People of the Wolf

Plot introduction

The plot concerns a man and woman contemplating having a child. Then a band of Siberian hunters pursues game across Beringia during the last Ice Age. Spurred by a vision he had while on a hunt, a young tribesman named Runs in Light, later called Wolf Dreamer, leads a handful of tribes people, in rebellion against the tribal shaman, south down the Yukon River valley into what is now Canada and the Pacific Northwest.

Characters

Runs In Light/Wolf Dreamer: A young man of the People who has a vision while hunting. In defiance of the village's aged shaman, Crow Caller, he leads a group of villagers south in search of a hole in the ice sheet there.

Raven Hunter: Dark twin to Runs In Light, he defies his brother's vision and leads a war campaign against the Others (who call themselves the Mammoth People) in revenge for land and captives taken in the past.

Crow Caller: Tribal shaman accused of making up false visions to cover the loss of his powers, he clings desperately to his status, and curses anyone who threatens that status.

Dancing Fox: Love-interest of Runs In Light and Raven Hunter, Dancing Fox is forced by her father to marry Crow Caller in payment for services rendered.

Heron: A fiercely independent medicine-woman, she trains Runs In Light in harnessing his visions so he can lead them through the hole in the ice where the Laurentide ice sheet and the Cordilleran Ice Sheet were joined. A powerful vision which comes upon her late in the book presages events which will be shown in more detail in later books, including People of the Fire and People of the Earth.

Ice Fire: War Chief of the Mammoth People (known simply as "the Others" by the People), he unintentionally raped a woman of the People while under the influence of a shamanic vision, thus fathering Runs In Light and Raven Hunter.