Wilson’s inspiration for “The Seed Keeper” is the real-life story of Dakhota women who, during their forced removal from Minnesota after the United States-Dakhota War in eighteen sixty-three, filled their pockets and lined the hems of their skirts with seeds. These seeds were their most treasured possessions, ensuring they could plant food to feed their families. These seed keepers and the legacy they have passed along to their descendants have preserved species of plants that would otherwise have been lost to us today.
Wilson’s fictionalized account of these seed keepers is told from the perspective of four Dakhota women living in Minnesota whose stories span generations.
The novel begins in the recent past with the primary narrator, Rosalie Iron Wing, who after the death of both of her parents when she is a teenager, was taken by the government and placed into foster care in the nineteen seventies. Rosalie is not aware until decades later that extended family members had attempted for years to find and adopt her. Rosalie’s separation from her family occurred before the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act, which prevents such separations today.
As an adult Rosalie is reunited with her great-aunt, Darlene Kills Deer, another protagonist who has spent her adult life nurturing heirloom seeds, keeping alive this family legacy along with the hope that they would be reunited with Rosalie. From Darlene both Rosalie and the reader learn about the tragic plight of the Dakhota people, including the family legacy of the third protagonist, Marie Blackbird, Rosalie’s great-great grandmother.
Marie is the original seed keeper, and her forced migration in the Nineteenth Century is followed by decades of suffering as she struggles to rebuild her life on the reservation and is traumatized anew when her grandchildren are ripped from their homes and forced to attend boarding schools.
The final protagonist, Gaby Makespeace, was Rosalie’s only friend when she was a teenager. Wilson intertwines the stories of these young women through several decades as they reunite in unexpected ways, using the metaphor of a dormant seed growing into a plant to trace the women’s exploration of their Dakhota culture and their attempts to reclaim ancestral traditions and, ultimately, territory. Gaby becomes an environmental activist, while Rosalie finds work and, eventually, a family through farming.
After reading the stories of Rosalie Iron Wing, Darlene Kills Deer, Marie Blackbird, and Gaby Makespeace, I was left wanting to learn more not only about the Dakhota people but also about the food on my table and where it comes from.
If you enjoyed Louise Erdrich’s “The Night Watchman,” I think you’ll love Diane Wilson’s “The Seed Keeper,” too. Both women draw upon their personal experiences in their respective indigenous traditions and tell beautiful stories that will both haunt and inspire you.
I give “The Seed Keeper” five stars.
