This PowerPoint details the historical argument of Dr. Philip Deloria who asserts that Euro-Americans have appropriated ideas of "Indianess" for their own cultural agenda, and subsequently used their own stereotypes of Indians against Native Americans themselves.

1. Playing Indian

2. 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/w
• http://www.youtube.com/w

3. Boston Tea Party

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. The White Woman

12. 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

13. State of Minnesota

14. Seal of Kansas

15. American Progress

16. 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

17. Museum of Natural History

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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.

21. The Washington Redskins

22. Atlanta Braves

23. Cleveland Indians

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

25. Berlin Indians
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thcNITRacY
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKsR-ALxjeM

26. Can Mascots be Done Well?

27. The Unwritten Scriptures &
The Trial of Thomas Builds-a-
Fire

28. 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?

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. 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?

32. 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

33. 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."

34. 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"

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