The Only Good Indians

The three main adult characters in the novel—Lewis, Gabe, and Cass—each struggle with their ancestral heritage and their role in Blackfoot culture, which they typically treat with ironic distance or outright mockery of the rules and customs of their culture as a way of coping with the cultural burden. As such, they freely use the term “Indian” to describe themselves or their practices, knowing full well its racist origins and deploying it with a sense of irony: They understand the tension between the authenticity of their tribal customs and their own half-considered version of it that often resembles play-acting. Still, the desire to be “Good Indians” colors their behavior and self-concept: Lewis fears that abandoning the reservation and marrying a white woman has disgraced his ancestors and furthered the diminishment of the tribe’s bloodline; Gabe’s struggles with alcohol, violent outbursts, and being a bad father linger in him; Cass is finally settling down, but fears what others think since he is dating a Crow woman, a tribe that was rivals and sometimes outright enemies with the Blackfeet. Holding the sweat is a way for Gabe and Cass to try to be a more respectable part of their community, though they know that they are primarily serving as an example of who not to be for Nathan Yellow Tail.

Cass and Gabe refer often to the idea of the “Big Indian Rule Book,” their invented lexicon of how to do things the right way. It’s notable, then, that the transgression they committed when they slaughtered so many of the elk herd is the inciting incident that marks them out for revenge and a transgression against their elders. The real sin that these men committed is a disdain for the balance between man and nature and a disdain for why their traditions exist, not their lack of a legalistic approach to following them. Even when they try to honor the traditions of their elders, it’s often in half-formed ways. Lewis gives the elk calf meat away to the elders with the wrong stamp on it, for example, and Cass and Gabe do a poor job of setting up the sweat lodge. Only Cass and Nathan Yellow Tail begin to see the value of their traditions.

The novel overall has a complicated outlook on the desire to be a “Good Indian.” The title of the novel refers to a famous quote typically attributed to General Philip Sheridan, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” hinting both that all the men are doomed and that their intentions are tempered by the centuries of warfare and disenfranchisement they’ve faced, suggesting that there’s no longer a way to be a “good Indian.” The title even suggests that the idea of who these men are has been written from the outside and that there may be no authentic Indigenous experience left for them after centuries of being defined by white culture.

When Elk Head Woman arrives, she is indiscriminate in her violence and perfectly willing to kill bystanders and others whose actions don’t figure into her karmic balance, suggesting that tradition or living right is no salvation from danger. However, the two primary survivors of the story, Denorah and Nathan Yellow Tail, both embrace tradition: Nathan survives by thinking of himself as Blood-Clot Boy, a famous heroic Blackfoot figure, and Denorah uses a tribal gesture to signify the end of Elk Head Woman’s quest. This passing on of the traditions to a younger generation is as important as embodying the idea of being a “Good Indian.”