Ch'idzigyaak

Ch'idzigyaak is the older of the two old women. When the novel opens, she is eighty years old. She has a daughter and a grandson in the tribe, and she is deeply hurt by their abandonment of her. Throughout the novel, she is slower to forgive and slower to be hopeful, but she does eventually forgive and press forward.

Ch'idzigyaak's past is revealed through a conversation with Sa' about midway through the story. Ch'idzigyaak's grandmother was abandoned by their tribe when Ch'idzigyaak was a child. This experience had a great impact on her life, especially as history repeats itself and she experiences what her grandmother must have felt.

Ch'idzigyaak was forced to marry a much older man whom she did not know. Because he was so much older than she, she only had one child, a daughter. This daughter has a son, of whom Ch'idzigyaak is quite fond...