Boon Hogganbeck

Boon Hogganbeck is of Native American and white ancestry. His grandmother was Chickasaw, although according to the narrator "Boon was a white man," i.e. lived with the privilege of whiteness (203). Unlike the miscegenated Sam Fathers, whose looks indicate his "chief's blood," Boon's appearance lacks any sign of nobility (203). Unlike the narrative, Boon himself cannot conceive that anyone is "better born than himself," though he gratefully accepts the subservient place he occupies among the rich white hunters of Yoknapatwpha (203). A regular member of the yearly hunting parties that Major de Spain leads, Boon is particularly loyal to the narrator's father and to the Major, the men he depends on "for his very bread" (203). The narrator calls him "hardy, courageous enough, a slave to all the appetites and almost unrational" (203).