Gender in the Native American

Gender in the Native American context of: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse: A Novel

Louise Erdrich's novel the Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse: A Novel chronicles two very different methods for White and Native American women to express their spirituality in a contemporary, Christian context. The ways in which they do initially suggest that reservation, Native, and Christian culture alike offers few ways for women to truly 'be themselves' in the fullest religious sense of these words, that they must dissemble and lie to be regarded as holy, even when suffering under the burden and gift of a true religious calling.

This becomes clear even in the novel's prologue, when the ancient spiritual leader of the Ojibwa people, Father Damien Modeste reveals a terrible secret, after composing yet another letter to His Holy Father, the pope in Rome, with great difficulty. Father Damien, when he was young, received a calling he did not initially want, to be the servant of his Native American Ojibwa people in a religious capacity. However, this is not the only unwanted 'gift' the father has been bestowed by heaven. Father Damien is actually a woman who has lived as a man, through his life's century of his people's hungers, ailments, and bloody quarrels between themselves and whites.

Originally, as Agnes Dewitt, a woman, the father was a nun and before that a bank robber and outlaw, running from the law. Agnes first assumed the guise of the dead priest Damien to hide from the authorities, but gradually the role became part of his/her gendered as well as his/her spiritual self. Regardless, the seemingly good priest is not what he appears. He has, the reader is told at the beginning of the tale, "women's breasts that are as "small, withered, modest as folded flowers," that he has been concealing for more than a century, and does not have a pure and unblemished personal history, despite seeming to, and despite the reverence his people regards 'him' with.

However, although his identity is false, the goodness he has done for the Native population is true, and although he has lied about his past, his lies have not hurt his community, rather they have been a source of healing. The priest's goodness while a priest, however, is one reason why he finds the dissemblance of members of his community so frustrating. In contrast to the life-sustaining lies of Father Damien, that help others with the fullness of a community-sustained myth or holy legend, Sister Leopolda, a nun on the reservation, has made a claim to have Christ's stigmata simply to secure her own sainthood for selfish reasons, in a way that divides the community. She lies in a form that sustains gender stereotypes of women needing to physically suffer to serve as well.

This is one reason why Father Damien believes the woman's actions are evil as well as disingenuous. Agnes/Father Damien feels strongly enough about Sister Leopolda's deception that the ancient sage is willing to reveal all, or at least to risk all in speaking about the pat. This willingness to come clean is especially moving, not simply because it is a huge risk for this important religious figure who has played such a vital role in the life of the tribe.