So I have this character whose mom died when she (my character) was three years old. Her father is Chippewa/Ojibwe [name_f]Indian[/name_f]. I’m trying to figure out how her mother died so that her father would eventually turn his back on his culture. it was suggested to me that maybe his family was not happy with him marrying a white woman and killed her but I’m not sure I like that a whole lot. any ideas on how her death could have triggered an anger towards my character’s father’s culture and family? The plot of the story is that this girl (no name yet) is trying to find out who she is and where she comes from but her father will not help her. Because her father has shut-out his family there is nobody else left to share her culture with her and she is forced to find out who she is on her own.
Maybe a close relative (father’s brother) accidentally killed her (drunk driving?), and the father can’t forgive his brother or anyone who stood by the brother (extended family/tribe).
What if they did some sort of ritual, acting as if they were going to allow her to join the tribe but something goes wrong? Maybe there is no way to prove who is behind what went wrong?
For example, maybe an allergic reaction to something that was part of the ritual. [name_m]Just[/name_m] a thought.
Because you are basing your story around an actual Native American tribe I would be very careful when making cultural references etc. I assume you’ve done a ton of research or have in-depth personal knowledge of their culture before inventing a ritual they might have…
While a family member drunk driving sounds plausible, it also sounds like an incredible “redskin/firewater” stereotype.
Suggestions:
Not sure if it’s important if the family is the fathers or the mothers for your protagonist to try to connect with her Native roots. It seems that traditionally Ojibwe culture was patrilineal and women who married white men and their children might not have no longer been accepted as part of the clan.
Having the father be white instead of the mother might be enough for a strong alienation. (If the protagonist is now finding acceptance by her Native American family maybe it was the head of the family who was very traditional and that person has since passed.)
The mother could also have died due to complications in child-birth. She could have planned a home birth on a reservation and the father could have been away - his family could have refused to take her to a hospital in time or something.
Maybe the family has nothing to do with the mothers death and just didn’t accept her because she was white. He could have cut ties long before she died and just refused to reconnect after her death because they wouldn’t accept her to begin with.
Hmm. I really like the #2 suggestion of lexiem. Maybe something like she refuses traditional medicine to avoid offending her family (maybe her dad is a shaman or medicine man) and something goes wrong. I wouldn’t write that she has cancer or something a person would obviously seek Western medicine for but something that she thought was minor but turned tragic. This is plausible to me and is respectful at the same time.