"I" is not for Indian

"I" Is Not for Indian

“I” isn't for Indian; It is often for Ignorance. In the Never-Never land of glib stereotypes and caricature, the rich histories, cultures, and the contemporary complexities of the indigenous, diverse peoples of the Western Hemisphere are obscured, misrepresented, and rendered trivial. Native Americans appear not as human beings but as whooping, silly, one-dimensional cartoons. On occasion they are presented as marauding, blood-thirsty savages, bogeys from the nightmares of "Pioneers" who invaded their lands and feared for the consequences. At other times they seem preconcupiscent angels, pure of heart, mindlessly ecological, brave and true. And worst of all, they are often merely cute, the special property of small children.

It's an easy way to dismiss an unproud history. A society that chooses to make a running joke of its victims embalms both its conscience and its obligations, relegating a tragic chronology of culture contact to ersatz mythology. It's hard to take seriously, to empathize with, a group of people portrayed as speaking ungrammatical language, as dressing in Halloween costumes, as acting “wild”, as being undependable in their promises or gifts. Frozen in a kind of pejorative past tense, these make-believe Indians are not allowed to change or in any other way be like real people. They are denied the dignity and dynamism of their history, the validity of their myriad and major contributions to modern society, the distinctiveness of their multiple ethnicities.

It is a shame to deprive our children (who grow to become no less deprived adults) access to wealth and culture sophistication of traditional Native American society is indefensible. Among several hundred of separate cultures of North America alone, comprising as they did between 12 and 20 million people in 1491, there existed a pluralism of societal experimentation and world view unimagined by the melting pot theorists. Every known form of political system was practiced, from democracy to theocracy to communism to hereditary leadership.

In the vast majority of these societies, power and decision-making rested with both women and men. Most Native peoples were village-based agriculturist, not "roaming hunters." A wide variety of sciences----astronomy, agronomy, medicine, mathematics, geology, meteorology, and taxonomy, to name only a few----were highly developed and practiced. A wealth of spiritual and philosophical beliefs flourished. A tolerance for individual difference, either within one's own or in another society, was the norm. Literature, music, dance, and art found widely divergent and brilliant expression. And yet this treasure trove of experience and intelligence, perfected over tens of thousands of years’ residence on this continent, is allowed to be eclipsed by racist drivel.

Real American history, abounding with confusion, misunderstanding, exploitation, good people and bad ones, cultural chauvinism and hard won insight, contains lessons that vitally need to be learned, not forgotten or whitewashed. We, as a people, must not make the same mistakes again in other dealings with new societies that seem to be initially either strange or unfathomable to us.

Some readers may find individual instances of stereotyping to be inoffensive, and individually they may be. Taken out of the general context, objection to a particular toy or school symbol or nursery rhyme might seem to be a case of over- sensitivity. "Where's your sense of humor?" they may ask. "Aren't all groups satirized or emblemized? Irish-Americans arc proud of the Fighting Irish, of Notre Dame! What's wrong with exhorting little boys to want to be brave and stoic? Can't you take a joke?"

No. It's no joke when a dominant group, with a sorry history of oppression towards its minorities, expropriates a shallow version of a subordinate, relatively powerless group and promulgates that imagery as valid. This realization may come slowly, but it can come. Even the most hearty enthusiast can probably comprehend today the tastelessness of little Black jockey statues in front of a house or the rolling-eyed parody of minstrel show revelry. Even the most oblivious observer cannot help but see the danger inherent in early Nazi caricatures of Jewish people or Gypsies. Italian anti-defamation leagues are strong in censure of media gangsters with Sicilian names. For most of us the Polish joke is at least suspect.

So why should standards of respect and restraint differ when it comes to Indians? Are Native people less worthy of serious consideration, less contemporary, less complicated? Is it any less demeaning or ridiculous to portray every Indian with feathers than it would be to present every Afro-American with a spear or every Hispanic with a sombrero?

Indian tribes in the United States are self-governing, political entities, many of them rich in natura1 resources and all of them rich in human potential. For far too long they have been denied their legitimate place, their own voice, the public awareness of their diverse heritage. Let “I” be for something else.

-Michael A. Dorris

Michael A. Dorris (1945-1997), an anthropologist, educator, and writer and member of the Modoc Tribe. Other writings include A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, 1987, a novel on American Indian women, and Broken Cord, 1989, an award winning book on fetal alcohol syndrome