Tomson Highway’s novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen, tells the story of two Cree brothers from northern Manitoba struggling to survive their residential school experience. The brothers are forcibly relocated hundreds of miles away from their Cree community in order to sever their cultural and family ties. At the residential school the young boys are repeatedly abused and slowly have their innocence and identity stripped away from them. Eventually, the brothers are able to overcome their process of enforced assimilation and childhood trauma. They accomplish this through the support of each other, and their ability to reconnect to their Cree culture as they use the gifts they are born with to collaborate, and express their Cree culture in contemporary theatrical productions and music.
The gifts each brother is born with play a significant role in their development and sexual maturation. Jeremiah’s gift is music, and Gabriel expresses himself beautifully through dance. These gifts help the brothers exist and carry on despite their traumatic residential school experience by providing them a mode of expression, an aspect of agency, and an outlet for their tortured emotions. Unfortunately, their gifts also draw the attention of Father Lafleur. He grants the brothers access to their artistic outlets, but his sexual molestation of them continues to destroy their innocence, and disrupt their brotherly bond.
Jeremiah and Gabriel continue to develop and utilize their artistic talents after leaving Birch Lake for good, but as the brothers mature into adulthood they develop unhealthy coping strategies to deal with their childhood trauma. One example of these strategies is Gabriel’s addiction to sex, and his unsafe sexual practices. In contrast, Jeremiah becomes addicted to alcohol finding temporary relief from the numbness that overcomes him as a result of being completely consumed by the effects of the alcohol.
The brothers eventually reunite. They collaborate artistically, and draw from their Cree culture: Jeremiah combines classical piano and Cree traditions, while Gabriel combines ballet with Cree dance. Together they evaluate their lives, reconnect with their Cree traditions, and attempt to process their childhood trauma. Unfortunately, Gabriel contracts AIDS before he reestablishes his brotherly bond with Jeremiah, and dies in the prime of his life. However, Gabriel’s collaborative work with his brother heals his spirit, and prepares him for death.
Gabriel's seemingly peaceful death is a pivotal moment in Highway’s novel. Despite having endured the most horrific forms of physical and psychological abuse, Gabriel is able to use art as a form of healing. In other words, his true cultural identity and gifts are able to save him from the perils of his own mind and the damage done by colonial powers. Highway clearly demonstrates the power that comes from true cultural identity by allowing his characters to feel peace and come to an understanding of what happened to them. In other words, both brothers are able to feel connected to their culture through means of music and dance. They are able to express what they have gone through in ways that are considered socially acceptable. People view their art as whimsical and beautiful mythological creations, but to the brothers, it is their truth finally surfacing from years of repression.
Cultural and oral traditions that are interfused into Indigenous literature and art are not only entertaining to examine, but also “have the capacity to heal colonial trauma through the act of reestablishing, while also re envisioning Indigenous cultural practices and values” (Lewyn 52). Highway depicts Cree oral traditions and shows how they are an expression of the epistemology of Cree culture. These traditions “provide another perspective of the past” and a theoretical lens for a cross-cultural analysis (Damm 76). The oral traditions Highway interfuses into The Kiss of the Fur Queen ultimately inform, direct, and shape how readers experience the representation of the traumatic legacy of the residential school system.
It was believed that one could not become intellectual, cultured and civilised until the “Indian within the person [is] dead”(Lutz 90). Highway has shown how the attempt of killing ‘Indianness’ fails to have an impact on Gabriel, who maintains a strong reverence for Indian culture and religion through means of artistic expression. Jeremiah and Gabriel’s artistic collaborations begin at an early age. Their combined gifts provide mutual entertainment, but also has the power to impact the world around them. Highway foreshadows the brothers’ future lives when they are playfully creating a piece to honor the caribou. The danger the caribou herd represents is similar to the assimilative and abusive experience the brothers will go through at the residential school, and then in adulthood. Each brother’s response to the caribou threat indicates the way he will face the powerful forces that threaten to destroy their lives. Jeremiah chooses the protection of security, to hide and withdraw from the forces that confront him. Readers see this when jeremiah becomes completely entranced by the discovery of the piano, “the biggest accordion [he] had ever seen” (Highway 56).
Jeremiah’s spirit nearly leaves his body in transcendent appreciation. He is able to escape the cruel world of Birch Lake (the residential school) through the classical sounds of the piano. Jeremiah is far from home, alone, and the surface of his Cree identity has been stripped away, but his appreciation for music gives him hope. Music informs the development of Jeremiah’s first survival mechanism: escape through detachment. Jeremiah spiritually goes beyond the physical degradations of cultural genocide with the aid of music, but to accomplish this he must gain access to the instrument that makes this separation possible, the piano.
When Jeremiah first listens to the piano it is Father Lafleur’s “soft and fleshy” touch that ends Jeremiah’s entrancement (Highway 57). Jeremiah is brought to the reality of his residential school experience. He desperately yearns for the escape the piano provides, and understands that Father Lafleur’s approval is necessary for this to happen. Jeremiah convinces the priest of his musical potential by singing a Cree hunting song. Father Lafleur is captivated by Jeremiah’s performance, and as the priest’s “tongue dart[s] out” to lick “his lower lip” Jeremiah knows he has gained access to the instrument that will shape the course of his life (Highway 66-67). The piano enables Jeremiah to separate himself from the oppressive reality of Birch Lake, but his musical gift also draws the attention of Father Lafleur’s sexual desires.
The piano enables Jeremiah to transcend the trauma he experiences at residential school. Classical music provides a form of escape that distances Jeremiah from his physical reality, and this survival mechanism informs his ability to repress the traumatic events he experiences. Jeremiah does not remember being molested by Father Lafleur because he shuts out the images, sounds, and sensations of his abuse. However, this mechanism fails when he witnesses Father Lafleur molesting Gabriel. Gabriel’s rape ultimately sevres their brotherly bond because Gabriel is now the one person who has the capacity to remind Jeremiah of his own abuse.
The bond that the brother so heavily depend on in order to survive residential school is temporarily destroyed by Father Lafleur piece by piece. Both characters reach the darkest points in their life without the support they used to have from one another. It is not until the end of the novel that the brothers realize that they truly need each other and understand the importance of their bond. The ability to bond and start to reconnect over artistic forms of cultural and emotional expression is ultimately what allows them to truly start the healing process and find peace despite their horrific past.