Indian Killer

“Suddenly, this is a war. The jumpsuit man holds John close to his chest as the helicopter rises. The helicopter gunman locks and loads, strafes the reservation with explosive shells.” 

John’s fantasies are often shaped by his sense of having been wronged by white society, both as an individual and as an Indian. In his imagined version of his birth and adoption, the cultural violence of removing an Indian child from his heritage and raising him in racist white society is transformed into an act of literal warfare.  

“The best place for this child is with a white family. This child will be saved a lot of pain by growing up in a white family.” 

Although they are liberal and accepting and do their best to raise John with love and kindness, Olivia and Daniel still accept the racist assumption that an Indian child will have a far better life, a life free of pain, if he is raised by a white family. In many respects, John’s—and Olivia and Daniel’s—whole journey is a refutation of this presumptuous attitude.  

“‘John,’ Duncan said after a long silence. ‘You see these windows? You see all of this? It’s what is happening inside me right now.’” 

When Father Duncan shows John the stained-glass scenes of Jesuits being martyred by Indians, he reveals his own inner conflicts. A Jesuit and a Spokane Indian, Duncan is rent by the same confusions and identity issues that John will later face. When John begins hallucinating and dreaming of Duncan, the old priest comes to represent the search for identity and belonging.