Difficulty: Introductory | Prerequisites: None, though familiarity with basic literary terms (theme, symbol, first-person narration) will help.
"The Medicine Bag" is a short story by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, a Lakota Sioux author, frequently taught in middle and high school English and literature courses. It sits at the intersection of identity, heritage, and coming-of-age fiction, making it a staple text for units on cultural conflict, family, and tradition. The story is told from the first-person perspective of Martin, a teenage boy of mixed Sioux and white heritage living in Iowa, who struggles with shame about his great-grandfather's appearance before learning to value what his heritage represents. If you are studying Native American literature, multicultural identity in fiction, or short-story narrative techniques, this is a core text.
Martin, a teenager of Sioux descent living in Iowa, is embarrassed when his elderly great-grandfather, Joe Iron Shell, arrives unannounced from the Rosebud Reservation. Over the course of Grandpa's stay, Martin moves from shame to pride as he learns the history of his family's medicine bag, a sacred pouch passed down through generations of Iron Shell men. The story traces Martin's shift from valuing appearances and peer approval to embracing cultural identity and ancestral responsibility.
Medicine bag
A small leather pouch worn around the neck, containing sacred objects tied to the owner's spiritual identity and family lineage. In the story it holds a piece of iron, a pebble, and sacred sage. Think of it as a physical vessel for spiritual heritage, passed from father to son.
Vision quest
A traditional rite of passage in many Native American cultures in which a young person goes alone into the wilderness to fast, pray, and seek a guiding spiritual vision. In simple terms, it is a solitary spiritual journey undertaken to discover one's purpose and receive guidance from the Great Spirit.
Wakantanka (the Great Spirit)
The supreme spiritual force in Lakota Sioux belief. Comparable in role (though not in theology) to concepts of God in other traditions. Grandpa references Wakantanka when recounting the first Iron Shell's vision quest.
Rosebud Reservation
A Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota where Grandpa Joe Iron Shell lives. It is a real place, home to the Sicangu Oyate (Burnt Thigh Nation). The reservation setting contrasts sharply with Martin's suburban Iowa neighbourhood throughout the story.
First-person narrator
A storytelling point of view in which the narrator is a character in the story and uses "I" and "we." Martin is the first-person narrator here, which means readers see events filtered through his emotions, biases, and growth.
Internal conflict
A struggle that takes place within a character's mind, between competing desires, values, or emotions. Martin's internal conflict is between his desire to fit in with his peers and his sense of duty and love toward his Sioux heritage.
Hau
A Lakota greeting, roughly equivalent to "hello" or "greetings." Grandpa uses it when he arrives. Other Lakota words in the story include "Takoza" (grandchild), "Wicincala" (little girl), and "hoksilas" (boys).
Martin (the narrator): A teenage boy of mixed Sioux and white heritage, living in Iowa. He narrates the story and undergoes the central transformation from shame to acceptance.
Cheryl: Martin's younger sister, about ten years old. She is openly enthusiastic about Grandpa and untroubled by what others might think. She serves as a foil to Martin's self-consciousness.
Grandpa Joe Iron Shell: Martin's great-grandfather, an eighty-six-year-old Lakota Sioux man living alone on the Rosebud Reservation. He is frail, dignified, and deeply committed to passing on family tradition.
Mom (Marie): Martin's mother, Grandpa's granddaughter. She married a white man but maintained the family's connection to the reservation through annual summer visits.
Dad: Martin's father, a white college teacher. He is respectful of Grandpa and welcoming.
Hank and friends: Martin's school friends, who know about "Grandpa" only through the glamourised stories Martin and Cheryl have told.
Iowa suburb: Martin's home, a middle-class neighbourhood with tidy houses and small dogs. This is the world where Martin feels the pressure to conform.
Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota: Grandpa's home, a part-log, part-tar-paper shack. The family visits every summer. The reservation represents cultural roots and spiritual tradition.
Time period: Mid-to-late twentieth century (not precisely dated). The cultural tensions between assimilation and tradition are central.
Exposition: Martin and Cheryl brag about their Sioux great-grandfather to friends in Iowa, exaggerating his life to make it sound glamorous. They bring back authentic Sioux items (moccasins, a drum) but never show Grandpa's photo, knowing he does not match the "TV Indian" image their friends expect.
Inciting incident: Grandpa arrives unannounced, walking down the street surrounded by barking dogs and staring children. Martin is mortified.
Rising action: Martin rescues Grandpa from the dogs and brings him inside. Grandpa collapses from heat exhaustion. Over soup, he explains he rode buses for two and a half days and then walked from the bus stop because he wanted to see his descendants' home. He also announces it is "soon time" for Martin to receive the medicine bag.
Complication: Martin dreads both the physical appearance of the medicine bag (a worn leather pouch) and the social consequences of wearing it. He keeps his friends away from Grandpa for two months, telling himself it is to protect Grandpa, though he knows it is to protect himself.
Turning point: Martin's friends come over uninvited. Grandpa has dressed in his finest traditional clothing. The friends are respectful, even awed. Martin feels genuine pride in Grandpa for the first time.
Climax: Grandpa tells Martin the history of the medicine bag in private. The first Iron Shell undertook a vision quest, received a dream about the white man's iron, found a piece of an iron kettle at the base of the butte, and placed it in the bag. He was later sent to a boarding school, where his medicine led him to the blacksmith shop, giving meaning to the dream. The bag was passed to Grandpa, then briefly to his son (Martin's maternal grandfather), who left it behind when he went to war and died overseas.
Resolution: Grandpa places the bag in Martin's hands rather than over his head, telling him he need not wear it until he is back on the reservation. That night Grandpa is taken to hospital. Two weeks later Martin stands on the reservation prairie and adds sacred sage to the medicine bag, completing the ritual.
Students often think Martin is ashamed of Grandpa as a person. He is not. He is ashamed of how Grandpa's appearance clashes with the romanticised image he has sold to his friends. The shame is about Martin's own dishonesty, not about Grandpa's worth.
The medicine bag is sometimes confused with a generic "good luck charm." It is not a charm. It is a sacred spiritual object tied to a specific vision quest, family lineage, and ritual obligation. Its contents are particular to the Iron Shell family.
Grandpa is Martin's great-grandfather, not his grandfather. The narrator calls him "Grandpa" as a term of affection, but the text states he is the great-grandfather. This distinction matters for understanding the generational chain of the medicine bag.
Some students read the ending as Grandpa dying during the story. The text says he was taken to hospital that night, and two weeks later Martin placed sage in the bag on the reservation. Grandpa's death is implied but not explicitly narrated within the story's timeline.
The Medicine Bag, Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, Lakota Sioux, Sioux heritage, Native American short story, Rosebud Reservation, vision quest, medicine bag symbol, coming of age, cultural identity, Joe Iron Shell, Iron Shell family, intergenerational tradition, first-person narration, internal conflict, assimilation vs tradition, Native American literature, multicultural identity, heritage and shame, sacred objects in literature