excerpt

The other day I was just spit-balling off the top of my head. Frustrated with the work I was doing on a fictional book, I started punching up what a little bit of Dreamcatchers might look like.

A caveat; the terms I use are carefully chosen to reflect phrases used at a given time. When operating outside the strictures of time periods, I almost always use the term Native American rather than Indian or some of the pejorative terms found in the piece below.

Also, the selection of more direct tribe names is a nod to the fact that the Sioux nation is essentially a creation of non-Native Americans to refer to a loose confederation of tribes speaking similar languages.

With that said, what follows I am essentially trashing because I am not happy with it, either...I wrote it off the top of my head without referring back to my research, I broke the plan of going by decade, and just do not like the way it developed. But you might be briefly entertained....or not. So here it is.

Before the echoes of gunfire died out at Wounded Knee there was a complete shift in the paradigm. No longer could the Indian tribes be seen as a credible threat. The last vestiges of their power died on that field. At the same moment, a centuries old view began to change.

From the time the residents of Roanoke Island disappeared, Indians were viewed as a lethal threat. The thought of Indians rampaging through civilized lands killing, torturing, kidnapping,  and scalping in an orgy of mindless violence was a long-standing, well-established belief.

Many people lived in fear of these mysterious sub-humans who lived purely to fight. They were brutal, uncivilized, savage people who moved with the wind, silent as a mouse, swift as a leopard, and as dangerous as any people had ever been.

The truth that the interaction of the various tribes with advancing white civilization had almost universally been disastrous for the tribes seldom seemed to cross the mind of most people. In truth, Native American military successes could be counted on one hand.

The gathering of the tribes under Pontiac had brief success but ultimately failed utterly. Tecumseh saw his attempt to reverse the loss of Indian lands crushed before it got started.

Indeed, most famous Native American war leaders were famed not for their success but for how long they put off ultimate defeat. Chief Joseph, Geronimo, Cochise, Mangas Coloradas, Captain Jack, and more were famed for having maintained resistance longer than anticipated.

Arguably, there were just two military successes with any lasting impact for the Native Americans.

The most successful of these was Red Cloud who forced the closing of forts and the Bozeman Trail. It was the one and only time Native Americans “won” a war and the results were temporary at best. Within 8 years the gains made were lost and indeed, further reverses occurred as a result.

A key event in that war was the mis-named Fetterman Massacre where the arrogant Fetterman led 80 men into a trap that saw them all killed.  It was an ambush that shook the nation and gave credence to fears of Indian military power.

Those lessons were reinforced by what is generally considered the greatest Indian military success against white soldiers of all time, the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Often called Custer’s Last Stand, it was both the greatest victory and worst defeat the Indian tribes would ever encounter.

While the victory on the field is unquestionable, so are the results. When the nation learned of the loss of Custer and his command, the resulting outcry ended in the devastation of any semblance of Indian military power.

The last gasp of Indian power came about  14 years after the events at Little Big Horn. A movement called the Ghost Dance frightened some elements of society. Some have argued the events that followed were a result of the events at Little Big Horn.

The 7^th Cavalry was shepherding members of the Lakota tribe to a reservation. Fears of their power demanded the Minneconjous stack their firearms. Arguments exist over who fired the first shot but there is no doubt about the outcome.

Any doubt that the last vestiges of Native American military had been destroyed were swept away in a hail of gunfire. Gatling guns swept the largely disarmed Lakotas. Men, women, children, babies, grandparents were shot to ribbons and left to freeze in ghastly positions in the bitter wintry conditions.

Frank Baum, who later would write The Wizard of Oz, wrote an editorial[1] which often has the most controversial part repeated in which he stated, “The Whites,

by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the

American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will

be secured by the total annihilation of  the few remaining Indians. Why

not annihilation?”

To be fair, this portion of the quote is a mis-representation of the tone of the entire editorial but it became the sentiment most often repeated. It touched on the primary belief held by the majority of the nation.

Oh, to be sure there were exceptions. Standing Bear became a cause célèbre that allowed “Bright Eyes” to make well-attended speaking tours that publicized an alternative view of Native Americans. Various famous Native Americans had been paraded around the Eastern States on similar tours, though seldom including persons so eloquent as Bright Eyes.

As far back as 1883 Wild Bill toured with his Wild West Show. To be sure the image that often remained with those who attended these shows was the Indian attack that closed the show, but the entire experience showed another side as those who attended were able to see “Indian encampments” and interact with famous Native American personalities.

These interactions would lead to seeing another side of a people that had previously only been encountered in news reports, penny dreadfuls, or artwork by men such as Winslow Homer, Eastman Johnson and Frederic Remington.

A kinder, gentler side of Native Americans was also occasionally presented in the famed Leatherstocking Tales in which Natty Bumppo. He was white but had the skills of the Indians as well as his trusted side-kick Chingachgook.

However, while there were occasional positive portrayals of Native Americans the overwhelming bent of the narrative was that they were savage, inhuman beasts to be feared and exterminated.

Fast forward to the year 2000 and the picture has changed markedly. The Native American is a tragic hero. He is the preserver of nature, paragon of virtue, down-trodden victim of the cruel white man, and spiritual wise man.

The Native American has become a pop culture hero. People seek out hallmarks of Native American culture and make them their own. Sweat lodges, drum circles, peyote, and similar sacred rites are co-opted in the interest of rejecting modern evil ways in favor of returning to the pure ways of the Native Americans.

At the high-water mark it seemed as if one in every three cars had a dream catcher hanging from the rear-view mirror. The view of Native Americans in the dominant social awareness had made a 180 degree change. Their holies, most sacred artifacts were nothing to be feared but instead a casual trinket meant to tell the world the possessor had the pure Native American spirituality.

How did this change happen?

Positive Visions

It has been argued that almost from the landing at Plymouth Rock a systematic program of demonizing Native Americans was institutionalized. They occupied the land. Freshly arrived Europeans wanted the land. To justify taking the land required altering mindsets.

Thus the Native Americans were presented as sub-human and dangerous. To bring peace and safety required removing Native Americans. At times that meant forcing them off their land onto other lands. At other times it meant whole-sale killing.

Attempts at genocide are well documented. While the numbers of Native Americans killed through war, disease, and other means are widely debated what is not debated is that it was deliberate.

One of the most famous cases was the introduction of smallpox infected bankets into a population unprepared to deal with the disease. People were slain in apocalyptic numbers. It is difficult to perceive of such attempts at genocidal murder as having even the slightest bit of moral authority unless you first have established the victims are themselves unfit to live.

Thus the argument goes that any time there was a theft, assault or killing enacted by the Native Americans the incident was magnified to the point where their depredations demanded a rapid, catastrophic response that required no regret, regardless of how many Native Americans were killed.

Naturally, not everyone agreed with this vision. Protestations against the mistreatment of Native Americans are recorded as early as the voyage of Columbus. All too often, however, those voices were few in number and easily drowned out by those with other motivations.

It is important to point out there were times when the Native Americans bore some culpability as well. We should not blindly assume complete innocence on the part of the tribes and complete guilt on the part of the Europeans. Both sides engaged in behavior that the light of modern scrutiny would find reprehensible.

However, it is not in the scope of this book to determine who was right or wrong. Rather, we are looking at how the majority of the public perceived native Americans. From that standpoint, the overwhelming majority of the narrative revolved around how immoral, deadly, and brutal the Native Americans were.

Early on one popular narrative was the captive. Native Americans would carry off a woman during a raid who would be forced to live as an Indian, often bearing “half-breed” children brought on her through what was retroactively termed rape.

Ultimately through white courage she would be rescued from the sub-human existence she had been forced to live and repatriated to genteel society, though of course she was scarred forever by having been sullied through interaction with the red heathen.

Pejorative terms such as “red heathen” were found all throughout the narrative. Redeeming values were few and far between. The captors were brutish, violent, passionate savages. They lived to fight, kill, rape and murder innocents.

It was in 1823 that James Fenimore Cooper published The Pioneers in which we were introduced to a new kind of hero.

Natty Bumppo was white but he was raised by the Delaware Indians. He learned their ways and adopted them. He was so successful at “being Indian” that he had the chief of the tribe, Chingachgook, act as his sidekick.

Indeed, he was an early example of “the noble savage”. Honest, courageous, and loyal, he stuck with Bumppo even when that meant he stood in opposition to other Native Americans. In The Last of the Mohicans (1826) it cost him his son when Uncas is killed by the paragon of evil, Magua.

The success of the Leatherstocking tales spawned a host of imitators. Hallmarks of the genre are numerous. They always include a white man who is better at being Indian than the Native Americans themselves.

Typically they are silent in the woods, able to track anything, completely honest and without guile. Yet they maintain moral superiority over the Native Americans who fall into superstition and appear to have no motive in life other than following the hero

This character archetype became so prevalent that people instantly understood the character of Tonto when the Lone Ranger made his appearance on the radio in 1933. It had long been a staple in penny dreadfuls, magazine serializations, and dime novels, all of which were popular entertainment in the late 1800s.

Yet portrayals of Native Americans in a positive light were extremely rare. They had been portrayed as nothing but savages for so long that they were not even considered to be human beings.

It was not until United States ex rel. Standing Bear v. Crook in 1879 that any Native American was legally considered a person. This was a reflection of public perception.

How could they be considered people? Newspaper reports were heavily slanted in how they portrayed events. What became known as the “Fetterman Massacre” provides and excellent example of how events were disseminated to the public.

Fetterman had publicly stated he could take 80 soldiers and “ride through the entire Sioux nation.” On December 21, 1866 he got his chance. Using a technicality, he seized command of a rescue force Colonel Carrington had given to Captain James Powell. He led 80 other men into an ambush that replicated almost an identical ambush from just a few weeks prior

Within minutes 81 men were dead. They had been heavily armed, most of them with 7 or 16 shot repeating rifles. This was not a helpless civilian group but rather a military force trained to fight Indians that fell into a clever ambush and lost the battle.

Newspaper reports called it a massacre and emphasized the mutilations inflicted on the dead men. The portrayals of the events as a massacre and savage mutilation were a misrepresentation and weighed heavily on public opinion.

By contrast when Colonel Chivington murdered hundreds of “friendly” Indians under Black Kettle at Sand Creek and wore the most intimate parts of the women they had mutilated, most newspapers reported it as a battle, ignoring the fact the Colorado Territory militia violated numerous laws and treaties to attack an unprepared camp flying the American flag and, shortly after the ambush began, a white surrender flag.

How these events were portrayed goes a long way towards showing how the belief that a cohesive plan for demonizing the Indians had been emplaced. Portraying them as aggressors and murderers regardless of truth justified swift, harsh reprisals.

Indeed, the idea that Native Americans could not be civilized had long been in place. Andrew Jackson, memorialized on the twenty dollar bill as one of the greatest Americans in history, took part in the forced removal of the Cherokee despite the fact the Cherokee had developed such elements of civilization as a written language, newspaper and courts. Yet in the 1830 they were still considered too uncivilized to remain in their home lands.

It is worth noticing their lack of civilization became apparent to all when gold was discovered on their land. Once their land had value, these savages could not be tolerated living among decent folk but were forcibly (and illegally) removed from their holdings to Oklahoma.

It was part of the systematic portrayal of Native Americans as less than people. Even those who lived peaceably for decades could be portrayed as dangerous and undesirable as soon as their land was shown to be valuable.

Thus we see that from earliest times Indians were brutish savages unfit for civilized lands. They were portrayed in fiction, in news reports, and word of mouth as being immoral and unworthy of status as humans. They were a danger to society.

CHAPTER 

As the new millennium dawned the United States had experienced a major shift. There was no longer unexplored, unoccupied land to be found further west. The events at Wounded Knee were six years past, the last gasp of Native American resistance to the seizure of their land.

The most dangerous Native American leaders were either dead, living in captivity or had become sideshow attractions.

Cochise, Sitting Bull, Captain Jack and Crazy Horse were dead. Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Red Cloud and Geronimo were living on reservations. From time to time one or the other of these once-feared Native Americans would appear in Wild Bills Wild West Show, at a World’s Fair, or at some other attraction as curiosities.

Geronimo serves as a primary example. He was one of the first people ever to ride in a Cadillac. For a brief time he was a Sunday School Teacher at a Baptist church until he was removed from the position due to his continuing propensity to drink and gamble on his shooting skills.

Native Americans were no longer something to be feared and dreaded. They were now a defeated people who lived on reservations, out of sight and out of mind except when put on display as curiosities. They were something to be viewed much like a traveling circus or one of PT Barnum’s acts.

When Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1905 one of the people in his parade was Geronimo. No longer the most feared man in the American Southwest, now he was just another draw in a celebratory occasion. The time was past to demonize the Native Americans and the time had arrived to begin portraying them as victims on occasion and patriots as others such as during Buffalo Bill’s show.

Since the Spanish-American War, the highlight of his show had changed from being an Indian attack on a cabin or wagon train to a battle with the new villains, the Spaniards. Native Americans were translated to heroes.

They were now revered for their skills in horsemanship and archery. They were now portrayed in a positive light in a show designed by a masterful entertainer that was often emulated and had a huge impact on how the masses viewed Indians.

Other fields of entertainment were similarly affected. One fine example would be the movie industry.

Still developing at the turn of the century, the movie industry featured large numbers of Westerns. To be sure the primary narrative remained the same; Indians were either the threat to the hero or a drunken buffoon.

But there were exceptions. The occasional film would be made wherein the hero would fall in love, invariably with an Indian princess. To prevent miscegenation, the Native American would perish by the end of the film, thus allowing the white hero to return to the embrace of other whites, but the positive portrayal would remain.

Arguably, these films had as much if not more of an impact on the national psyche than more standard fare. When the viewer had seen the cavalry surrounded by Indians skylining themselves on a ridge dozens of times, only to be defeated through timely intervention, the story more or less told itself. But when they saw something unusual such as the heroic princess sacrificing herself for love it was something new, unusual and unique enough to be memorable.

This is not to argue that seeing these movies changed attitudes but rather that seeing an alternative presentation of Native Americans would begin to seep into the collective consciousness. The more often they were shown in a positive light, the more opportunity there would be to dismiss old stereotypes and fears and replace them with new thoughts and ideas.

Sports provided another avenue. Baseball was a leading pastime in the early 20th century and a haven for Native Americans. Typically nicknamed "Chief", they often developed rabid cult followings and gained great stature, including multiple Native Americans starring in some of the World Series in the first decade of the 20th century.

---

[1] http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/hsmt/courses_reading/undergraduate/authority_of_nature/week_7/baum.pdf, accessed 5/26/2011

Light is in the eye of the beholder

Coming off a couple of weeks of intense study, the results of which i condensed to 8 parts even though I easily could have done 15 or 20 if it did not get so redundant, I decided to do some light reading and picked up Romans and Barbarians by Derek Williams.

In it a couple of interesting tidbits developed, one which I knew and the other which I did not.

The one I knew was how tenuous our hold on ancient history is. For example, many scholarly tomes have been written about the battle of the Teutoburg Forest, also know as the Varian Disaster where German "barbarians" crushed three Roman Legions so thoroughly that those legions were never to return to the Roman battle lists.

Of course, there are certain problems with the knowledge we possess...for example, the location was quite uncertain and, as it turns out, wrong. The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest took place nowhere neat the Teutoburg and we thought it did because of writings a century later.

In fact, as Williams points out, Transmission was via a single medieval manuscript, uncovered in 1451 at the monastery of Hersfeld, southern Germany; demonstrating on what slender threads the bequests of ancient learning have sometimes hung." (1)

His point is well taken. So much of what we "know" about ancient history is more accurately phrased, "What our best educated guess is, since we presuppose that we are better qualified to interpret the accuracy of writings than the people who wrote it."

I am always amazed how people so easily dismiss the accuracy of Herodotus with his claims of a million Persians, but their "more accurate number" ranges from less than a hundred thousand to 450,000. Do they even know how wide that range is? They explain how unit sizes were probably A,B,or C, thus rendering the numbers of Herodotus...WHO WAS THERE....are obviously inflated and their own more accurate...YET NOT EVEN CLOSE TO EACH OTHER.

Note that I am not arguing Herodotus was accurate...simply pointing out the ridiculous nature of claiming we know for certain things we know so little about.

But the thing he brought up I did not know actually applies to the Dreamcatchers project.

Twice, first while discussing Ovid and second while discussing P. Quintilius Varus, he points out that the Roman narrative for the Sarmatians, Dacians, Getans and other steppe barbarians from the Grecian border, and the Germanic tribes from the Rhine border, were portrayed as the "noble savage", a people so close to the pure morals falling by the wayside that they were to be emulated by the Romans who were descending into moral decay.

Anyone who has studied the "Indian Wars" of the U.S. instantly recognizes the narrative terms that were such a large part of the discourse in the American media that one might be confused about whether it is Tacitus speaking or Frederic Remington.

Just a fun little note to tie together Rome and the US. You are welcome.

1 Williams, Derek, Romans and Barbarians: Four Views from the Empire's Edge 1st Century AD, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1998, p. 71

Dreamcatchers

* A variety of terms have been used to describe the population found in the Americas in the 15th century. Erroneously labeled "Indians" first, the term was used for several centuries. Recent opinion has shifted it to Native American. For purposes of this treatise, the terms will be used interchangeably in accordance with the more widely understood terms, typically shifting with what concurrent usage would have been unless the most prevalent word was particularly offensive such as "redskin" or similar. No intent to offend should be read into the usage of any term. Several words will be used that are very offensive in most contexts. It is expected the reader will be able to comprehend the context and realize no hatred or disrespect is intended or held by the author.*

"Indians!"

At the turn of the 19th century, it was a cry that instilled fear in the hearts of many Americans. Thoughts of heinous tortures, cruel deaths and post-mortem scalping filled the head as that most feared and dangerous fighting man of North America was called to mind by the dread cry.

Fast forward a century and Native Americans are held in honor, revered for their mystical bond with the land, their superior moral values, and their naturalistic ways. Their integrity is unmatched, their valor unquestioned, their purity the last bastion of goodness in a world gone mad.

When and where did this change? How did we go from fearing the very mention of Indians to having one of their holy relics hanging on our rearview mirrors in the form of Dreamcatchers? This will be a short essay on the topic that is in the process of being expanded to a full length book.

From the moment Europeans first started settling North America, verbiage was used to form public opinion. By carefully controlling the portrayal of the natives it was possible to control how they would be dealt with.

In the search for land, one of the first needs was to find justification for the seizing of the land which often required forced removal at best and genocidal tactics at worst. To allow these actions to proceed without kick-back from the European populace, public opinion had to be manipulated.

As a result, the Indians were labeled "savages" and "barbarians" in the time-honored methods hailing back at least as far as Classic Greece. As such, they were held to be a lesser race and of little value.

There were exceptions, however. Even at the earliest moments of European settlement in the Americas, some people objected both to the labels and the mistreatment of the Natives. They were and would continue to be a minority. However, the majority of people believed the terminology was accurate.

As the Colonies developed and expanded, the cultural needs to justify the wholesale appropriation of land without regard to the property rights of those who formerly possessed it continued to lead to the portrayal of the natives as savage, uncivilized brutes who understood only force. It was also understood that they loved to fight and lived for war.

By the time the United States of America achieved their independence from England, the terms of engagement were set. The Indians were a speed bump on the path to continental domination. They were also incapable of meaningful military opposition to the U.S.

This is demonstrated by the failed attempts of men like Chief Pontiac and Tecumseh to form coalitions of tribes to fight the incursions of the ever-expanding U.S. The greatest alliances the Indians ever managed to cobble together were defeated with comparative ease by what is charitably termed militia, hardly the elite military units of the age.

When General "Mad Anthony" Wayne smashed the forces of Tecumseh at Fallen Timbers in 1794, the remainder of the conquering of the Indians was really just mop-up duty. Forever more the various tribes would be divided, outnumbered, outgunned, and dominated technologically.

They would have a last gasp attempt in the War of 1812 at which time the British assisted the coalition so long as Tecumseh led his men in helping the British defend Canada. At the conclusion of the war, however, their promises were as dead as Tecumseh himself.

Yet somehow, the idea that the forced removal from their lands of the Indians had to be justified. As a result, the Indians continued to be portrayed as "savages", "brutes", "unthinking killers" who gloried in war and attacked for no reason. They were part of the national narrative as a very real threat to the peace and security of the states even though the truth was the various tribes had no chance of defeating the armed forces of the United States.

Even their greatest triumphs were hollow. Fettermen's command numbered 81 men, Custers Last Stand saw only about 210 deaths. Red Cloud did get the closure of incursions into Sioux territory, but that was for only about 3 years.

Other than those minor victories, the battles with the Indian tribes consistently saw huge casualties for the Indians and very few casualties for the better armed, better mounted, better supplied US Cavalry.

Despite the evidence, the media of the day played up the idea that the Indians were universally murderous and quite successful at wreaking havoc all across the country. Accusation became truth.

By 1864 this idea was so prevalent that when Colonel John Chivington made his famous speech in Denver where he recommended killing and scalping every possible Indian, even the women and children because "Nits make lice", he was roundly applauded.

The Indians, despite having lost battle after battle, war after war, and treaty after treaty were still hated and feared, barely even considered people. In fact, it was not until 1879 when Chief Standing Bear, with the help of General Crook and some like-minded people, sued for the right to be considered a person that Indians were considered as "real people" who had rights as citizens. Prior to that they could not even bring suit in court.

Meanwhile, news reports throughout the mid to late 1800s were rife with stories of the "depredations" of Geronimo, the plains wars with the Sioux and so forth. If one followed the news reports, one would have thought the uncivilized savages were winning the wars for possession of the continent as they slaughtered members of wagon trains, raided towns, killed, pillaged and plundered ranches and mines and generally raised havoc.

Yet even as this malicious picture of an altered truth was being presented, there was a small but noticeable current of opposition. Sarah Winnemucca and Susette LaFlesche (aka Inshta Theamba or Bright Eyes) were popular members of the lecture tour. They would give speeches to thousands upon thousands of people on the plight of the Indians. Their powerful presence and charismatic speeches began to sway the opinions of many of the Eastern seaboards' intellectual elite.

Adding to this was the beginning of what would grow to be a leading marker of frontier related fiction. Beginning in 1823, James Fenimore Cooper began publishing his Leatherstocking tales wherein Natty Bumppo, better known as Hawkeye, would use his upbringing with the Native Americans to save high-born British girls, save settlers and soldiers, and generally navigate his way through an increasingly dangerous world.

Often accompanied by his sidekick and adoptive brother Chingachgook and Chingachgooks son Uncas, Hawkeye was and continues to be a very popular character which continues to hold the attention of the public as evidenced by the 1992 hit movie Last of the Mohicans, hardly the first and almost certainly not the last treatment that story will receive.

So even as the public narrative held the Indians to be savage butchers incapable of civilization there were elements of popular culture available that counteracted that narrative. Indeed, Chingachgook became such a type that the faithful Indian side-kick became a staple of the frontier genre.

In more serious literary circles, it was Helen Hunt Jackson who was making waves. In 1881 she published A Century of Dishonor, a ground-breaking book that caused many people to re-think their dealings with the Native American population. However, there was still land in the hands of that population, so public opinion was not yet ready to change.

December 29, 1890 marked a turning point. Generally hailed as the final moment of the Indian resistance to U.S. domination, it removed the threat of an Indian uprising from the mind of the public conscious.

This was fully illustrated by the 1894 James Earle Fraser sculpture titled The End of the Trail. It represented the "new Indian", picturing him as a noble, valiant warrior who battled on behalf of purity and good against overwhelming odds and the evils of progress.

Coming only a year after Frederick Jackson Turner had given his famous Frontier Thesis, it quickly entered the public consciousness. Coupling things like this with seeing the Indians in the various traveling Wild West shows caused people to see the Native Americans in a new light.

While most of the shows indeed had some sort of Indian attack as part of the show, they also had demonstrations of horseback riding, marksmanship, and other skills deemed to belong to the "Native Americans". And soon even the attacks would change.

In 1894, the Spanish-American War took place. Suddenly the Wild West shows had a new target. Even the most famous of them, the Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, changed the narrative to where the Native Americans were heroes in the epic conclusion to the show.

More importantly, he had camps of Native Americans where they could be seen interacting as families...as people. Millions of people saw the Native Americans were not the savages they had been portrayed to be.

The court of public opinion was shifting. Now the narrative needed to be changed. Included was the growing public awareness of places like Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

Carlisle was largely brought to the national consciousness through sports. Glenn "Pop" Warner took over as coach in 1899 and, except for 3 years he was at Cornell, continued to coach them until 1915.

During his time there the Carlisle team traveled extensively and with great success. Games with major universities drew huge crowds who tended to cheer for the underdog Carlisle kids. Undersized, under-equipped, they continued to amass victories over better established, equipped college teams.

The height of their popularity came with Jim Thorpe. By the time he won two Gold Medals in the 1912 Olympics he was a household name and was held up as an example of what the "properly civilized red man" could do.

Nor was he the only popular Native American athlete. One easy example would be Carlisle alumnus Charles Albert "Chief" Bender. He was a popular baseball player from 1903-1917 and well-known for tying a record with 3 shut-outs in the 1911 World Series.

His nationality was never in question. One popular anecdote involves his response to heckling, often in the way of stereotypical war-whoops when he went to the mound. Upon hearing them, he would turn to the offending party and shout back, "Foreigners!"

With literature, theatre, and sports showing Indians as heroes rather than uncivilized killing machines, the tide of public opinion was turning. This extended even to the new nickelodeons which would soon become the booming Cinema industry.

Many of the early actors were displaced Native Americans who found the pay excellent and the work enjoyable. Many early reels depicted Native American camp life and often enough stories presented them favorably. This would later change to where Indians in the movies were primarily the villains but at the inception there were very many positive portrayals.

Slowly but surely people were encountering a different side to the Native American population. A picture that attained a reasonable amount of circulation showed Geronimo in a Cadillac.

No longer the feared marauder who raided and killed at will, he was now a car-riding Sunday School teacher (though he later lost that job over his inability to stop gambling on his marksmanship and penchant for drinking).

World War I saw another thread develop in the change in view. Many men soldiered alongside of Indians from various tribes and found they were no different than the white man standing alongside. Some had more courage, some less. Some had more integrity, others less. Some had more martial talent, others less. They were real people with real feelings.

Shortly thereafter, the Lone Ranger entered the picture. Accompanied by "his faithful Indian companion Tonto", he entered the airwaves in 1933. Soon millions of listeners thrilled to the adventures of the duo.

The Lone Ranger formula owed much to the Leatherstocking tales. The Lone Ranger was frequently rescued from mortal danger by the wily, talented Tonto. Tonto could track a raindrop through the Mississippi, hear a centipede walk at a hundred miles, shoot the gun from the hand of a desperado, or convince the cavalry to follow him wherever he needed to go.

The Lone Ranger may have been the star but Tonto was a hugely popular character and indispensable to the program. Kids grew up with the picture of a guy who spoke pidgin English, was ever faithful, capable, honest, caring, and trustworthy. Tonto was a paragon of virtue and no slur was allowed to be cast at him.

As the 50s and 60s approached, Tonto came to be viewed as a bit regressive as Hollywood took up the cause of the Native Americans. Movies such as Broken Arrow (1950) saw major stars such as Jimmy Stewart portray the Native Americans in a positive light.

Television shows such as Bonanza and Gunsmoke also regularly had Native American protagonists. Often shown as victims of broken treaties, scheming land barons, and victims in other ways, now the Native American had come to represent the mistreated American.

Even the spy spoof Get Smart got in the act with at least one season one episode that saw Smart dealing with Indians trying to get just recompense for the string of broken treaties. It still showed Indians wearing "traditional Indian" gear...a bizarre mish-mash of plains tribes and coastal customs that saw the episode end with a monstrous arrow being shot. But it also addressed many of the very real issues the Indians had faced throughout the history of the U.S.

Pop culture in the 50s and 60s also found seeds of "Indianness" that they looked to for guidance. As the various major movements of the 60s got in to full swing, a search for "spiritualness" took place. Many of the leaders of various Hippie enclaves found their desired spiritual advisers in Indian shamanism.

Sweat lodges and various other accoutrement's of Indian Shamanism began to crop up. Books such as Black Elk Speaks became the Bibles for a movement to attain the "Indian spirituality". Peyote became a popular drug.

Of course, adherence to the actual Native religion was cast aside in the search for the next thrill, but the allegiance and gratitude owed to the Native Americans remained behind. Their source as people connected to the land and to the Great Spirit caused them to be held in great honor by many converts.

The impetus of the drift into Indian spirituality also helped lend weight to the Red Power movement that would culminate in the actions of the American Indian Movement (AIM).

In the heat of the 60s, takeovers became a hallmark and the Red Power movement took full advantage with high-profile takeovers of Alcatraz, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) building in Washington DC, and perhaps the most famous, their stand-off at Wounded Knee where Russell Means and Dennis Banks were both involved as members of AIM.

The high profile actions AIM took penetrated the national consciousness and drew a great deal of attention to the extant mistreatment of Native Americans, to their deplorable conditions on the reservations, and to the habit of breaking treaties demonstrated by the US government.

Also bringing attention to these issues were high-profile stars like Marlon Brando standing with tribes in Washington and Oregon in battles over fishing rights. He also famously sent a stand-in Native American to refuse an Oscar in 1973. However, his highest profile actions revolved around the fishing rights battles.

The issue of fishing rights entered the mass consciousness as being part of the natural affinity Native Americans had to the land.

This affinity was so strong that the 1970s "Keep America Beautiful" campaign featured Iron Eyes Cody as an Indian who cried when trash was thrown from a car.*

Thus we see that a variety of factors ranging from mass media to wartime experiences to hippie counter-culture began to feature the Native Americans as heroes rather than as victims. By so doing, they achieved a cachet as "cool" that heretofore had been unavailable.

They also had many factors working in their favor. They had the underdog role while still being revered as tremendous fighters. In fiction they were now almost universally portrayed in ways that showed them to be victims fighting to right deplorable wrongs, a condition most Americans believed echoed the role America itself has always played.

Awash in the love for all things Native American, people began seeking symbols to show their affinity for Native Americans. Along with that was the ever-growing Environmental movement which sought to associate itself with the "earth-smart" wisdom of the Native Americans, a wisdom that was based in their religion.

Thus the popularity of Dreamcatchers rose. Coming with an intriguing story and catchy name, these tokens of a serious religious rite became a kitschy association that declared ones love for all things Native American that could hang from the rear-view mirror.

Thus as we look back we see how and why Native Americans went from being feared to loved. And that is the tale to be seen in Dreamcatchers on the Rearview Mirror:Looking Back at Native Portrayals in Popular Culture in the 20th Century.

*Iron Eyes Cody was portrayed as Native American but was in fact Italian. This is an interesting sub-text that demonstrates how complete the shift had been; once, Indians tried to pass for white. Now a white was trying to pass as an Indian.

Finally, some progress!

Lately I have been doing research for Dreamcatchers and doing a lot of miniatures painting. As a result, progress on the long-promised trilogy slowed to a crawl. Read "crawl" as "nothing being done".

Well, twice this week I managed to drag my lazy A double money sign out of bed about 4:30 in order to take the max/bus to and from work. This accomplishes several things: it saves money (4.60/day to ride as opposes to about $8-9 to drive), it saves miles on the Mustang, it alleviates a large amount of stress as I don't have to fight traffic, it allows me to inhale the body odor of the unwashed masses and listen to conversations that it amazes me people will have in public.

For example the purple/pink/green haired girl yakking on her cell phone. She said, and I (unfortunately) quote: "Oh, you like it when I put my cold butt on your junk."

NOT something I need to hear. (Mis)quoting Dr. Seuss, "I do not need to hear it here or there, I do not need to hear it anywhere, I do not need to hear it on the bus, I do not need to hear it in a rush, I do not need to hear it on the train, I do not need to hear it in the rain. I do not like hearing that my friend, away from such stupidity I wish myself to send."

Anyhow, along with these marvelous experiences, it does something else; it gives me nearly 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening. Time. Precious, precious time.

As a result, twice this week I have, *drum roll please*, worked on the trilogy. I have taken it up over the 200 page mark. I am making progress again and making good progress. I like the direction it has headed and am excited.

Of course, I don't want to just blow off the progress I am making on Dreamcatchers and, in fact, found several useful sources yesterday at the library.

So basically, yeah, I am just saying, hey, I am excited to be finding a place to work on the trilogy again. I rock.

I need your input

For many Native Americans the name "Tonto" is highly offensive. He is emblematic of so much that has been wrong with how Native Americans have been perceived. He is regarded as subservient, spoke "pidgin English", and is seen by many as performing an "Uncle Tom" type role towards his race.

I myself take a somewhat different view, though whether or not my views are valid is an open question. Authorities such as the late Vine Deloria Jr. would say no, as a white male I cannot understand what Native Americans have gone through. Certainly a great point. However, I disagree.

You see, I believe characters such as Tonto provided a useful transition from the Geronimo who with fewer than 50 warriors could shut down the Southwest and the Sitting Bull who even in death could terrorize the nation to the point where the tragedy of Wounded Knee was understandable as a need to "tame" the "uncivilized" and fearsome threat of the Native Americans.

Obviously, Tonto was not the first fictional Native American to perform that role. Thanks to Daniel Day Lewis a new generation has been introduced to at least one of the "Leatherstocking Tales", specifically, The Last of the Mohicans. Uncas traveled with Natty Bumpo, guiding him in the ways of the Native Americans, coming to his rescue...sound familiar? Uncas and, to a lesser extent, Chingachook were the template for numerous "Indian sidekicks" throughout literature.

And there was a lot of literature. There were the classics such as the Leatherstocking Tales but there were a lot of dime novels involving both real people such as Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill and so forth in fictional situations and a lot of completely fictional characters. A common theme was having the sidekick who was a Native American and helped the main character, often rescuing him. Tonto was just another step in the evolution.

However, he was different in one crucial way. Tonto was on the radio. For a long, long time. From 1933 through 1956.

Included in there was the bulk of the Great Depression, a time when millions of Americans had as their primary entertainment the "Theatre of the Mind", listening to radio. And Tonto was something new for many of them.

Tonto was a shared experience of a positive (in the context of the times) portrayal of a Native American. The Lone Ranger trusted him, relied on him, called him friend, and owed his life to Tonto. Tonto was a skilled companion who often saved the Lone Ranger's life, was the source of a great deal of intelligence in places the Lone Ranger could not go, had skills the Lone Ranger did not, and set the Lone Ranger apart.

In other words, Tonto was a shared experience for millions of Americans, including young, impressionable kids, of a Native American who embodied most if not all of the positive attributes of the hero of the piece as well.

Could the majority of Americans have gone smoothly from Geronimo to Thunderheart (1992) without the intervening of characters such as Tonto which, while very advanced for their time, would today be hopelessly backward and completely unacceptable.

So the question is simple:

Does the argument that Tonto was among the first ever "shared experiences" for millions of Americans make sense as a starting point for looking at how fictional characters altered perceptions of Native Americans or is it a flawed argument? I feel like I am overlooking something obvious but cannot put my finger on it. Thanks,

If I could be serious for a moment...

I have been transferring some files from hand-written pages to hard disk to make sorting easier if and when I ever write Dreamcatchers on the Rearview Mirror. Along the way I have noticed certain...well...key events that certainly seem to back up my premise for the tome...err, excellent bit of reading that will result. *

One thing really caught my attention. I mean, obviously it first caught my attention when I watched Black Indians:An American Story (2001) or I would not have made a note of it. But it did not catch my attention enough to really side mark it like I have done with certain topics that needed further research. It is a comment made almost off-hand, yet it really cuts to the heart of my research. In a discussion on race and why people would select various boxes, the following comment was made.

"Right now it is very much in vogue to be Indian." which is closely followed by, "Indian is a cultural question."

That is a very interesting and controversial statement. First off, the term itself is questionable; is the name "Indian" acceptable in 2008 or should it exclusively be "Native American", "American Indian", or should it be yet something else?

Second, who gets to decide what does or does not constitute being Native American? One drop of blood? Being a 16th? a 1/4? 1/2? This is an important question. Entire tribes are brought into existence...or wiped out...over the very question, and unfortunately the question all too often has little to do with cultural heritage and a great deal to do with can they build a casino?***

An amazing number of people want the name of Native American and it is amazing how many people claim descent from a Cherokee princess...never mind the fact the Cherokee never had royalty and thus could not have princesses, these people know she is in their lineage. Good luck with that, let me know how it turns out.

Sadly, the genuine articles, people who have suffered for their heritage as the government went through attempt after attempt after attempt to settle "the Indian question"...and doesn't that reference send chills down your spine...with things ranging from the generally well-regarded attempts of John Collier in the 1930s through the era of Termination and back to the surprisingly positive steps taken by oft-maligned Richard Nixon. During all these attempts and even since then the question of who is and who is not Native American has raged.

Their traditions have been co-opted, their religious ceremonies altered, recreated, desecrated, and blasphemed, their wants have been chosen for them and a lot of people seem to think simply taking on the trappings of "Indianhood" makes them more qualified to speak for Native Americans that being Wilma Mankiller** does.

The next time you see some hippie advertising a sweat-lodge ceremony on Craigslist...and yes, they do that regularly, even here in Portland...realize this is not a "great spiritual experience you can have", it is a subversion of a once-treasured, sacred ceremony with deep meaning within the context of a highly evolved society and was part of not "just" their religion or "just" their culture but a very real part of their identity. You are being defrauded if you take part in it and you are simultaneously insulting millions of people. Ignorance is not much of a defense.

So here is today's question: what does it mean to be "Native American", "American Indian", or "Indian" to you? Why? I am actively seeking feedback here. Not scholarly feedback found in a library...I have that. Not round table discussion in an academic forum...I have that. I want it from the people I know....and here is a nice bit of trivia: I happen to know 2 of my closest friends who are deeply impacted by this issue since they are both indisputably Native American. One has been a friend for I think 26 or 27 years, the other for just 3 or 4 but I value them both and it has nothing to do with whether they are or are not Native American, it has to do with who they are as people. Just thought I would roll that out there. I love you both.


* This is a reference to a Pop Culture/anthropological studies/history project. I am researching a book that examines how Native Americans have been viewed in the popular consciousness. In 1900 there were a lot of people who saw them as "savages who live to steal, torture and kill" and by 2000 you almost could not drive a mile without seeing a Dream Catcher hanging from a rear view mirror in a vehicle driven by someone who would have harsh words, and rightfully so, for anyone who used terms like "savage" for Native Americans or who was so blind as to hold the old stereotypes. How did they shift from hated and feared to held in reverence and people seeking to emulate them?

** Wilma Mankiller is the first female to be elected leader of any major North American tribe.

*** No kidding. People were killed over the issue in New York, a tribe was reconstituted and built a highly successful casino. Lawsuits are still being conducted to see who is part of the tribe, who controls the money, and how much land they own.

Dreamcatchers in the Rearview Mirror

The first Sioux to receive the Medal of Honor...and a bit of why it took so long.

Danny Tejo and Native American Iconography

The Replacement Killers (1997) had 2 men working together as contract killers. One was the pock-marked, long-haired, vicious looking Danny Tejo. His role in the movie was as the titled replacement killer. He worked in tandem with a man who was clearly the "leader" of the two...who happened to be white.
It was mere minutes into their appearance that it was clear he was the back-up to the leader of the team. When they enter the airport it is the white man who has the combination and the Indian that plays look-out. The white man is always self-assured, knowledgeable, and in charge of the situation.
Tejo did an excellent job of playing a killer who enjoyed his work. His performance was enjoyable to watch but the codes were clear. Here was a cold-blooded killer who was nevertheless destined to be nothing but a follower. This was illustrated by the scene after his partner is killed.
All the Chinese gangsters are leaving to kill Chow Yun-Fat's family. He asks, somewhat plaintively, "What about me?" It is clear that had the white leader still been around the job description would have been clear. Tejo is dismissed with a peremptory, "You will stay here and do what you were paid to do."
Naturally, he dies near the climax of the movie. Ironically, it is when Chow sneaks up on him. The reason will be evident soon.
Other interesting features play into the movie. Mira Sorvino, who looks white (I have not bothered to check her actual ancestry) all but throws herself at Chow. All the codes we have been trained to expect mean romance are in effect.
He repeatedly saves her life, she willingly enters danger with him in an irrational action, she tells him she doesn't want him to leave...everything is built towards them taking the Hollywood Happily-ever-after train to the credits. Instead, he brushes back her hair, then walks away, leaving you with the feeling that you were cheated of the proper ending. If that were Tom Cruise, you know the big, sloppy kiss would have closed the flick.
I don't try to read racial overtones into things. In fact, I typically think those are overdone to the detriment of genuine discourse on the structures of United States society. However, this movie made it clear. All the codes were there: a woman flashing her bra and panties, a woman in danger (including at least twice when she is handcuffed), a woman who clearly demonstrates the Stockholm Complex, yet ultimately is left without even a kiss by a man who has a "mother and sister" but no justification for this rejection in the form of other family.
Contrast these things with Desert Heat (1999), a movie starring John Claude Van Damme. Well, V-Damme as the title character and the word "starring" probably don't make much sense...his best work was with Cyborg and Bloodsport. Since then he has born a closer resemblance to Johnny Cage...be that as it may, this movie has a much larger role for Tejo.
Tejo is the objective of V-Dammes journey. He is taking a '49 Indian motorcycle to Tejo, at which point he wants to ask Tejo's permission to die. Huge amounts of Native American iconography litter the early going. Phrases about coyotes and warriors, shacks in the desert, and other things echo United States perception of Native American existence.
On the journey V-Damme gets drunk and shot by some bad guys. Tejo finds him and nurses him back to health. The scene was quite illustrative of several codes within U.S. film making.
First, Tejo spends several minutes massaging V-Dammes foot as they talk. You will never see a white male massaging the foot of anyone else in Hollywood cinema. That is a role reserved for women and non-whites. Apparently no director is willing to override the code that says whites must always be in dominant roles while non-whites will always be found in somewhat subservient roles.
This is further illustrated by their separation. Tejo comments on Rhonda. That relationship is tangled. Both of them reference their long standing friendship yet it is just as clear that they will never be an item. No justification for this is given. The underlying theme is no white woman would marry an Indian. Furthermore, although both live in squalor, Rhonda owns a restaurant that has three employees while Tejo lives in a shack that looks like it is falling down around him.
After his comments he is told to stay at the cabin while the outnumbered V-Damme goes on a rampage. He wants to go but is told to stay so he does. Again, if that were Cruise told to stay...he would be alongside the hero. What is the difference? YOu don't have to think hard to figure it out.
Later in the movie Tejo sneaks up on V-Damme. He comments on how easy white men are to sneak up on. This is a very unfortunate line. It reinforces the idea that Native Americans have some mystical, animalistic ability to move silently and unseen to ambush whoever, whenever they want.
Furthermore, Tejo goes on to sacrifice himself so that V-Damme can escape. Remember, V-Damme came to get permission to kill himself. Why then would Tejo be the one to die? It was not necessary for a death to occur other than for an image in the final scene that equated Tejo with a coyote. Hardly a flattering image.
Before he gets himself killed, Tejo tells V-Damme there are a hundred reasons to die...you only need one to live. V-Damme should marry...Rhonda. The person whom, by rights, Tejo should have a relationship with.
Tejo is a phenomenally gifted actor. He can look vicious, friendly, or dangerous with subtle adjustments. Yet in two movies he is killed execution style. He is portrayed as inferior to the white actors and unworthy to be part of their culture.
Obviously I have a lot of thoughts on this but I think I am going to leave it here. I certainly think a lot of things defined as racist really are not. Some things, however, get passed by as not being racist because we don't pay attention to the codes. Look at the reading of these two films and you will get a feel for one reason whites in general and Hollywood in particular are frequently accused of racism.