MovieChat Forums > Jeremiah Johnson (1972) Discussion > Question about the ending

Question about the ending

posted 16 years ago by Pvt_Murphy
4 replies | jump to latest

Spoiler. Obviously.

In the end Johnson meets Paints His Shirt Red again, the Indian greets him and he greets back. This has been interpreted as the Indian signalizing the fight was over and Johnson accepting his proposal of peace.
This leaves me with some questions:
1. If crossing the burial grounds is such a severe crime that the punishment includes having Johnson's family killed, why do the Indians give up in the end?

My personal interpretation isn't based on any factual knowledge about Crow law and I haven't read the book(s) yet either, so please correct me whereever I am wrong!
The Crow didn't care about the white men which is why they saw them as inferior and unworthy of their burial ground and Johnson had to be punished for leading them through it. The punishment was killing Johnson's family.
I think it was intentional that they killed only his wife and kid because they could have waited until he was home and got them all at once or they could have killed his family and waited there afterwards but they did neither. They only wanted his family.
As opposed to the other white men they did care for Johnson. They knew him as a skilled hunter who traded with them occasionally so they wanted to give him a chance, so to speak. They only sent single warriors so that either the warriors won, which would mean Johnson wasn't worthy after all and he deserved his death as punishment for the sacrilege, or that Johnson won and he could gradually build up some honor. After he had killed so and so many warriors the Indians deemed him worthy enough so he would have been allowed to visit the burial grounds anyway because he wasn't a disgrace to the dead and that's why Paints His Shirt Red himself shows up in the end to make peace with Johnson.

Killing the family was necessary even IF Johnson turned out to be worthy later because he lead the white scum through the burial grounds. The rest was a test of whether he deserved death as well or not. For the Indians this wasn't just about Johnson living or not but also a means to lessen the sacrilege that was done to their deads. The worthier Johnson turned out to be, the less the dead would have been insulted.

Does this make sense?

[–] Dances_with_Weasels 16 years ago

In the movie, as there is no dialog explaning the burial ground and killings, to me, it is very open to interpretation. I assume either the murders were in retaliation for desecrating the burial grounds, or they killed them simply because they could because Johnson was away and they didn't like 'neighbors'.

Either way, the movie differs greatly from the facts. Rather than retype it all, look at my comments here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068762/board/flat/5471197#110026937
To be fair to the producers, though, I think they tried to be as accurate to the true story as they could be, they just used poor source material.

Are you going to pull those pistols or whistle "Dixie"?

[–] toldyousew 15 years ago

I took it that it was just so cold out that particular day that
that indian decided to give Jeremiah a pass.

~I can sing better than Taylor Hicks!

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] angelofvic 15 years ago

The part about the Crow making peace with him is true.

The part about a Crow burial ground in a mountain pass is ridiculous and false. No idiot would put a burial ground across a mountain pass. That was simply horrible scriptwriting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liver-Eating_Johnson

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