EARLY ON IN Jon Hickey’s Big Chief (2025), Mitch, the novel’s antihero, visits Waabizh, a medicine man whom his mentor, Joe Beck, respects and trusts. During their conversation, Waabizh refers to Mitch by his Anishinaabemowin name, Mishkigabo—a name Waabizh found for him in a ceremonial vision. Later, Waabizh’s son Reed, who dislikes Mitch, calls him a “J.Crew Indian.” A careful irony and humor lie behind these interactions: while a tribal elder uses Mitch’s traditional name, Mitch is insulted, seconds later, for wearing clothes too nice to be Native. Reed and Mitch discuss the scandal of tribal disenrollment under the political administration Mitch runs in the shadows. Both Reed and Waabizh were disenrolled years before and are no longer legally considered Native American. What it means to properly appear and be recognized as authentically Native are at the heart of Big Chief’s depiction of Native American life.
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