The Grass Dancer

The Grass Dancer (1994) is the debut novel by Susan Power, an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. This young adult novel is part of the magical realism genre. Using a nonlinear structure and overlapping narratives, Power slowly pieces together a story that links generations of Sioux families together in a complex and powerful way. The following material was gathered using a first edition copy of the text.

Plot Summary

The Prologue begins with Harley Wind Soldier’s dreams. He sees his father, Calvin, and brother, Duane. They only ever meet in dreams because Calvin and Duane died after being hit by a drunk driver before Harley was born.

In 1981, Harley’s Sioux community and other groups of Indigenous people are preparing for a powwow. Harley and his friends, Frank Pipe and Charlene Thunder, help set up the event under the supervision of the watchful elders. On the first day of the powwow, the group is joined by attendees from the surrounding area. Pumpkin is one such person, a young Menominee girl from Chicago with red-gold hair and a promising future.

Pumpkin draws attention from all at the event, not just for her striking appearance but also for her talent. She competes in the dancing competition as a grass dancer, a role typically filled by men. Harley is mesmerized, but Charlene harbors some degree of envy. Charlene has struggled to capture Harley’s attentions, but Pumpkin does so effortlessly.

Charlene does not compete at the powwow. She is too wary of what her grandmother, Anna “Mercury” Thunder, may do. Anna (who is called Mercury in chapters written in Charlene’s perspective) is known for her magical abilities and penchant for using magic at the expense of others. When Charlene competed in the past, Anna used supernatural interference to eliminate Charlene’s competition, sometimes injuring other dancers. Charlene disapproves of her grandmother’s actions and so no longer competes.

Much to Charlene’s chagrin, Harley and Pumpkin leave the powwow together. The two spend an intimate evening in an abandoned house. During this time, Harley opens up to Pumpkin about his feeling of incompleteness, related to his traumatic family history. Pumpkin offers Harley part of her own soul so he will feel whole.

After the powwow, Pumpkin begins her journey home to Chicago. However, she never reaches her destination, as the car she’s riding in skids off the road in the rain. No one survives. Harley is devastated by the news. Charlene is also upset but harbors additional fears. She worries Anna may have caused the accident.

Through analepsis, a literary technique in which past events are recounted in nonchronological order, the narrative shifts back in time to when Harley and his companions are in middle school. Their overzealous teacher attempts to institute more Indigenous traditions in the classroom. When she asks her students to recount personal narratives, Harley relates a banal story to the class but personally reflects on time he spent with Frank’s grandfather, Herod Small War. Herod is a yuwipi, a healer who communicates with the spirit world. In Harley’s recollection, Herod tells Harley about Harley’s ancestor, Ghost Horse, a man who was heyo’ka (a fool) and always did the opposite of what was expected. Harley begins to assume some of Ghost Horse’s characteristics and reflects on his lineage.

Herod’s role as a healer is important in the community. In 1976, Herod and his friend, Archie Iron Necklace, take Harley and Frank on a quest to find the medicine hole, a supernatural portal. On their journey, the companions stop at an abandoned house once owned by a woman Herod had an affair with. Herod is currently having marital problems. His stay at the abandoned house is, therefore, impactful and relevant to his current struggles. While there, he sees the ghost of his former lover and has a vision of Sioux warriors on horseback. Herod asks the spirits if he will find the medicine hole, and he discovers that he is the medicine hole.

The narrative shifts further back to when Harley is five years old. He, his mother Lydia, and his aunt Evelyn are taking care of his grandmother, Margaret Many Wounds, as she nears the end of her life. Margaret has visions of spirits as she recounts her life aloud. She recalls her first love as well as her second, the man who fathered Lydia and Evelyn. Margaret was never honest with her children about who their father was, and Evelyn is hurt when she overhears the confession.

The family watches the first moon landing on air, but Margaret shows little interest. Instead of watching the television, Margaret takes Harley on a spiritual journey to the moon. Not long after this, Margaret dies. As the two sisters prepare for the funeral, Harley continues to watch the moon landing. He sees his grandmother’s spirit performing a Sioux dance on the moon.

A few years prior, Anna’s daughter, Crystal Thunder, gives birth to Charlene. Crystal is 17 years old and eager to get married so she can escape the reservation and Anna. Anna agrees to let her daughter go, but only in exchange for Charlene. Crystal moves to Chicago and leaves her baby with Anna. She tells her new husband, Charlene’s father, that their child is dead.

Anna has a history of meddling with family units. Calvin Wind Soldier is happily married to his wife Lydia. Anna seeks to end their union through her magical interference. She believes her actions are justified because Calvin’s ancestor, Ghost Horse, was in love with Anna’s ancestor, Red Dress. The ancestral lovers came to a tragic end, and Anna asserts that she and Calvin can correct the wrongs of the past by starting their own romance. However, Anna’s charms do not work on Calvin, who wears a protection charm to ward off her advances. Enraged by her failure, Anna completes a ritual that results in an affair between Evelyn and Calvin. This results in Duane’s birth. Evelyn leaves the reservation, and Lydia is left to raise her sister’s child as her own.

However, Calvin and Duane do not live much longer. While pregnant with Harley, Lydia becomes frustrated with Duane’s tantrums. She tells Calvin to take him out of the house for a while. Calvin and his son go for a drive and are killed in a car accident. Lydia blames herself for getting angry and takes a vow of silence.

The narrative again moves back in time, to the 1930s. Anna is not a lifelong magic practitioner. When she marries and gives birth to a son named Chaske, she is content to live an ordinary, modern life. However, once her husband and son become sick, her life is forever changed. Her ill husband dies in an accident and Chaske becomes sick with consumption. Desperate for help, Anna tells her cousin, Joyce Blue Kettle, to get a doctor for Chaske. Joyce says she will but instead goes to a powwow with her daughter, Bernadine. Chaske dies that night. Anna is overcome with grief and seeks revenge. She goes to Joyce’s house at night and uses magic to summon Bernadine. She commands the child to dance. The bewitched Bernadine dances all night and is found dead in the morning. Anna continues to abuse magic from that day forward.

In 1835, Red Dress must leave her lover, Ghost Horse, to complete a sacred mission. She travels with her brother to Fort Laramie and uses magic to wage war against the colonizers. She enchants several men with the use of two sacred stones. Each man she enchants commits suicide. Eventually, the local reverend connects Red Dress to these deaths and kills her.

Red Dress’s body is returned to her family, and her spirit remains on the earth. She marries Ghost Horse in a postmortem ceremony, which keeps her spirit with him and prevents her journey to the afterlife. When Ghost Horse dies, his spirit cannot remain on the earth and, thus, travels to the spirit realm. Red Dress remains on earth, unable to enter the spirit realm or to ever be with her lover.

The narrative returns to the present, in 1981. Charlene and Harley are each struggling with their own trauma. Charlene decides to use magic to enchant boys, as her grandmother does. However, she is visited by Red Dress’s spirit and agrees to never misuse magic again. Her life takes a new direction when she finds an article about her parents in the paper. For the first time, Charlene contacts her mother. A few days later, she goes to Chicago to be with her mother, abandoning Anna.

Harley is still reeling from Pumpkin’s death. He tries several coping mechanisms, including performing as a grass dancer himself and, when he is unable to perform the dance well, abusing alcohol. Herod provides Harley with spiritual guidance and sends the teenager to the vision pit, where he has a spiritual experience. In Harley’s vision, he travels through the medicine hole to the world of the spirits. He meets his ancestors, and they show him his place in the universe. Lastly, he sees Red Dress. Red Dress explains that the grass dancer is a warrior dancing in rebellion. Harley’s vision ends. His community comes to bring him home from the vision pit, and they all sing an honor song.