Benjamin Komoetie is a white child who is raised by a Black family in South Africa. He spends the majority of the book wondering who he actually is and prompts the novel’s weightiest questions about identity. He is raised by Fiela Komoetie during his childhood, but experiences a shift of identity during his long years living as Lukas van Rooyen, after it is determined that he is the forest child they lost nine years earlier. 

Fiela is Benjamin’s mother, although the truth of this is questionable for most of the novel. She takes in Benjamin when she finds him on her doorstep, a selfless act that she must know comes with potential complications given that he is a white child. When the magistrate takes the boy away from her, she knows that it is a mistake. Even though she is eventually forced to relinquish him to the courts, she never stops believing that he is hers. She is a symbol of what it truly means to be a mother to a child. Fiela is also a symbol of defiance to the white racism of South Africa, as she is unafraid to stand up to the authorities who took her child from her.