Most of the time it is portrayed as being lusty and dangerous, “a thing of death by drowning” (Erdrich, 11). The role the lake monster plays in Tracks is an obscure one. In Ojibwa legends, Misshepeshu was half lynx and half sea-serpent (“Misshepeshu”). Part of what makes Matchimanito so distinct in the novel, is it’s personification in the existence of a lake monster, Misshepeshu. The lake has a powerful influence over the events in the story, as well as over the lives of the characters. In the novel, Tracks, Louise Erdrich places her Ojibwa characters beside a fictional lake called Matchimanito. Because their territory covered so much lake ground, water and lakes in particular had a large role in the lives and the fables of the Ojibwa people (“Encyclopedia”). The Ojibwa people, otherwise known as Chippewa, had territory spreading over thousands of miles, from Ontario in Canada, and across the upper Great Lakes of the US.
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