The Only Good Indians

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