Noble savage, bloodthirsty warrior, spiritual leader, chiefs and princesses, Tonto, teary-eyed environmentalist, sports mascot, heathen.
There is no shortage of Native American stereotypes. The trouble with these and other over-simplified images is that they dehumanize Native Americans by not recognizing them as individuals.
"Most Arkansans are very uneducated when it comes to Native Americans," said Erin Fehr, archivist at Sequoyah National Research Center--thought to be the largest collection of American Indian expression in the world--at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. "There are a large number who claim to have Cherokee ancestry and that their great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess. This is inaccurate, because the Cherokees have never had 'princesses.'
"Most think that all Indians lived in teepees and that they wore buckskin and feathers. While this applies to some tribes, the vast majority dressed and lived differently. Each tribe has its own culture, language and traditions."
It's obvious that ugly, demeaning stereotypes don't do anyone any good. But even playful stereotypes found in toys, games, dolls, coloring books, and clothing can convey the wrong idea, particularly when they're encountered by children.
Toy Tipis and Totem Poles: Native American Stereotypes in the Lives of Children, an exhibit at the J. W. Wiggins Native American Art Gallery at UALR through Dec. 19, concerns the challenges of changing mainstream American thinking about stereotypes by examining typical childhood objects. The national controversy surrounding the use of Native American stereotypes as sports mascots is also addressed.
"The main goal of this exhibit is to inform people not just that stereotypes are bad or inaccurate, but to show them why they are bad or inaccurate, and what should be considered in their place," said Fehr. "We want this to be an educational experience for everyone who visits, and for each person to walk away with a new outlook on the native peoples of America."
The exhibit is drawn from the Hirschfelder-Molin Native American Stereotypes Collection of over 1,500 objects and documents donated to SNRC in 2012 by retired educators Arlene Hirschfelder and Paulette Molin.
According to Fehr, the exhibit is arranged by themes that involve common stereotypes found in children's lives.
"Each theme has a case of items from the collection that highlights the stereotypes of the theme, including games, toys, Barbie dolls, cowboys-and-Indians sets, figurines, advertisements, books, videos, etc., with a text panel explaining why the stereotypes are negative or inaccurate," said Fehr. "The stereotypes are countered by quotes from native people that contradict the stereotype, along with posters and photographs that illustrate a positive or accurate portrayal of native peoples."
Wearing feathered headdresses, waving plastic tomahawks, using "how" with an uplifted hand as a greeting, chanting "woo-woo" and other nonsense syllables, and performing made-up war dances may be fun for kids, but are liable to give them negative perceptions of Native Americans.
"Children who play with toys are not equipped to make value judgments concerning the merits of the toys with which they are playing," writes Hirschfelder in American Indian Stereotypes in the World, co-authored with Molin and Yvonne Wakim. "They do not stop to consider whether the toys are unsafe, racist, sexist or violent. This is because children have limited cognitive skills and have not mastered the ability to evaluate information. They simply believe what they see. And what they see quite often are toys that convey derogatory and false images of Native Americans."
Kids aren't the only ones. Germans, enamored of the stereotype-loaded adventures of fictional 19th-Century Apache hero Winnetou in stories written by Karl May, are particularly fascinated by Native Americans. Attendance is in the thousands at organized powwows where Germans dress in buckskins, cook over open fires, sleep in teepees, play the parts of often-victorious Indians in staged warfare with cowboys, and use their imaginations in determining what it is to be an Indian--no matter how little they truly understand what it means.
It doesn't help that May, who died in 1912, had never been to America before writing his Winnetou stories.
"Playing Indian is the idea that all Native Americans look the same and wear the same clothing, so that if you want to play an Indian, all you have to do is put on beads and feathers," said Fehr. "This is one of the most absurd stereotypes there are; there are 566 federally recognized tribes in the U.S. There is no such thing as a pan-Indian."
Among the quotes posted at the exhibit is this one from Ruth Hopkins, a columnist for the Indian Country Today Media Network whose tribal affiliations are Sisseton-Wahpeton/Mdewakanton/Hunkpapa: "Some folks contend that since it's acceptable to dress up as a cowboy, they should get a pass for dressing up as an Indian. Wrong. Donning the customary dress of a profession, like that of a cowboy, or a firefighter, or a police officer, is not comparable to wearing a hackneyed 'Indian' costume because being Native is not an occupation. American Indians are an entire race of people ... We're 'Indian' all day, every day, and we own our own likenesses."
Then there's the uproar over professional sports mascots such as Kansas City Chiefs, Cleveland Indians, Washington Redskins, Chicago Blackhawks, as well as high school and university athletic programs. What's all the fuss about?
"The use of American Indian mascots as symbols in schools and university athletic programs is particularly troubling because schools are places of learning," writes Ronald F. Levant, professor of psychology at the University of Akron and former president of the American Psychological Association, in an APA resolution recommending the retirement of American Indian mascots in 2005. "These mascots are teaching stereotypical, misleading and too often insulting images of American Indians. These negative lessons are not just affecting American Indian students; they are sending the wrong message to all students."
According to the APA, the continued use of American Indian mascots, symbols, images, and personalities undermines the educational experiences of members of all communities--especially those who have had little or no contact with indigenous peoples--by teaching non-Indian children that it's acceptable to participate in culturally abusive behavior and establishing an unwelcome and often hostile learning environment for American Indian students that affirms stereotypes promoted in mainstream society.
"American Indian mascots are harmful not only because they are often negative, but because they remind American Indians of the limited ways in which others see them," writes Stephanie Fryberg, associate professor of psychology and affiliate faculty member in American Indian studies at the University of Arizona, in the APA resolution. "This in turn restricts the number of ways American Indians can see themselves."
Neil Diamond, a Canadian Cree, investigates the not always flattering or accurate roles of native American and aboriginal peoples in Hollywood films in his 2009documentary Reel Injun. The film uses Diamond's cross-continental trek from Canada to Hollywood in a "res car" (a dilapidated auto common to Indian reservations; there was a '65 Chevelle in Chris Eyre's 1998 movie Smoke Signals that only ran in reverse) as a narrative hook to examine how big-screen portrayals shape the image of Indians. Some of the archival clips in the film (as when Diamond translates what some Indian actors are really saying when they speak their own languages on camera) are as hilarious as they are appalling.
Along with toys, games and other such objects, language is at the core of Indian stereotypes, according to Mary Gloyne Byler, a Cherokee who helped critique 600 children's books for the Association of American Indian Affairs. "Non-Indian writers have created an image of American Indians that is almost sheer fantasy," she writes in her book Native Heritage: Personal Accounts by American Indians, 1790 to the Present.
"This fantasy does not take into account the rich diversity of cultures that did and do exist. Words such as savage, buck, squaw and papoose do not bring to mind the same images as do the words man, boy, woman and baby ... It has been well established by sociologists and psychologists that the effect on children of negative stereotypes and derogatory images is to engender and perpetuate undemocratic and unhealthy attitudes that will plague our society for years to come."
Editorial on 09/07/2014