Shell Shaker
Shell Shaker is a novel by writer and playwright LeAnne Howe, an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. The novel is notable for the way it interweaves two tales of murder involving flawed Choctaw political leaders set over 200 years apart in the mid 18th century and 1991, connected through the peacemaking Billy family. According to the author, "Shell Shaker is a book about power, its misuse, and how a community responds. It's not for Indians only."
Title
A "shell shaker" is a woman who participates in a specific Choctaw ceremony in which empty turtle shells are tied around the dancer's feet. The purpose of the dance is to pray to spirits to carry out a request. The Billy family featured in the novel is descended from the first shell shaker, Grandmother of Birds.
Plot summary
Shell Shaker links two generations of the Billy peacemaking family through increasingly similar circumstances. The early tale, beginning in 1738 in pre-removal Choctaw Mississippi, tells the story of Red Shoes, a historical Choctaw warrior. When his wife of the Red Fox clan of the Chickasaws is murdered, his Choctaw wife, Anoleta, is blamed. Her mother, Shakbatina, forfeits her life to save Anoleta and avert a pending war between the tribes. Anoleta and her family attempt to move on as their tribe spends the next decade deciding what actions to take against Red Shoes as he plays both sides in what would become a war that devastates the people of Yanàbi Town and Anoleta's family.
