In both the movie and the novel a type of civil war was brewing in the form
of competing methods regarding dealing with the world outside the reservation
and its influences on reservation life.
In "Cerermony" these influences were the alcohol, the war in which
reservation youth went off to fight, and the mining of reservation land. In
"Thunderheart" the outside influences included mining of reservation land and
the ivestigation of a murder which was splitting the reservation's people in
seperate directions. Like "Ceremony" these problems were brought to the
reservation by white people. We even learn in the movie that the murder was
instigated by white people for the exact purpose of dividing the reservation.
These two storylines seem to play upon the concept that whether intentional
or unintentional, white man is slowly (or not so slowly) destroying the
Indian way of life by shredding their greatest asset, their unity.
It is a common saying that the best way to conquer is to first divide. And,
while Silko does not seems to say that the problems of the Lagoona Pueblo
reservation are as purposly contrived as those in the film, the results are
very much the same.
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