34 pages • 1 hour read
Ella Cara DeloriaWaterlily
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1988A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Waterlily
Waterlily is Blue Bird’s daughter, and a great portion of the novel tracks her experience as a child, adolescent, and young adult. Through Waterlily, the reader learns a great deal about Dakota social customs and rituals, as she is an exemplary Dakota girl. Waterlily is born while Blue Bird is still part of her adopted camp circle. When Waterlily is young, she and her mother rejoin White Ghost. Waterlily is adored by her mother and the family of her step father, Rainbow.
As a young child, Waterlily gets sick, and Rainbow promises her a hunka ceremony if she survives—this a great honor, showing her family’s devotion to her. From this point on, she can wear red vermilion paint as a marker of this honor. Between the ages of 6 and 7, she begins to “take homely things and family doings with more appreciation” (78). In this way, she embraces some of the rules of kinship, showing respect and devotion to her family. By the time she is 10, “Waterlily was fast becoming ‘bashful,’ as a well-trained young girl was expected to be” (86). In this way, Waterlily takes on the demur, restrained role that befits Dakota women. She always places kinship values and obligations above her own personal ones.
As a teenager, Waterlily is bought by Sacred Horse, a man from a neighboring tribe. His two mothers leave gifts for her, which Waterlily accepts out of kinship duty—she wants to give the horses to her family. Waterlily moves into Sacred Horse’s camp circle, and “she shared his life in all ways without demur. She was an industrious homemaker and her little tipi […] was always as neat as could be” (172). However, she loses her husband to smallpox and her in-laws to a war tribe.
Waterlily returns to White Ghost, pregnant with Sacred Horse’s son. She marries Lowanla, a young man she had noticed at a Sun Dance ritual. She gives birth to a son, and she is happy in her new life. In this way, “[b]efore she was twenty years old, Waterlily had crammed into a single year enough of life to last her a long while” (217). Waterlily’s existence displays both the ups and downs of life as a Dakota woman.
Blue Bird
Blue Bird is Waterlily’s mother, and the novel also devotes time to her storyline and perspective. Like Waterlily, she is deemed a respectable, industrious Dakota woman who embraces the values of kinship. At 14, Blue Bird’s parents and siblings are killed, and she and her grandmother are adopted by another camp circle. Blue Bird marries Star Elk and becomes pregnant at 18. She gives birth to Waterlily, and, shortly after, Star Elk rejects her as a wife and leaves the circle.
Blue Bird and her grandmother rejoin their original circle, White Ghost, and Blue Bird marries Rainbow. She becomes close to Rainbow’s family, and they say of her “[h]ow fine and mature she is—truly a real woman” (59). Blue Bird and Rainbow have two more children together, Ohiya and Smiling One. Throughout the novel, Blue Bird places kinship values as the highest priority in her life.
Gloku
Gloku is Rainbow’s mother and Blue Bird’s mother-in-law. She is “an excellent tutor” (34). Like many grandparents, is devoted to teaching her grandchildren. She is close to many members of the tiyospaye and is popular. She dies when Waterlily is an adolescent and is mourned greatly. Because her family is not yet ready to let her go, they keep her ghost bundle for several months.
Rainbow
Rainbow is Blue Bird’s second husband. He is upstanding and competent, a contrast to Blue Bird’s previous husband, Star Elk. The author describes him as “quick, agile, ready to serve wherever necessary” (97). He is invited to join the Kit Fox society, a group of highly skilled hunters and warriors. Throughout the novel, he is an exemplary husband and father, protecting and providing for his family.
Little Chief
Littler Chief is Rainbow’s son from his first marriage. As soon as Waterlily enters his life, “the two children had been as devoted as though they were brother and sister” (33). Two initially spend a great deal of time together. As he grows older, he distances himself from his sister, which is typical of Dakota men. He joins a hunting party as a teenager.
Sacred Horse
Sacred Horse is Waterlily’s first husband. He buys Waterlily by sending two horses to her tipi laden with gifts. His interactions with Waterlily are strained, and the two never grow comfortable together. Months into their marriage, Sacred Horse contracts smallpox and dies.
Lowanla
Lowanla is Waterlily’s second husband. Waterlily originally sees him at a Sun Dance and describes him as “the youngest and handsomest of the singers” (111). Waterlily brings him water while he is fasting one night but runs away before he sees her. After Sacred Horse’s death, he marries Waterlily though she never reveals it was she who brought him water.
Killed-by-Tree
Killed-by-Tree is Blue Bird’s grandmother who accompanies her to the new camp circle. The two women are treated as a lower social class as they have no male relatives. Killed-by-Tree accompanies Blue Bird back to their original camp circle, shortly after which she dies.
