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James Fenimore Cooper
THE OAK-OPENINGS, or, THE BEE HUNTER (1848) WILDSIDE PRESS. 2008. Hardcover: 488 pages ISBN 10: 1434475875 -- (1) Biblio.com 04/04/2009 THE OAK OPENINGS by Fenimore Cooper is an astonishingly convincing tale of a fictional religious conversion to evangelical Christianity. A mysterious 50 year old Indian Chief named Scalping Peter, a man of no tribe, crusades for 20 years, with Tecumseh and other Indian nationalists, to indulge in ethnic cleansing before the word was coined. It is 1812 in the oak openings (also known as oak savannas) of western Michigan. Peter has called a meeting of tribes to throw all the whites in Canada and the USA back into the great salt sea (Atlantic Ocean). His hatred of whites is pathological. Whenever he can, he murders them, even infants, and takes their scalps. But a teenage white woman slowly softens his heart. He begins to think of her as a daughter. Yet she and five other whites are in his power and the assembled chiefs want to kill them all. Two they do kill: a soldier and a Methodist minister who speaks their languages and whose message to them is that they are the ten lost tribes of Israel. Indians do not want to be Jews. They reject his message but before they kill him have him explain the Christian doctrine of loving your enemies. This he does till the very moment of his tomahawking. Reverend "Amen" forgives his murderers and prays for them to God. Beholding the missionary's courage, Scalping Peter has a conversion to at least a starting point of Christianity. He then uses his wits against great odds to save four whites, and is wiling to love his worst enemies white or red -- even Cherokees! Nearly 40 years after novel's beginning an American author interviews Scalping Peter and those Americans he rescued and sees how one Indian's hatred of the whites for stealing Indian hunting grounds has been transformed. The tragedy to the Indians is seen to have been the permissive will of God -- the Manitou, the Great Spirit. These European robbers brought to the Indians the gospel of the Manitou's only Son. A fair trade. In addition to religious conversion, THE OAK OPENINGS tells of a hair-raising 700 mile canoe escape by four whites and two Indians from the pro-British red men seeking their lives. We learn of the art of finding the hives of wild bees and various tricks white and red men play on one another. Something for every reader. But you must from time to time suspend your disbelief. -OOO-- http://www.biblio.com/books/209121531.html -=-=-=-=-=-=-= -- (2) amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Openings-Works-James-Fenimore-Cooper/ dp/1434475816/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239271465&sr=1-2 =-=-=-=-=-= -- (3) or barnes and noble Title of this review: "The bees know me. ... I am their chief." Posted 4/9/2009: James Fenimore Cooper wrote at least two novels whose young heroes are bee hunters: THE PRAIRIE and THE OAK OPENINGS. A bee hunter tracks wild honey bees to their nest, cuts down their tree, removes honey and sells it in St Louis or Detroit or wherever westward-bound pioneers crave wild honey to get them through the winters. The oak openings of Cooper's late novel happen to be in southwestern Michigan along the Kalamazoo river. Also known as oak savannas, they are still found in isolated areas of the central USA and cherished by preservationists. Oak savannas were formed in virgin forests by natural fires. Oak trees are resistant to fires and are stand in grassy meadow-like areas hundreds of acres large. In the summer of 1812, young, unmarried bee hunter Ben Boden (in French le Bourdon or "the Drone") is happily gathering honey a few days paddling up the Kalamazoo river, inland from Lake Michigan. Unfortunately for him Onoah, a mighty 50 year old chieftain of no known tribe has convoked a meeting of many tribes in Prairie Round, near where Ben is gathering honey. Onoah, better known to white frontiersmen and soldiers as Scalping Peter, is working with Tecumseh and other chiefs to drive all white men, women and children out of the new world. He paddles into le Bourdon's life accompanied by Corporal Flint, an unsuspiecting American soldier whose garrison was recently defeated by the British at Chicago, and by Reverend Mr Amen, a polyglot Methodist missionary to the Indians. Shortly before their arrival, Boden had met white Gersom Waring, an Irish alcoholic whose pretty sister and wife would soon join the story at river's mouth. For sister Margery, affectionately called Blossom, and the bee hunter, it was literally love at first sight. The rest of this long, leisurely, but adventure-packed yarn is a tale of the wild American frontier, America's war of 1812 with Britain, captivity among and successful flight from Indians and much more. The several Indian tribes assembled at Prairie Round impressively debate future strategy: whether or not to "ethnically cleanse" North America of all whites, starting with the two white women and four white men camped nearby thinking Scalping Peter their friend. Who owns America? Do whites have a better title than the redmen? Curiously one conclusion reached in THE OAK OPENINGS is that white title to Indian hunting grounds is merited by the whites' bringing the gospel of the crucified Son of the Great Manitou to the Indians. Never mind that most whites are bad Christians. Their doctrine is pure, especially "Love thy enemies," preached right up to the moment of his tomahawking by Reverend Amen. Le Bourdon, as he begins to realize the Indians are not his friends, convinces Indians that bees speak to him. "The bees know me. ...
I am their chief."
Addiction to alcohol plays a large role in Cooper's novel. In a comic scene the bee hunter acquires status of a mighty medicine man when he convinces a band of pro-British Pottawattamies that he controls a spring which overflows with whiskey. Religious readers will linger over the details of white-hating Scalping Peter's conversion to evangelical Christianity after witnessing the death by tomahawk of Reverend Amen. But first his heart had been softened by the many kindnesses of beautiful young Margery/Blossom. Once a Christian the mighty chief's heart grows weak. He accepts white rule. -OOO- Also recommended: James Fenimore Cooper: THE PRAIRIE, THE WEPT OF WISH-TON-WISH. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Oak-Openings-Or-The-Bee-Hunter/ James-Fenimore-Cooper/e/9781602068766/?itm=1 file: cooper_oak =-=-=-=-=- Note: for cooper society synopsis and list of characters (in alphabetical order) see http://external.oneonta.edu/cooper/writings/plots/walker-oak.html Characters: Rev. Mr. Amen, Bear's Meat, Benjamin Boden, Bough of Oak, Crowsfeather, Elksfoot, Corporal Flint, Onoah, Mrs. Osborne, Dorothy Osborne, Margery Osborne, Pigeonswing, Thunder Cloud, Ungque, Dorothy Waring, Gershom Waring, Margery Waring, Wolfeye. =-=-=-=-=-=-= http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/cooper_oak.html file: cooper_oak |