The novel follows the tribal members of Little Elk, a fictional Northwestern tribe, as they attempt to navigate encroaching white colonization.
[2] Wind from an Enemy Sky begins with the Little Elk tribe's reaction to United States government presence and the construction of a dam on reservation land.
He had given away the tribe's most sacred object, the Feather Boy medicine bundle, and recognizes that its repatriation represents the only way for him to mend his wrongs.
[3] The meeting of these two plot lines leads to the climax of the novel as the Little Elk attempt to accept these unforgiving truths, ultimately culminating in tragedy.
[3] Regarding Wind from an Enemy Sky, D’Arcy McNickle wrote, “I would like the reader to see the Little Elk episode not as an isolated episode of tragedy, about which one need not get too concerned, but as a critical statement about the quality of human behavior when people of different cultures meet.”[4] Through references to historical and political context, McNickle addresses themes that center on Native-White relations.
Bull asks his grandson, “Am I talking to you or a piece of paper?” after Antoine tells his grandfather that he read about the dam construction in a newspaper.
[3] As Daniel Duane notes, this quote illustrates a clear gulf between Antoine, who was formally educated at a government boarding school and can speak English, and Bull, who is beginning to feel the full effects of linguistic colonialism.
[2] Louis Owens suggests that the novel represents McNickle's attempt to construct a cross-cultural America that ultimately and tragically falls apart.
[5] According to Vest, Bull's suicidal lashing out in the final moments of the novel suggests a much deeper despair that cannot be accounted for by the loss of the medicine bundle.
[8] Bosco contends that the Feather Boy bundle represents a tie to memory and the past while also embodying the endangerment of Little Elk culture and life.
"[11] Montana's 2014 Teacher of the Year Anna Baldwin created a lesson plan around Wind from an Enemy Sky for the events and connections it has to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Indian Reservation.