Character analysis
The Albino (Juan Reyes)
in House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
The Albino, known as Juan Reyes, stands out as one of the most intriguing and symbolically loaded characters in N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn. He mainly appears in the first section of the novel, which takes place on the Jemez Pueblo reservation. Here, he serves as both a literal antagonist and a mythic figure of evil. His striking appearance—pale, nearly translucent, with white hair and pink eyes—leads the pueblo community to view him as a witch, a being who exists outside both the natural and spiritual realms. His albinism sets him apart, making him seem uncanny and not fully belonging to either the human or sacred worlds.
The most significant moment for the Albino occurs during the rooster pull at the feast of Santiago, where he and Abel take part in a brutal ritual contest. In this scene, the Albino overpowers Abel, humiliating him in a public display by beating him with a dead rooster. This moment carries heavy ceremonial and psychological implications, crystallizing Abel's feelings of displacement and spiritual vulnerability.
Ultimately, Abel kills the Albino on the beach, an act that is both murder and, from Abel's fractured perspective, the ritual killing of a witch—an act meant to restore cosmic balance but instead resulting in his imprisonment and exile. The Albino thus propels the novel's central tragedy: Abel's struggle to reconcile indigenous spiritual logic with American legal concepts. Cold, silent, and almost inhuman in demeanor, the Albino embodies a corrupted or inverted sacred, a force Abel can only confront through violence, leading to devastating consequences for his own life.
Who they are
Juan Reyes, known throughout House Made of Dawn simply as the Albino, presents one of the most unsettling presences in N. Scott Momaday's novel, occupying the borderland between the human and the supernatural. His defining physical traits—white skin, pink eyes, nearly translucent hair—mark him as biologically anomalous within the Jemez Pueblo community, but the novel emphasizes that his strangeness extends beyond mere appearance. The Pueblo views him as a witch, a being who has inverted his sacred obligations and exists in deliberate opposition to the life-sustaining order upheld by Pueblo ceremonial culture. Momaday denies him interiority or meaningful dialogue; he moves through the novel in near-silence, cold and watchful, functioning more as a force than as a person. This intentional withholding of a human interior serves as a literary choice, constructing the Albino as a symbol that the reader, similar to Abel, must interpret rather than understand.
Arc & motivation
The Albino lacks a conventional arc characterized by change or growth. Instead, he serves as a static, pressurized presence—a condition Abel must ultimately confront. His motivation, as legible within the novel, leans towards spiritual predation rather than personal grievance. Pueblo witchcraft, as framed by Francisco's worldview, is not solely malice but involves actively corrupting communal harmony; the witch draws power by subverting right relationships with the land, the seasons, and other individuals. The Albino's
Connected characters
- Abel
The Albino is Abel's most direct antagonist. He humiliates Abel during the rooster pull at the Santiago feast, and Abel kills him on the beach in what Abel understands as the ritual destruction of a witch. This act of violence defines Abel's entire arc—leading to his trial, imprisonment, and exile to Los Angeles.
- Francisco
Francisco's worldview, steeped in pueblo tradition, frames the Albino as a genuine witch whose presence threatens the community's spiritual health. His perspective implicitly contextualizes Abel's killing as a culturally legible, if legally catastrophic, act of purification.
- Father Olguin
Father Olguin represents the colonial Christian framework that cannot accommodate the Albino's symbolic role as witch. His inability to interpret the killing as anything other than murder underscores the cultural gulf at the heart of Abel's tragedy.
- Ben Benally
Ben Benally later tries to help Abel reintegrate after the killing and imprisonment. The Albino's shadow lingers over Abel's damaged psyche in Los Angeles, and Ben's caregiving is partly a response to the spiritual wound the encounter with the Albino inflicted.
- John Big Bluff Tosamah
Tosamah's sermons on language, power, and Native identity offer an indirect commentary on figures like the Albino—forces that distort or corrupt meaning. Though they never interact directly, Tosamah's worldview frames the kind of spiritual malevolence the Albino represents.