The Drum: Healing and Continuity in Wandering Stars

What the Drum Is

In Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars, the drum is a ceremonial object built by the Cheyenne elder Bear Shield. He constructs it from an iron kettle, hide, stones, rope, and an antler used to pull the rope taut. Seven stones are placed inside the kettle, representing the seven stars that seem to circle the moon in the night sky. The drum is played near water when possible, and its sound is described as deep and sorrowful. Star, the narrator of the early chapters, learns to adjust the hide's tightness to brighten the tone, preventing it from pulling him into despair.

Where the Drum Recurs

The drum first appears in Chapter One: Young Ghosts, when Star and Bear Shield wander after the Sand Creek Massacre. Whenever they stay somewhere long enough, Bear Shield assembles the drum and teaches Star to play. Later, in Chapter Three: A Son, Bear Shield reminds Jude Star of their shared past with the drum during the peyote ceremony that helps Jude achieve sobriety. In Chapter Four: Into Another Life, the unnamed narrator hears the drum as he approaches the tipi where Opal sings, just before he attacks the federal agents. Decades later, in Chapter Twenty-six: Rave, Orvil, high at a rave, feels as if he is inside the drum and hears a voice say, "We left everything with you." Finally, in Chapter Thirty-three: Rehab, the narrator's experimental band samples Native music, processing it through distortion and reverb—a modern echo of the drum's spiritual resonance.

How the Drum's Meaning Changes

For Star, the drum is a tool of emotional reconnection. After losing his ability to speak at Sand Creek, playing the drum calls back something that had been set loose from him. He and Bear Shield use it to create a "brutal kind of beauty" amid unspeakable pain. The drum transforms suffering into a shared, survivable experience.

For Jude, the drum becomes a bridge to healing during his alcoholism. In the peyote ceremony, Bear Shield invokes their past with the drum to remind Jude of a time before the trauma of Carlisle and the bottle. The drum, together with the peyote medicine, helps Jude pray for a son and eventually find sobriety.

In the generation of Opal and her father, the drum takes on a transgressive dimension. Opal sings inside the tipi during a ceremony for her mother's healing, defying the rule that women may not sing or speak in ceremony. The drum accompanies her voice, marking a moment of cultural reclamation and female agency. The narrator who hears her is moved to protect the ceremony by sacrificing his own freedom.

For Orvil and the modern narrator, the drum becomes internalized. Orvil, high on drugs at a rave, imagines his body as a tongue and feels the bass of the music as the drum's boom. He hears an ancestral voice speaking through him, suggesting that the drum's power now resides within the bodies of the younger generation. The narrator in rehab uses music sampling as a way to honor that legacy without appropriating it, hiding the Native source material in distortion—a metaphor for how cultural memory persists even when obscured.

Character and Theme Connections

Characters

Themes

• Intergenerational Trauma: The drum provides a ritual space to process the inherited pain of the Sand Creek Massacre, Carlisle, and displacement. Star's initial numbness and later emotional release through drumming illustrate how trauma can be held and released across generations.

• Cultural Erasure and Assimilation: The drum is prohibited by the U.S. government; agents break up ceremonies. Yet it persists underground, and later characters like Orvil find ways to keep its spirit alive through modern music, even if disguised.

• Addiction and Recovery: Jude's sobriety begins in a peyote ceremony where the drum helps him remember who he was before alcohol. The drum offers an alternative to substance abuse as a means of emotional regulation.

• Memory and Storytelling: Playing the drum calls back forgotten emotions and memories. For Star, the drum is a "calling back" of what had been set loose; for Orvil, it is an ancestral voice that speaks through him.

• Identity and Belonging: The drum anchors Cheyenne identity in a world that tries to erase it. From the post-massacre wandering to the rave, the drum connects individuals to a communal, sacred past and helps them belong across time.

Study Questions

1. How does the drum function as a tool of emotional healing for Star after the Sand Creek Massacre?
   Answer: After losing his ability to speak and numbing himself to pain, Star finds that playing the drum with Bear Shield allows him to reconnect with emotions he had buried. The drum's deep, sorrowful sound calls "something that had been set loose" back to him. By adjusting the tone to be brighter, he prevents the drum from pulling him into despair, instead transforming unspeakable pain into a shared, beautiful experience.

2. In what way does the drum help Jude Star achieve sobriety?
   Answer: Bear Shield invites Jude to a peyote ceremony and reminds him of their shared past with the drum from their wandering days. During the ceremony, the drum and the medicine help Jude undergo a vision that breaks his addiction. He vomits out the alcohol and prays for a son, emerging from the ceremony sober and eventually becoming chief of police. The drum acts as a spiritual anchor that recalls a healthier version of himself.

3. Why is Opal's singing in the ceremony a significant moment for the drum's symbolism?
   Answer: Women were traditionally not allowed to sing or speak in ceremony beyond bringing morning water. Bear Shield, however, disagrees with this rule, and Opal sings for her mother's healing while the drum plays. Her voice, described as "the most beautiful sound," breaks a gender barrier and asserts women's spiritual authority. The drum thus becomes not only a vessel for tradition but also a site of progressive transformation within Indigenous practice.

4. How does Orvil's rave experience reinterpret the drum for a contemporary Native character?
   Answer: At a rave, Orvil feels the bass of the music as though he is "inside the drum" and hears a voice say, "We left everything with you." This internalization suggests that the drum's ancestral power has moved from a physical object into the bodies of the younger generation. Orvil's music-making with Sean involves sampling Native sounds and processing them through distortion, a modern method of keeping the drum's spirit alive while navigating cultural appropriation and personal addiction.