The Wild and the Tame

William Faulkner’s portraits of American Indians, rooted in popular stereotypes and misconceptions about Native people, range from the degraded, “white man’s” Indian to the Noble Savage. One stereotype that Faulkner draws on is the EuroAmerican idea that American Indians have an essential connection to the natural world, a stereotype that is certainly as old as Rousseau’s ruminations on the Noble Savage. This concept, dubbed the “ecological Indian” by anthropologist Shepard Krech, has been the focus of much debate and discussion. This paper explores the character of Sam Fathers in William Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses as “ecological Indian” and the continued use of Faulkner’s rendering in contemporary Native literature and social justice issues.