The Painted Drum

After Shaawano found the bones of his nine-year-old daughter, he endured a period of deep anguish. During this time, he was cruel to his son, and would leave the young boy alone for weeks while he wandered. One day Shaawano returned home to find “[s]omeone else had stepped in, taken the boy home and barred Shaawano from visits” (151). Alone in his cabin with his guilt and despair, Shaawano was tormented by apparitions of “tiny skeleton children who flitted and zipped across his ceiling like spidery bats” (130).

To earn money, Shaawano began constructing pine pole furniture. Blaming his weak spirit for the loss of his daughter and wife, he tried to poison it with alcohol but was still haunted by memories of his daughter. She visited him in “a sort of dream” (154) and charged him with making a drum. For more than a century, Shaawano’s people had been curing a set of cedar logs, developing the wood’s resilience and resonance. Only the chosen keepers knew its location, but Shaawano’s daughter told him where to find the logs, out of which he would make the drum.

Shaawano believed himself unworthy of crafting a community drum out of the long-cherished cedar and felt obliged to consult with someone about the matter.