanging of three innocent men belonging to the Ojibwe tribe. The novel 
is separated into chapters that are narrated by a range of characters from 
Pluto.  
 In each chapter, religion comes into play in some way. In Evali-
na’s first chapter, which is the first chapter of the entire novel, we see 
Mooshum, her grandfather, interact with Father Cassidy. Along with his 
brother Shamengwa, Mooshum taunts and mocks the priest, who visits 
often to encourage their family to attend weekly mass. During one of Fa-
ther Cassidy’s visits where he suggests it is time they return to the church 
to confess as it has been an extended period of time and they have sure-
ly sinned since their last confession, Shamengwa claims that he has not 
sinned. Mooshum agrees and says, “I, too, completely pure,” while his 
chin “trembled,” as if he were holding back laughter (Erdrich 24). 
 In Evalina’s first chapter, we see her struggling with her sexuality 
as she develops a crush on one of the nuns that teaches in her Catholic 
school. Catholic schools, or mission schools, were a common way to con-
vert the Native Americans to Catholicism. In “Native Americans on the 
Path to the Catholic Church: Cultural Criss and Missionary Adaptation,”

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44

Ross Enoch discusses how mission schools were essential to the conver-
sion of Native Americans to Catholicism because they were often board-
ing schools where Native American children would be cut off from their 
family’s culture for large portions of time (85). There is also non-Catholic 
religion representation in the novel, particularly in Marn Wolde’s perspec-
tive as she is the wife to Billy Peace, a cult leader who began as a Catho-
lic priest before forming his own religion based around the “spirit.” Even 
without the animal symbolism in these instances, it is abundantly clear that 
religion is a major theme in The Plague of Doves. Erdrich weaves the an-
imal symbolism with the religious storylines to enhance the theme and to 
give it a deeper reading. 
 Present in both the title itself and throughout the novel—especially 
in the beginning—doves play a pivotal role in understanding Erdrich’s 
religious motifs and how they contribute to the overarching theme of the 
desire for power. In Western religions, the dove has multiple meanings 
including, but not limited to, peace, the Holy Spirit, love, new beginnings, 
and purity. In her review of the novel, Carole Goldberg reflects on these 
various meanings in comparison to how Erdrich utilizes the doves and 
states that they appear in “guises throughout the book: emblem of nature, 
symbol of the Holy Spirit, harbinger of troubles” (Goldberg, par. 6). In the 
book of Genesis, after the Great Flood, Noah sent out a dove to test if the 
water had receded. When the dove returned, it had an olive branch in its 
beak, implying that there were trees and foliage and not just endless water 
(Life Application Study Bible, Gen. 8.11). The dove with an olive branch 
has become a widely recognized symbol of peace. The dove seems to only 
have positive connotations in Western spirituality, which contrasts with 
the symbolism of doves in Native American religions. While some Native 
American tribes view doves similarly to Western religions—doves as sym-
bols of peace and new beginning—some view doves as omens of death. 
The Algonquian peoples, of which the Ojibwe are a part of, is one of these 
groups (Lewis 1). 
 In the beginning of the novel, Mooshum tells the story of doves desc-

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ending over Pluto in 1896 in what he describes as a plague. The doves 
decimated crops and tormented the townspeople. Mooshum explains that 
“one could wring the necks of hundreds or thousands and effect no vis-
ible diminishment of their number…The dead only fed the living and 
each morning when the people woke it was to the scraping and beating of 
wings, the murmurous susurration, the awful cooing babble, and the sight, 
to those who still possessed intact windows, of the curious and gentle fac-
es of those creatures” (Erdrich 5–6). During this time, Mooshum was serv-
ing as an altar boy in his older brother’s church. This church was covered 
with birds who were knocking each other off the cross on the roof from 
where they perched. During one of the attacks the doves had on the peo-
ple of Pluto, the women pulled their skirts up so they could run from the 
violent birds. Mooshum, young and raised around Catholicism, lusted over 
the women’s legs. However, a dove struck him in the forehead “with such 
force that it seemed to have been flung directly by God’s hand, to smite 
and blind him before he carried his sin of appreciation any farther” (Er-
drich 8). In this scene, where Mooshum is struck in the face with a dove, 
he looks up and sees his future wife Junesse wiping the blood from his 
forehead and ear. Evalina narrates her grandfather’s telling of the story and 
describes what she imagines, saying, “The Holy Spirit hovered between 
them” (Erdrich 12). In Christianity, the Holy Spirit’s role is the helper; the 
Holy Spirit may reveal information or provide peace and comfort. In the 
book of Luke, the dove is used in a metaphor for the Holy Spirit: “And the 
Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove” (Luke 3.22). 
Likewise, the Spirit is known to give power: “But you will receive power 
when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Je-
rusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 
1.8). In this way, Erdrich’s inclusion of the Holy Spirit in the retelling of 
Mooshum’s meeting with his future wife amidst the plague of doves shows 
how both Mooshum and Junesse gained agency from their interaction on 
that day. Junesse, who is white, gained enough power to leave her abusive 
aunt as well as her responsibilities caring for six younger cousins,whereas

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Mooshum gained enough power to leave and to avoid becoming a priest 
like his older brother whose church he was the altar boy for. Had the 
plague of doves not fallen over the town, the couple’s future together 
might not have been guaranteed. 
 The word “plague,” which is used to describe the doves and their 
reign of terror over Pluto, has a religious connotation as there have been 
many plagues depicted in the Bible. One specific plague that is similar to 
the plague of doves in the novel is the locust plague in the book of Exo-
dus: “If you refuse to let them go, I will bring locusts into your country 
tomorrow. They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. 
They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every 
tree that is growing in your fields” (Exod. 10.4–5). The plague of locusts 
was the eighth of ten plagues God laid over Egypt to assert His power 
and force Pharaoh to release the enslaved Israelites. With this context, the 
plague of doves over the town of Pluto might symbolize the way the West-
erners pressured Native Americans to convert to Western culture, as well 
as Western religions. By refusing Western colonization—as Mooshum 
does, especially when he decides not to follow his brother’s footsteps 
to become a priest and instead runs off with Junesse—the Ojibwe folks, 
alongside the white residents of Pluto, experience the plague of doves. 
However, as evidenced by both history and by The Plague of Doves, the 
power and influence of colonizers surpassed the Native Americans’ efforts, 
similar to how God’s pressure against Pharoah eventually wore him down 
to surrender. 
 It is important to note that while many of the Native American tra-
ditions and populations have diminished since the colonization of what is 
now the United States, these communities are far from extinct. Believing 
so would fall subject to the trope of the “vanishing Indian,” a myth which 
Harvard University’s Pluralism Project describes as “the American imag-
ination that many believe there are no more Native Americans, or at least 
no more ‘real Indians’”(“Myth of the ‘Vanishing Indian’” par. 4). This is 
evidenced to be false. Today, there are a recorded 6.79 million Native Am-

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ericans from 574 federally recognized tribes living in the United States 
(“Native American Population by State 2023” par. 3). Members of this 
population partake in active roles in legislation, in the government, in ac-
tivism, and in the spreading of awareness of their communities to continue 
to give their people a voice in a time where the “vanishing Indian” myth is 
still believed by many. The Pluralism Project states, “Indigenous men and 
women say plainly that they are here to stay, and that American expansion 
and American history rests on their stolen land” (“Myth of the ‘Vanishing 
Indian’” par. 4). While it is clear that Westerners did not erase the Native 
American, they did damage their population and cause changes in some 
traditions and practices, which will be explained in more depth later in this 
paper.
 Another way to look at the plague of doves decimating the crops 
and the livelihood of the people of Pluto is to see it as a representation of 
Western civilization taking steps towards the erasure of Native American 
land, religion, and culture. As the white population in America moved 
west, indigenous tribes experienced “some of the most rapid and dramat-
ic cultural changes in history” (Enoch 71), including economic and social 
changes, which were prominent factors that diminished many traditional 
Native American religions. This was a result of a multitude of reasons, one 
of those being the relocation or destruction of indigenous-owned land. In 
many Native American communities, religious traditions and rituals are 
linked to specific landmarks or sites. Because they were essentially cut off 
from these sites, their religions declined, and some seemed to die off com-
pletely (Enoch 74). This view on the natural world and land differed from 
the view Christians hold. Christian worship is not restricted to specific 
places as the “church” is anywhere where there are at least two Christians 
gathered in fellowship together (Matt. 18.20). Angela Sparks writes, “Un-
derstanding the reciprocity and relational nature of the Ojibwe people’s 
treatment of the environment and its inhabitants is key to recognizing the 
stark contrast between Indigenous and settler approaches to land use in the 
early nineteenth century” (Sparks 409). It is possible these differing views

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on the religious and general significance of location impacted the man-
ner the United States government seized indigenous-owned land, exerting 
their power over the indigenous peoples. 
 This loss of land caused many Native Americans to lose aspects of 
their religions. Discussing the Birchbark House series by Erdrich along-
side other Native American works, Roxanne Harde claims, “Erdrich holds 
up these small migratory animals as the better symbols for the family and 
their people” (Harde 241). While the “migratory animals” are not doves, 
Harde does discuss the role of birds in the Birchbark House series. In the 
series, she claims that the birds are symbolic of the Ojibwe people and the 
dynamics within their specific family. Additionally, the birds are a source 
of protection and guidance. This is a far different depiction of birds from 
their symbolism in The Plague of Doves because the birds are not de-
scribed as characters and do not provide any guidance, other than possi-
bly being the reason Mooshum meets Junesse. Even still, the birds wreak 
havoc and cause harm to the people and the town. The rationalization of 
colonizing Native land includes bringing the indigenous people to per-
ceived “better” ways of life, despite the harm and genocide committed. 
Perhaps this believed benefit is reflected in Mooshum’s meeting his future 
wife, and the detrimental colonization of Native land, which expresses the 
imbalanced power Westerners had over Native peoples. 
 Taking the Ojibwe’s view of doves into consideration, a different 
interpretation of the plague arises. Rather than relating to the Egyptian 
plagues, the Holy Spirit, or the Westernization of Native American culture, 
this interpretation depicts the doves as a bad omen. Because the plague 
takes place in 1896, it is a precursor to the tragic events that are to follow 
in 1911: the murder of the white Lochren family, excluding a single fami-
ly member who is a baby, and the lynching of three innocent Ojibwe men 
who were wrongfully blamed for the crime. 
 Along with doves, serpents also emerge as a religious symbol, though 
it is through Marn Wolde’s perspective that we see them. Marn Wolde, a 
white woman, married Billy Peace, an Ojibwe soldier-turned-preacher.

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Many characters in the novel experience conflict between their Native 
American religious beliefs and the pressure to assimilate into Catholi-
cism—by Father Cassidy and mission schools, for example—and Billy’s 
conflict led him to form his own religion that Marn described as “a re-
ligion based on what religion was before it was religion” (Erdrich 158). 
Because there is little documentation that suggests there was a time where 
civilization did not believe in one or multiple higher powers, this may al-
lude to the days where Jesus walked the Earth with His original followers. 
Billy viewed himself highly, especially after getting struck by lightning, 
so there is a parallel between Billy and his followers and Jesus and His. To 
spread his religion, Billy and his followers travel. Marn obtains two ser-
pents—a diamondback and a northern copperhead, both venomous—from 
a family who practiced an unorthodox religion and handled snakes whom 
she met while traveling alongside Billy and his followers. When the old 
woman from the snake handler family gives Marn the serpents, she tells 
her that she will get bit but live because of Marn’s power. The woman also 
tells Marn that the snakes “have judgment in them…[a]nd they have love” 
(Erdrich 160). After hearing of this, Marn picks the snakes up and willing-
ly lets them bite her. Marn describes this experience as “getting close to 
spirit” (Erdrich 160), which she did not find in Billy’s religion. She goes 
as far as to call them her “lambs of god” (Erdrich 173). Because the snakes 
judged and approved of her, and she had the “power,” she did not die, just 
as the woman told her.
 As Marn’s chapter progresses, Marn grows to hate Billy. While they 
are intimate one night, Marn takes a needle “filled with the venom of the 
snake and tipped with the apple of good and evil” and plunges it into Bil-
ly’s heart, killing him (Erdrich 178). If we read the serpents as a Jesus-like 
figure, as suggested by the “lamb of god” reference, then the serpents are 
Jesus and judge Billy, finding him guilty and thus killing him with their 
venom. However, if we read the serpents as derived from the devil, then 
perhaps they tempted Marn of sin in the form of her husband’s murder. 
This would line up with Christianity’s view on serpents. In the book of

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Genesis, the serpent is described as “more crafty than any of the wild an-
imals the Lord God had made” (Gen. 3.1). Likewise, in Revelation: “The 
great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or 
satan, who leads the whole world astray” (Rev. 12.9.). The story of Orig-
inal Sin also contains a serpent where the devil, in the form of a serpent, 
tempted Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. This forbidden fruit is 
referenced in the novel when Marn describes the needle as “tipped with 
the apple of good and evil.” The serpent is the devil in this circumstance, 
so the serpents Marn possesses hold that connotation. However, the fami-
ly who handles snakes do so because they believe snakes “cast out devils 
by handling poisons” (Erdrich 160). This reading is the opposite of what 
the serpent represents in the Bible, so it creates more of that religious and 
spiritual conflict that occurs in the novel as the Native Americans are bom-
barded with Catholicism. Robert Lake-Thom, a descendant of Karuk and 
Seneca tribes and a traditional Native healer and spiritual teacher, views 
snakes similarly to the snake handler family: “They can have good power, 
bad power, or both…used for seeing, healing, and protection” (14). With 
either interpretation, the serpents held the power that enabled Marn to 
murder Billy.
 While it can be interpreted that the murder of Billy is another case of 
a white character killing a Native American in an act that further erases the 
Native American population just as the settlers who settled on the Ameri-
cas enacted on the indigenous peoples since the beginning of colonization 
in the United States and perpetuates the myth of the vanishing Indian, 
Deborah L. Madsen complicates this idea. In “Discontinuous Narrative, 
Ojibwe Sovereignty, and the Wiindigoo Logic of Settler Colonialism: Lou-
ise Erdrich’s Marn Wolde,” Madsen argues that Marn’s narration is unre-
liable, and that her actions and delusions reflect a colonizer’s perspective. 
Madsen writes, “Marn Wolde’s narration achieves the displacement of the 
indigenous into the category of the monstrous and of the political into the 
sphere of the private by portraying herself as the spousal victim of Billy 
Peace’s overwhelming appetite for power of all kinds” (Madsen 26).

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Madsen describes Marn’s “appetite for power of all kinds” as “settler land 
hunger” (Madsen 24) because Marn would inherit their jointly possessed 
money and land after Billy’s death, taking away the power he had built for 
himself. Marn’s implicit “appetite for power” is heightened and enabled 
through the snakes, which are a vessel of power for her. Like how many 
white people rationalize the relocation and westernization of Native Amer-
icans, Marn rationalizes the killing of her Ojibwe husband. She believes 
that because the snakes judged her highly and judged Billy to be less wor-
thy, and that the land under their name belonged to her, that killing Billy 
was a reasonable means to that end.  
 Furthermore, Billy posed a threat to Marn’s power because he sub-
verted the roles of conquered and conqueror, as Rachel Bonini claims 
in “Constructing the Past: Places, Histories, and Identities in Louise Er-
drich’s The Plague of Doves.” She writes, “Billy contorts his agency 
into a vicious form of domineering power, in a sense reversing the roles” 
(Bonini 104). Although Billy takes back the land that had been stolen from 
his people, Erdrich does not paint him as a hero in the scenario. Once he 
obtains power, he abuses it, just as Marn abuses her power that she uses 
to get the land back. In an analysis of Tracks, Erdrich’s novel from 1988, 
Gheytasi and Hanif allege that Erdrich does not play into positioning peo-
ple opposite of each other with a black and white perspective. They write 
that Erdrich “avoids giving priority to one cultural code over another; her 
literary and cultural hybridization intends to deconstruct binaries like the 
Europeans versus the Natives” (Gheytasi and Hanif 151). While this is 
written about Tracks, it is true to the way Erdrich writes Billy and Marn as 
well. Neither are given favor as both abuse power in their own ways. This 
manipulation of “traditional narrative convention” (Gheytasi and Hanif 
1-52) also translates to the other decisions she made while writing The 
Plague of Doves, including “time, truth, narration, and reliability” (Ghey-
tasi and Hanif 152). Using Marn’s perspective, as she experiences living 
as a cult leader’s wife and gets bitten by poisonous serpents, allows the 
narrative unreliability to come through and challenges the idea that Marn

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is a helpless, victimized wife of Billy, which Madsen claims is a common 
interpretation (Madsen 23). Billy peace took the religion he learned from 
the white settlers and mixed it with other religions—both from Native 
American culture and from his own mind—but his religion, whether or not 
it was harmful, was taken from him by Marn’s snakes. Her power—sym-
bolized by the serpents—stole his religion, reflecting the way colonizers 
historically stole Native American religions. 
 Erdrich utilizes a couple other animals as symbols throughout the 
novel, though snakes and doves are the most prominent. Three of these 
animals are salamanders and lambs. The salamander is only discussed in 
the first chapter, which is told from Evelina’s perspective. Siblings Ev-
elina and Joseph observe the behaviors and physical attributes of black 
salamanders because Joseph expresses an interest in observing their life 
cycle throughout the year. Mooshum informs them that nuns believed the 
salamanders were “emissaries from the unholy dead, sent up by the devil, 
and hell was full of them” (Erdrich 29). Likewise, Father Cassidy tells the 
siblings, “There are some who believe those creatures represent the devil” 
(Erdrich 36), though he does not believe it himself. However, Joseph and 
Evelina—as well as their grandfather and most of their family—do not 
subscribe to the Catholic faith that the mission school and Father Cassidy 
encourage, and they do not view the salamanders as from the devil. In-
stead, they show them kindness by saving them from the schoolboys who 
would’ve stomped on them had the siblings not gotten to them first.  
 At one point, when Joseph grows impatient observing the elusive 
amphibians, he dissects a live salamander using his father’s equipment. 
Witnessing the salamander’s exposed insides and guts reflects a discussion 
between Father Cassidy, Mooshum, and Shamengwa not long after the di 
ssection. It’s a brief moment, but they mention God creating each of them, 
“down to the details” (Erdrich 33). This discussion—being created with 
precision and detail—correlates with the dissection of the salamander be-
cause the procedure allows Joseph and Evelina to see a creature that God 
made from within. The dissection, as well as the rest of Joseph’s observat-

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ion, also demonstrates a power imbalance because he is able to do what he 
wants with the salamanders. The salamander he dissected alive had tried to 
crawl away during the night, but died at the windowsill with its insides—
which Joseph examined and pinned in place—unraveled and stretched 
(Erdrich 30). In an analysis of animals and metaphors in Native Ameri-
can literature, Gerald Vizenor writes, “We learned as hunters, and later as 
authors, never to let a wounded animal suffer. Wounded animals were put 
out of their miseries, at heart our miseries of the animal other in literature” 
(666). While the salamander is put out of its misery, it is not by Joseph’s 
doing. He dissects the salamander while it was still living, unintentionally 
allowing it to suffer, and then left it cut open and alive while he slept. De-
spite not maliciously dissecting the salamander, Joseph’s position allows 
him to ignore the suffering of the salamander. Once it dies, he buries it 
with Evalina, but the death does not affect him deeply because he begins 
dissecting them again a month later. His previous kindness for them was 
overcome by the power he held over them, which allowed him the distance 
from their suffering. Similarly, the transportation of the salamanders from 
their original habitat to a fabricated one for Joseph to observe them more 
closely also reflects his exercise of his power over them. It also parallels 
the forced removal and constriction of Native Americans from their native 
land to reservations. However, as the salamanders never remain in their 
relocated habitat, many Native Americans make efforts towards restoring 
their stolen land and traditions.  
 Used in Marn Wolde’s chapter, another animal Erdrich uses that has 
connotations of religious symbolism to contribute to the effect of power 
demonstrations in the novel is the lamb. More specifically, the “Lamb of 
God.” Marn describes the snakes as such to Billy while in bed with both 
him and the snakes. While Billy is disgusted and wary of the snakes, Marn 
feels comfortable around them, if not empowered and lustful. The term 
“Lamb of God” comes directly from the Bible and is the title of Jesus. 
Claiming the snakes as her lambs of god gives the snakes the role of Jesus, 
the Son of God the Father, which would assign Marn the position of God

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the Father. The Holy Trinity is then made whole: Marn, as God the Father, 
the snakes as God the Son, and their connection as God the Spirit. Jesus 
is called the “Lamb of God” because lambs were often used for sacrifices, 
and Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice to pay for everyone’s sins. The Bible 
reads, “the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us all from sin” (1 John 1.7). 
The serpent’s venom parallels Jesus’s blood because it “saves” or sets 
Marn “free” from Billy. In Marn’s greedy delusion, she must believe that 
Billy is the ultimate evil. It is interesting that the snakes are described as 
lambs, though, considering the practice of sacrificing lambs and the cru-
cifixion death of Jesus. This would assume that Marn would kill them, 
too, as she killed Billy. However, this does not happen. Marn’s connection 
with the snakes is severed when she is no longer on Wolde land (which 
was once reservation land). The Holy Spirit binds people with God, so 
the disconnection assumes a distance from the Spirit as well. After killing 
Billy, when Marn is in the restaurant with her children, she loses her title 
as God the Father—as well as her power—because she is no longer a part 
of the Trinity that gave her the power. Her connection with the land could 
possibly reflect the connection between Native Americans and their land, 
especially their religious sites that have been stolen from them either in 
relocation or destruction.
 The Ojibwe religious traditions respect the manidoog, or the “spirits” 
(“Anishinaabe Ojibwe Ways” par. 2). These spirits are likely what Billy 
Peace based some of his religion from, considering he stripped the figures 
of God and Satan from the Catholic religion he once preached and he is 
from the Ojibwe tribe. Marn narrates, “There was only spirit…There was 
spirit, and that was vast, vast, vast, so vast we had to shut out the enor-
mousness of it” (Erdrich 159). The spirits in Ojibwe traditions are most 
commonly symbolized by animal spirits. (“Anishinaabe Ojibwe Ways” 
par. 2). This is likely because of the “interdependent relationship between 
animals and people” (Enoch 72) of many Native American religions. As 
Sparks explains, “In contrast to the settlers who separated spirit and na-
ture, the Ojibwe are portrayed by Erdrich as people who believe that spirit

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and nature are inseparable” (407). By having a white woman find “spirit” 
while with the snakes, and then using them to rationalize and enable her to 
kill an Ojibwe man for her own personal gain, Marn steals more from the 
people her ancestors have historically stolen from. In many Native Amer-
ican cultures, animals are regarded as “sustenance, as spiritual helper and 
guide, and as a symbol of the ability to respond to, adapt, and even thrive 
in drastically changing circumstances” (Harde 231). Bonini contributes 
to this idea and asserts that the plague of doves represents the history of 
humans overtaking untouched wilderness, or white Americans overtaking 
Native American communities, and relates that to the main characters of 
the story (Bonini 103). This overtaking involves religious conversion, of 
course, but Bonini’s point about the plague representing humans overtak-
ing untouched wilderness adds to the conversation because of the strong 
ties between Native American religion and nature.
 Many Native American economies, which relied on hunting and 
farming, were interconnected with religious rituals. By continuing to par-
ticipate in these farming and hunting practices, their religions persisted. 
However, as a result of white overhunting and the formation of reserva-
tions, many tribes had to abandon these practices. These practices not only 
broke down their traditional economies and ties to sacred sites, but they 
also broke down their religion and overall culture (Enoch 75). With the 
breakdown of their culture, it became easier to convince them to adopt the 
Catholic ways. Taking one’s power displays the power of the taker, or con-
queror; in this scenario, that would be settlers. This is one of the hallmarks 
of Madsen’s “appetite for power of all kinds.” Not only do they want pow-
er, but they are also incentivized to strip it from others to create a steep-
er imbalance. With the metaphoric nature and treatment of the animals 
in Erdrich’s novel, they serve as allusion and symbol to expose the ways 
in which religion is handled throughout the book: as complicated power 
dynamics and imbalances, particularly in relation to the Westernization of 
Native American peoples and culture that sought to erase their religion.

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Works Cited

“Anishinaabe Ojibwe Ways.” The Pluralism Project, Harvard University, 
2020. pluralism.org/anishinaabe-ojibwe-ways.  

Bonini, Rachel. “Constructing the Past: Places, Histories, and Identities in 
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