Night of the Living Rez

Drugs are one of the collection’s most present and complex symbols. Nearly every major character struggles with a form of addiction, be it to alcohol, nicotine, or the controlled substances Dee and Fellis spend much of their time seeking. Drugs are an integral and quotidian part of Dee’s life; in “Get Me Some Medicine” he even sips his methadone “slow like coffee” (49). The prevalence of drugs, their usage, and the various characters’ attempt to rid themselves of them, are powerful symbols of cyclical trauma in the collection. Paige, for instance, uses methadone to treat her narcotic addiction; this creates a methadone dependency in her child in “The Names Means Thunder.” The drug becomes a literal and figurative representation of the inheritance of trauma and the snowballing effect that one inherited trauma can have on an individual, and on a generation.

Drugs, though, are not only an embodiment of inherited trauma. The titular “blessing tobacco” references David’s grandmother’s family’s store of sacred tobacco that, according to the grandmother, her little brother used to try to steal. In this story, the tobacco is connected to familial history and Penobscot tradition; it is sacred, and David’s great-uncle was punished for his disrespectful treatment of it.