The Surrounded by D'Arcy McNickle

Resisting Assimilation


Assimilation is a heart wrenching graphic story to tell. D’Arcy McNickle dives deep into the topic in his novel The Surrounded, written during the 1930’s when the status of an Indian was gaining rights and respect from non-Natives. He draws from painful pasts, torn families, broken down communities, and saddened souls. This novel has pushed aside the neatly told history of the West and brought us closer to the realities that Native Americans’ faced during the time of lies, deception, and broken promises. The battle to survive is thick within the text; it shines through the cracks of the story in characters such as Mike, Narcisse, Catharine, and Archilde. Their resistance is the future of the Salish people. And the farther along in the novel the more apparent their resistance against European ways is evident. Without these few characters to hold the line of battle this novel would depict a non-realistic view of a group that does not give up just because they are told to. These four characters hold strong to their beliefs and know resistance is not an option for their ancestors.
The resistance Mike, Narcisse, Catharine, and Archilde have in this novel is what keeps their spirits up in such a ghastly period for Native Americans. McNickle keeps the theme and respect of resistance closely tied to each of the individual characters as well as the novel as a whole story. In chapter 23 a traditional Sun Dance is held so that the youth can rejuvenate their spirits from a long painful year at the Mission School. “The dance was the expression of their exultation at being alive, it sang of their pride, their conquests, their joys” (McNickle 203). They are pushing aside the past year of building hatred for the Catholic Fathers as well at the European traditions that were forced so monstrously upon their young souls. These people danced to feel the pumping of their hearts and their breath deep in their lungs. The danced to resist the ways forced upon the Salish people, the true natives of this bountiful land.
Youth has and always will be a resisting group no matter what circumstances arise. In The Surrounded the youth, Mike and Narcisse, are the burst of youthful resisting energy that will keep alive traditional ways of life, and the desire to be free from the over bearing powers of white law, “ there was a sound of galloping horses. Everyone turned to look down trail—and there they saw Mike and Narcisse mounted and running away. They had slipped away…” (296). They are the last to get away from the white man’s laws and they are the resistance that is hoped for in future times to come for the Salish. These two boys have a plan to keep to themselves not bother anyone and live a free life off the land like their ancestors before them. In chapter 28 a picture of a camp is painted for the audience. This camp is filled with spirit and hope, dreams that a better life is possible.
He learned then that they had been living out there for several weeks.
They intended to go on living there. They had a tepee and blankets and cooking pots and they killed their own food. They had a good time. They danced. Nobody could tell them what to do (245).

These boys are determined to survive in a world that cannot be tainted with foreign laws and unfair justice. If no one could help them succeed in this dream of freedom and equal justice, they would make it themselves, with vengeance pumping through their veins.
Faithfull Catharine an ageing Salish woman gave birth to Archilde as well as Mike and Narcisse’s mother. Her traditional ways lie deep within her heart. Though she had devoted her accumulating years to the Catholic faith and the fathers that roamed the reservation converting fearful souls, the deep burning in her heart to be herself in her traditional manner succeeded the alien religion. In the beginning of the novel the resistance in her character is explained in this description, “when you came home to your Indian mother you had to remember it was a different world” (3). Her resistance might not be a strong headed as her grandsons’, but her resistance comes with many years of assimilating ways, and forced religious beliefs. Is it because of her age and the trouble she has seen in the many years she has lived in the Flathead Valley that makes her inner beliefs nudge through her devotion to Catholicism? Or is it her children and grandchildren that bring out the inner youth in her old age to fight the termination of her people? Whatever the reason is, Faithful Cathrine was not as faithful to the Fathers as they thought they had taught her to be. “When he spoke [Catholic Father]…the old lady would pretend that she did not hear, because it made her feel sad to be told that the past was evil” (174). In Catharine’s heart her past is sacred and important to the survival of an ancient culture that life should not end. Her struggle that lie internally was a battle that was not worth giving up.
And finally we come to our hero of the tale, Archilde, a mixed blood of Spanish and Salish Indian heritage. His battle to find his identity and stay true to himself leads him in the path of resistance towards the white man’s ways. Though he is a law abiding citizen, or at least puts that mask on, he puts up defenses towards the missionaries, as well as his father and other non-natives he encounters while home. He had been assimilating himself in the city of Portland, Oregon playing a white mans instrument—the fiddle—and making money to pay for his white man life style. But like what said in the quote above, coming home to your Indian mother is completely different. “Tomorrow he would go fishing. He would look at the sky some more. He would ride his horse. Then wherever he might go, he would always keep the memory of these things” (14). His home was free, away from the city, away from the laws that bound him to his blood quantum, a world where his spirit could roam freely though the mountains. Though Archilde had been in the city and taken on white man customs, his mother’s heritage and traditional ways never seemed to have left his mind. He could not escape who he was, and who he was becoming back home in Montana. His mother, Catharine, knew of this undeniable devotion to their ancestors. It was a blanket of truths that his ancient ancestors held over his family. Mike, Narcisse, Catharine, and himself all had the chance to leave their roots behind them. But the reality in their lives is they could not escape their past no matter how far they traveled. “There in his mother’s tepee he had found unaccountable security” (222). Archilde is using his mother to help build his strength up to resist the ways he has been submerged in for most of his life. Perhaps Faithful Catharine’s journey through life is a lesson that Archilde learns during his stay at his mother and fathers estate. And he, half native, does not want to have to give into his European side just because it is the acceptable way of life. Archilde protects his nephews from the pressures of assimilation, and tries to stay honest with his white enemies. Our hero of the story resist his non-native background and attempted to instill the traditional values and the hope his people have had for centuries prior to his arrest.
The process of assimilating plagues the United States’ past. The Surrounded explains nothing less than the truth behind assimilation, “only one thing they [Indians] didn’t understand, and that was sin. We [Catholic Fathers] taught them, and that was the beginning of their earthly happiness” (136). The idea behind this quote shadows all other ideas and realizations of the idea of assimilation. It would seem the purpose behind teaching Indians about sin, would be the ability to call them sinners, and have them understand. Each time a priest taught a student the idea of sinning, and the meaning behind sin, in the Catholic religion seems as if it is a sin in itself. It is the fact that the priest did not want to be see as less in the eyes of God and fellow belivers than the native savages that roamed the country like wolves stalking its pray. Our characters resisted the white man through knowing their culture and their religion. Archilde understood the consequences of a war with white society. He kept his roots close to his heart, and even when he was arrested, he did not lose faith and had hope in his heart. As it has been said many a time before, keep your friends close, but keep your enemies even closer.