Content Warning: This section refers to domestic abuse, child abuse, animal death, suicide, and colonial trauma.

Tecumseh is a dynamic, if often passive, protagonist and narrator. At 15 years old, Tecumseh has spent his entire life moving between Truth and Bright Water. He is a keen observer of the land and its history; though much of the information the novel presents about Truth and Bright Water comes from the adults in Tecumseh’s life, it is still relayed through Tecumseh’s narration, implying that he has heard and internalized this information throughout his life. Tecumseh’s name, a reference to the revered Shawnee chief, symbolizes this innate connection to history even as The Search for an “Authentic” Indigenous Identity so often proves illusory: Through Tecumseh’s imagination and adaptability, that identity will live on.

Tecumseh’s desire to understand parts of his own life and his parents’ lives that he finds unknowable drives much of the narrative. Many of Tecumseh’s interactions with the adults in the story are characterized by Tecumseh’s propensity for asking questions. He’s curious, and even when he doesn’t receive satisfactory answers, the first-person narration shows him piecing his observations together to form conclusions.