Character Analysis
The Village People
The Village Elder is a purely expository character. He's your typical mystical wise man, who gives Indy the mission to recover the stones and rescue the children:
ELDER: We know you are coming back when life return to our village. Now you can see the magic of the rock you bring back.
The Elder believes in the power of the Sankara stones, even though we never see any evidence of them actually being magical, besides randomly bursting into flame. Hey, they might come in handy if he needs to boil water for some Easy Mac.