[Review of] Louis Owens. Bone Game. American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series

Tricksters in Native American thought often include the gambler and skinwalker. Traditionally, the character of the gambler appears in order to test a person, who must play and win a life and death game so that the individual (specifically) and the tribe (generally) will survive. And, according to anthropologist Larry Sunderland, a Navajo skinwalker ostensibly inserts a bone into a victim\u27s body without breaking the skin. This action often results in mental and/or physical injury, illness, and death. The bone can only be removed ceremoniously by a shaman (hitaaIi); both the gambler and skinwalker are shapeshifters. During the Morning Star Ceremony, which is demonstrated in Bone Game and was ended by Metalsharo (Pawnee) in 1813, a maiden\u27s body would be painted half black and half white, staked to the ground, and shot full of arrows in a Dionysian ceremony. Owens delicately intertwines these three ceremonies and figures in a story filled with action, mystery, and surprises