James Welch’s book Fools Crow (Part One) is a story that takes place in historical northwestern Montana, focusing on the life of an eighteen-year-old Pikunis Indian, White Man’s Dog. There is a lot to learn about Native American culture. In this book a reader will learn about what constitutes honor and wealth in this Native American society, what their family life is like, and how dreams play an essential role in what they believe and how they act.
Honor is an significant part of this culture, it is the most influential reason why these people had the motives, actions, and thoughts that they did. Two of the main characters in this first part of the book, White Man’s Dog and Fast Horse, are very concerned with gaining honor and “wealth” so they will be wanted and respected by others. What honor and “wealth” is to these Blackfeet Indians is very blindly judged by how many horses and wives a man owns, and how lucky others think you are. The way honor and wealth are acquired is not so much through what family and wealth you are born in to, but the family and wealth you create for yourself. Although White Man’s Dog and Fast Horse have well respected fathers, it only gets them so far in their tribe. White Man’s Dog has never touched a women, has puny animals, and believes that he is unlucky. Fast Horse is wanted by women that can’t be with him because he is not wealthy, which is shown on page 7 when Fast Horse says “many women already find me attractive but their fathers know I am without wealth. I shall acquire this wealth from the fat Crows.” However, it is White Man’s Dog’s father’s respect which even gets him a chance to go on the raid of the Crows, which will change his life forever.
Many people through out this book have dreams. It is thought that these dreams predict what is to come. Sometimes, it frightens people such as when White Man’s Dog had a dream, “this one was a sign, and he didn’t know how to interpret it. He wanted to go to the white-faced girl...