Cricket Sings: A Novel of Pre-Columbian Cahokia

By Kathleen King

Book Overview

For Cricket Sings, Cahokia medicine woman, the omens have been bad. She is old, and so at this year's Sun Ceremony she will tell her stories, the tales handed down from grandparents to grandchildren since the memory of the People began. The Sun King is dying, unable to perfom the Ceremony which will bring good crops to the fields. Called to help because she is a healer, she is faced with the dilemma of whether to stimulate the comatose ruler long enough to perform the Ceremony or to poison him so that his son can perform it. Her decision to feign the King's death by switching his body with that of another old man who has recently died puts her entire family in danger.

This beautifully written novel explores the conflict between loyalty to the tradition of the People and the love of family. The resolution, set against the chaotic mourning for the Sun King, is compelling, believably constructed out of what little factual information is known about the prehistoric dwellers of Cahokia.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0821407058
• ISBN13: 9780821407059
• Release Date: June 1983
• Publisher: Ohio University Press
• Length: 172 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Cricket Sings

This is a novel about a Pre-Columbian Native American woman living in what we now refer to as Cahokia located in Illinois near St. Louis, Mo. It is easy reading and gives a realistic glimpse of what life might have been like then. I purchased the book for my middle school daughter who needed to read books on Pre-Columbian Native America for her Honors English class. I read the book first to make sure it wasn't too gory as some of the religious practices of those times were pretty disturbing. While it does refer to some of the religious practices, including sacrificing young women, it doesn't go into so much detail as to be inappropriate reading for a middle school student yet it leaves you with a good idea of what probably went on during that time as well as an idea of what family structure and traditions might have looked like. It was an interesting book and the only novel I've seen using Pre-Columbian Cahokia as a setting.