How I Became a Ghost: A Choctaw Trail of Tears Story

“I felt the warm shiver. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Mister Jonah was sitting by the tree. Suddenly, his hair burst into flames! He screamed and waved his arms. He fell rolling to the ground. His arms were skinny logs and flames shot from his fingers.”

Isaac’s first supernatural vision reveals the burning of Mister Jonah. Tingle uses these dramatic visions to foreshadow the violent events of the novel. Here, Isaac is foreseeing that the Nahullos will burn the Choctaws’ homes.

“The branches of the tree were long and thin and the leaves were light green. They hung over the river, like lime green walls of a small room.”

In this simile, Tingle describes the tree branches by comparing them to the lime green walls of a small room. By comparing the natural world to a room, Tingle prefaces what Isaac’s mother will say in the next quote: the Choctaws’ land is their home, not the physical houses that burn down.

“‘No,’ said my mother. ‘Their houses are in town. This river, this dirt, this is their home. This is our home. Your father was right. There is Treaty Talk and we must move. It is time to say good-bye to our home.’”

Isaac’s mother explains the difference between a house and a home by identifying the land as their home and the building they live in as their house. She also makes clear that they are not being forced to leave their houses but their homes, which casts Treaty Talk as particularly harmful.

“The torches made slow circles, turning over and over, followed by a trail of sparks. Like fiery comets, twenty flaming torches fell from the sky.”

Tingle uses simile to describe the torches that the soldiers threw at the Choctaws’ houses in comparison with fiery comets. He also describes them as if in slow-motion, with the torches making “slow circles, turning over and over.” This description emphasizes the dramatic scene and compares it to an act of God. That Isaac doesn’t mention the Nahullos are actively burning down the homes, but instead shows the torches as the actors, indicates the Choctaws’ pacifist nature, and foreshadows their inability to retaliate.

“Whenever we wanted to be safe we always went to the swamp.”

Isaac reveals the protection afforded by the swamp and its service as a refuge for the Choctaws, which develops the theme of the Choctaws’ connection with nature. This makes the Nahullos appearance in the swamp all the more troubling. The Nahullos entered the Choctaw refuge and brought with them diseased blankets to give out in the winter weather, thereby evaporating any sense of safety the Choctaws had in the swamp.

“I almost became a ghost that day. If my mother hadn’t pulled me back, I would have become a ghost. How could my mother have known?”

Isaac reveals his naivety by not understanding how his mother knew to protect him from the blankets. The smallpox blankets were an inconceivable idea to Isaac, but his parents assumed the Nahullos would not hesitate to do such a thing. This moment could also have been influenced by Isaac’s father’s visions, as we learn later in the novel that he has them as well.

“Some Choctaws became ghosts from the shotguns. Some became ghosts from the burning houses. But the blankets made more ghosts than any guns or fires. The smallpox blankets were ghost-making blankets.”

Isaac paints a bleak picture of Choctaw life by explaining the various causes of death they experience. He also emphasizes the impact that the blankets had on the Choctaw by saying they made more ghosts than anything else. This incident is likely inspired by the 1763 siege of Fort Pitt, wherein a British commander gifted a Lenape tribe blankets from a smallpox hospital during a negotiation with the intention of giving the tribe smallpox.

“After the burning of our town, the days in the swamp, and the blankets with small pox, my family joined the walkers. We were on our way to a new home.”

Isaac explains what his family endured before they were able to begin moving forward toward a new home. The Choctaws were not simply relocated but instead unmoored, cruelly tricked with diseased blankets, and then, if they survived all of that, they were allowed to walk to their new home.

“Today will be hard for you. Know that we are here.”

This remark from Mister Jonah creates suspense by foreshadowing the challenge that Isaac will face, but it also indicates the benefits Isaac receives from the ghost community and the Choctaw community as a whole.

“From that moment on, even though my feet burned, I refused to look behind me. I looked where I was going and forgot about the pain. I was stronger than the pain.”

Isaac learns how to overcome pain and becomes like the old Choctaws he saw performing rituals before they left their home. He finds that forgetting a thing makes you superior to the thing, which is again reflected in the Choctaw “victory” over the Nahullos in which the Choctaws are able to forget the Nahullos and be with their families. 

“The older women broke bark from the trunks of cedar trees. They burned the bark and waved the smoke over Nita. They sang the Choctaw death song.”

Isaac describes the Choctaw ritual that is carried out upon Nita’s death. Like the rituals executed before leaving their home, this ritual also involves natural elements and singing. As a people that communicates with ghosts, the Choctaws’ relations with death feature heavily in the novel.

“When you cannot see, your mind tells strange stories.”

When Isaac is blinded by the snow, he begins to wonder if walking in the storm is how he will die. He recognizes that his lack of sight is the reason he is worried, and he makes the point that the unknown leads to the formation of unconventional ideas. This aptly describes the Choctaw culture surrounding the supernatural.

“I thought the ghost world was full of surprises, but the biggest surprise of my life woke me up that night.”

Isaac explains that the physical world can be more confounding than the supernatural world, as the appearance of Joseph is more of a shock to him than the appearance of any of the ghosts he met so far. The timing of Joseph’s appearance is also serendipitous as he arrives at just the right time to join up with Isaac.

“They can’t know everything the soldiers do, but they watch them. That is why the soldiers bring us milk and corn. They have to feed us. They have to keep us safe.”

Joseph tells Isaac about the Choctaw councilmen and their role in making sure the soldiers keep them safe. His explanation evidences the nebulous nature of the treaty and its enforcement because the councilmen “can’t know everything the soldiers do” but the soldiers do bring the Choctaw milk and corn.

“Isaac, when you see them, when you get close to them, remember they are the same men who burned our houses down while we slept inside. They tried to burn us all, burn us alive. And when that didn’t work, they acted so kind and gave us blankets. The blankets killed most of our friends.”

Joseph brings clarity to the ambiguity surrounding the Nahullos in order to keep Isaac safe. He knows that they have sometimes helped the Choctaws, but he urges Isaac to assume that all of them are the same as the ones who have harmed them in the past to make sure that Isaac is careful around them. This moment speaks to the Choctaws’ naturally pacifist ideals as Joseph encourages Isaac to push against them.

“In the quiet woods of the night, the voice of Nani Humma boomed like a shotgun.”

Tingle uses a simile to illustrate the scene in which Nani Humma catches Isaac sneaking out to see Joseph. The loud and intimidating sound of Nani’s voice pierces the quietness of the woods, which Isaac compares to a violent shotgun sound to express his fear.

“Rescuing Naomi gave us all a purpose. I noticed it right away.”

Isaac reveals the benefit of rescuing Naomi for everyone involved in the rescue, not just Naomi. It allows everyone to focus their energy on something they feel is worthwhile and escape the bleakness of their larger situation.

“I liked Nani Humma. He was a powerful and important Choctaw, but he still had a sense of humor.”

Isaac reveals what he values in people, with a sense of humor ranking alongside power and importance. This humor in the face of great responsibility parallels the Choctaws’ ability to persevere through hardships.

“You cannot keep your eyes on the bloody footprints you have left behind you. You must keep your eyes on where you are going.” 

Isaac’s father explains to Isaac how to handle adversity. By encouraging Isaac to keep his eyes on his goal, father provides Isaac with a means of escape from his current predicament. Tingle paints the need to keep moving through adversity as part of the Choctaw culture.

“Our deeds touch not only the living. We did more than save Naomi today. We made our people proud. That is the highest honor a Choctaw can ever earn, to make the ancestors proud.”

Isaac explains that the opinion of the Choctaw ancestors is the most meaningful of all opinions and that the Choctaws’ ancestors guide them in how they interact with the world. Now that Isaac has joined the realm of the ancestors, this is the only “reward” he can possibly receive for rescuing Naomi.

“Sometime after midnight the wind grew angry and sleet replaced the friendly snow.”

Tingle personifies the wind and snow by giving wind the ability to be angry and snow the ability to be friendly. Through this personification, he creates a tense atmosphere in which the soldiers are in pursuit of Naomi. That nature seems to react to the Nahullos’ pursuit suggests that nature is on the side of the protagonists. 

“Since they had left their campsite, only a short while ago, they had become deeply afraid of Leader. […] But seeing how helpless the Choctaw council members had been, with no guns or weapons, the soldiers also felt a new power, the power of life and death.” 

Isaac explains the mixture of fear and power that drives the Nahullos in their interactions with the Choctaws. The fear instilled in them by Leader pushes them to find others more vulnerable than themselves so they can feel powerful instead of scared. This provides motive for the abuse of the relatively defenseless Choctaws.

“When the sun sets on this day, we want everyone to be safe. If they scatter Nita’s bones, we will gather them. If they burn her bones, we will gather the ashes. We are Choctaws. We are stronger than the soldiers.”

Isaac encourages the Choctaws to remain calm and collected when the Nahullos approach them in search of Naomi by reminding them that they are stronger than the soldiers. Their strength comes in their ability to persevere and repair whatever damages the Nahullos cause. We also see here the cultural importance of the dead to the Choctaw; Isaac must warn them not to risk their lives to save Nita’s bones. The bonepickers of the Choctaw remove the flesh from the bones of the dead so that they can return the bones to their families.