A people who treat land as belonging to the Earth, with enough for everyone, can survive alongside newcomers. Those who must call everything "mine" end up destroying what sustains them. In this view, life is not won by one's own cunning but held on loan, and the Earth takes back its own.
Dusty, empty land waiting for rain stands for a people stuck in place and losing hope. Here the lack of rain is a failure of culture and spirit as much as of weather.
A grandparent sees a dead ancestor's spirit sitting in a gifted grandchild. A young person's talent is read as a returning ancestor, not as private ability. This ties the young to a line of forebears and gives them a duty to it.
When someone is struck by how short time is and how empty laughter feels, talk does not help. Only a shared ritual act, like drumming, lets him grasp a feeling he has no words for.
Under long colonial rule, an educated young person may judge his home damaged past repair, its spiritual life spoiled by the occupiers. He then chooses exile as the only way out. Each such departure slowly breaks the bonds between generations of a family.