34 pages • 1 hour read
Ella Cara DeloriaWaterlily
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1988A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 15-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
Waterlily is “bashful and prudent” (181)in her role as a wife, never discussing her marital affairs with others in the camp circle. Sacred Horse finds her “unduly slow, unduly quiet” (181)in their relationship and wishes she were more outgoing. He seeks advice from his cousin, who says she is probably still reserved because she is not around her family and is thus not comfortable in her new environment with Sacred Horse.
One night, Sacred Horse comes home after a long day of hunting. He has left the buck hide at the hunting spot, hoping to spare Waterlily the job of tending it. However, she rides out in the middle of the night to get it, and Sacred Horse goes after her.
While at the home of her “social parents” (186), Waterlily and Sacred Horse learn of several recent deaths. One man has murdered his rival. The dead man’s cousin, in turn, murders his attacker. There is also a smallpox epidemic moving through the camp circle. Someone brought back several blankets that were exposed to the disease, so the camp circle members have been passing the blankets around, thus passing the disease around. Many die. To avoid the disease, Waterlily and Sacred Horse must leave the camp with his family.
Chapter 16 Summary
The family “escaped nothing by running away” (199)as Waterlily’s sister in-law, Echo, and mother-in-law, Taluta, have already been exposed to smallpox. All nine people live in the same tipi, and they thus pass the sickness back and forth among them. Waterlily’s niece and nephew die. Waterlily gets sick but recovers, though she now has scars on her face. Sacred Horse drags himself outside when he is ill, as is the custom. Waterlily makes a shelter for him outside. He dies during the night. The family hoists Sacred Horse’s body up into a tree. They move the camp.
One day, Echo’s husband leaves the camp circle to go hunting. Echo’s son, Little Bear, has also left the tipi. Waterlily goes down to the river to look for her nephew, and a war party attacks the tipi. The war party uses “the white men’s guns” (205)and kills everyone but Echo and Little Bear. Days of “utter dejection” (206)follow, as the three live in a ripped tipi with limited food supplies. Echo wants to wait for her husband to return, hoping he was not killed by the war party. After a few days, a cousin of Echo’s comes by, and he hunts for them and feeds them. Later, the cousin finds Echo’s husband’s corpse, and the group decides to return to the camp circle. Many have died from smallpox, and “everyone is leveled very low” (210).
Chapter 17 Summary
Waterlily wants to return home, but Sacred Horse’s family insists she stay. Her social parents claim her, and she goes to live in their tipi, which puts her at ease. Her cousin urges her to marry Lowanla, a relative of theirs, for “the coming child’s sake” (211).
Waterlily’s social parents travel with her back to White Ghost, seeing that she truly needs to return home. They make the journey even though it is winter, and they are guided by a warrior party. On their journey, they come across a family that has no kinship ties, and the party offers them hospitality. The children are “unbelievably wild, untutored” (215). They arrive at White Ghost’s winter quarters where they are welcomed. Waterlily gives birth to her son, and she names him Mitawa, which means My Own. Waterlily’s grandfather dies during this time. Lowanla arrives, and the two marry through “mutual agreement openly declared” (220). Their life together is “easy and pleasant”(221), and Waterlily has a better rapport with Lowanla than with Sacred Horse.
In the spring, White Ghost gathers buffaloberries. They crush them and dry them in the sun. The novel ends with a conversation between Waterlily and Lowanla. He asks if she is the girl who brought him water during the Sun Dance ceremony several years back, and she denies it.
Chapters 15-17 Analysis
Through Waterlily’s marriage, kinship gender roles are continually enforced. Silence and repression figure heavily in women’s lives: “However agreeable or upsetting her marriage might be, she managed a calm exterior, a convincing matter-of-factness about it, that prevented others—including her husband—from guessing her feelings” (179).A woman cannot express her feelings about a marriage, whether good or bad. She must maintain her silence so that she maintains her husband’s honor, which is valued higher than her happiness.
Moreover, the Dakotas disdain women who have sex outside of marriage. They discuss Everywhere and Night Walker, two women who have sex with multiple men. These women are not respected for acting on their sexual impulses and are shunned by the rest of the community. When discussing Everywhere, Waterlily’s social mother states: “It is her kind that bring trouble to good men and women and set a wrong example for our girls” (190). In this way, kinship among the Dakotas forbids female expression of sexuality outside of marriage.
Ritual continues to figure strongly in the community. There are small, everyday rituals practiced by the Dakotas. For example, a husband will oil and braid his wife’s hair in public, which is a great show of affection for her. Similarly, a wife will massage and paint her husband’s feet, and in this way, they are “soothed and honored” (183). These small, ritualistic practices are ways in which the Dakota people show their love for each other.
Ritual is still important even in trying times. During the outbreak of smallpox, the camp circle continues to maintain ritual practices. For example, when Sacred Horse dies, his family still maintains the proper procedures. They hoist his body up into a tree to keep his it safe from animals. In this way, ritual underscores the lives of the Dakotas in both large and small ways.
