The Searchers

Many of the Indians that left with the missionaries were gone for many years and did not know how much had changed back at home. In the story The Soft-Hearted Sioux a young man comes back home after receiving an education from the missionaries. He had left before he was taught how to survive out in the wild. He came back to dying and starving parents. He was brainwashed by the missionaries because he went against his family’s customs and told the medicine man never to come back and that God will save his father. He started preaching God’s words to his people and they left the community. His father was growing sicker and sicker and he needed food. His son went out everyday trying to get something but had no skills in hunting. His father had told him to go two hills over and he could find meat. With no concept of ownership, the son went and killed a cow that belonged to an American. Upon leaving with the meat he was chased down and attacked by the “owner” of the cattle. The son accidentally killed the man and fled back to his father’s teepee only to realize that he was too late and that his father had died. He was so conditioned by the white man that he had forgotten his ancestors’ ways of survival.

The hatred for Native Americans in the United States, according to Sawaquat, goes back to the beginning when white people came to America (paragraph 4). It seemed as though once white people stepped foot on American soil, it automatically became theirs and they did not like that fact that Native Americans were on “their land,” so they had to get rid of them by violence and theft (paragraph 5). In modern day America, the issue of land rights is still a problem between Native Americans and whites. In Sawaquat’s town, the white people who live there did not like the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that they cannot fish on Indian land (paragraph 4). To white people this meant that Native Americans were talking their land away from them when in fact it was the Native Americans land from the beginning.

For the dark and terror-filled reality of nature. Oliver describes the "pure wild hunters of the world", the great horned owl. When describing the owl, Oliver uses vivid imagery to allow for the reader to understand and imagine the dark and grueling aspects nature has. For example, in lines seventeen to twenty-one Oliver describes the many triumphant kills of the great owl and states, "I have found the headless bodies of rabbits and bluejays, and known it was the great horned owl that did them in, taking the head only, for the owl has insatiable craving for the taste of brains". The killings described aren't the average run of the mils, death. The owl beheads his prey, a cruel and inhumane method of death. This description instills the same fear for the great horned owl that Oliver feels during this experience. Oliver wants us, the reader to grasp this part of nature, "in which terror is naturally and abundantly part of life".

The somewhat nomadic lifestyle of the plains natives often interfered with White America’s exploration of the great Wild West. To solve this inconvenience, White Americans moved the Natives onto reservations, which were smaller plots of land, sometimes not in the tribe’s home area, and were subject to White American authority. The creation of reservations was just one of many assaults on Native culture and destroyed the Native’s idea that freedom meant the ability to roam.

Ethan’s altruism, to the disappointment of readers, is only met by apathy on the part of the people he cares for. The other citizens of Starkfield notice this, and Mr. Gow claims that “‘it’s always Ethan done [sic] the caring’” (4) This line effectively summarizes the entire story.

America wasn’t always a safe place for the Native Americans, their resources ran scarce as all their crops began to die out. The Mexicans raided their camps and stole the some of Native people, for slave labor. Eventually, the Americans came only to side with the Mexicans because of the language barrier. The Mexicans took their advantage of being able to communicate with the Americans and told them that the Navajos were dangerous people. The Americans believed them, they ordered for the Navajo people to stop raiding the slave traders. Many chiefs refused to sign the agreement, leading America to declare war on the Navajos. Kaii's uncle informed him that the Americans burned their crops, killed their livestocks and cut down their peach trees, “they drove our people to exile. They sent us on the Long Walk.” A walk of a hundreds miles, to a place called Fort Sumner. Many people

Eventually he does get her home. Ethan Edwards is so obsessed with saving his niece from the Comanche’s because he does not like Indians and thinks they are savages and probably does not want his niece to be around them. He becomes very angry when he finds her because she did not want to come home and said she wanted to stay with her people. This is obviously why he became angry because he hates Indians and does not want his niece to be one. The similarities between Ethan and Scar are that they are both feared by certain people. They are also both wanderers of the land. Also in one scene you can tell they are similar because it is pointed out. Ethan says "You speak pretty good English for a Comanche, someone teach you?" to Scar. Then later Scar says "You speak good Comanche for a white man, someone teach you?" This definitely shows that they are similar in some way because Scar mocks Ethan. This movie definitely shows how the people that came in and took the Native Americans land treated them badly by calling the savages and acting like they are uncivilized. This is seen because throughout the movie you can tell that many of the people did not like the Indians.

It's the middle of the night when you wake up to the tear streaked faces of your parents. As they urge you out of bed, horse hooves act as a siren in the distance, proclaiming the arrival of unwelcome guests. You prepare to leave your world behind as you grab a pouch of necessities. For weeks you have heard of the Native American round ups, and now you have no doubt that it is your turn to be ripped away from generations of life. There is a thud on the door, and your family is forced to leave your home for some unknown land.

Rowlandson writes, “Now away we must go with those barbarous creatures, with our bodies wounded and bleeding and our hearts no less than our bodies.” This shows that the Indians did not care about the physical condition of the settlers. Also, the Indians treated the settlers poorly by not feeding or treating to their needs. This is shown through the quote, “There remained nothing to me but one poor wounded babe, and it seemed at present worse than death.” This shows that the settler had lost all hope in surviving and thought it would be better to die than go on living. The cruelty towards the settlers was only one of many example showing how the Indians were

The night following the demise of their fellow soldier and friend, the surviving combatants run across a baby water buffalo. The best friend of the deceased slowly shot away bits and pieces of life from the baby buffalo until a motionless, lifeless carcass was all that was left. This terrible act is symbolic for several things the most obvious being revenge. The boy’s best friend was taken and he was distraught. At the time of this tragedy primal instinct took over and the need for revenge wins out and the life of the baby buffalo was sacrificed. When the boy is content with the damage he has caused he scatters and leaves his friends to clean up the mess. The remaining soldiers “hoisted it up, and dumped it in the village well.” This act speak volumes all in itself. The boys were completely aware of how indecent the act was and ashamed of it enough to cover their tracks. Although the deposition of the body into the water well will eventually contaminate the village's water source allowing discreet revenge upon an entire vietnamese

When Ethan is sitting at the dinner table with the rest of his family members, Martin comes in late, he greets his aunt Martha and everyone else. When he goes to greet his Uncle Ethan, he gives him a blank stare and says he could mistake him for a half breed and of course everyone looks up. Throughout the film, Ethan has a small like for Martin. He treats him differently than the rest, and often times reminds him he has Cherokee blood inside him. Though Ethan was rough with Martin, there were times where Ethan treated him with decency. It is pretty clear that Ethan views natives much more differently than other characters. In one of the scenes where Martin is seen trading with a group of natives, Martin thinks he is trading for just a blanket

Abel is born in an Indian reservation, in 1920, from a Walatowa mother. However, he neither knows the identity of his father or the name of his tribe. So, without the knowledge of his specific Indian origins, he and his family have always been perceived as “foreign and strange” (11) among their tribe, the Eagle Watcher Society. Also, Abel loses at an early age, both his mother and brother suffering from the same disease. As a result, Abel’s dark and emotionally charged past ignites the search of his identity among his native tribe. Abel intents to forge his personality through his grandfather, Francisco, who raised him in the pure tradition of the Native American culture, to which his life and values remain deeply anchored to. However, Abel

Since the founding of America, Native Americans have been oppressed, victimized, and have been seen as inferior. Various Native American tribes fought and resisted the white man and his plans for taking over the land. However, they were no match for the greater armies of white men in later years. One film was able to depict how the issues of race and culture has affected Native Americans in America. In Dances with Wolves, a white veteran of the Civil War, John Dunbar, ventures to the American frontier, where he encounters a tribe of Dakota (Sioux) Indians and befriends them. Throughout the film, we see how a white man develops a relationship with a band of Sioux Indians. Attracted by the simplicity of their lifestyle, he chooses to leave his

Central to the American Western is the typical valiant and independent cowboy, whose skills are only matched by his courage and bravery and who commits a range of justified violence. These themes are variously confirmed in High Noon (1952), The Searchers (1956), The Magnificent Seven (1960), and The Wild Bunch (1969) – all of which belong to the Western trope and are historical representations of mid-to-late 20th century America. However, these films also uniquely challenge prevailing images of the genre, portraying cowboys and gunmen as both antagonists and heroes. For example, High Noon deconstructs the cowboy as a dominant male figure by portraying protagonist Marshal Kane as hesitant and unpopular. Similarly, the heroism of Ethan Edwards in The Searchers is ambiguous in that he attempts to kill the girl he presumably is set out to save. In the film, The Magnificent Seven, Chris volunteers to help bury an Indian corpse, which is extremely contradictory to the Cowboy vs. Indian rivalry seen in most other Westerns, including The Searchers. Chris and his partner Vin also become emotionally “involved” with the village and the people who hired them, although gunmen usually don't form

“Each day is like a treasure hunt”. James Baldwin in his story “Stranger in the villages” contrasts his experience as a black man in the village with his experience as a black man in the United States. During his journey, he faces with the odd reaction of the villagers as a stranger. Plato, The Allegory of the cave illustrates some prisoners that are chained in the cave and they could just see the wall in front of them that people are walking there. They wouldn’t able to turn their head and look around. Jumpa Lahiri in her story “This Blessed House” describes a newlywed, Twinkle and Sanjeev, that are moving into a new house. They find Christian icons everywhere. Twinkle tends to keep all the religious icons, which is related to the first owner of the home, but her husband is trying to get rid of these things. He thinks that all statutes and signs are hollow beliefs because they are not Christian. The story depicts the lack of true perception and the history keeps individuals to understand the nature of reality beyond the appearance.