Eagle Drums
Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson
Roaring Brook Press
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Historical Fiction
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In the long-ago days, when people rarely gathered and never trusted each other, the boy Piŋa lives with his mother and father and the memories of two elder brothers, vanished on the trip to the mountain for obsidian flakes. Now, he must make the trek, for his family needs the tools they knap with the black stone if they are to harvest and prepare enough food for the long northern winter. On his way, however, he encounters a great golden eagle god, who offers a choice: follow, or die as his brothers died. Fearful, the boy agrees.
Thus begins a long and arduous journey to the very peak of the world. The eagle gods have many lessons to teach the young hunter, lessons of the strange rhythmic speaking called song and the odd movements called dance and the peculiar stretched-hide hoops called drums, all leading the the greatest challenge of all. If he learns well, he might be allowed to leave - and if he fails, he will be killed.
REVIEW: First off, I apologize for probable bunglings of Native spellings; I often have trouble getting special characters and accent marks to appear properly in Blogger, even with special notations and copy-paste commands.
This story is a retelling of a Native Arctic tale about the origins of the Iñupiaq Messenger Feast and the birth of culture among humans, set in that old story world of animal spirits and gods taking human form at will. Before the boy's journey, people are shown as mistrustful of each other, only rarely meeting long enough to trade and never coming together in friendship. Then Savik the eagle comes to young Piŋa on the mountain with his unusual demand - nothing nearly so polite as a request. The fact that the boy's two brothers faced the same choice and did not survive is more than enough to convince him to follow Savik, though every step takes him away from his parents and the only home he has ever known. The eagles never become anything like friends; not a moment goes by where the boy does not understand just how other they are, how dangerous they can be, and how little they really understand his kind. Still, they seem determined to teach him these peculiar lessons, though Piŋa cannot imagine what purpose they might serve. It's only later that he understands just what the eagles are commanding him to do: change the world, or at least the human world, a gift that isn't entirely altruistic in nature but which he has no choice but to attempt. He does not come to this knowledge easily, or learn without struggles or setbacks, and his best often doesn't seem nearly enough to please the stern old woman who leads the eagle clan. Nevertheless, he perseveres, knowing that to do otherwise is to leave his parents truly childless and bereft for the rest of their lives, without so much as a body to tell them what happened to him.
Characterization may not be especially deep or complex, but it is ultimately a legend, a fireside tale with a little extra flesh added to enrich the sense of setting, and works for what it is. The ending twist is a little bit telegraphed, but satisfactory. The whole is an interesting glimpse at a Native culture and legend I don't see much of in my fiction.
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