The Surrounding Mountain Ranges

The mountain range had an imposing presence over the mission. 

D'Arcy McNickle depicts the mountain ranges surrounding the reservation as their own character within the novel. These towering mountains affect the mobilization of several characters, including the protagonist and his brother, Louis. As missionaries began to colonize and build congregations on Native American reservations, Indigenous cultures began to fade because of the forced assimilation by the Jesuit missionaries. Both the missionaries and the American government took extensive precautions to keep Native Americans on their assigned land within the reservation after already displacing them from land their ancestors inhabited for generations.

This forced integration was disliked by many Native American children and they often took many risks in an attempt to escape the Catholic boarding schools. When children ran from the school, government officials, local police, and Jesuit priests lead a search party to punish and bring them back into the Catholic boarding schools. If children escaped during the winter, McNickle notes that search parties would not even be sent out until winter ended because their chance at survival was nearly impossible--the search parties were sent out to retrieve the bodies of children who ran away. The characters within the novel are "surrounded" by many different entities who are determined to keep them within the confines of the reservation. The mountain ranges act as a symbol for this feeling of being "surrounded" that inevitably leads to demobilization and loss of freedom for Indigenous peoples.