Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sign of the Beaver, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival and Indigenous Knowledge
Colonialism, Land Rights, and Entitlement
Nature
Friendship and Respect
Coming of Age and Manhood
Summary
Analysis
Though Matt skipped more than half the book, he’s now done reading Robinson Crusoe. Both he and Attean are disappointed. Attean shares that he’s been telling the story to his brothers at night, which delights and inspires Matt. He pulls down his father’s Bible, as there are lots of stories about adventure and the language is simple. Matt starts with the story of Noah and reads about the flood, the ark, and Noah taking his family and two of every animal onto the ark. It rained for 40 days and nights until finally, after three trips out, a dove returned with an olive twig, signaling the end of the flood.
That both Matt and Attean are so sad that Robinson Crusoe is over makes it clear that at least as it comes across in Matt’s heavily abridged read-aloud, the book is helping Matt and Attean to connect. This is, in part, because their relationship is Robinson Crusoe in reverse—something that Attean seems to find satisfying, and Matt just accepts. In any case, this highlights Matt and Attean’s burgeoning friendship. They no longer resent spending time together—in fact, they enjoy it.
Themes
Attean is grinning when Matt finishes. He says the beaver people have a story just like Noah’s and offers to tell it to Matt. Attean says that long ago, before animals, there was a torrential rain. One Native American climbed a tall tree at the top of a hill to escape the flood, and the water reached his feet. Someone named Gluskabe brought the man three ducks, and the man released a duck each day. The first two ducks didn’t come back, but the third returned with mud in its mouth. This meant the water would go down. When it did, the man climbed down and created grass, animals, a man, and a beaver. The man and the beaver created all the other Native Americans.
It's worth noting that many creation stories from around the world share broad similarities with one another, so it makes a lot of sense that Attean’s culture has a story that mirrors Noah’s. This highlights that in some ways, Native and settler cultures aren’t so different—the stories that guide them certainly feature different casts of characters, but the broad strokes are the same. A notable difference in the stories, though, is that while Noah saves animals, the men in Attean’s story work with animals to create humanity, suggesting that their culture sees animals and nature as something to work alongside, rather than dominate or shepherd.
Themes
Matt is shocked at the similarities between Attean’s story and the Bible story, but Attean just says his is a very old story. Matt asks who Gluskabe is, and Attean explains he’s a hunter from the north who makes the wind blow, makes thunder, and made men and animals. This is confusing, as Matt always heard Native Americans worshiped the “Great Spirit.” Gluskabe sounds more like a hero from a folktale, but he decides it's not polite to ask more questions. Still, he wonders if the Native Americans have other stories like this, and how they learned about the flood here in the forest.
Interestingly, Matt doesn’t think to wonder if perhaps what he’s heard about Native American spirituality is incorrect—or, at least, not representative of all tribes. He also seems to believe that wherever Attean’s story came from, it originally came from the same place as Noah’s. This is a pretty Eurocentric view, one that highlights Matt’s settler status and his unwillingness to truly respect Attean’s culture and beliefs.
Themes
