The Marrow Thieves

The novel illustrates many variations of loss: loss of loved ones, loss of culture, loss of innocence, loss of physical body parts, and loss of the natural world. Most if not all the characters in the story have lost loved ones to the schools. Wab is missing an eye, Jean part of his leg, and both Rose and Frenchie cut off their hair in a literal and symbolic gesture of loss over Minerva’s death. RiRi loses her innocence in overhearing Wab’s coming-to story, and Frenchie loses what remains of his innocence when he kills Travis. Frenchie in particular experiences almost every form of loss: his mother, brother, father (until they reunite), hair, childhood, and friends. 

Loss of culture ties in with the major themes of the story, as the younger generation of Indigenous worry that they do not have enough of their culture to keep it going, and that when the Elders die, their traditions and language will die with them. Losing Minerva is a devastating blow because she was privy to knowledge that many of the others do not have. Dimaline also frequently references the residential schools, which were constructed explicitly for the purpose of extracting young Indigenous peoples from their families and culture and “teaching” them to assimilate into white culture.

Though traditions can vary widely, in many Indigenous tribes, hair is a symbol of pride, beauty, or victory. Dimaline includes a description of hair for most of the characters in the novel, and many of them have very long hair. Frenchie treats his own hair as a symbol of his heritage, saying, “I braided it myself each morning […] to remind myself of things I couldn’t quite remember but that, nevertheless, I knew to be true” (21). He is proud that his hair is the longest of the boys in his group. Later, when Frenchie meets Derrick, he says, “I puffed out my chest a bit, remembering that I still had the longest braids, even in this larger group. That made me a better Indian, after all” (190). 

Dimaline establishes Frenchie’s attachment to his braid in part to show his insecurity about his connection with his heritage, and in part to illustrate what a tremendous gesture it is when Frenchie cuts his braid off following Minerva’s death. Frenchie’s gesture of sending a cherished part of his own body with Minerva to the afterlife symbolizes the deep loss his group experiences.