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that have lived off the dead in the raven’s graveyard—then aren’t they the spirits of the people, the children, the girls who sacrificed themselves, buried here? And isn’t their delight a form of the consciousness we share above and below the ground and in between, where I stand, right here? As I think this, one raven veers toward me, zipping straight at my face, but I do not flinch as its wings brush through my hair. I call out my sister’s name in the wildness of the moment. Then I turn and watch the raven swerve rapidly over the tops of the pines, until she plummets down the cliff again, laughs, and disappears.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

What happened to the girl in the beginning of “The Shawl” is based on the experience of an elderly man who told this to Tobasonakwut. I thank him for trusting me with the story. There are other very similar folk tales; one appears in Willa Cather’s My Ántonia. So I can only conclude that all stories exist in continuum and that this actually happened. Yet I also think that the story runs counter to real facts about the shyness and politic avoidance that wolves show to humans. I’ve tried to stay true to both. As in all of my books, no sacred knowledge is revealed. I check carefully to make certain everything I use is written down already. Thomas Vennum’s The Ojibwe Dance Drum: Its History and Construction was particularly helpful to me. I want to thank my editor, Terry Karten, for her clear eye; Trent Duffy, for his close work; and Gail Caldwell, for deepening my vision of this book.

About the Author

Louise Erdrich is the author of eleven novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her novel Love Medicine won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse was a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore.

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ALSO BY LOUISE ERDRICH

Novels

Love Medicine

The Beet Queen

Tracks

The Bingo Palace

Tales of Burning Love

The Antelope Wife

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

The Master Butchers Singing Club

Four Souls

With Michael Dorris

The Crown of Columbus

Poetry

Jacklight

Baptism of Desire

Original Fire

For Children

Grandmother’s Pigeon

The Birchbark House

The Range Eternal

The Game of Silence

Nonfiction

The Blue Jay’s Dance

Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country

Credits

Jacket design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich

Jacket photographs © Katherine Wolkoff/

Art + Commerce Anthology

Copyright

THE PAINTED DRUM. Copyright © 2005 by Louise Erdrich. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

ePub edition August 2005 ISBN 9780061748875

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Erdrich, Louise.

The painted drum : a novel / Louise Erdrich.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN-10: 0-06-051510-4

ISBN-13: 978-0-06-051510-2

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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