Blood
Blood is an important element for the Indian people because they believed that different nations had different blood. When they adopted a white into their tripe, they would claim that they would remove all the "white’’ blood from them and thus they could become Indians even though they were not born Indians. The importance of a person’s blood and the idea that someone can change his or her blood is a common motif in the novel.
Barbaric
Just like the Indians see the whites as being a symbol for evil and danger, the whites see the Indians as being a symbol for a primitive society. Compared to the whites, the Indians are more in touch with nature and keen on preserving their old ways rather than adapting to the ever-changing world created by the whites. Because of this, the Indians are seen by the whites as being barbaric and unable to behave in a civilized manner or capable to be loving and compassionate.
Saving
Another motif in the novel is the idea that the Indians believed that by taking the white children as captives and raising them as Indians, they were saving them from a world of corruption. When Dell and the other soldiers reached the Indian camps, they were surprised to see the white children being raised as Indians and they too realized that the reason the Indian took the children was not to punish the white men but rather because they felt they were doing the children a favor.
Capitalism
White men promote a capitalist system, where individuals have wealth and have goods that belong only to them. A capitalist society promotes competition and thus creates a big gap between the wealthy and the poor that over time becomes bigger and bigger. This problem does not exist in the Indian tribes where everything is publicly owned and so everyone is equal. When the three boys discuss the white society, they see their way of living as being detrimental to the people and capitalism as a symbol for evilness in general.
River
At the end of the fourth chapter, True Son is forced to say goodbye to his cousin and friend and continue the rest of his journey alone. The separation between the three is marked by a river which True Son must cross with the rest of the white soldiers while the Indians remain behind. The river marks the border between the land controlled by the Indians and the land owned by the whites and thus the river acts like a border. Here however, the river is also symbolic because it marks True Son’s passing into a new, unknown land. From that point on, True Son is no longer able to return to his adoptive family.
