Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Code Talker, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory, Language, and Identity
The Navajo Way and the Life of the Warrior
Culture and Patriotism
War, Healing, and Peace
Summary
Analysis
Mr. Benally leads the children into a shed where older students are cutting the hair of all the new students. Ned explains to his grandchildren that in those days, long hair was considered sacred; cutting it short was believed to bring misfortune. Ned is first in line, and his hair is cut so quickly that it’s over before he understands what is happening. He feels like a sheep being sheared. From the other children’s faces, Ned sees that they, too, feel “naked and ashamed.”
Cutting off the children’s hair is likely an intentional way of cutting them off from their cultural identities more generally. By making the children feel vulnerable and exposed, the school makes it more likely that they’ll embrace the new culture that’s now being forced on them.
Themes
After the haircuts, the children are made to take off their beautiful clothing and jewelry. Ned later learns that the precious family jewelry and ornaments are sold to white people. In place of their traditional clothes, the children are dressed in rough, itchy uniforms. When the children are reassembled outside, they all look nearly identical.
The children’s precious family jewelry is treated like trinkets, instead of as symbols of the children’s value, as their families had intended it. This treatment reflects the school’s attitude about the children themselves; they’re only valuable to the extent that they’re willing to conform to white society.
Themes
After that, the children are brought to a skinny white man named Mr. Reamer. Mr. Reamer tries to speak Navajo while Mr. Benally translates. He creates surnames for each child based on the name of his or her father, or sometimes assigns a historical name like Washington, Lincoln, or Jefferson. When it’s Ned’s turn, he tells Mr. Reamer that he is “the son of the One with a Gray Mustache.” Because Mr. Reamer doesn’t really understand the Navajo language, he hears Biye’—“son of”—as “Begay.” That’s how Ned and many other Navajo children of that era got the surname Begay. Mr. Reamer also gives him the name of his dead uncle, Ned.
The practice of giving surnames of dead men is shocking to Ned because, in Navajo culture, no one is ever deliberately named after someone who has died. Ned starts his day with one name— Kii Yázhí—and ends it with a new name, Ned Begay. Basically, everything distinctly Navajo about him has been forcibly taken away within the space of a few hours.
Themes
