There they were, the two plastic groups – forms, outlines, shells of the real, real creatures they had been. Each boy lifted out his own and helplessly examined it. The life-giving details were blurred – plastic can’t show fine beadwork, the perfection of hair and muscle, the folds of cloth, the sheen of a pony’s coat or the beauty of a girl’s skin. The figures were there, but the people, the personalities, were gone.
Patrick’s eyes met Omri’s. Both were wet.
“We could bring them back. Just as quick,” he said huskily.
“No.”
“No… I know. They’re home by now.”
Omri put his group, the Indian, the girl and the pony, on the shelf nearest his bed where he could see it easily. Patrick slipped the mounted cowboy into his pocket, cupping his hand round it almost as if to keep it warm.
Then Omri took the key and left the room.
His mother was in the kitchen getting everyone a hot drink before bed. She took one look at Omri’s face and her hands became still.
“What’s happened? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Mum, I want you to keep this key. I lost it. Lucky I found it again, but you told me it was important… Better if you keep it. Please.”
She nearly refused, but then, looking at him, she changed her mind and took the key from him.
“I’ll get a chain and wear it,” she said, “like I always meant to.”
“You won’t lose it, will you?”
She shook her head, and suddenly reached for him and hugged his face against her. He was shaking. He broke away and ran back to his room, where Patrick was still standing with his hand in his pocket gazing at the cupboard.
“Come on, I’m going to put all sorts of medicines in it,” Omri said loudly. “Bottles of pills and stuff Mum’s finished with. We’ll pretend it’s a doctor’s drug-cupboard, and we can mix lots of them together…”
His voice petered out. Those were silly games, such as he had played – before. He didn’t feel the slightest interest in them now.
“I’d rather go for a walk,” said Patrick.
“But what shall I do with the cupboard?” asked Omri desperately.
“Leave it empty,” said Patrick. “In case.”
He didn’t say in case what. But he didn’t have to. Just to know you could. That was enough.
More Than a Story
A Note from the Author
The Iroquois
Native American names
Totem poles
Native American symbols
The Native American shield
Cave paintings
Laying a trail
Native American game
Dream-catchers
What if …
Find out more
A Note From the Author
This novel was originally written in the late 1970s when my sons were still children. We had come back from Israel, where all the boys were born and where we lived in a kibbutz. Now we were living in London in quite a big house and we were having a struggle keeping it all together. I was pretty rattled a lot of the time because I had to keep writing books while trying to run a home. An American friend of mine told me, “You’re a pioneer – yours is the first generation of middle-class women that has had to manage homes and families without servants and earn a living at the same time. Your mother didn’t work after she got married; and her mother didn’t work and had servants.”
Whether I can dignify my frequent feeling of being out of my depth by calling it “pioneering” I don’t know, but despite my wonderful husband’s help, it was very hard, and I was always looking feverishly for ideas. Some of my best ones came in the spontaneous form of bedtime stories, and, since I was usually busy writing adult novels at that time, I would tell them and forget them.
But once when a publisher asked me to write a children’s book, and I was desperate, my youngest son reminded me of a bedtime story I’d told him several years before, about a little bathroom cupboard we found in our first London house that brought plastic toys to life. He’d remembered it so clearly that he was able to help me while I was writing it. So I wrote it very quickly (in only about three months) and I left in it a lot of names – including his, Omri, the hero of the story – and places and things and even animals, that I had originally put in my “telling” story for my son’s benefit. Omri’s name, from being almost unknown outside Israel, is now quite famous, but I didn’t anticipate that at the time.
The cupboard was one of the real things, and I still have it. Unlike a lot of other things in the book, which were based on reality but which I changed for the story, the cupboard is exactly as I described it – a small, shabby, white-painted metal cabinet “with a mirror in the door, the kind you find over the basin in old-fashioned bathrooms”. It is now very important to me, as you can imagine. For example, when recently I was in a hotel in Seattle which caught fire and a woman ran past our door screaming at us to leave the hotel immediately, I turned back (as one is forbidden to do) and picked up the cupboard in its carrying bag before running down the back stairs. I carry this cupboard about with me and show it to children when I visit schools. They’re often surprised at its plainness. I tell them, “Don’t judge a book by its cover and don’t judge an object by its surface appearance. This is a magic cupboard.” How else to explain how it changed my life, brought me fame, prizes, money, new friends and wonderful travel opportunities? Of course it’s magic.
This book, which I had thought was just a book, proved to be the biggest success I’d written since my first novel, The L-Shaped Room (which wasn’t for children). The Indian in the Cupboard changed the tide for us – I mean, for our family finances – and it changed my career. I began writing more and more for children, less and less for grown-ups. Writing for grown-ups is a challenge you shouldn’t turn away from, but it’s hard when there’s a lot of demand and reward for one kind of writing, not to do more and more of that. Children wrote me letters begging for more adventures of Omri and the Indian, so I tried to oblige. I’ve written five books about them now, and a lot of other children’s books as well. I’ve really enjoyed the life I’ve had since The Indian in the Cupboard came into it.
Of course, it hasn’t all been plain sailing. I wrote the original book in a light-hearted vein and I didn’t think too much about strict accuracy. I did a little research about the Iroquois, but not nearly as much as I should have. The success of the book in the United States coincided with the rapid development of ethnic consciousness among American Indians and the resentment of some of them about stereotyping by non-Indian writers.
Attacks on the books by certain tribal members has caused me a lot of pain, but it has had a good effect. In later books I took more and more trouble to check my facts. For the fifth book in the series, The Key to the Indian, I travelled to Canada to talk to some of today’s Mohawks (one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy) and I think I’ve made fewer mistakes in this book. As a result of these efforts, I feel that the books have deepened and become more true. That is now one of my criteria of good writing, and the fact that I am writing fantasy doesn’t let me off getting the real things right.
LYNNE REID BANKS
July 2000
The Iroquois
Who are the Iroquois?
The Iroquois, pronounced ‘err-uh-kwoy’, were made up of five nations or tribes: Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Mohawk and Seneca. They were later joined by the Tuscarora tribe.
Do they have any other names?
People of the Longhouse, Five Nations (which then became the Six Nations) and the League of Peace and Power. Today they are known as Haudenosaunee, pronounced ‘Ho-de-no-show-ne’, or Six Nations.
Where do the Iroquois live?
The north-west part of New York State, America and near Lake Ontario, Canada. Approximately three million Native Americans live there today.
What would a Iroquois camp have looked like in Little Bull’s time?
Each extended family
(as many as sixty people) would occupy a longhouse. Longhouses were long, narrow buildings made of bark and wood; each had an arched roof covered in thatch. There were no windows, but each roof had a smoke hole in it, for the smoke from the cooking fires to escape.
What did the Iroquois eat in Little Bull’s time?
The Iroquois farmed beans, squash and corn (the ‘three sisters’ Omri learns about), hunted for deer and game birds and fished for salmon and bass. Women and children gathered berries and nuts in the summer.
What is the traditional dress of the Iroquois?
Men wear breechcloths, leggings and, in the colder months, a tunic shirt with fringed edges. Women wear deerskin skirts and leggings, with a loose shirt with fringes in colder weather. The clothing is intricately decorated with wapum (beads made from sea shells) and ribbon.
Who holds power in the tribe?
Each tribe has a Tribal Council, which is made up of men, but there are Women’s Councils too, and it is the women of the tribe who own the land, and pass it down the female line from generation to generation.
* * *
FACT
Each longhouse was named after a bird or an animal.
* * *
Native American Names
If you discover a Native American name that means ‘he who treads lightly through the forest hunting deer’ or ‘gatherer of fragrant berries in the summer’, it is probably not authentic. Single Native American words have simpler meanings and do not make up descriptive sentences like this – however good they sound! Here are some from a number of different tribes.
Girls’ names from Native American sources
Winona........................................................................first daughter
Nizhoni................................................................................beautiful
Aponi...................................................................................butterfly
Lomasi...........................................................................good flower
Native American variants of English and French names
Kateri...............................................................variant of Catherine
Meli.........................................................................variant of Mary
Boys’ names from Native American sources
Chaske.................................................................................first son
Chetan......................................................................................hawk
Tyee..........................................................................................chief
Native American variants of English and French names
Atian....................................................................variant of Stephen
Magi.....................................................................variant of Michael
* * *
FACT
There are over one hundred and fifty different Native American languages spoken.
* * *
Totem Poles
What is a totem pole?
Totem poles are tall, carved wooden posts (usually cedar), which represent the history of a Native American clan in the same way a coat-of-arms does, carved by specially selected Tribe members. Totem poles are still carved today by the Native American peoples.
What is carved on the totem poles?
Each totem pole has representations of birds, beasts and humans, and serves as a link with the tribe’s spirit ancestor. If a totem pole has a wolf at the top, for example, it shows that one of the tribe’s ancestors once lived with supernatural wolves.
Why are the totem poles important to the Native Americans?
In the time before writing, the Native Americans had an oral tradition, which means they passed on stories and information by word of mouth. They also drew and painted pictures and carved objects. The images on a totem pole signified the rights of that particular tribe and their spiritual ancestors.
* * *
FACT
The tallest totem pole is 173 feet tall; you can see it at Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada.
* * *
Native American Symbols
What are Native American Symbols used for?
Symbols are reproduced on belts, painted on animal hides or rocks, and carved into trees or rocks, and are used to mark a trail, or territory, show where water was to be found or recount a past event: a good hunt, for example, or to celebrate an act of bravery.
Do we know what all the symbols mean?
No. Some of the Native American symbols are thousands of years old, and their meanings have either been lost or diluted over time. Some symbols have several different meanings.
Are there different types of symbol?
Yes. There are clan and ceremonial symbols: the bear, wolf, hawk and deer, for example, and symbols representing the Native American’s way of life: the sun, the moon, and the pine tree (the ‘tree of peace’). Knowing your symbols is important: a cluster of arrows means ‘unity’, but one arrow pointing down, and to the right, means ‘war’.
Inspired by the Native American Symbols?
Why don’t you make up your own symbols or create an alphabet of symbols?
Write a message with your symbols and, get a friend to work out what it means.
* * *
FACT
The turtle is one of the most important Native American symbols – it represents strength and patience.
* * *
The Native American Shield
Medicine shields are made of soft, tanned hide, which is stretched over a round frame and painted with healing symbols. These shields are hung in longhouses or tepees.
War shields are made of rawhide, which is thicker and stronger than tanned hide. These are painted with images depicting war, and images to protect the owner.
Make your own shield
Cut out a large round circle of cardboard
Cut out a strip of cardboard 1.5 inches wide and 7 inches long
Place the strip of cardboard vertically to the back of the shield
Push both ends of the strip towards each other to form a handle, then tape both ends
Turn the shield over and decorate with paint or felt pens: use some of the symbols on the previous page, or make up some of your own.
Native Americans also decorated their shields with feathers. Why don’t you go to your local park and pick up discarded bird feathers, or cut out your own from paper?
* * *
FACT
Even when war shields were no longer used in battle, Native Americans would still carry them for spiritual protection.
* * *
Cave Paintings
Did the Iroquois produce cave paintings?
Most cave paintings have been found in non-Iroquoi territories, but several examples of‘rock art’ have been located in areas where the Iroquoi have historically lived.
Is the location of the images significant?
Yes. Images found in small crevices may have been private ceremonial sites; those in wide, open spaces were possibly for large ceremonial gatherings. Other rock art, where images are repeated, may have been signposts.
Are there different types of images?
Yes. Some are petroglyphs – images that have been engraved or chiselled into the rock: animals, birds and humans or geometric shapes. Others are pictographs – images painted or stencilled on to the rock face, which have a significant meaning. Soot, powdered minerals and clay were used as paint and the main colours used were black, red, orange and white.
Create your own ‘rock art’…
Handprints were a common Native American rock art image: place your hand, palm down, on a piece of paper and paint round it.
Laying a Trail
Collect leaves, stones, twigs and bits of moss
Work out some signs, or symbols, which will lead the trackers from st
art to finish
An arrow shape in twigs could mean ‘go straight ahead’ or ‘go right’ or ‘go left’
A large stone could mean ‘end of trail’ (use stones if it’s windy!)
Get two people to leave the trail, and two people to follow it, then swap round
The chief trail finders are the team who follow the clues the quickest
If you have made the Native American shield, headdress and dream-catcher, why don’t you set up a camp in the garden?
* * *
FACT
Native Americans used oak trees as trail markers, as well as trail marker sticks: long poles topped with a skull of an animal, which were secured in the ground or hung from trees.
* * *
Native American Game
For Native Americans, team games were an important part of tribal life. Learning how to work together was a vital skill, and games strengthened the bonds between tribal members. Try this game, played by the Cheyenne Indians.
The Indian in the Cupboard (Essential Modern Classics, Book 1) Page 15
