Excerpt #1

"Yeah, you don't believe in the Ghost Dance, do you? Oh, you like its symbolism. You admire its metaphorical beauty, enit? You just love Indians so much. You love Indians so much you think you're excluded from our hatred. Don't you see? If the Ghost Dance had worked, you wouldn't be here. You'd be dust."

"Dr. Faulkner," Mather said. "Please put an end to this ridiculous digression."

But Faulkner, fascinated by Marie now, was silent.

"So maybe this Indian Killer is a product of the Ghost Dance. Maybe ten Indians are Ghost Dancing. Maybe a hundred. It's just a theory. How many Indians would have to dance to create the Indian Killer? A thousand? Ten thousand? Maybe this is how the Ghost Dance works."

"Ms. Polatkin, the Ghost Dance was not about violence or murder. It was about peace and beauty."

"Peace and beauty? You think Indians are worried about peace and beauty? You really think that? You're so full of shit. If Wovoka came back to life, he'd be so pissed off. If the real Pocahontas came back, you think she'd be happy about being a cartoon? If Crazy Horse, or Geronimo, or Sitting Bull came back, they'd see what you white people have done to Indians, and they would start a war. They'd see the homeless Indians staggering around downtown. They'd see the fetal-alcohol-syndrome babies. They'd see the sorry-ass reservations. They'd learn about Indian suicide and infant-mortality rates. They'd listen to some dumb-shit Disney song and feel like hurting somebody. They'd read books by assholes like Wilson, and they would start killing themselves some white people, and then kill some asshole Indians, too.

"Dr Mather, if the Ghost Dance worked, there would be no exceptions. All you white people would disappear. All of you. If those dead Indians came back to life, they wouldn't crawl into a sweathouse with you. They wouldn't smoke the pipe with you. They wouldn't go to the movies and munch popcorn with you. They'd kill you. They'd gut you and eat your heart."



Alexie, Sherman. Indian Killer. New York: Grove Press, 1996.
p. 313-314