The community’s dwindling supply of traditional herbs (primarily sage and tobacco) represents First Nations people’s collective loss of their indigenous traditions. Burning plants and herbs is an important spiritual ritual for the Anishinaabe people. The book’s Anishinaabe community’s is headed by a spiritual leader (an aging woman named Aileen) who conducts sage rituals to bind the community together, honor nature, and bring good fortune to their leaders. Other community members, notably those who hunt (like Evan and his father, Dan) conduct tobacco rituals to thank “Mother Earth” for providing the community with sustenance. Burning such herbs honors the community’s close connection with the land, which is a hallmark of Anishinaabe culture.
Some characters embrace these ceremonies, while others have little patience for them. The mixed reactions to indigenous rituals in the story capture modern-day Anishinaabe people’s struggle to thrive in modern society while still preserving their indigenous traditions. And as the harsh winter progresses throughout the book, the herbs people burn—notably tobacco—dwindle in supply. The diminished availability (and, for some characters, the diminished importance) of these sacred ceremonial herbs represents the gradual death of First Nations people’s traditions as they’ve suffered centuries of hardship and oppression.
Sage and Tobacco Quotes in Moon of the Crusted Snow
When the ancestors of these Anishinaabe people were forced to settle in this unfamiliar land, distant from their traditional home near the Great Lakes, their culture withered under the pressure of the incomers’ Christianity. But people like Aileen […] had kept the old ways alive in secret. They whispered the stories and the language in each other’s ears, even when they were stolen from their families to endure forced and often violent assimilation at church-run residential schools far away from their homes. They had held out hope that one day their beautiful ways would be able to reemerge and flourish once again.
She had been his surrogate grandmother, his go-to elder whenever he had questions about the old ways, and he had loved her. […] The smell of sage smudge lingered in his nose, and the travelling song her family had sung for her rang in his ears.
Sage and Tobacco Symbol Timeline in Moon of the Crusted Snow
