Wind from an Enemy Sky

“A white man, a government man, might not understand the importance of the thing he asked unless the story was carried back to the beginnings. Today talks in yesterday’s voice, the old people said. The white man must hear yesterday’s voice.”

Henry Jim acknowledges the cultural gap between the Little Elk tribe and white government officials such as Rafferty. Those outside of their community lack an understanding or appreciation for the significance of their traditions and are likely to dismiss them unless the whole history is explained.

“Nobody in Washington tells you about medicine bundles or culture heroes or folk ways. The emphasis in the instructions we get is on the mechanics of the job we are expected to do—as if these other things don’t exist and won’t get in the way of doing the job.”

Doc Edwards points out that the training provided to government officials does not cover the cultural sensitivity or understanding needed to effectively engage with Indigenous communities. Ignoring or overlooking cultural traditions and beliefs can hinder effective communication and collaboration. This is the problem that Rafferty faces in connecting to the Little Elk tribe and is ultimately the same issue that leads to the story’s tragedy.

“On the night of Henry Jim’s visit when the men talked almost until dawn, Pock Face sat just beyond the reach of the lantern glow and caught every word. And it burned in him afterward.”

This quote emphasizes Pock Face’s volatility compared to the others. While the others, along with Henry Jim, are talking about peace, Pock Face's anger overrides any inclination toward reconciliation. He is driven more by emotion and impulse than by reasoned dialogue or compromise. His intense emotions, fueled by his anger regarding the settlers and the dam, ultimately result in the killing that triggers the central conflict of the novel.

“They will not abandon the old and the familiar, if left to themselves. They can only choose what they have always known, and that choice means extinction for them.”

In this quote, the concept of the “vanishing Indian” is implicit in Welles’s description of the Little Elk tribe. This trope presents the narrative that Indigenous peoples are destined to disappear as they attempt to hold onto traditional ways of being instead of accepting colonial ideals. It also reflects Welles’s paternalistic views of the people as being unable to “choose” for themselves.

“I stayed here and kept all of you with me. But I had to be quiet. One bad move, and they would come up here and drive us out. I knew this long ago, so I stayed quiet and watched all of you. […] I think you have killed us. When they finish, we’ll be gone from here. I don’t know where.”

After Pock Face kills Jimmi Cooke at the dam, Bull blames him for the troubles coming to the Little Elk people. Despite his personal grievances or desires for retribution, Bull has chosen to prioritize the safety and stability of the community. He recognizes that any misstep could result in the Little Elk tribe being forcibly removed from their land, and the murder likely sealed all of their fates.

“White men were coming in to our country, taking our land, killing the game, and sending our children away. We knew the white man was too strong for us, we couldn’t fight him, so we began to fight among ourselves and we blamed Henry Jim.”

This quote explains the basis for the feud among the Little Elk people. Faced with the power imbalance caused by encroaching colonial forces, the tribe resorts to internal conflict as a way to cope with their frustrations and maintain some sense of agency. By directing their anger and blame internally, toward people like Henry Jim, the tribe finds a way to assert a degree of control over their situation, albeit in a destructive manner.

“When he looks at us […] what can he see? If his heart is good, maybe he will smile, put his hand on my head. I put my hand on my grandson’s head when I see him as a child and I want to tell him to grow up and be a strong man […] He looks, but doesn’t see me. I’m not a grown man in his eyes.”

This quote highlights that, in the experience of the Little Elk people, the best-case scenario for interactions with white colonial powers is to be met with paternalistic and infantilizing behavior. The act of putting a hand on the head is a symbolic representation of the power dynamics at play between the colonizers and the colonized, where the colonized are relegated to a subordinate position and denied agency in their own lives.

“He’s made a hobby of Indians. Ever since he dug up arrowheads.”

This quote paints Adam Pell as someone who approaches Indigenous cultures with a superficial and objectifying mindset, driven by a romanticized fascination and a utilitarian view of their value. His engagement with them is more about his own interests and desires than about genuinely respecting or valuing them as individuals. His focus on their “artifacts” further reduces them to a source of curiosity.

“He had already lived among such people and knew the fear that could snatch the breath away. Would it be the same today as it was when he went alone to the government school? Would he be a small body swept into a corner?”

This passage illustrates the lingering effects of past trauma and the pervasive fear of mistreatment or marginalization within institutional settings for Indigenous peoples like Antoine. His question about whether the experience will be the same as when he was at the boarding school suggests that he expects a similar environment of fear at the agency compound.

“Bull is one Indian this country would like to put behind bars, guilty or not. All these years he stood out against fellows like this Henry Jim, his own brother. If it hadn’t been for him, more of this Indian land would be in white ownership.”

Doc Edwards suggests that Bull is seen as a threat to the US government, as he represents those holding out against the colonial encroachment of Indigenous American lands. By contrast, Henry Jim is more amenable to cooperating with white settlers or government authorities. As a result, Bull is a convenient target for persecution to serve as a deterrent to others who may seek to assert their rights or challenge the status quo.

“Because he had waited and had not taken the first step, it fell on him all at once. He could remember times when, if he had acted differently, the trouble might have ended. Times when he might have sent word. When he might have talked in council. When he might have gone himself, taking his kinsmen, and stayed to visit.”

Bull acknowledges his role and responsibility in the troubles his people face. He recognizes the damage caused by his failure to act and how he neglected the various opportunities for communication and diplomacy. There were multiple opportunities for him to change the outcome and avert the approaching tragedy if he had acted differently.

“Cuno was the continuity for me, a bridge into the past. I saw faces in the street that matched perfectly the portrait jars and bowls fashioned a thousand years before […] the people who created those wonders were still with us. Only we had buried them in peonage or in something that in this country is called wardship. We were rushing into the future and had no place for the surviving artisans and creative minds; their artifacts, labeled relics or curios, could be stowed away in a museum and safely ignored.”

This quote again highlights Pell’s sympathetic view toward Indigenous people, while still holding a sense of objectification toward them. He acknowledges the skill of the people who made the items he is so fascinated by and connects them to living people, but he still does not acknowledge them as people and instead as “creative minds.”

“Tell this woman I am sorry about her son. This is a bad time for a mother. Tell her I can feel this sorrow. […] Tell her I am a man who has lost all that went before, all that belonged to my father and my grandfather, back to the beginning. My people are lying like dead trees all around me and we are no longer a forest. And still I am sorry about her son.”

Bull speaks to Geneva Cooke about the death of her son. He references the extent of the damage and loss suffered by his people at the hands of white colonial powers, which are made up of people like Cooke. However, Bull is still able to express sympathy toward her for her own loss.

“You know our language, and you know this man’s language. I want you to be the man who talks between us. Anybody else would mix everything up. You are now like my son and it will be that way between us.”

This quote comes at the point of the novel where everything seems to be changing for the better. The Boy, who is viewed as an outsider despite also being Indigenous American, is accepted by Bull. This represents a step toward understanding and cooperation between the different cultural groups in the story.

“That man from the East took the water from the mountains and spread it over the land, and some of our people will say it was a good thing. Maybe he is a good man—I watched him, and that is what I think—and yet he will destroy us.”

Here, Bull acknowledges the need to separate Pell’s character and intentions from the broader systemic forces at play. Bull correctly notes that, despite the man’s attempts to help, Pell’s actions will ultimately doom all of them. The quote also hints at the tension between progress and preservation as symbolized by the dam.

“Indian lands had been taken because they would be put to a higher order of use, because they would contribute to the advancement of a higher order of society—and the law had legitimized such taking. The law was in society and society was in the law. Could he imagine what it would be like otherwise? Whose law, whose society, were irrelevant and immaterial questions.”

The reasoning for the US government taking Indigenous American lands in this quotation reflects the colonialist ideology that views said lands as resources to be exploited for the benefit of settler society and the role of law in legitimizing this idea. “Law” reflects and reinforces the values and interests of the dominant group. The biases and imbalance of power are deeply ingrained in colonial systems, which prioritize the interests of settler societies at the expense of Indigenous sovereignty, rights, and well-being.

“A man by himself was nothing, a shout in the wind. But men together, each acting for each other and as one, even a strong wind from an enemy sky had to respect their power.”

This quote highlights the view of what power is in the eyes of the Little Elk people. It emphasizes the importance of interdependence and communal responsibility. Solidarity is not merely a matter of individuals standing alongside one another but of actively supporting and advocating for each other’s interests, thereby amplifying their collective strength and impact.

“‘Keep this,’ he told her. ‘All the good things of life are inside. Never let it get away from your people. So long as you have this holy bundle, your people will be strong and brave and life will be good to them. My own body is in this forever.’”

The conclusion of the story of the Feather Boy bundle shows its nature as the essence of life and the collective identity of the Little Elk tribe. The text later uses the significance of the bundle shown here to highlight the devastating impact of its destruction. It is not only the physical loss of a sacred object but also the spiritual and cultural destruction of the community—the erasure of Indigenous identity.

“How far would they go, what price would they pay, to have this totem or fetish restored? More pointedly, how deeply would they grieve when they learned it would never be recovered? These were not the kinds of equations an engineer ordinarily computed.”

This quote highlights the fundamental disconnect between Pell’s understanding of the destruction of the medicine bundle and the reality of the situation for the Little Elk tribe. He views the loss of the bundle through the lens of practicality and cost rather than recognizing its profound spiritual and cultural significance to the community.

“The outside is closing in on us and I am growing small. They took our land. Next it was our water. Now they want to take my boy. When will they take our women, this grandchild?”

Louis voices the anger and fear that the Little Elk people are feeling regarding their situation, both over the murder investigation and the encroaching white colonial powers. He fears that the relentless pursuit of colonial expansion will lead to further acts of dispossession and exploitation, culminating in the loss of their loved ones and the disintegration of their community.

“The thin man from the East has our bundle […] That is the gift. Why else would the thin man be here? We are nothing to him. It must be that our government man found out about it, and now we will have our life again, the way it was.”

This quote reflects the hope that the Little Elk people cling to at the end of the novel regarding Pell’s return from New York. They believe that the only reason he is there is because he has the medicine bundle with him. It also reflects their overly idealistic belief that things can return to the way they were before the white colonial people arrived in their lands.

“After what you tell us, it would be better if you told them nothing. That’s what I mean when I say it is nonsense. This gift will not give back what they lost. It will only expose them to a terrible truth, destroy hope. Whatever nasty things we did to them in the past, this will be the most devastating.”

In his warning to Pell about telling the Little Elk men about the medicine bundle’s destruction, Rafferty shows that he has come to a better understanding of their culture. He recognizes that the loss represents more than just the destruction of a material object; it symbolizes the erosion of their cultural identity, spiritual beliefs, and sense of collective belonging. Rather than helping, it will be one more source of colonial injustice toward them.

“Feather Boy is dead. I saw it on the mountain, in the storm, but I did not tell my son. I did not want him to feel bad. Now I fear the days of anger will come back, as when he rode wild horses and we waited to see who would be hurt. Something bad will happen and the fault is mine. […] He will hear it from a stranger. And he will know what I knew. This is where we end.”

Two Sleeps acknowledges that a desire to spare Bull pain motivated his decision to keep the knowledge of the medicine bundle’s loss from Bull, but he now fears the repercussions of his silence. He worries that the news of the bundle’s destruction will reignite the impulsive rage Bull had as a younger man, an assumption that is ultimately correct. He is also resigned to the fate of their community. The loss of the bundle is tied to the loss of their identity, and this is now their inevitable fate.