Mean Spirit

Nola Blanket is a young Osage girl who lives first with her mother Grace and then with Belle Graycloud. The murder of Nola’s mother Grace is this narrative’s inciting incident, and Nola inherits not only her mother’s money, but her mother’s precarious position as a wealthy Osage woman in a community of white people so hostile to Indigenous people that they are willing to resort to violence against them. She is barely 13 years old when the novel begins, and her character embodies the novel’s primary themes.

Initially Nola is shown in contrast to her mother: Grace has embraced white society in Watona and has little use for Osage traditions. Nola, however, retains close ties with the Hill Community and has a deep appreciation for her Osage history. The differences between Nola and Grace are obvious to everyone in the community: “By the time she was five years old, it was apparent to everyone that Nola was ill-suited for town life” (9). She appears more comfortable in traditional Osage dress than in modern clothing, and even wears that clothing to defy the assimilationist policies of the school that she attends in Watona.

After inheriting her mother’s wealth and accepting the marriage proposal of Will Forrest, a white man, Nola does appear more interested in white culture, but after so many murders and the obviously malign intentions of so many white citizens and officials in Watona, Nola rejects white society entirely and returns to the ways of the Hill Community.