<sub>❝———————…..❞
                                                                ❝Wow.❞

              He’s not necessarily offended or legitimately resentful of the more inquisitive nature presented before him—-how could he be ? It wasn’t as if the speculations were incorrect, and despite the fact that Seth had been relatively reserved for the grand majority of his life, he knew well enough to know that several children that did not grow up on, or near a reservation, harbored several preemptively assessed and articulated perceptions of what an Indian should, or should not be.</sub> 

_{Stories of opulent headdresses made of colored beads and extravagant arrays of eagle and hawk feathers paint a picture of valor and audacity, and depictions of men riding bareback on large, staunch, and very swift stallions with weapons carved into flying arsenals of aerial darts make Indians appear to be savages, all of a common ancestor—or a similar breed. All of these stories make Seth—his tribe—what they are.
             But to insist on only these stories and to overlook the many other stories, is to flatten his experience.
                                    The Quileutes never made headdresses.
                       If anything, it was wooden masks. Ceremonial purposes.
                                     They did—in fact—use arrows and bows.
                                 And Seth had learned to use one as a child.
                                                     But that’s not the point.
The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.}

                            <sub>❝I do know how to use a bow and arrow, yeah.❞
                                    ❝———But really, I’m not very good at it.❞

                                               ❝…..But just so you know.❞
     ❝Those aren’t the only weapons Indian people know how to use and make.❞
                                                 ❝Bows n’ arrows, I mean.❞

          ❝The Quileute tribe isn’t—-….well, we weren’t all that mean, you know.❞
                                                  ❝…Hostile. Or whatever.❞

       ❝We don’t have those fancy sledge hammers and stuff, we made mallets for drums and music, things like that.❞
         ❝But if you’re talking weapons, we really don’t use bows and arrows much.❞
                                             ❝You’re talking fish, you know.❞
❝You go try and shoot a fish with a bow and arrow off La Push in water you can’t see through, see how well that works out for you.❞

       ❝For fishing, we use barbed nets, sometimes with shark teeth and sometimes with sharp stick ends.❞
                                                         ❝Stuff like that.❞

                                  ❝….The thing we used the most, though.❞
                                ❝—or… the things we use the most, I guess.❞
                                                         ❝Are harpoons.❞
       ❝We sharpen seashells and rocks and put them on the edge of thick, really long rods and throw them — usually for deer, rabbit, and whales. We don’t do much whale hunting though.❞
                                                      ❝Maybe two a year.❞
                                                                ❝Maybe.❞

                                          ❝I’m good at that, the harpoons.❞</sub>