Picked up a NLB recommendation for me. I even managed to get an earlier copy via Libby than the library reservation queue said. It's 'Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology' (2023), a collection of 26 stories penned by authors of Indigenous Nations. It's edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. I definitely am into this genre.
The short stories use traditional folklore (such as skinwalkers, thunderbirds, wendigos, the underwater panther mishipeshu, small elves like pukwudgie, kushtukas or tlingit, and various spirits) in contemporary environments and situations to remind us of the very real horrors of colonialism, extreme racism, generational trauma, systemic violence, and cultural survival.
Say, now-80-year-old Leonard Peltier of Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe in North Dakota. He was incarcerated for nearly 50 years for killing two FBI officers, and has maintained his innocence, and had his sentence commutated by then-President Joe Biden in 2025, and now lives under house arrest. He is seen as a global symbol for the rights of indigenous people.
If you look beyond the supernatural, it's a depressing journey of emotional abuse of all sorts, racism, mental illness, sexual and child abuse, and every horror and depravity you can think of. There're lots of predators abound in these stories. I can't help but shudder at the cruelty of violence, greed, tratitors and colonizers. Humans are truly terrible. Wouldn't I want to be a spirit or a supernatural entity so that I exact the ultimate revenge on my torturers in any way I deem fit?
I don't have a favorite story in this collection. They're all chilling, thoughtful and deeply layered. I'll highlight five stories that are frightening to think about. They gave me much to reflect upon, not just on the dismal state of the world, but to think about our own emotions when dealing with familial and generational expectations, trauma and disconnect.
'Kushtuka' by Mathilda Zeller
The book opens with a sobering story of a white man Hank Ferryman who seemed to want Tapeesa to carry his child. And her mother commands it too. The complicity. Tapeesa already has someone she likes — Panu — who wants to properly marry her.
Luckily the story ended with the death of the white man. He was killed by a kushtuka before anything. At a dinner party at Hank Ferryman's lodge, he hired Tapeesa to cook, clean and serve and all. Then things happened. When things went to pieces at the end and dramatically ended with the deaths of the white men at the lodge, I still didn't know if it was the work of a kushtuka, or it was Tapeesa who went bonkers with rage and did it. Panu who was nearby, also killed his clients who were white. The story ended like this. I don't know how it finally played out, or which tribes got blamed for the massacre at Hank Ferryman's home.
'Quantum' by Nick Medina
Samuel, or Sammy, is the elder son born to Amber Cloud and her white ex-boyfriend who didn't have enough money to move her off the reservations or pay for diapers. Grayson, Gray, is the younger son born to Amber and her new boyfriend Dave Blackburn who is Indigenous.
Both boys look alike with tawny skin and dark brown eyes and raven hair. But their bloodlines are so different. The boys' birth certficates listed that Samuel Joseph Scott is of ⅛ degree Indian blood; Grayson Joshua Blackburn is of ⁵⁄₁₆ degree Indian blood.
Gray is on the tribal rolls with many opportunities that Sammy wouldn't have. Gray is Native, and could even choose a university to attend if he wishes, but Sammy would have to settle for community college or a trade. This story reminds us that a parent's love can be unconditional too. Parents aren't saints. There're many toxic parents around.
Driven by circumstances, and having children of different parentage can lead to different treatment. Acceptance happens by intent. Amber finally accepts her other son who can't qualify and compete in the tribal rolls because his father isn't Indigenous.
Repulsed by the sight of it and its smell, Amber slowly squatted and pulled the thing toward her. It whimpered and whined, getting blood on her fingers. She could feel its bones through its gauzy flesh, fragile and fine.
Still thinking about what the funeral director had said, Amber picked it up and carried it through the house, to the boys' bedroom, where she placed it in its crib.
"Sammy," she said.
Knowing now that the something could grow into anything, she took the dream catcher from over Gray's crib and hung it above Sammy's head.
'Tick Talk' by Cherie Dimaline
Bilson, otherwise known as Son, moved to New Orleans. He has stayed for two years before he was told that his mother has passed on in his birth city of Toronto. So he went home for the funeral this winter, and went to visit his father who lived up north. Son hadn't had much a relationship with his father since his mom took him and left when he was a baby. Now, he decided to stay on. He stayed with his father for a few months through spring and summer. Till one day in fall, his father passed peacefully at home, at this lodge in the mountains.
For old times' sake, he decided to go hunting, perhaps in memory of his father. He went to the hunting cabin that all the relatives in the family use when they go on a hunt. At night, he found a swollen tick burrowed in his stomach. He was going find tweezers and get it out, but he tripped and fell and lost consciousness.
When he woke up, he found that the tick had bloated to the size of a lightbulb. Eiooowwww. Instead of pulling it out straight, he stuck a knife in the tick's shell. BAD IDEA. That's just going to make it burrow deeper. He cut into his own skin in order to pull out that tick altogether. He didn't manage to kill the tick. He only pulled it out and flung it across the room. It was still alive.
What kind of parasitic feeding is this? If this is metaphor for the emotional void and unresolved grief at an estranged parent's passing, it's more than horrifying. My goosebumps rose. At this point, I shuddered. I DO NOT LIKE TICKS. Not on me, and certainly not on the dog. This is a horror story, all right.
'Sundays' by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
This is a hard story to read. The narrator Thomas Bear Rose is a survivor of sexual assaults by a Father R, a pedophile priest at a Catholic boarding school. He was nine. Now, fifty years later, he can't forget, and he seeks vengeance. He's unable to sue or file any reports because of the state's statutes of limitations. However, he had the priest's name Walter Raubvogel, and a residential address.
He drove four hours from the reservation to the city when the priest lived. He also brought along an old handgun. Father R let him into his home and served him tea. And pretended not to know what he was talking about, and denied any sexual assaults to Thomas or his little friend Johnnie Two Bulls who took his own life after the assaults. The hypocrite of a pedophile denied any wrongdoing, and in fact insisted that he was kind to the boys then when they needed it, and justified it with religion and evangelism and being 'saved by the Lord'.
Thomas didn't kill him or injure him. He did scare the elderly priest good and proper. He held back and chose forgiveness over vengeance. The choice is 'wokintunze', the last word his wife Connie said to him before she passed on six months ago.
I'd wondered what she meant by that word. At first, I thought she meant that I should forgive her for dying and leaving me. But I realized she was telling me I needed to let go of my anger and shame. The feelings of worthlessness and self-loathing I'd carried for so long. I didn't know if I could forgive Father Raubvogel, but perhaps I could forgive myself.
'Limbs' by Waubgeshig Rice
This is the final story in the collection. 'Limbs' is as much about the mutilation of the man, as well as the arboreal limbs of the forest rising up to punish the colonizer. As surely as this is about 19th century racism and evil-doers, settlers and exploitation, I wonder if this is about poetic justice meted out by Mother Nature. Is this the vengeance of the land?
I have no idea why white man Carter tortured his local hunting guide Makwa. It might be from sheer frustration of not getting a trophy after a full day of hunting. But it could also be because Carter knew he could get away with it, drunken stupor notwithstanding. Carter broke Makwa's knee and ankle, and threatened to break every limb and go after his family.
It was the last sound Carter heard before a thick, broken branch fell from one of the taller pines above and struck him on the head. He fell forward, unconscious, and rolled down the slight slope, coming to a halt on the flat ground between the trees.
His senseless body lay there only a moment before a root shot up from the glade and wrapped around his leg. Another snaked around his torso, while more still bound him to the surface of the Earth. The roots constricted his body with tremendous force, and Carter awoke to this trap and screamed.
But the terror-stricken scream was short-lived, as another root impaled the back of Carter's head, shooting out his mouth on the other side. Another thrust upward through his chest before curving back around his torso. As quickly as the trees' roots confined him, they pulled him into the ground to reclaim his matter for the land itself. The hole that opened to devour the body closed, and the ground covered itself back over to erase the settler's presence.
The wind rattled the door. The trees eased their movement, and the rustle of the gusts eventually died down. A calm fell.
