The desert dunes
The imagery of the Arizona desert dominates Indigo's young life. She sees desert and sand as far as the eye can reach, and although the desert would be absolute chaos for the city-dwelling American mainstream, to her it is home. She knows how to navigate and survive, and she helps her family collect resources for their survival. Her comfort in the desert is her comfort in the grips of nature. She is naturally powerful, because she survives in this brutal setting.
The state
The American government is seen through these two modes of imagery: police forces and public education. The native tribal people correctly assess that the government uses these two arms to shape the cultures of American people. On the one hand, there is a very restrictive law that has basically outlawed their ancient culture and way of life, arresting them on sight, and on the other hand, there is the education that awaits the kids who are taken from the tribe by the police.
Education
As mentioned, the tribe perceives education as a tool used by the state to control the populace. It is that, but when Indigo actually gets kidnapped by the police and put in a boarding school, she sees in concrete imagery what her family only saw in abstract imagery. Her experience is surprisingly human, and deeply intriguing to her. The people in the school don't hate her or hurt her. They merely educate her in a different way. Her experience of education is surprisingly mind-opening, and she realizes that both side only sees their own half of the truth; she sees education in both ways.
Culture and the human experience
Indigo becomes an anthropologist, traveling the world, studying various tribal communities like her own. She starts with a deep appreciation for one tribal identity deeply ingrained in her sense of self, and this makes her an excellent student of other world cultures. It is as if fate has made her into exactly the person she always wanted to be. Finally, she returns to her own people group to study her own culture with the added layer of perception that academic enlightening has given her. She is a witness of culture as the mystic expression of human nature.
