The Only Good Indians

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 6

Part 1, Chapters 7-12

Part 2, Chapters 13-18

Part 2, Chapters 19-26

Part 3, Chapters 27-31

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

The Trading Post Knife

Lewis buys a trading post knife before the hunting trip that leads to the massacre of the elk herd. It is a knife that evokes Blackfoot culture without being a particularly good tool, but Lewis liked it upon purchase because it felt good in his hand. The knife symbolizes his attempt to embrace his heritage, but it’s a cheap attempt, one that doesn’t have a clear understanding of what honoring one’s heritage requires. This grasp at heritage is reflected when the knife, sharp upon purchase, immediately dulls once used, as he fails to fulfill his ideal of what a “good Indian” is supposed to be. He uses the knife to remove the calf fetus from the pregnant cow elk and then skin the mother, another makeshift attempt to be a “good Indian.”

The knife is also a symbol of Lewis’s attempts to control his own fate when he uses it to temporarily fix the overhead light that has been flickering. The knife’s blade is jammed into the fixture, providing a solution that foreshadows the violence to come. Peta reaches for the knife as she falls to her death, which Lewis reads as a last ironic form of punishment. Using the knife on Peta, he recreates the tragedy from a decade before, once again using the knife in a poor attempt to do the right thing, culturally and spiritually.

The Antique Mauser Rifle

By stealing the antique rifle from his father, Gabe makes it a symbol of the way he repurposes his Blackfoot and personal heritage for his own ends, hurting and dishonoring his ancestors in the process. The rifle has a rich history in his family: It was brought home from World War II by his great-uncle and used throughout his childhood to kill mice, and Gabe even has a small scar from a ricochet. The rifle symbolizes his family’s sacrifices made during the war, and the existence eked out by killing household pests and generations learning to shoot a gun.

The rifle should have dense meaning to Gabe, but he’s willing to trade it away for the sweat lodge, indicating that he’s a character who lives in the present and does not hold much value in the history of his people. He’s willing to steal and trade away the rifle for his own self-preservation, revealing his complacency about the sentiment attached to the rifle for his family. This disregard comes full circle as he uses the rifle to take his own life at the demand of the Elk Head Woman. It becomes the rifle that he uses to take his own life, serving as the object of his comeuppance because of the elk massacre, an event that also saw Gabe ignoring and trading away his heritage for a temporary gain.

Basketball

Basketball plays a central role in the novel, first in Lewis’s life and then in Denorah’s. For many on the reservation, basketball is the pathway to success or escape from impoverished reservation life. It also serves as a replacement for tribal warfare: The intense rivalry between Crow and Blackfoot manifests in extracurricular activities and pickup games, particularly in Denorah’s life. When the characters in the novel play basketball, it’s an act of negotiation and the testing of power and boundaries. Shaney and Lewis flirt and learn about each other in Part I of the book and Denorah challenges Elk Head Woman on the court for the right to live. Fittingly, Denorah doesn’t know the game is literally life or death for her, but that’s how she approaches the sport anyway.

Counting Coup

The idea of counting coup—the act of approaching and touching your enemy without hurting them and escaping unscathed—represents the way Cass and Gabe have lived their lives until this point in the novel, approaching the dangers of drugs, alcohol, criminality, and slipping away before the consequences arrive. Neesh tries to impart to them that the consequences are on the way, but at the time, they don’t listen. They also misunderstand what counting coup is about, which is having the ability or power to do something but choosing not to for the sake of honor. Denorah embodies this value as she counts coup when she pleads with Denny Pease to let Elk Head Woman escape at the end of the novel, instead of allowing the woman’s death and restarting the cycle.