While many people are born as “frontier dwellers,” Agnes DeWitt seizes the opportunity to forge a new identity in The Last Report on the Miracles of Little Horse Steps. Born and identifying as an average woman for much of her life, she takes on the persona of a priest, Father Damien Modeste, and plays this role for the rest of her life. However, even though she assumes the role of Father Damien, Agnès always retains her feminine identity and never sacrifices one for the other. She assumes masculine attributes without sacrificing her feminine attributes and assumes priestly attributes without sacrificing the natural human tendency toward "sin", especially when she engages in a sexual relationship with Father Wekkle. Agnes DeWitt maintains the characteristics of a frontierswoman by straddling the rigid divisions between gender, religion, and identity while simultaneously playing the roles of Agnes and Father Damien. Before Father Damien's death, Agnès lived as Sister Cecilia, a nun who taught music. However, Agnès only lived for six months under the name Cécilia before deciding to take on the character of Father Damien, a character she inhabited for the rest of her life. Therefore, Agnès technically lived under three separate identities, but she rarely referred to herself as "Cécilia" when she became Father Damien. This calls into question how important Sister Cecilia's identity was to Agnes if she could so quickly assume Damien's priestly role. Agnes herself describes Cecilia as “…empty. Thinned…” (Erdrich 14). However, when Agnès becomes Father Damien, she states: "She was transformed every morning with a feeling of loss which was ultimately defined as the loss of Agnès" (Erdri...... middle of paper...... finally by its refusal to link any gender to any religion it determines that a person is an amalgam of genders and religions Although these people known as frontiersmen are not generally accepted in their. societies, Father Damien finds LittleNo Horse a safe haven for him as he questions his identity As Agnes states towards the end of her journey: “It was here – the reason she had been called. here in the first place” (Erdrich 309) equates her time on the reservation as a spiritual self-discovery that was absolutely necessary for her to determine that she was in fact a frontier dweller. character development as, although she entered the reservation as a priest with the intention of reforming the Ojibwe, Agnes learned more about their religion and practiced aspects of it in her daily life until what his death.