American Indian Stories · Chapter
The Coffee-Making explained
The narrator recalls an afternoon when her mother left her alone in their wigwam.
What happens
The narrator recalls an afternoon when her mother left her alone in their wigwam. She fears the harmless but mentally disturbed Wiyaka-Napbina, who roams the hills. An old grandfather visits, and she attempts to host him by making coffee from grounds and cold ashes, serving it with bread. Her mother returns and, along with the warrior, treats her efforts with respect, though the narrator later realizes how absurd her hospitality was.
Themes in this chapter
Motherhood and Family Bonds
The mother's gentle guidance and respect for the narrator's efforts highlight the nurturing bond between mother and child.
Cultural Displacement and Assimilation
The narrator's attempt to make coffee with cold ashes and her later realization of its absurdity subtly reflect the clash between traditional ways and introduced customs.
Characters to notice
- Mother
Leaves the narrator alone in the wigwam and later returns to find her serving coffee to a guest.
- Wiyaka-Napbina
A harmless but feared man who wanders the hills, believed to be haunted by an evil spirit.
- The Great Spirit
The narrator prays to the Great Spirit to restore Wiyaka-Napbina.
Key passages
“Pity the man, my child. I knew him when he was a brave and handsome youth. He was overtaken by a malicious spirit among the hills, one day, when he went hither and thither after his ponies. Since then he can not stay away from the hills.”
The mother explains that Wiyaka-Napbina was once a courageous and attractive young man, but a malevolent spirit seized him while he searched for his horses in the hills, and he has been unable to leave them since.
This passage reveals the mother's compassion and the traditional belief in spirits influencing human behavior.
“But neither she nor the warrior, whom the law of our custom had compelled to partake of my insipid hospitality, said anything to embarrass me. They treated my best judgment, poor as it was, with the utmost respect.”
Both the mother and the old warrior, bound by custom to accept the narrator's offering, refrained from criticizing her and instead honored her effort.
This illustrates the cultural value of respecting a child's attempt at hospitality, even when the result is flawed.