User:Y.ikasim/sandbox

angela, Misaki Kiss of the fur queen- wikipedia web page project

About the Author

Tomson Highway was born in a snow bank near the Manitoba and Nunavut border on December 6, 1951. He is the son of Joe Highway, a caribou hunter and dogsled racer, and Pelagie Highway, a bead worker and quilt maker extraordinaire. Not only he can speak his mother tongue – Cree, he can also speak French, English, and quickly learning Spanish. Nowadays, Tomson Highway presents himself as a playwright, a novelist, and musician. Some of his works included the best known plays “The Rez Sisters” in 1988, "Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing" in 1989, “Rose” in 2003, and "Ernestine Shuswap gets her Trout" 2005. These are some dramas that presents in Saskatoon and Vancouver. On the other hand, he wrote three children’s books that included both Cree and English: “Caribou Song" in 2001, “Dragon Fly Kites" in 2002, and “Fox on the Ice" in 2003. These can be good resources for introducing Cree and its culture to children at a young age. Last, but not least, his first novel “Kiss of the Fur Queen” published in 1998. Not only is it one of the best-selling novels in Canada, it is widely used in university around the world.

Characters
 * The Okimasis brothers

Sons of Abraham Okimasis. They experience a traumatic event of being sexually abused by Father Lafleur, which influences their lives differently later on, even after they graduate from the residential school. Education at the residential school and the prohibition against Cree culture turn out to lose the brother’s cultural identities as Cree.


 * Champion Okimasis (Jeremiah)

Oldest of the two Okimasis brothers, who is a pianist. After the first year of the residential school, he still remains his original language. After a few years, he starts forgetting about his culture and language, and he tries to merge into Canadian society to survive the dilemma over his identity.


 * Ooneemeetoo Okimasis (Gabriel)

Youngest of the Okimasis brother, who is a dancer. Gabriel admires and looks up to his brother but at age seven Jeremish is taken to residential school. He gradually starts to be unwilling to go back home and realizes how further away from Cree they had become.

Father of Jeremiah and Gabriel, who is a caribou hunter. The Fur Queen kisses him when he wins the dog race contest at the age of 43, as the first Indian of the 28-year history.
 * Abraham Okimasis


 * Fur Queen

Imaginary trickster of the brothers. Her figure is a beautiful woman who wears fox fur and tail. She watches over the brothers and witnesses their lives.

Plot Summary

Kiss of the Fur Queen is a mystical tell tale of a family who is torn apart by residential school. The two brothers that are taken away to residential school have had a difficult time adapting to the change. They have experienced not only their self-identity but also their self-esteem in two very different ways. They have been sexually abused which is not only traumatizing for them both. Jeremiah whom goes to residential school first has a difficult time adapting and he expresses concern with not being able to communicate with Gabriel. Jeremiah wants to adapt to the white society because he loses his own sense of self within his own culture. He chooses to follow a pianist career because playing the piano is his own way of getting attention in the white society. Jeremiah eventually becomes a world-class concert pianist, but his sense of identity is still indistinct. On the other hand, Gabriel becomes aware of his homosexuality that was unwelcome in those days, as he grows up. He falls into prostitution and promiscuity although he suffers from some flashbacks of being abused at residential school. Besides performing ballet dancing as a professional, he contracts AIDS and dies at the end. The brothers respectively try so hard to merge into the white society and realize that they cannot live like their ancestors anymore. However, they still hope to feel connected their original culture, Cree.