Kill Hole

Kill Hole (1992), a futuristic fantasy novel by Jamake Highwater, follows Sitko Ghost Horse, previously known as Seymour Miller, as he struggles to prove his Native American heritage in the wake of ritualistic violence and an earth-shattering pandemic. The novel is a loose allegory of Highwater's own scandal around his heritage—claiming for many years to be of Cherokee ancestry, he is suspected of lying about his heritage to claim grant money from organizations like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Also writing under the name J. Marks, he is more commonly known as Jackie Marks.

Kill Hole tells the story of Sitko Ghost Horse, who was kidnapped from his tribe and adopted by a cruel white father. He was given the name Seymour Miller, which he adopted for many years until he reclaimed his heritage as an adult. Seymour takes on the name Sitko Ghost Horse to reconnect with his roots, as he embraces a new life in an urban center with his beloved boyfriend Eric. An acclaimed artist, Sitko begins to find hope again after a childhood of pain and cruelty.

But life for Sitko Ghost Horse is not that simple. A pandemic that closely resembles the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s sweeps through the city where he lives with Eric. Eric withers away to nothing, and Sitko watches as the most precious person to him in the world finally succumbs to the disease and dies. Left with nothing, Sitko is damaged again when word spreads that he isn't, in fact, Native American at all, leaving his career in tatters. Many of his paintings are burned in the wreckage of the demolished city, and Sitko soon flees town to escape persecution.



Sitko wanders into the nearby desert, where he stumbles into a sacred ritual held by a mysterious local tribe. He must stand before a local council and state his name—they question his native heritage, and he is thrown into a cell to await his sentencing. Many tribespeople consider him an interloper, or a demon, come to ruin the important ritual they hold each year to protect their children.

Sitko spends much of the novel in the small prison cell, where he meets Patu, a hermaphrodite. Patu is honored among the tribe as a strong woman, and Sitko begins to tell Patu the story of his artistic career in shambles, his reputation, and the death of his lover, Eric. He talks about fleeing the city to escape the pandemic that was tearing it to shreds, and of the moment when he took his tribal name back, after many years living in an abusive home with an adopted white father. Sharing his story, Sitko convinces Patu that he is not a demon, only a troubled and lonely human looking for a place in the world. The elders, still skeptical of him, continue the chase.

Sitko escapes into the desert again at the end of the novel but is pursued by Delito, one of the tribe elders. Ultimately, the novel asks whether Sitko's creation of self will ever be enough to save him from the judgment of others, offering an allegory for both heritage and the AIDS epidemic.



Jamake Highwater was the author of several books on Native American heritage and a few pieces of journalism that he published under the name J. Marks. He was widely considered to be of Eastern European and Jewish ancestry but claimed to be Cherokee from the 1960s until his death in 2001. He was the author of several books for children, including Anpao: An American Indian Odyssey (1973) and The Sun, He Dies: A Novel About the End of the Aztec World (1980). He is best known for writing The Primal Mind: Vision and Reality in Indian America, which was adapted for television and become the inspiration for Highwater's non-profit organization The Primal Mind, which focused study on Native American spiritual practices. Though Anpao: An American Indian Odyssey won a Newbury Honor, most of Highwater's book are now discredited because of his falsehoods about his identity. In an obituary in 2001, Native American activist Hank Adams wrote: “This man was the Golden Indian…he made gold, he made money. It's about stolen voices…he blocked millions of dollars in funding to real Indian writers. We ended his federal funding and TV contracts, but…his work is still taught in schools and universities to Native and non-Native students. He's Jack Marks…not Jamake Highwater. Remember that...There never was a Jamake Highwater."