Indians in the Curriculum:
20 Handouts for Middle and High School
History and Social Studies
By Kerry Dunne
Handout 8 Resources: “I” is not for Indian
Background:
By 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 The Broken
Chord, 1989, an award winning book on fetal alcohol syndrome, a severe problem
among American Indians.
"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 night- mares 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 bur 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.
-Michacl A. Dorris
Activities 8: “I” is not for
Indian
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