Vampirism as Consumption: Blood, Land, and Identity in The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

The Thematic Claim: Consumption as Colonization

In Stephen Graham Jones's The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, the monstrous transformation of Good Stab into a nachzehrer—a blood-drinking creature from Germanic folklore—functions as a literalized metaphor for the violent consumption of Indigenous life, land, and culture by white settlers. Good Stab does not merely drink blood; he ingests the very identities of those he feeds on, and in doing so, his body becomes a record of colonial violence. The novel argues that settler colonialism operates as an endless, ravenous cycle of consumption, one that consumes not only resources but also bodies, memories, and the possibility of a future.

Tracing Consumption Across Three Plot Movements

1. The First Feed: Becoming a Creature of Settler Violence

Good Stab's origin as a nachzehrer occurs when he is forced to drink the blood of the Cat Man (the original nachzehrer) after being shot by soldiers during a massacre. In his first-person account, he describes how the Cat Man's blood "slithered down across the crust of the snow, filling my eyes and nose and mouth," and that this was "how I died." This involuntary ingestion initiates his transformation. Immediately afterward, Good Stab instinctively drains a soldier, and his narrative reveals a key rule: he can only drink from "two-leggeds" to remain human in form. When he feeds on animals, his body begins to take on their features—growing horns after drinking elk, developing quills after eating porcupines. This biological absorption literalizes the way colonial violence forces Indigenous people to incorporate the very enemy that destroys them. Good Stab's hunger is not natural; it is a curse born from a specific act of colonial warfare—the Marias Massacre of 1870, referenced throughout the novel.

2. Hunting Trappers: The Consumption of Indigenous Land

As Good Stab learns to control his hunger, he systematically kills trappers who have invaded the Backbone (the Rocky Mountains, sacred to the Blackfeet). He describes stalking them for days, drinking their blood, and then leaving their rusting traps on Wild Goose Island "so no other trappers could use them." This is not merely revenge; it is a reclamation of territory through consumption. Each trapper's blood temporarily gives Good Stab strength and night vision, but also threatens to change him. When he drinks from a trapper whose blood is "spoiled," the contamination enters him. The act of consuming the colonizer paradoxically keeps Good Stab alive while also further binding him to the violence that created him. The novel refuses a simple moral binary: Good Stab's vampirism is both a survival strategy and a perpetuation of the cycle of destruction.

3. The Confession and the Journal: Consuming Stories

The framing device of Good Stab's confession to the Lutheran pastor, Arthur Beaucarne, adds another layer of consumption. Good Stab tells his story weekly, and the pastor writes it down—but the pastor is also complicit in the colonial violence (he participated in the Marias Massacre). The journal itself becomes a consumed object: Etsy Beaucarne, the modern academic, transcribes it to build her own career, only to learn the book is bound in human skin. The consumption of stories mirrors the consumption of bodies. Good Stab's oral account is literalized into a material object made from a victim's skin, and then consumed by Etsy's academic and personal needs. The novel ends with Etsy destroying the journal with her father's ashes and killing the transformed Arthur at the massacre site, suggesting that only by stopping the consumption—breaking the cycle of using Indigenous trauma for white gain—can the haunting end.

Character and Symbol Connections

Good Stab and the Nachzehrer

Good Stab is the central embodiment of vampirism as consumption. His body changes based on what he drinks, illustrating that identity in the novel is fluid and determined by what one absorbs. He struggles to remain Pikuni by drinking only human blood, but that human blood comes from trappers, soldiers, and settlers—the very people destroying his people. The nachzehrer itself is a symbol of undead consumption: it rises from the grave to feed on the living, and in Good Stab's case, it represents the unending hunger of colonialism that refuses to die.

Arthur Beaucarne and the Confessor Role

Arthur Beaucarne, the pastor who records Good Stab's confession, represents the institutional consumption of Indigenous spirituality by Christianity. He listens and writes, but he also participates in the massacre. His journal becomes a skin-bound object—literally consuming a body—and he himself is eventually transformed into a "giant prairie-dog monster" as punishment. His arc shows that the settler cannot remain a neutral observer; the act of documenting and consuming stories is itself a form of violence.

Etsy Beaucarne and the Academic Cycle

Etsy transcribes the journal to save her academic career. She is a modern consumer of Indigenous trauma, hoping to turn Good Stab's suffering into tenure. Yet she is also trapped in a cycle of economic precarity, mirroring the broader consumption of Indigenous land by universities and institutions. Her act of burning the journal with her father's ashes suggests a possible break, but the novel leaves the outcome ambiguous.

Symbols: Buffalo Robe, Raven Feather, Human Skin Binding

• Buffalo Robe: In the final church scene, a buffalo robe appears on the podium, and the pastor sees the church filled with dead Blackfeet. The buffalo robe symbolizes the consumption of the buffalo—the lifeblood of the Plains tribes—by white hide hunters. It is a direct visual of genocide.
• Raven Feather: Good Stab or his emissary Amos Short Ribs wears a black feather, linking to the trickster figure Napi and the raven as a messenger between worlds. It represents the persistence of Indigenous knowledge within the consuming monster.
• Human Skin Binding: The journal bound in human skin is the most literal symbol of consumption: a white man's account of an Indigenous man's story is housed in the flesh of a victim. It forces the reader to confront the material reality of colonial violence.

Complexity and Contradiction

The novel resists easy condemnation of Good Stab. His vampirism is both a curse and a tool of resistance. He drinks to survive, but he also drinks to avenge. He feeds on Rabbit Men and trappers, yet he mourns the lives he takes. When he drinks a Rabbit Man, he tells himself "dead is dead," but he also paints the man's cheeks with mud and covers him with dirt—a burial ritual. He cannot stop; his hunger is endless. This mirrors the impossibility of ending colonial consumption without severe rupture.

The nachzehrer is also a German folk creature, not a Blackfeet one. By using this European monster to represent Indigenous trauma, Jones complicates the idea of "authentic" representation. The nachzehrer is itself a consumed symbol, an imported monster that now dwells within the Blackfeet landscape. The novel suggests that colonialism has introduced new forms of horror that are now inseparable from Indigenous identity.

Five Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Good Stab's body physically change based on what he consumes, and what does this reveal about the theme of consumption?
   Answer: Good Stab grows horns after drinking elk, quills after porcupines, and retains human form only when drinking human blood. This shows that consumption is not neutral—each act of feeding ingests the identity of the consumed, blurring the line between predator and prey. It literalizes how settler colonialism forces Indigenous people to incorporate the enemy's violence into their own bodies.

2. Why does the novel frame Good Stab's story as a confession to a Lutheran pastor?
   Answer: The confession structure mimics the sacrament of absolution, but it also exposes the pastor's complicity. Arthur Beaucarne is both confessor and perpetrator of the Marias Massacre. The act of confessing becomes another form of consumption: the pastor writes down and thus appropriates Good Stab's suffering for his own purposes. It critiques how settler institutions consume Indigenous pain.

3. What role does the buffalo robe play in the novel's imagery of consumption?
   Answer: The buffalo robe appears in the final church scene as a symbol of the near extinction of the buffalo, which was the foundation of Blackfeet economy and spirituality. Its presence on the altar, surrounded by the ghosts of massacre victims, underscores that the consumption of land and animals is inseparable from the consumption of Indigenous bodies.

4. How does Etsy Beaucarne's academic project replicate the consumption she uncovers?
   Answer: Etsy transcribes Arthur's journal to gain tenure, treating Good Stab's story as raw material for her career. She does not initially recognize the journal is bound in human skin. Only by destroying it and killing Arthur does she break the cycle, but the novel questions whether any outsider can consume an Indigenous story without perpetuating violence.

5. Is Good Stab a victim, a monster, or both? How does the novel handle this ambiguity?
   Answer: Good Stab is both. He is a victim of colonial violence who becomes a monster by necessity. The novel refuses to resolve this contradiction: he kills innocents (like the trapper who smiled at him) but also mourns his victims. His nachzehrer state is a punishment, but also a form of survival. The ambiguity forces readers to sit with the unresolved horror of consumption.