The Game of Silence

Omakayas’s tribe comes to the beach to help the arrivals. The visitors are marked by their poverty; babies are naked, and people look bedraggled and hungry. Only their leader, Miskobines, looks calm and dignified. One of the women explains to Omakayas that their village was invaded by the Bwaanag—the Ojibwe word for the Sioux and related groups. The entire tribe had to flee at the last moment, and the Bwaanag imprisoned anyone who was left behind. Omakayas observes a boy around her age grow offended by the way she watches him ravage his food. The boy is ashamed of his poverty and vulnerability. Omakayas helps look after a baby boy who was saved by a fleeing couple; the baby’s parents are missing. She grows attached to the baby, so her father Deydey makes her a beautiful doll to take care of instead.

Omakayas and her brother Pinch shelter inside their birchbark house during the rain. They stay silent, playing the Game of Silence. They are joined by their cousins (Twilight, Little Bee, and Two Strike Girl), as well as some adults. The angry boy who recently arrived on the island is also there; Omakayas privately calls him the Angry One. The children play the Game of Silence because the adults need to have a serious discussion. The children are allowed to play silently together, but they are distracted by the adults’ conversations. They all become frightened at the prospect of losing their home.

Omakayas’s father, Deydey, does not trust the white people’s written language. Omakayas’s tribe calls white people “chimookomanag.” Omakayas learns the white people’s language at the mission school, but her father trusts the Ojibwe use of memory more than written records made by white people. It turns out that the Ojibwe have unwittingly signed over their lands to the chimookomanag. The Ojibwe had to move to Bwaanag territory, which led to the attack that forced them to run to Moningwanaykaning.

The Ojibwe are confused as to how the chimookomanag have changed course and escalated tension. The chimookomanag also owe the Ojibwe money. Three men, including a family friend named Fishtail, volunteer for the dangerous mission of approaching the chimookomanag. Fishtail is a widower and feels that he has nothing to lose, but Omakayas notes that he still has a connection with her sister, Angeline.

Omakayas helps her grandmother Nokomis in the garden. Nokomis acknowledges that Ojibwe and chimookomanag lives are different, but she believes that they have lived alongside one another before, so they can do so again. Nokomis also realizes that the chimookomanag who are forcibly removing the Ojibwe are only “the first drops of rain. A storm of them lives past the sunrise, in the east. They can flood us like a river” (29).

Omakayas goes to her Auntie Muskrat’s house to play with her cousins. She helps them prepare fish soup. Then, she plays dolls with her cousins. When Pinch sneaks up on them and destroys their doll house, they find him in a tree. Two Strike Girl takes a hatchet and strikes at the tree until Pinch falls off into the mud. The children get into a mud fight. The Angry One comes over, and Omakayas tussles him into the mud, after which the children wash off in the lake. The Angry One tells Omakayas that he misses his home. Omakayas sympathizes with him. The chimookomanag “were the source of some nice things like kettles and warm blankets and ribbons, and the source of terrible things, too. Chimookomanag brought sickness” (44).

There is a chimookomanag girl who lives near town. Omakayas calls her the Break-Apart Girl because she is so skinny that she looks like she could easily snap. Omakayas finds it strange that Break-Apart Girl’s family keeps animals like cows and chickens cooped up. Their way of life is different, including the custom of drinking cow’s milk. Even so, the Break-Apart Girl is always happy to see Omakayas. They play as best they can without a common language. Break-Apart Girl tries to introduce herself as Clarissa, but the girls can’t pronounce one another’s names. Omakayas worries that Break-Apart Girl is lonely.

Old Tallow gets Omakayas and Twilight to help find one of her wolfdogs’ hiding places. They discover where the red dog is hiding her puppies. In return, Old Tallow gives Omakayas and Twilight the choice to take home one of the puppies. Omakayas chooses a black wolf-dog puppy and names it Makataywazi.

Omakayas notes that her sister Angeline looks sad. Angeline has never been the same since surviving smallpox, but she is still beautiful despite the scars on her face. Nokomis notes that Angeline is sad because she misses Fishtail, with whom she is in love.

Omakayas hears a voice telling her to take the coal. In her community, “[c]hildren who were ready to go off alone in the woods and fast for a vision took charcoal from the fire and blackened their faces with the crumbly ash. That way, people could see their intentions” (59). Going into the woods to fast and have a vision would ideally allow the child to meet their spirit guardian. Omakayas is certain that hers is a bear, but she doesn’t want to go into the woods to fast, so she keeps her vision of the voice a secret. Pinch also confesses that he is afraid of fasting in the woods. Pinch knows what it is to be hungry, and he doesn’t want to go through it again.

The community gets to work constructing jeemaanan—canoes made of birchbark. The canoes are an important economic staple for the Ojibwe. Old Tallow constructs hers with a little roof over the stern, but she won’t tell Omakayas why she has done this. Everybody contributes to the work, and Pinch injures his leg with a hatchet. Omakayas spends a pleasant moment eating fish with her mother and falling asleep surrounded by her loved ones.

Omakayas is excited because for the first time, her mother has decided that she is old enough to help with the rice harvest. Omakayas joins the older kids and adults as they canoe to the rice camp. Two Strike Girl resents “ricing” because she sees it as women’s work, and she prefers to hunt. Twilight, who is tasked with looking after the younger children, is envious that Omakayas gets to be part of the ricing. Omakayas comes up with a plan to prove that Twilight can be part of the ricing, too; this plan will also prove to Two Strike Girl that ricing is good, valuable work. Omakayas and Twilight sneak out in the early morning to take one of the canoes and go ricing themselves. They want to impress the adults with what they can do. On their way to the canoes, they run into an enormous bull moose that Two Strike Girl brings down with an arrow. Two Strike Girl has snuck out early to hunt, and she has made a kill that will give her community a feast. Omakayas and Twilight go ricing, but when they come back, their parents are angry that they ran off alone. Moreover, they have not taken proper care of the rice because they have not yet learned this skill.

After a few days of ricing, the tribe decides to return home because of an impending storm. On the way to their island, Omakayas’s mother, Yellow Kettle, realizes that Pinch has been accidentally left behind. Due to the severe storm conditions, only Old Tallow can make the trip back for Pinch. Omakayas insists on going with Old Tallow because she is worried about Pinch. She also wants to earn Old Tallow’s respect. But Old Tallow tosses Omakayas overboard near the beach to their island.

Omakayas and her family wait excruciating hours for Old Tallow and Pinch to return. The storms arrive one after another. Omakayas has a dream in which Pinch hustles to move rocks, trying to earn Omakayas’s approval, but all she does is tease him. Omakayas wakes up ashamed of herself. But happily, Old Tallow and Pinch return. Pinch tells Omakayas that he had been hauling rocks in the forest when Old Tallow found him, exactly like in Omakayas’s dream.

Omakayas is tasked with tanning the hide of the moose that Two Strike Girl struck down. Omakayas is annoyed with Two Strike Girl, who has been gloating and prideful ever since the kill. However, Nokomis helps Omakayas with the hide, and her singing soothes Omakayas’s irritation.