"A Council of Dolls" by Mona Susan Power

Once in a while I read a book I'd like to put in everyone's hands. "A Council of Dolls" by Mona Susan Power is that kind of novel. It tells the story of three generations of Lakota women and the impact -- and legacy -- of Indian residential schools on their family's life. Their story is powerful and horrifying and thought provoking. 

We meet Sissy when she's just seven years old. The place is Chicago. Although it's 1969, segregation is still a de facto part of life. Sissy explains that she knows what the word "prejudiced" is all about. "It's a mean word that says we can't eat in any restaurant, even if my parents have enough money, and we can't move to just any neighborhood." Talk about jumping right into it. But discimination is the least of the story. 

In 1879, the federal government established off-reservation boarding schools to assimilate Native Americans. The most infamous of these schools was Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Its mission, like that of all the boarding schools, was "to kill the Indian" and "save the man." Or the woman, in the case of Cora, Sissy's grandmother. While "A Council of Dolls" is fiction, the brutal treatment that Cora and her fellow students suffered at Carlisle is not.  

Before and after pictures of new students at Carlisle Industrial Boarding School
(images from "Away from Home: American Indian Boarding
School Stories" at the James Museum of Western Art)

I'll quote from the book here about Cora's introduction to her new home. "...[We] were herded together and made to stand perfectly still for a group photograph, nearly everyone clutching something precious from home...Most of us dressed in traditional garb or a mix of wasicu (white person) clothes in our own style... Girls and boys were pulled apart into separate buildings where we were made to drop our clothes and step into cold baths where matrons with scrub brushes tried to wash the Indian brown off our skin. Scratchy new clothes awaited us as we dried, and everything we'd carried across the country, everything we'd worn and hidden in pockets or moccasins, each belt and dress and shirt, each medal and feather and bead, was taken away, loaded into baskets. We had the appearance of strangers...We looked like a village in mourning..Our clothes and treasured items were thrown into metal drums and lined up before us...Even after flames leapt from the full barrels, my mind refused to believe what was happening..." But this was only the beginning of the story of Cora and Jack, the boy who would become her husband.  

Cora's daughter Lillian and her sister Blanche were sent to an off-reservation boarding school in Bismarck, North Dakota. Like many of the actual boarding schools, the institution was run by the Catholic Church. The treatment these students received is yet another shameful mark on the Church. 

Lillian is a bright girl who taught herself to read and won a statwide spelling bee over competitors that included both kids and adults. Most of the teachers were proud of her, "like [she] won because they do such a good job with backward Indian kids, turning us from hoodlum savages into respectable citizens." But not Sister Frances, who looks for opportunities to punish Lillian. 

When Sister Frances finds Lillian mooning over a book recently donated to the school, the nun throws the girl into a special room. Lillian describes the room as "the dark punishment box that makes you feel like you're dead and buried, and the rest of the world is gone..." She goes on to say, "She [Sister Frances] forgot to slap me this time before shoving me into the shadows. I'm sure her hand is burning over that lapse. The thought makes me smile."  But again, this treatment is just a prelude to what happens later to Lillian and Blanche. 

And what about the dolls referred to in the books' title? They are much more than toys to the girls. They are trusted companions who help them make sense of their lives. In many ways they are the girls' alter egos -- strong and wise and capable, especially during times of stress. And they are a brilliant literary device.  

"A Council of Dolls" is a novel that made an impact on me. It made me both think and feel. And in my book, that's something special. 

For a video of author Mona Susan Power talking about the novel, click here. Her website can be reached by clicking here. And for more on "Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories" at the James Museum, click here.