Shell Shaker (2001) is a novel by American LeAnne Howe (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma). The novel's plot revolves around two tales of murder involving historical Choctaw political leaders. Set over a 200-year period, it focuses on several generations of the fictional Billy family, who try to keep the peace. It won the 2002 Before Columbus American Book Award.
According to Howe, Shell Shaker is "a book about power, its misuse, and how a community responds. It's not for Indians only."
Title
A shell shaker is a woman who participates in a Choctaw ceremony for which empty turtle shells are tied around a dancer's feet. The dance is a prayer to the spirits to answer a request. The Billy family is descended from the first shell shaker, called Grandmother of Birds.
Plot
Shell Shaker links two distant generations of the Billy family. The novel begins in 1738 in Choctaw Mississippi, initially focusing on Red Shoes (a historical Choctaw chief). He has two wives, one who is Choctaw and one who is Chickasaw, from a neighboring tribe. When his Chickasaw wife is found murdered, his Choctaw wife Anoleta is blamed. Anoleta's mother, Shakbatina, sacrifices her life to save her daughter and avert a war between the tribes. But during the next decade, the Choctaw try to decide what action to take against Red Shoes, while Anoleta and her family try to survive. Red Shoes plays both sides in what becomes a civil war that devastates both the Choctaw town of Yanàbi and Anoleta's family.
The novel picks up in 1991, long after Removal, when Shakbatina's descendants live in Durant, Oklahoma. As a wildfire destroys the land around them, the Choctaw chief Redford McAlester is murdered. Assistant chief Auda Billy (also his lover) is blamed. Auda's mother Susan Billy confesses to the murder, and Isaac Billy (Auda's maternal uncle) gathers their scattered family to help with the investigation. Plot threads include embezzlement, rape, money laundering, and donations to the Irish Republican Army and the Mafia. An old woman claims to be actress Sarah Bernhardt.
Themes
The novel explores a number of themes, particularly regarding the circular nature of time and issues of Native American identity. The novel presents time as circular, and incapable of being divided into a separate past and the present. It explores connections over time, including the concept that when a shilombish (soul) is troubled in life, it casts a shadow over a family that endures until the problem is solved.
Howe also explores themes related specifically to Choctaw traditions and legends. The novel uses the traditional Choctaw burial practices to show the connection between the body and the land. In discussing this novel, Howe has explained that, "Native stories ... seem to pull all the elements together of the storyteller's tribe, meaning the people, the land, and multiple characters and all their manifestations and revelations, and connect these in past, present and future milieus."
The novel also explores issues of identity. Howe has been praised for presenting the Billy sisters as "real" Indian women, who also exercise autonomy in their careers, rather than as marginalized figures or romanticized Indian princesses.
Other themes explored in the work are the power of words, which become real if spoken. It also studies the Americanization of the Choctaw tribe.
Motifs and images
The novel has a number of motifs and images; for instance, both murders occur during the autumnal equinox. Burial rituals connect the novel's two time periods.
Smoke is a screen between eras, becoming thicker as the stories begin to meet. Birds appear throughout the novel, which tells the story of the Grandmother of Birds (who becomes a bird to punish Spanish invaders when her husband is killed).
Reception
Shell Shaker has been praised for emphasizing the importance of history in the lives of a Native American group as they deal with decolonization. Scholar and critic P. Jane Hafen (Taos Pueblo) said in 2002, "Howe seamlessly integrates a history of desperate and gruesome fights for survival with modern Faustian pacts with materialism and wealth. At the heart of the story are generations of Choctaw peoples who preserve with ritual gestures of 'life everlasting.