Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan

First published: 1990

Type of plot: Magical Realism

Time of work: 1922 and 1923

Locale: Watona, Oklahoma

Principal Characters:

• Michael Horse, an Osage Indian water diviner and protector of his people’s fire who records the events occurring in Watona
• Lila Blanket, a Hill Indian river prophet who sends her daughter Grace to town to learn white ways
• Grace Blanket, Lila’s daughter
• Belle Graycloud, and
• Moses Graycloud, the heads of the Graycloud family, who take in Grace for Lila and care for Nola after Grace’s murder
• Nola Blanket, Grace Blanket’s young daughter
• John Hale, a white oil baron
• Jess Gold, a white sheriff
• Stace Red Hawk, a Lakota Sioux who works as a government investigator

The Novel

A historical novel based on actual occurrences on oil-rich Oklahoma Indian lands, Mean Spirit tells a story of exploitation and murder committed against Native American Indians as they struggle against the greed that threatens their lives and the survival of their culture.

The background of the novel’s action is provided by Lila Blanket and her daughter Grace. Repeating the warning the Blue River has “spoken” to her, Lila tells the other Hill Indians that white people are going to intrude upon the tribe’s peaceful ways; to prevent their own downfall, she says, they must send some of their children to town to learn the white ways. Lila sends Grace to live with her friends the Grayclouds, hoping she will grow up and protect the Hill people with her knowledge. Grace, however, takes little interest in the old Indian ways, acquires an allotment of land, and strikes the richest oil vein in the territory. Her discovery of oil in the territory does indeed save the Hill people, as the current building of a dam on the Blue River is discontinued. Yet the riches that come to the Indian community also destroy it.

Near the beginning of the novel, Grace Blanket is murdered. Grace’s thirteen-year-old daughter Nola and her friend Rena, hidden in the river mud, witness the brutal killing and watch as the unidentifiable murderers arrange Grace’s body to suggest suicide. Because the killers are unaware of the witnesses, Belle and Moses Graycloud keep the children’s knowledge secret in hope of protecting Nola, who, though she is constantly guarded by four mystical hill “runners,” also brings a threat to the entire Graycloud family.

Grace’s murder is only one of many that have recently occurred in Watona and is the first of many murders and atrocities to be committed in the plot of the novel. Grace’s sister, Sara, is blown up, and Benoit, her husband, is wrongfully arrested. The local hermit dies of seemingly natural causes on the same night that John Thomas is shot after running madly into town yelling that he knows who killed Grace Blanket. Additionally, the government agency reduces the Indians’ payments for oil profits and leased land, supposedly because of the Indians’ inability to spend their money wisely. Unable to pay their bills, the Grayclouds, among many, are slowly driven into poverty. Letters are written to Washington requesting an investigation into a possible conspiracy, but all the murders have thus far occurred on private land, and until a crime is committed on Indian land, the federal agency has no legal jurisdiction. Scandalous events continue: Indians who owe John Hale money and who, in payment, allow him to take out life insurance policies on them mysteriously die. After more letters are sent, Stace Red Hawk becomes involved in the still-unofficial investigation.

That winter, two weddings take place, both shrouded in sorrow. Nola and Will Forrest, the son of Benoit’s white lawyer, marry, but Nola doubts Will, believing only that she is more valuable to Will alive than dead. Letti Graycloud, one of Belle’s daughters, marries Benoit; although Benoit is imprisoned, they are allowed a hotel wedding and a wedding night. The next morning, however, Benoit is discovered hanging from his own belt inside his jail cell. Spring temporarily brings some sense of hope. Joe Billy, a Baptist preacher who has returned to Indian ways, practices Bat Medicine along with Belle in the Cave of Sorrow. Stace meets Michael Horse in the cave, and the two cling to the land even as they try to unravel the mystery. Lionel Tall, from Stace’s homeland, holds healing ceremonies that more and more Indians attend. All the characters gravitate back toward traditional ways, and even non-Indians begin to take up Indian ways and dress as means of mental survival amid the horrors.

When the white lawyer Forrest learns that Hale was involved in at least one killing, he too is murdered. His murder, at least, opens the door for federal prosecution. Belle is then shot—though not killed—by Sheriff Gold, and this revelation aids in launching a trial. Hale is tried for the multiple murders, by first state and then federal court, but both are imbued with corruption. Overwhelmed and misled by false rumors, many Indians from the town sell their land and move. The Grayclouds had planned to remain on their farm, hoping all would return to peace. Moses, responding to a feeling that his twin sister, Ruth Graycloud Tate, is in great danger, runs to Ruth’s house, where he discovers that his sister has been murdered and that John Tate, his brother-in-law, is part of the corruption. Moses kills John Tate and, in fear of the law, the Grayclouds flee by horse and wagon in the middle of the night. Stace departs with them, also on horseback, and knows he will now return to his people in South Dakota.

The Characters

Belle Graycloud is established very early on as the matriarchal figure in the novel, and her ties to the people, the traditions, and the earth make her a vital character in the development of the novel’s theme. She is compared to Lila Blanket, the river prophet of the Hill people, who, the reader is told, is a powerful matriarch of the Hill settlement. While Lila nurtures the Hill settlement, Belle nurtures the town of Watona. Lila trusts Belle with her only child, Grace, who Lila hopes will learn the ways of the white people and help to save the Hill settlement. Lila is the biological mother of Nola, and Belle becomes the nurturing mother of the believed savior of the people. Though Grace does not follow in her mother’s footsteps, Nola—in essence, granddaughter to both women—will prove to be a river prophet, a fact suggested by her understanding of the water’s messages near the end of the novel. Faithfully, Belle follows the traditions of her heritage. She performs the corn ceremony during planting season while other Indians use fertilizer; she wears traditional clothing and practices traditional medicine. She also protects and communes with the sacred animals of the earth—eagles, bats, buffalo, and bees—proving a vigilant warrior when these animals are threatened or desecrated. Hogan’s characterization of Belle works to unite the earth, the people, and their traditions. When the traditions are not observed and the earth and its animals are injured, the people too will suffer.

Stace Red Hawk also has strong emotional ties to his people, traditions, and earth, though when the novel commences he has unintentionally weakened these connections. Stace became a reservation police officer against the advice of his mother, and that job leads to his eventual placement at the Bureau of Investigations. Stace’s intentions were noble, as he hopes to aid his people through legal methods within the white system; however, this move literally removes him from his homeland and those things most important to his Native American culture. Through this depiction of Stace, Hogan comments on the dangers of complete assimilation. Stace, no longer with his Lakota people, feels the pull toward helping other Indians and becomes emotionally involved in what might have been just another case. He never ceases his ritual patterns, even while in Washington, D.C., but once back in a Native American community, he feels the strength of his culture and increasingly turns back toward it and away from his government life. Additionally, Stace becomes increasingly compelled to be outside, in the natural world. By the end of the novel, he sleeps outside constantly, and he chooses to return to his people via horse.

Critical Context

Linda Hogan is an established poet who has published several short stories, but Mean Spirit is her first novel. Of mixed-blood Chickasaw descent (not Osage as are the characters in Mean Spirit), Hogan was inspired to tell the story of “the great frenzy” because of her father’s ancestral ties to Oklahoma. She is similar to Joy Harjo, a Creek Indian contemporary poet, in her impressive ability to incorporate spiritual beliefs into her poetry. This talent carries over into her prose; she communicates eloquently the continuance of traditions and the endurance of the Native American peoples.

Hogan’s historical novel is written in a style much like that of Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges, two twentieth century Latin American writers. Her novel contains realistic description combined with strong components of the supernatural or the bizarre, placing her novel in the genre of Magical Realism. Many happenings in Mean Spirit seem bizarre: the swarming crickets that attack Nola (the event that pulls Nola out of her depressed, nearly catatonic state); the swarming bees, that attack and kill the sheriff after he attempts to shoot Belle; the speaking river, which foretells the devastation that the new dam will bring; the amazing meteorite that saves Belle’s life. Hogan uses this technique to connect animals or the Earth with people and to connect traditional beliefs with contemporary Indians. The integration of the realistic and the bizarre facilitates Hogan’s effort to merge ritualistic ceremony with her political interest in revealing suppressed Native American history.

Bibliography

Allen, Paula Gunn. “Let Us Hold Fierce: Linda Hogan.” In The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. Allen discusses Hogan’s awakening to her own spirit-based ideology and how Hogan incorporates this vision in her work. Hogan, an activist, uses her work to educate readers on the politics of Indian survival. Allen examines the fusion of spirituality and political commitment that dominates Hogan’s work.

Bonaham, R. A. “Mean Spirit.” Studies in American Indian Literatures: Newsletter of the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures. (Winter, 1992): 114-116. Bonaham outlines the setting, events, and characters of the novel. He then examines the “spare phrasing and power of visualization” that Hogan, as a poet, brings to her prose. In conclusion, Bonaham attributes the power of Mean Spirit to Hogan’s integration of traditional ritual and historical fact.

Brice, Jennifer. “Earth as Mother, Earth as Other in Novels by Silko and Hogan.” Critique 39 (Winter, 1998): 127-138. Brice explores the concept of earth as mother in Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan and the work of Leslie Marmon Silko. She discusses the use of literary trope and Magical Realism to portray the earth as human and the human as the earth, and demonstrates that the suffering of humanity stems from the aggression of “motherless” men.

Smith, Patricia Clark. “Linda Hogan.” In This Is About Vision: Interviews with Southwestern Writers, edited by William Balassi, John F. Crawford, and Annie O. Eysturoy. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990. Smith explores Hogan’s position as an American writer focusing on Southwestern culture. She also looks at Hogan’s themes and their niche within this group of writers.