Playing Indian

Central Questions

• What is Indianness?• How does it relate to

Americanness? • How has the role of

Indianness changed in American culture?

• Who “plays” Indian? And why?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_PUFLqekrs• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KFWrbt9xPk&feature=relmfu

Boston Tea Party

American Identity

• Based on a desire of civilized order and savage freedom

• Boston Tea Party 1976- Origin story for American identity

• Appropriates the use of “Indianness” while ignoring the real history

Chief Tammany

• Sided with the American Colonists in the Revolutionary War

• Celebrated as an symbol of American democracy contrasting the King of England.

• Viewed as a noble savage.

Dualism of American identity• Based in paradox of the

real extermination of Indians and embrace of the idea of Indianness

• American’s inability to deal with Indian people in their Nation’s history

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hJFi7SRH7Q

The Noble Savage

• Savage meaning “uncivilized”, “Noble” meaning innocent, pure, wise, childlike, connected to nature, spiritual, but uncultured

• It was possible for Indians to become picturesque in areas where they were powerless

Indian Savages• Native Americans

imagined to be a savage, hostile, beast-like creature who inhabited the animal kingdom rather than the kingdom of men

• By dehumanizing Native Americans into “savages,” justifies the use of violence against them

Republican Identities after the revolution

• By the early 19th century, many Americans had come to view Natives as national enemies

• Massacres of Indians begin to occur

• Shift from Tammany as” to Columbus as father of the U.S.A.

• Use of Indian mythology is replaced by Greek and Roman mythology

The White Woman

Vanishing Indians

• Federal policy to clear all Indians from the East

• 1830s Trail of Tears, forced removal of the Cherokees by President Andrew Jackson

• Ideas of extinct and vanishing Indian become prevalent

• Nostalgic about Indian pasts

State of Minnesota

Seal of Kansas

American Progress

Ethnographic Objects

• Founding of Anthropology• Scientific study of Indians as

authentic and primitive• Arrowheads and Native

artifacts become a distinct commodity

• Led to disturbing and theft of the graves of Native Americans’ ancestors

Museum of Natural History

Identities in Modern America• Industrialization caused

Euro-Americans to lament the loss of America’s past, used Indianess to recreate

• Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls use Native imagery to reaffirm gender roles

The Ecological Indian• Indians are

remembered as “living one with nature,” when it is not necessarily true that Natives had less impact on their environment

• Native American religious traditions and healing ceremonies are appropriated by outside groups without consent

Playing Indian Redux

• Playing Indian, then, reflects one final paradox. The self-defining pairing of American truth with American freedom rests on the ability to wield power against Indians, social, military, economic and political- while simultaneously drawing power from them.

• Indianness may have existed primarily as a cultural artifact in American society, but it has helped create other forms of power, which have then been turned on native people.

The Washington Redskins

Atlanta Braves

Cleveland Indians

Top High School Mascots

• 1. Eagles 2. Tigers 3. Cougars 4. Bulldogs 5. Warriors 6. Lions 7. Panthers 8. Indians 9. Wildcats10. Bears

Berlin Indians

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thcNITRacYQ

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKsR-ALxjeM

Can Mascots be Done Well?

The Unwritten Scriptures & The Trial of Thomas Builds-a-

Fire

The Unwritten Scripture

• From what source did Ohiyesa receive his religious training? Why is being silent important?

• What is the Native concept of the soul and how is it different from the Christian conception? Do Native’s believe animals have souls?

Silence• The first American mingled with his pride a singular humility.

Spiritual arrogance was foreign to his nature and teaching. He never claimed that the power of articulate speech was proof of superiority over the dumb creation, on the other hand it is to him a precious gift.

• He believed profoundly in silence-the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit.

• “If you ask him, “What is silence?” he will answer “It is the Great Mystery!” the holy silence is his voice!” If you ask what are the fruits of silence?” he will say: “they are self-control, true courage or endurance, patience, dignity and reverence. Silence is the cornerstone of his character.

Souls in Nature

• Naturally magnanimous and open-minded, the red man prefers to believe that the Spirit of God is not breathed into man alone, but the whole created universe is a sharer in the immortal perfection of its Maker. His imaginative and poetic mind, like that of the Greek, assigns to every mountain tree and spring its spirit.

The Trial of Thomas Builds-The-Fire

• Why is story telling a “crime” in the story? Why does the dominant group, Anglo-Americans, want Builds-a-Fire to stay silent?

• Pick one of the three stories Thomas tells to the courtroom. How is it representational of the Native American experience with Anglo-America?

Telling the Truth• Bia Official, “A storytelling fetish accompanied by an extreme

need to tell the truth. Dangerous.”• “Inciting a riot? Kidnapping? Extortion? Maybe murder?”

another guy in a BIA suit asked, and the others laughed.• “Well,” they all agreed. “It has to be a felony charge. We don’t

need his kind around here anymore.”• Thomas lay awake and counted stars through the bar in his

window. he was guilty, he knew that. All that was variable on any reservation was how the convicted would be punished.

• “In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” George Orwell

Horse Camp Slaughter

• Colonel George Wright led an expedition of 600 troops against the Coeur d'Alene, Spokane, and Palouse Indians that had defeated Steptoe. On September 1st at the Battle of Four Lakes, and again on September 5th at the Battle of Spokane Plain, Wright's force defeated a group of Coeur d'Alene, Spokane, and Palouse Indians. On September 9th Wright's force captured 900 Palouse horses and labored for two days to slaughter 700 of them, at what is known as "Horse Slaughter Camp."

Qualchan

• Yakama Chiefton who fought against the U.S. settlement of Washington state from 1855-58.

• Colonel Wright who wrote "Qualchan came to see me at 9 o'clock, at 9:15 he was hung"

Qualchan

“The only appeal I have is to justice.” Thomas Builds-the-Fire