Book Review: Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley

Angeline Boulley’s debut novel Firekeeper’s Daughter was my favorite book of 2021, so I absolutely could not wait to jump into another book featuring the Firekeeper family of Sugar Island, this time set in 2014. The protagonist of Firekeeper’s Daughter, Daunis Fontaine, has a smaller role in this novel, as her cousin Perry Firekeeper-Birch takes center stage in a tale of repatriation, heists and, ultimately, murder.

Perry is used to being known as the bad twin, in contrast with her sister Pauline’s usual labels of “smart” and “nice.” While the academically-focused Pauline is excited about padding her resume for college with a summer internship in the local Kinomaage program, Perry is looking forward to a summer of fishing and relaxing before knuckling under for another year at her alternative high school. A vehicular accident puts paid to this projected Summer Of Slack, as Perry’s livid Aunt Daunis signs Perry up for the last open internship spot so that Perry can earn money to repay her for car repairs.

Unlike her twin, Perry isn’t much of a book learner. While she respects her sister’s accomplishments, she also believes in honing her less mainstream skills, as she explains to her young cousin Waab:

“The water, wind, trees, birds, critters…they all speak if you pay attention. They leave clues for you to figure out.”

 

“Does Auntie Pauline listen too?”

 

“She listens, but she doesn’t hear everything,” I say.

 

“But she reads more books than you,” he points out.

 

I’m known for saying exactly what’s on my mind. But when I’m talking with my little cousin, I choose my words carefully. He’s a deep thinker, and I don’t want to warp him.

 

“Waab, books are wonderful. But so is learning directly from Gichi-manidoo. Creator gave us helpers to teach us things even before books were invented. We learned from stories told from person to person. And we learned that we are helpers too. We are connected to every single creature, tree, and river.”

As such, Perry is hoping for an outdoorsy assignment so she can at least have some semblance of her dream summer while interning. Her hopes are dashed when she’s assigned to the museum part of the Sugar Island Learning Center instead. It doesn’t help that her mentor is “Kooky” Cooper Turtle, whose eccentric nature is well known in their community. He has her doing so much manual labor indoors – polishing, dusting, vacuuming – that she becomes desperate enough to beg for a transfer to any other department. But when he brings her along with him to a meeting with the trustees of Mackinac State College – Pauline’s safety school and the local institution of higher learning – Perry discovers things that change her view of the museum’s work forever.

Mackinac State possesses a large collection of Indian artifacts, including the bones of many of the people once buried on the island. Perry is appalled and infuriated at this desecration of her ancestors’ remains, which are kept in display boxes at best instead of being allowed to rest in the earth as they should be. Cooper has been trying for some time to get the college to return the skeletons, including one known as Warrior Girl, so that their Ojibwe tribe may rebury them in accordance with their religion and traditions. While his efforts have been helped by federal legislation, the college has been dragging its feet about properly identifying and authenticating its inventory. After all, if there’s no official “proof” that the remains belong to a particular tribe, then they can’t be claimed by any tribe.

At first, Perry is happy to try things Cooper’s way. But as the levels of disrespect and stonewalling continue to rise, Perry decides to take matters into her own hands. With a group of other independently-minded interns, she begins to mastermind a heist to forcibly repatriate stolen remains. When murder enters the mix, however, will she be able to honor the dead while also protecting the lives of her nearest and dearest?

I loved this smart, moving young adult thriller that doesn’t hesitate to turn its critical eye on anyone acting foolishly in relation to American Indian rights and responsibilities. Ms. Boulley has a gift for cutting through the noise and focusing on what’s important, thereby getting readers unfamiliar with the topics she raises to understand where she’s coming from. I hadn’t really understood or even thought about the repatriation movement myself until I read this book. Now I’m fully on board. She also clarifies her stance on a topic brought up in this novel’s predecessor concerning who gets to belong, via this description of a Tribal Council sponsored picnic:

“The picnic is just for tribal citizens and registered guests, mostly family members who aren’t enrolled citizens.

 

There used to be different colored wristbands for guests, until a council member said their unenrolled grandchildren were made to feel like freeloaders. Granny June says we just gotta wait until there’s enough council members with unenrolled relatives, and then Tribal Council will vote to lower the blood-quantum requirement. Pops says only three things still have pedigrees: dogs, horses, and Indians. His tribe avoids all that by using lineal descendancy, which still involves a family tree but without any colonizer blood-quantum nonsense.”

Ms. Boulley does a wonderful job of reminding readers both that American Indians are not a monolith, and that their issues are very much issues other citizens of the United States should care about and work on with them together. Her fiction is always enlightening and entertaining, making for some of the best contemporary novels out there. Each book feels like a gift to us readers, and I’m eagerly looking forward to more.