Themes:

Family
Love
Survival
Culture
Loss/discovery
Identity
History
Motivation

Symbols:
North-safety/family
Story-tradition
Dreams-hope
Recruiters-greed
Moose-morals/nature ùndï
Braids
Music/singing/drum
Language
Water
Wind (telling him/inner voices)

Other random stuff

The restriction of oral languages can lead to the weakening of generational relationships
Books don’t offer the same interaction as oral stories
The Indians took different approaches to dealing with the situation Travis and lincoln vs
Miig

Thesis:
The marrow thieves address the problems in the world regarding the environment and
indigenous policies.

What is the significance of finding clean water?

Water is usually poison
Turning point of hope
Water is a symbol for life
It's not a always accessible

Rougarou Comes Hunting Quote:

 The schools were an ever-spreading network from the south stretching northward, on
our heels like a bushfire. Always north. To what end? Now we'd lost RiRi. Now I'd shot a
man. Would I even be welcome in the North? I couldn't even protect a little girl.

I saw both of the Recruiters now: high-waisted navy shorts, gym socks with red stripes
pulled up to their knees above low, mesh-sided sneakers, the kind that make you look
fast and professional. Their polo shirts were partially covered with zip-front
windbreakers one shade lighter than their shorts. The logo on the left side was
unreadable from this distance, but I knew what it said: "Government of Canada:
Department of Oneirology." Around their necks, on white cords, hung those silver
whistles.

From the outset of the novel, Dimaline presents dreams as a central theme. Miig explains
to the youth that dreams are woven into the marrow of their bones from the day they are
born. “That’s where they pluck them from,” he explains ominously. While the reader does
not yet know the precise relationship between the capacity to dream, bone marrow, and
the hunting of Native people, Dimaline foreshadows that society is waging a war against
Indigenous people in a violent effort to regain the capacity to dream. One moment of
foreshadowing is the logos on the Recruiters’ shirts, which read: “Government of Canada:
Department of Oneirology.” Oneirology refers to the scientific study of dreams.

Lost:
Riri
Minerva
Hope
Innocence
Dreams
Rational Thinking
Family
Morals
Environment

Found:
New Family
Hope
Isaac
Water
Love

Connection of Language to a Theme:

Very few people speak the language so it makes it unique. Culture, connections family.
Language and story are all that they really have at this time
More authentic to their identity and culture
Speaking their language helps to keep it alive
Old timy/ reclaiming their identity, language
Language is the solution so shows reclaiming their culture

How does the novel incorporate both the past and future without erasing the importance
of either?
Helps to show achievement and growth in characters
Reflect the past in the future by drawing parallels between events. shows the
significance of past events without taking away the significance of what is being done
right now
Helps us to understand why the world is the way it is, why characters are who they are,
and hope for the future
Helps characters understand each other more by understanding what happened to
them in the past. helps build their family for the future

Effects on present time

Talks about the schools-residential schools
Future getting close to destroying environment
How past can repeat itself and

Sometimes the path in front of you alter (page 145)

Thesis: Dark times in the past do not affect future goals

Idea of misunderstanding minority groups

The schools in the book resemble treatments in residential schools

Marginalization, Homogenization, assimilation, imperialism

Why people do bad things in the book?

Ones emotions effected by loss of someone important
Feel agrovated and the need to prove themselves in front of some one they love
Protect someone they love
One becomes sensitive towards subject of culture and identity

The ending allows reader to decide what happens after Isaac comes bac

Quotes:

The Fire Quotes

I was nicknamed Frenchie as much for my name as for my people—the Metis. I came

from a long line of hunters, trappers, and voyageurs. But now, with most of the rivers cut

into pieces and lakes left as grey sludge puckers on the landscape, my own history

seemed like a myth along the lines of dragons.

Story: Part 1 Quotes

"But we sang our songs and brought them to the streets and into the

classrooms—classrooms we built on our own lands and filled with our own words and

books. And once we remembered that we were warriors, once we honored the pain and

left it on the side of the road, we moved ahead. We were back."

-Miig

Magic Words Quotes

"How do you have language?" My voice broke on the last syllable. My chest tightened.

How could she have the language? She was the same age as me, and I deserved it

more. I don't know why, but I felt certain that I did. I yanked my braid out of the back of

my shirt and let it fall over my shoulder. Some kind of proof, I suppose.

On the Road Quotes

Everything was different. We were faster without our youngest and oldest, but now we

were without deep roots, without the acute need to protect and make better. And I had

taken up a spot that'd opened up in the middle of it all, somewhere between

desperation and resolve.

Loss Quotes

In them, there is always this feeling, an understanding more than an emotion, of

protection. It didn't matter what was happening in the world, my job was to be Francis.

That was all. Just remain myself. And now? Well, now I had a different family to take

care of. My job was to hunt, and scout, and build camp, and break camp, to protect the

others. I winced even thinking about it. My failure. I'd failed at protecting, and now, as a

result, I failed at remaining myself.

The general population of this futuristic world have lost their ability to dream, and the lack
of dreams is driving people mad. The exception is the Native American population, because
they have somehow retained their dreams. The government discovers that Native
Americans can be harvested for their dreams, though each person is reduced to the
contents of a single vial in the process. The result is that Native Americans are running for
their lives as an entire branch of government has been created to hunt them down and
harvest them for their dreams. The agents, called Recruiters, use any means necessary to
track down and capture Native Americans, including turning some members of this cultural
group into informants.

French is a youngster who is on the run with his brother, Mitch, when the Recruiters find
them. Mitch sacrifices himself so that French can escape. Very young and on his own in a
hostile world, French is soon too sick to survive on his own. A group of Native Americans,
led by Miigwans (called Miig), discovers French and nurses him back to health. By the time
French is 16, he is a strong young man who is learning the ways of the Native Americans,
and he is an accepted member of the family-group led by Miig. Miig and his partner, Isaac,
were living in the wilderness when Recruiters captured Isaac. The oldest member of the
group is Minerva, who is often carried by some of the stronger young people. She is
respected though she seems to provide very little in the way of support to the group. The
youngest member of the family-group is RiRi. She is a toddler when French arrives and is
seven by the time the main story line opens. RiRi is frustrated that she is still too young to
know the full truth about the history that brought them to this point. The others, including
French do their best to protect both Minerva and RiRi.

By this time, some Native Americans have become informants for the government. They
alert the Recruiters when they encounter other Native Americans. French and his group
encounter two of these informants, and one of them kills himself and RiRi when they fall off
a cliff. French kills the other informant and the group has to run for their lives. A short time
later, Minerva allows herself to be captured so that the remainder of the group is safe.
French realizes that the youngest member and the oldest member of their group had
provided hope for the future and the roots of their cultural history, and that the group is
floundering without those elements.
French's group encounters another group of Native Americans who have created a settled
life for themselves in a series of caves and a protected valley. French discovers that his
father, Jean, is living with this group and they renew their relationship, though they grieve
for the loss of French's mother and brother. While they are trying to make a plan to rescue
Minerva, they discover that she had sang one of the songs of her people, and that song had
destroyed one of the government facilities. With the realization that Minerva is key to their
survival, French and the others set out to rescue her. The attempt fails when a government
official shoots Minerva to keep her from escaping.

French and the others move to a new location and encounter another small group of Native
Americans. French discovers that one of them is Isaac, and he tells French that he dreams
in his Native American language. French realizes that the people who dream in their native
languages are like Minerva.

The novel is set is a futuristic world in which society has collapsed and much of the world's
population has died. While the novel can be read literally, it can also be considered symbolic
of the trials Native Americans have faced over the past centuries as they have been
assimilated into white society and have left some aspects of their traditional heritage
behind.