I understand they were Crow and this tribe was responsible, but there must have been small groups of Crow like this all over. How would he have known this particular small group he kills (except for the holy man) had anything to do with the murders?
shareThe very first group he comes across is the actual war party that killed his family. The others are the ones sent to kill him. That is not a Holy man he lets live. It's just one of the party. He sings his "death song" preparing to die. Jeremiah lets him live so that he can tell the others that they've started a war with one pissed off man.
joanne-150, wikipedia.com states it's a holy man that he lets live. That why I said that.
shareJust as here, anyone can write anything they want on Wikipedia. Someone apparently decided that the fat Crow was a "holyman" because he goes into a ritual death song when he believes he's about to get what's coming to him.
shareHe doesn't look like a typical warrior as he is really dumpy. A warrior probably wouldn't have shied away from and run away from a fight. I supposed that they had him with them to read signs or interpret omens. I know he was one lucky M.F.
shareYou've got a plausible explanation. For the longest time I puzzled over why there was a fat Indian guy in the war party. Did the director screw up when hiring Native Indians for the actors? And then why did the fat guy run away when I expected he would fight. At first I thought maybe I was stereotyping Native American Indians. Not every Indian is a Japanese kamikaze eager to die. There had to be some who got scared and ran. I should have known better from reading histories of the various Indian vs white man conflicts in the Old West. There were numerous accounts of Indians who got the worst end in a fight and then ran away. They didn't do banzai charges. The typical Indian warrior could fight like a fiend until death but he was very much capable of running away in a fight or battle when all was lost or losing. He wasn't fanatic or stupid.
The story that the fat Indian guy is a shaman holy man type does make sense. He would not have led a warrior's life, although as a child and youth he would have been taught basic fighting like every Indian male. His life would have been spent doing shaman mystical rites and such. He had little if any real hand-to-hand combat experience.
also...the arrow in the door of the cabin left after the massacre has the markings of Paints His Shirt Red....
shareThe way I picture it, at that point getting the right individuals wasn't that important to him. He figured that his family was killed by Crows so any Crow would do. He was at war with the entire Crow Nation. And, indeed, that was the truth. From then on in the movie he was being ambushed by warriors left and right. Once he got started there would be no stopping.
shareThat's the impression I got also. What I don't understand are some of the ways the Indians attempted to ambush and kill him- for instance one scene where he steps outside of his tent/shelter and one leaps out of the snow to attack him. Why didn't he/they just wait for him to emerge and shoot him full of arrows, etc? I got the impression it was considered more honorable to battle him hand to hand, man on man rather than shoot him in the back? That seems to be one of THE basic myths in westerns that almost all fighting was done in a straight-up manly way like a duel for godsakes, when in reality, Eastwood in Unforgiven for instance finally acknowledged, that in most fighting there were no rules and it was kill or be killed. So a defenseless guy coming out from using an outhouse got plugged.
I just wonder if the Indians fighting Johnson were supposed to be seen as fighting by some kind of rules known to them? Or is it just dramatic effect the movie is after!
The notes on the overview page point out that Johnston's wife was actually killed by a roving band of Blackfeet, and unless he recognizes his property - horses, mules or something else - as he's walking into the Crow camp, I also have to wonder if it matters to him which Indians he's killing.
shareHe was in apoplexy when he came across the Crow camp. I assumed he did track them there though.
Love as much as you breathe
I assumed he did track them there though.
As you yourself pointed out, anyone can write these things. So someone's notes about the film changes the storyline for you? Here is an example: look at any ebay listing for this film and you will see a brief synopsis of the film published by Muze. They state that this film takes place after the Civil War; clearly wrong. Just because it's in print doesn't make it true.
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