Sing, Like a Hermit Thrush

Sheree Haughian is an elementary-school teacher-librarian with the
Dufferin County Board of Education.

“I wonder what kind of power is going to help me?” Darrin Captain, a
Mohawk boy living on a reserve, is caught in a dilemma. Like many
adolescent males, he has to deal with fight-picking bullies; taking
boxing lessons from a local expert seems a sensible enough solution.
Unlike like many boys his age, however, Darrin has an uncanny spiritual
gift. Dream visions occasionally interrupt his waking activities,
enabling him to predict events of life-and-death import. Troubled by
this secret “vision sickness,” Darrin finally seeks the counsel of
an elderly medicine man, who helps him put the question of power and
responsibility into a greater natural context. Darrin comes to recognize
his special emblem, a small bird known as the hermit thrush.

Readers outside the Aboriginal culture have become familiar with the
idea of the vision quest as a traditional part of a Native boy’s
development into manhood. This experience of initiation, with its
cleansing fasts, rituals, and totemic answers, seems very mystical and
appealing. Richard Green’s contemporary story is less romantic and
more realistic, and convincing in its presentation of polarities. Darrin
plays baseball, rides bikes, and eats pizza, like the rest of his
generation, Native or otherwise. Although the text contains some Mohawk
words and phrases, Darrin admits that he has not paid too much attention
to the language lessons in school. His call to the sacred mythology of
his people is unexpected and often a bit inconvenient. Like many others
in his culture, he must resolve the disturbing tensions between the old
and the new. Recommended.