As a survival novel of sorts, The Sign of the Beaver pays close attention to the natural world and the role it plays in characters’ lives. While numerous instances show that the Maine wilderness where Matt and Attean live can be dangerous and cruel, overwhelmingly, the novel suggests that if a person respects nature and knows where to look, nature can provide them with everything they need for a fulfilling life. For instance, over the course of the novel, Matt gradually learns that he doesn’t have to rely on European tools like metal fishhooks, flint, or even guns. Instead, he can learn to whittle fishhooks from twigs, start fires with rocks, or snare rabbits with tree roots. Attean also shows Matt where to find edible plants and roots in the forest so that Matt doesn’t have to rely solely on his meager corn crop. This outlook requires a person to see nature as a partner in their survival rather than an obstacle to it. As Matt embraces more and more of Attean’s teachings, he comes to do just that.
Still, The Sign of the Beaver is full of events that make it clear nature is powerful and dangerous. Once, a bear almost attacks and kills Attean and Matt, and Matt falls seriously ill after bees attack him when he tries to take honey from them. Indeed, the last several chapters of the novel consist of Saknis and Attean trying to convince Matt to come west with them, as they question whether Matt’s family will ever return and don’t want to leave Matt to potentially die alone in the harsh Maine winter. Matt, however, insists on staying—and the cozy, well-stocked cabin he’s ultimately able to show his family highlights the respect for nature and the various skills Matt learned over the course of the summer.
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Nature Quotes in The Sign of the Beaver
He was still proud of that gun, but no longer in awe of it. Carrying it over his shoulder, he set out confidently into the forest, venturing farther each day, certain of bringing home a duck or a rabbit for his dinner. For a change of diet he could take his fish pole and follow the twisting course of the creek or walk the trail his father had blazed to a pond some distance away. In no time he could catch all the fish he could eat.
“The Indians has mostly cleared out of these parts,” Ben told him. “What wasn’t killed off in the war got took with the sickness. A deal of ’em moved on to Canada. What’s left makes a mighty poor living, game gettin’ so scarce.”
“Where do they live?”
“Round about.” Ben waved vaguely toward the forest. “They make small camps for a while and then move on. The Penobscots stick like burrs, won’t give up. They still hunt and trap. No way to stop ’em. Never got it through their heads they don’t still own this land.”
But even if Matt had had it in his hands, could he have held out against those burly arms? And to keep his gun, could he actually have shot a man—even a criminal?
It was only later, when his rage began to die down, that he felt a prickle of fear. Now he had no protection. And no way to get meat. Sick with anger, he sat staring at his row of notched sticks. It would be a month at least before his father returned. A month of nothing but fish! And what would his father say?
“Attean learn,” he said. “White man come more and more to Indian land. White man not make treaty with pipe. White man make signs on paper, signs Indian not know. Indian put mark on paper to show him friend of white man. Then white man take land. Tell Indian cannot hunt on land. Attean learn to read white man’s signs. Attean not give away hunting grounds.”
“Nda!” he shouted. “Not so.”
Matt stopped, bewildered.
“Him never do that!”
“Never do what?”
“Never kneel down to white man!”
“But Crusoe had saved his life.”
“Not kneel down,” Attean repeated fiercely. “Not be slave. Better die.”
Matt opened his mouth to protest, but Attean gave him no chance. In three steps he was out of the cabin.
Now he’ll never come back, Matt thought. He sat slowly turning over the pages. He had never questioned that story. Like Robinson Crusoe, he had thought it natural and right that the wild man should be the white man’s slave. Was there perhaps another possibility? The thought was new and troubling.
It occurred to him that Attean knew this, that perhaps Attean had brought him so far just to show him how helpless he really was, how all the words in a white man’s book were of no use to him in the woods.
Yet he did not think this would happen. For some reason he could not explain to himself, he trusted Attean. He didn’t really like him. When the Indian got that disdainful look in his eyes, Matt hated him. But somehow, as they had sat side by side, day after day, doing the lessons that neither of them wanted to do, something had changed. Perhaps it had been Robinson Crusoe, or the tramping through the woods together. They didn’t like each other, but they were no longer enemies.
“Sign show beaver house belong to people of beaver,” Attean explained. “By and by, when young beaver all grown, people of beaver hunt here. No one hunt but people of beaver.”
“You mean, just from that mark on the tree, another hunter would not shoot here?”
“That our way,” Attean said gravely. “All Indian understand.”
Would a white man understand? Matt wondered. He thought of Ben with his stolen rifle. It wasn’t likely Ben would respect an Indian sign. But he must remember to warn his father.
He and Attean had sure enough turned that story right round about. Whenever they went a few steps from the cabin, it was the brown savage who strode ahead, leading the way, knowing just what to do and doing it quickly and skillfully. And Matt, a puny sort of Robinson Crusoe, tagged along behind, grateful for the smallest sign that he could do anything right.
It wasn’t that he wanted to be a master. And the idea of Attean’s being anyone’s slave was not to be thought of. He just wished he could make Attean think a little better of him. He wanted Attean to look at him without that gleam of amusement in his eyes. He wished that it were possible for him to win Attean’s respect.
“My grandfather not allow beaver people to buy iron trap. Some Indian hunt like white man now. One time many moose and beaver. Plenty for all Indians and for white man too. But white man not hunt to eat, only for skin. Him pay Indian to get skin. So Indian use white man’s trap.”
Matt looked with distaste at the rabbit, almost covered by the bear’s heavy paw, the fur matted and bloody. He would rather not have touched it, but obediently he pulled it out. It was his dinner, after all. And he knew that in Attean’s world everything that was killed must be used. The Indians did not kill for sport.
“Not take me,” he admitted finally. “I not have gun.”
“You’re a good shot with a bow and arrow.”
Attean scowled. “That old way,” he said. “Good for children. Indian hunt now with white man’s gun. Someday my grandfather buy me gun. Need many beaver skins. Beaver not so many now.”
Matt understood now why Attean had defended the beaver dam so fiercely. Was it true that beaver were getting scarce? Matt thought of the village they had just left, how very poor it seemed, how few possessions the Indians could boast. For the first time Matt glimpsed how it might be for them, watching their old hunting grounds taken over by white settlers and by white traders demanding more skins than the woods could provide.
He was proud that they had wanted him to live with them. But he knew that he could never be really proud, as Attean was proud, of being a hunter. He belonged to his own people. He was bound to his own family, as Attean was bound to his grandfather. The thought he might never see his mother again was sharper than hunger or loneliness. This was the land his father had cleared to make a home for them all. It was his own land, too. He could not run away.
His father would never understand. Before he could think about it another minute, Matt hurried back to where Attean stood waiting.
“I have a gift for you,” he said. “It tells the time of day. I’ll show you how to wind it up.”
Attean held the watch even more carefully. There was no mistaking that he was pleased and impressed. Probably, Matt thought, Attean would never learn to use it. The sun and the shadows of the trees told him all he needed to know about the time of day. But Attean knew that Matt’s gift was important.
“Fine gift,” he said.
