First impressions review: The Seed Keepers, by Diane Wilson
This book caught my eye first for the amazing cover art (just look at that up there!) and then because the concept of a story centered on Native women protecting their traditions and families through seeds reminded me of an organization called Native Seed Search that I ran across when my family briefly moved to Arizona. I was feeling un-rooted myself and was discovering that the way I found my footing in a place was through its plants. I really liked that this organization existed to preserve Tohono O’odham crop varieties and the arid-land farming techniques associated with them1. This tale jumps back and forth across time from the mid 1800s to the early 2000s and largely takes place in Mní Sota (Minnesota), with some episodes in Nebraska, where survivors of the Dakota War were removed. The characters feel very real – mostly likeable but not at all perfect. Beautiful descriptions of and interactions with wild and cultivated plants alternate with episodes of genocide, racism, and alienation, but the story ends on a hopeful note.
1. They also sell some really tasty food products (spice mixes, beans, vinegars, etc.) if you want to support them but don’t live in the right climate to grow the crops yourself!
We begin the story with a prologue from a character as yet unnamed (but who we will meet properly later):
After nearly thirty years, I didn’t expect to ever see you again. That’s why I started the garden…You were but twelve when your father had his heart attack and they took you. Never mind that you had family right here…It was for you I started growing these plants, with the hope that they could help me. They have their own way of talking, you know…I could ask the crow for her help. I could talk to the oak trees on the boulevard outside my apartment and ask them to watch for you.
The girl, now woman, this person was seeking is our primary POV character, Rosalie Iron Wing. We meet her when she decides to go back to her father’s cabin after the death of her white farmer husband. She remembers her father showing her how to interact with the forest:
We searched for wild greens in spring…In summer we traveled to find a thick grove of chokecherries, which became wasna when combined with dried deer meat and fat…He was strict, in his way, teaching me from the time I was little how to ask each plant for permission to gather it.
He was a flawed man, an imperfect parent – but he loved her and trained her how to be a survivor. Whether she knows it or not, what Rosalie is looking for is that connection to the land and her people and family that he was trying to teach her.
The character who serves as Rosalie’s foil in a lot of ways is her high school friend Gaby Makespeace. Gaby is more connected to the local Indian community in a lot of ways – she has a network of relatives on the reservation, she dances at the powwows. Her brother is a member of AIM, and she herself takes on a campaign to defend the local river from pollution. But it is the bookish, awkward Rosalie – “God, it was painful to see that girl walk down the hallway…those dumb Clark Kent glasses – girl, who lets you wear shit like that?” - who was “a real rabbit-hunting Indian”. Though they drift apart for many years, they need each other. As she tries to find herself again, Rosalie also finds an unexpected ally in Ida Johanson, who she’d vaguely known when they were both kids. Ida was an outcast of a different sort, an unfeminine girl – kind of implied to be a lesbian, though that’s never outright stated – who’d also been bullied and found solace in nature. Once Ida finds Rosalie at the cabin she quietly looks after her, making sure she has supplies and isn’t slipping into depression. And, while Ida seems to be white, she knows some people on the reservation who can help Rosalie find what remains of her family.
While Rosalie and Gaby experience racism in the 1960s-1980s that will probably make you wince if you haven’t had cause to think much about White-Indian interactions in the upper Midwest, the flashbacks to earlier generations are gut-wrenching. Through Marie Blackbird, we see the hunger Dakhóta women faced in the 1860s, their fear of the military and US government, the pain at that displacement they could see coming – sewing seeds into their skirts to prepare and burying caches in case they ever got to come back. After long years in Nebraska, Marie finally makes her way home. When asked, innocently, if there’s anything she’ll miss, she replies:
I am leaving behind the bones of my Iná [mother]…the absence of my Até [father], who died alone in a prison far from here…the grave of my only brother, Chaské, who did not live to see his second winter…Let me tell you what I know of forgiveness. It came with sharp teeth and the bluest eye, with a breath that stank of whiskey, and a fist that knocked me to the ground…she will ride in the back of the wagon, this bluest eye, this reminder, this half-breed child…This child is innocent, she is sacred, no matter how she came to be. My mother said…let love be your vengeance…Most days, I do. I try.
Their misfortunes do not end there, however. Marie lives to see most of her grandchildren stolen away to be sent to an Indian school. Unlike the children recently found in a mass grave at a similar institution in Canada, they survive – sort of. They are all carrying terrible psychological damage, which in the case of Lorriane, Rosalie’s grandmother, gets passed down to her daughter, who died when Rosalie was young under circumstances her father would never talk about.
Rosalie’s marriage to John, her white husband, is an interesting one. It is at first a matter of convenience – something that saves both of them from circumstances that were beating them down – but they do come to genuinely care for one another. However, the age gap between them is a little troubling as it heightens the power differential that already would exist between them. And, indeed, while John isn’t nearly as racist as some of his neighbors, he doesn’t really listen to some of the things Rosalie tries to tell him are important to her, including giving their son an Indian name: Wakpá, River. That son comes to be known as Tommy, and Rosalie often wonders if she’s failed him.
Midway through Rosalie’s timeline, a company called Mangenta comes to town, pitching their new corn-borer-resistant, pesticide-resistant seeds. While the name is made up (perhaps to avoid lawsuits), it is clearly an amalgam of Monsanto and Syngenta2. Gaby and Rosie raise concerns at the town meeting about the effects of increased use of pesticides. John has concerns – he remembers his father citing FDR's statement that “The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself”, but ends up planting the seeds anyway; Tommy is very enthusiastic. There are repercussions to this decision, but the story doesn’t turn into ‘Erin Brockovich’ or ‘Silent Spring.’ Although on one level that might be disappointing, the focus of this story is on the indigenous characters rebuilding connections with each other, their culture, and their plants. Given that so much effort was put into taking those things away, that alone is a win!
2. The two companies did almost merge at one point, and the point is made clearer by identifying Mangenta as the makers of Agent Orange. Monsanto was one of its biggest manufacturers…which I remember learning when I was considering going to Washington University in St. Louis. My parents noted that it was a good biology program, but they felt a little weird about the fancy new plant bio center being the ‘Monsanto building’!
There are a lot of Dakhóta words used in this book, and I rather wish there had been a pronunciation guide at the back. It would have been nice to be able to hear those words in my head while reading as they were meant to be spoken.That’s a small quibble, though. For the most part Wilson does a great job of immersing you in the character’s lives in a way that would feel natural and evocative even if the reader wasn’t familiar with the landscapes and cultures being depicted. There are resources at the back for those who want to learn more about the history and about real seed-saving efforts. Moreover, the book is by a Native American author who is a leader in the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance and published by a Dakhóta publisher, Milkweed Editions, so simply purchasing it in the first place supports both.
Overall recommendation: This is an engaging novel, a celebration of plants wild and domestic, and an introduction to history that isn’t as well-known even within the US as it should be. Definitely check it out if you like history/historical fiction, especially if you are a gardener.