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Lyman Lamartine
Rushes Bear and Kashpaw’s son, Nector’s brother, and June’s adoptive father. When Eli is a young boy, Rushes Bear keeps him from the residential schools by hiding him in the floorboards, and he spends most of his early life hidden in the bush, away from the influence of white society. Eli lives as close to a traditional Native lifestyle as he can living on the reservation. He speaks the “old language” and is the only one left on the reservation who can still snare a deer. After June’s mother dies, and she is taken in by Marie and Nector, June decides that she would rather live with Eli, and he welcomes her with open arms. Eli raises June as if she was his own daughter, and he is devastated after her death. Eli’s character, much like Nanapush and Moses Pillager, represents “old-time traditional” Ojibwe culture, but he also serves to illustrate Erdrich’s primary assertion that true family need not share blood ties.
Eli Kashpaw Quotes in Love Medicine
The Love Medicine quotes below are all either spoken by Eli Kashpaw or refer to Eli Kashpaw. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The World’s Greatest Fisherman Part 2
Quotes
She had let the government put Nector in school but hidden Eli, the one she couldn’t part with, in the root cellar dug beneath her floor. In that way she gained a son on either side of the line. Nector came home from boarding school knowing white reading and writing, while Eli knew the woods. Now, these many years later, hard to tell why or how, my great-uncle Eli was still sharp, while Grandpa’s mind had left us, gone wary and wild.
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Eli Kashpaw Quotes in Love Medicine
The Love Medicine quotes below are all either spoken by Eli Kashpaw or refer to Eli Kashpaw. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The World’s Greatest Fisherman Part 2
Quotes
She had let the government put Nector in school but hidden Eli, the one she couldn’t part with, in the root cellar dug beneath her floor. In that way she gained a son on either side of the line. Nector came home from boarding school knowing white reading and writing, while Eli knew the woods. Now, these many years later, hard to tell why or how, my great-uncle Eli was still sharp, while Grandpa’s mind had left us, gone wary and wild.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
