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In the novel Fools Crow by James Welch a lot of the events that take place are
based on dreams and visions. Fast Horse blames his bad luck on the dream he had where Cold
Maker told him to go find the ice spring and couldn't. Fools Crow was sent off on a
seven-day journey to foresee the demise of his people by a dream. Another dream that Fools
Crow had when he was White Man's Dog just before the raid on the Crow camp was also
important, because he felt that if he would have told Yellow Kidney about the dream he
would of took it as a sign and would have called off the raid.
When Fools Crow, then known as White Man's Dog had the dream where he was in the middle
of an enemy camp and saw the naked white girl he saw this dream as a sign. He had been
having the same dream three nights in a row and couldn't figure out what it meant. When
the raid was over and Yellow Kidney had returned, Fools Crow felt he was partly
responsible for what happened, because he did not tell Yellow Kidney of his dream.
"Why hadn't he told Yellow Kidney of his dream? Such a dream would have been a sign
of bad medicine and they might have turned back (76)." Fools Crow felt that he had
somehow betrayed Yellow Kidney by not telling him of his dream. He relied so much on this
dream that only until he confided in his father about it, and got some reassurance that he
was not to blame did he feel better.
Another dream that was had before the Crow Raid was the one that Fast Horse had where Cold
Maker told him to go out and find the ice spring before they went on the raid. When he
could not find it Fast Horse got discouraged and blamed what happened to Yellow Kidney on
his dream. This dream had a huge impact on Fast Horse and changed him forever. He was a
very bitter and misguided person and he was sure it was because he couldn't find the ice
spring. It was only at the end of the book that he came to realize that he brought on his
misfortune himself. "He had told himself many times that it was his failure to find
the ice spring of Cold Maker that made everything go bad-and for a while he had come to
believe it. (330)." All that time Fast Horse was blaming Cold Maker for his bad
attitude and bad luck, because it was easier than blaming himself.
The dream that was most important was the one where Nitsokan sent Fools Crow was sent
on the journey to find out what the future held for his people. Nitsokan chose Fools Crow,
because he was strong, and he knew he could handle it. After he went on the journey and
saw what was to become of his people, Fools Crow was sad, but the dream and the journey
prepared him to become somewhat of a leader. If it were not for this dream the situation
would be worse. At first he thought that Nitsokan had sent him on the journey to die and
didn't understand what he was doing there, but after he saw the images on the yellow hide
he knew what the purpose of the journey. "Somehow he knew that the point of had been
finally reached. (353)." Fools Crow was in a way thankful for the dream, and the
chance to see the future of his people and be ready for what was in store.
Dreams and visions were important to the Native American people in this book. They took
their dreams and visions very seriously, almost as if it were fact. Not following through
on requests made in a dream proved to detrimental. Some of the dreams in this novel turned
out to be very important and some were not as important as the person having them thought
they were. A lot of events in this book took place because of dreams and visions and a lot
of things were also resolved.
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