Indigenous Themes In Medicine Walk

Aza Fernandes
Ellis
English First Peoples

The Nature of Learning and Connection to Story

In Richard Wagamese Novel Medicine Walk, the importance of indigenous themes and worldviews is apparent throughout. Commonly, indigenous stories have specific functions and uses of theme to convey perspectives, values, and beliefs.

In Medicine walk, one of the main themes being portrayed is the importance of identity and relationship between individual, family, and community. An example of such notability is portrayed when “[Frank] gazed upward. The stars arranged themselves into shapes and suggestions and he felt the pull of them like a calling away and he looked deeper into the beaded bowl of the night and saw a multitude of possible

“It was the feel of the land at his back when he slept and the hearty, moist promise of it rising from everything. It was the feeling of the hackles rising slowly on the back of your neck when there was a bear yards away in the bush and the catch in the throat at the sudden explosion of an eagle from a tree. It was also the feel of water from a mountain spring. Ice like light splashed over your face. The old man brought him to all of that.” (Wagamese 32). The land is an immensely important theme in Medicine Walk. Wagamese provides an abundance of descriptive imagery when writing about the land through Frank's eyes. Particularly important in this quote is the concept of 'promise' rising from the land, and the idea of what is made possible through land. It is when engaged deeply with the land that Frank has always felt most at home, and it is while traveling through the land that Frank receives Eldon's stories during Eldon's final days. This is the land presenting the opportunity of Frank knowing his father, and so a demonstration of what is made possible on the land. 'Ice like light splashed over your face' includes a simile, a comparison of ice and light, two phenomena of nature. The old man brings Frank 'to all of that' because the old man is the one to teach Frank about the land, about how to exist on and through the land. Wagamese crafts an emotional bond between Frank, the old man, and the land. Frank immerses himself in the natural world. Living as he does alone in the wild is a reminder of his own natural condition. For Frank, the theme of belonging to the earth has a cultural meaning. He is most fulfilled when he is behaving in a traditional manner and surviving using his own skills at hunting and trapping in the