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Keeping The Home Fires Burning

When someone tells you to “keep the home fires burning,” they usually don’t mean it literally. Unfortunately, that was not the case for the young children Victor and Thomas in the movie Smoke Signals. Although the cause of the disastrous house fire remained a mystery, it continued to be a devastating tragedy for the Coeur D’Alene tribe, due to Thomas’ parent’s death. Arnold, Victor’s father, was a raging alcoholic. One night he crossed the line, which ended up with Victors mother kicking him out. Arnold moved to Phoenix, Arizona where he lived until death did his part. Once Victors mother got the call about Arnolds passing, Victor felt the need to make the road trip down to Phoenix to collect his father’s ashes. The different cultural traits I noticed in the Coeur D’Alene tribe was the long hair, the food, and the outlandish story telling. Most of the Indian men in the movie shown had long hair. At one part in the movie, Victor says “The Indian man ain’t nothing without his hair.” Another trait I noticed is that they also ate a lot of fry bread. Victor and Thomas were convinced that Victors mother made the best fry bread in the whole world. Thomas used story telling somewhat as an escape or to get someone’s mind off something and to try and cheer them up. There are similarities and differences in their Indian Culture versus my Midwestern American culture. For instance, if a boy in my family grew his hair out past his shoulders, my dad and grandad would probably make fun of him and call him a hippie. On the other hand, Indians tend to think they aren’t a macho man until they have long hair. Fortunately, my grandmother comes from and Indian background so we actually have fry bread just about every time we go over there for supper. On account of the story telling, my family is very similar. You never really know what’s fact or fiction when someone in my family is telling an obviously over exaggerated story. In fact, I must admit I’m quite the story teller myself. At the end of the movie, Victor is told what really started the house fire. Supposedly one night after Arnold drank a little too much, he came stumbling into the house, holding a lit Roman Candle, which resulted into the house going up in flames. Smoke Signals does a good job at interpreting the different traits in the Indian culture. I know a lot of families a part of the Midwestern culture that struggle with alcoholics in their family. It sucks that such a selfish decision can tear a family apart. But like they say “Something good comes out of all bad things.” At the end of the movie, Victor discovered a friendship with Thomas that will last a lifetime.