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JUDIT ÁGNES KÁDÁR difficult for him far from home. Remembering means mental and emotional survival in hard times: “I force myself back to Mushkegowuk”.*° He reinforces his own ethnic identification in several ways, for instance through naming that expresses ethnic pride? and keeping his Cree language as a primary medium of communication. Xavier loses his hearing a bit, which suggests his being deaf to alien ways, too, although Elijah sometimes serves as an interpreter. Finally, when he returns home, Xavier physically and spiritually reconnects with his ancestral roots with the help of Niska, the facilitator of their transformations and reference point for their ethnic identification and provider of the sweat lodge ceremonial cleansing and healing that cures Xavier. In terms of ethnic identity change, the army and the war provide a cataclysmic space for personal development, as in the tradition of the war novel in Crane, Findley, Heller and Vonnegut. The friends start their journey with a moose hide bag, a medicine bundle that Niska gave them to provide spiritual protection. Dreams and visions which serve as passages between worlds” help both of them. They "share a space"? and their primary confusion in the trenches of the French frontline as well as in their position among military peers. But this shared space stimulates totally divergent reactions in them. Xavier is certainly able to keep the core of his identity intact both in terms of his personality traits and his ethnic identification. Although the war makes both pals ghost-like liminal beings, the entire journey to European fronts and back home makes Xavier experienced but does not profoundly change who he is. The whole experience of war and living in the army focuses on the problem of escaping in disguise, and Xavier definately learns the pragmatics of camouflage as a scout. Nevertheless, Elijah goes far beyond that. A sign of this is already present at residential school, where he protests against the nuns’ traditional hairstyle by shaving his own head bald.** In contrast, he is willing to have his hair cut for the army. As for language, “as a child he was so proud that more than once he claimed that he would never speak the wemistikoshiw [white man’s] tongue”.* However, in the European military environment, they learn that adapting somewhat to white ways and also using Cree language and skills for their own benefit are necessary survival skills. They become practically bilingual and their language choice depends on the situation. They use Cree as a code language* and also express emotions in a slightly manipulative fashion,’ as the situation demands. 30 Tbid., 123. 31 Tbid., 117. 2 e.g Ibid., 80, 88. 33 Ibid., 39. 34 Tbid., 101. 35 Ibid., 98. 36 Tbid., 279. 37 e.g. Ibid., 60. * 316 °
