Marn Wolde
Marn Wolde's character provides a unique religious perspective in The Plague of Doves. Most characters deal with conflict between their Native American spirituality and the idea of assimilating into Catholicism. However, Marn's husband, Billy Peace,led a militant cult-like religious group. As Marn would narrate: "Billy left and toured his ideas until at last he developed a religion... It was a religion based on what religion was before it was religion."(Erdrich 158).
Marn also participated in unorthodox religious practices after being introduced to snake handling: "On our travels south, I'd met a family who kept serpents and who believed they were directed to cast out devils by handling poisons. I'd stayed on in their church half a year, I'd sat with their grandmother Virginie, whose white hair reached to her waist. She said I never should cut mine. She'd grown eyes like a snake, a crack of darkness for a pupil, lips thin. One hand was curled black as a bone from the time she was bitten. The other lacked a ring finger. You will get bit, she told me, but you will live through it in hte power. She gave me two of her serpents, one six-foot diamondback, the other a northern copperhead with red skin and hour-glass markings. They have judgment in them, she said. And they have love. So judge me, I said when I held the snakes for the first time, take me, and they did. I found my belief. I knew from the first time that this was my way of getting close to spirit." (Erdrich 160).
Marn also participated in unorthodox religious practices after being introduced to snake handling: "On our travels south, I'd met a family who kept serpents and who believed they were directed to cast out devils by handling poisons. I'd stayed on in their church half a year, I'd sat with their grandmother Virginie, whose white hair reached to her waist. She said I never should cut mine. She'd grown eyes like a snake, a crack of darkness for a pupil, lips thin. One hand was curled black as a bone from the time she was bitten. The other lacked a ring finger. You will get bit, she told me, but you will live through it in hte power. She gave me two of her serpents, one six-foot diamondback, the other a northern copperhead with red skin and hour-glass markings. They have judgment in them, she said. And they have love. So judge me, I said when I held the snakes for the first time, take me, and they did. I found my belief. I knew from the first time that this was my way of getting close to spirit." (Erdrich 160).
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