[CALIBK12] Slapin review of TOUCHING SPIRIT BEAR

[Debbie Reese]

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

A Review of Ben Mikaelsen's Touching Spirit Bear

American society loves to love Indians and 
things-Indian. Or rather, things they think are 
Indian. There’s a long history of exploiting our 
ways of being. Touching Spirit Bear is another 
example of that exploitation. You don’t have to 
buy or read it. There are better books available. 
To find them, visit the <http://www.oyate.org/aboutus.html>Oyate website.

_________________________________________

[Note: This review is used here with permission 
of the author, Beverly Slapin. It may not be 
published elsewhere without her written permission.]

Mikaelsen, Ben, Touching Spirit Bear. 
HarperCollins, 2001, 241 pages, grades 5-up; Tlingit

For centuries, restorative justice or circle 
justice has been practiced in one form or another 
by many Indian communities. The object is to 
restore the wellbeing of the victim or the 
victim’s family, rather than to punish the 
offender. This is done through a multi-step 
talking-circle approach, in which the people most 
affected by the crime, along with community 
representatives, come together to heal and to try 
to agree on a fair and reasonable settlement. The 
sentencing plan involves commitment by the 
community, family members, and the offender. In 
1996, a pilot circle justice project, in 
conjunction with the criminal justice system, was initiated in Minnesota.

In Touching Spirit Bear, Cole Matthews is an 
angry, out-of-control Minneapolis teen, the son 
of wealthy, abusive alcoholic parents, convicted 
of viciously beating a classmate. This 
manipulative and violent young offender is given 
one more chance: to take part in the circle 
justice program. Soon Cole finds himself on a 
remote Alaskan island in Tlingit territory, 
banished for a year, overseen by a Tlingit parole 
officer and a traditional elder­and watched by an 
enormous white “spirit bear.” Here, he resists, 
wrestles with, and ultimately comes to terms with 
this chance to take responsibility for what he’s done.

Ben Mikaelsen’s writing, in places, is evocative 
and a dead-on accurate portrayal of a troubled 
teen. After the bear near-fatally mauls Cole, 
there are excruciatingly detailed descriptions of 
his struggles to survive by eating worms and 
bugs, a live mouse and even his own vomit. With 
broken ribs, legs and an arm, and too weak to get 
up, he defecates in his pants, and fights to stay 
alive. It is during this time that Cole begins to 
understand his vulnerability and his relationship 
to everything that surrounds him. It is here that his transformation begins.

All of this having been said, Touching Spirit 
Bear is fatally flawed by Mikaelsen’s inexcusable 
playing around with Tlingit culture, cosmology 
and ritual; and his abysmal lack of understanding 
of traditional banishment. It is obvious that 
what he doesn’t know, he invents. Edwin, the 
Tlingit elder, instructs Cole to: jump into the 
icy cold water and stay there as long as 
possible; pick up a heavy rock (called the 
“ancestor rock”) and carry it to the top of a 
hill; push the rock (now called the “anger rock”) 
back down the hill; watch for animals and dance 
around the fire to impersonate the animal he sees 
(called the “bear dance,” “bird dance,” “mouse 
dance,” etc.); announce what he’s learned about 
the characteristics of that animal from his 
dance; and finally, carve that animal on his own personal “totem pole.”

This is all garbage. The purpose of banishment is 
to isolate a person so that, in solitude, he can 
think deeply about his life and relations, and 
prepare to rejoin his community. When someone is 
banished, he is left to learn on his own whatever 
is to be learned. It is not about white boys 
“playing Indian.” It is not about teaching white 
boys the rituals of another culture. And most 
especially, it is not about carrying rocks up a 
hill and performing a bunch of stupid 
cross-cultural animal impersonation dances.

The author’s own relationship with bears and his 
supposed almost-close-enough-to-touch encounter 
with a “three-hundred-pound male Spirit Bear” 
notwithstanding, Touching Spirit Bear is a terrible book.

­Beverly Slapin


Visit my Internet blog and resource: American 
Indians in Children's Literature.
To get to it, go to my faculty bio and click on 'Web Page'
http://www.nah.uiuc.edu/faculty-Reese.htm

Debbie A. Reese (Nanbé Ówîngeh)
Assistant Professor, American Indian Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Native American House, Room 2005
1204 West Nevada Street, MC-138
Urbana, Illinois 61801

Email: debreese at uiuc.edu
TEL 217-265-9885
FAX 217-265-9880






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