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Indians

The Pohatchee chase the DeLorean.

" There were Indians everywhere! / But the movie screen was gone. / The first thing Marty saw [through the DeLorean's windshield] was a cloud of dust, rising directly from a ridge directly ahead. And then there were galloping horses, charging over the ridge, a hundred horses or more. And mounted on those horses were a hundred men, some wearing buckskin, some with feathered headdresses, some with little more than loincloths and designs painted on their chests and arms and faces. Marty recognized those clothes and designs from his high-school Hill Valley history classes. It was the local Indian tribe, at least local in 1885 — the Pohatchees! / And all hundred of them were headed straight for him. / What did you say at a time like this? / "INDIANS!" Marty yelled at the top of his lungs. "
—From Back to the Future Part III by Craig Shaw Gardner (quote, page 39)
"INDIANS!!!"
—Marty McFly

The Pohatchee was a tribe of Native Americans that inhabited the Hill Valley area in the 19th century. Historically, the tribe was not friendly to settlers and quite often killed them.[1] They used both arrows and guns.[2] It is unknown if they scalped their victims.[3]

In 1885, Marty McFly drove the DeLorean time machine directly into the path of one hundred Pohatchee[4] pursued by U.S. Cavalry troops. He narrowly escaped both groups, only to find that he had ripped the fuel line — as a result of which, the fuel tank went empty.

Behind the scenes[]

  • The Pohatchee Indian tribe is fictional, and is referred to only in Craig Shaw Gardner's novelization. The theater, with an American Indian theme, was called the Pohatchee Drive-In, but the Indians themselves were not identified. Monument Valley, where the drive-in and the Indian chase scenes were filmed, is located on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Utah. Those scenes are the only ones in the trilogy that were not filmed in California.

Appearances[]

Notes and references[]

  1. BTTF Part III novelization page 41
  2. BTTF Part III novelization page 40
  3. BTTF Part III novelization page 41
  4. BTTF Part III novelization page 39
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