Native America: Stereotypes

From high-priced galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Sedona, Arizona, to airbrushed illustrations on Chevy vans in urban traffic, Native American stereotypes dominate the visual sphere, reminding us of the power of these symbols. Typically, the Native American is seen as a victim, pushed aside by an invisible but irresistable force: noble, gorgeous, deeply saddened, connected by right, by religion and by lifestyle to a pristine Nature: the Noble Savage of Rousseau and the Enlightenment updated and turned into pop mythology.

The origins of such imagery are found in the 19th century, in white depictions of Indians ranging from Currier and Ives to German and American Romantic painting by figures as diverse as Bodmer and Bierstadt.

Bodmer's imagery was in some ways fundamentally different than its successors: Bodmer actually saw these figures, and painted them as he saw them. But he had already been programmed by his European heritage and the "noble savage" tradition to seek the models who conformed to the picture in his imagination and in the imaginations of his viewers and patrons. His work was deeply influential.

Bierstadt, too, inserted imaginary Indians into imaginary Rocky Mountain scenes that were composed as much of his memories of the Alps as they were of actual American scenery.

The descent into cliche continued with the photography of Edward Curtis, who photographed the "vanishing race" with a pictorial impulse and a sentimental eye.

Curtis's work masqueraded as anthropology, appeared at the moment when "cowboy and Indian" movies were about to sweep into the new motion picture technology, gave rise to a wave of sentimental imagery that accelerated with the fashion for all things Southwestern and Indian during the American '20s, and has recurred with regularity since. Today, "vanishing race" nostalgia is a staple of tourist and mass-market art, from jigsaw puzzles to posters on the walls of college dormitories.

That such imagery has done the cause of Native America no particular good is an argument made by both white and native historians and critics. That such imagery was the property of white culture has become a repeated theme of major Native American writers, artists and political figures. The development of an anti-Romantic, native-born cultural imagery has been relatively recent: Sherman Alexie, novelist and film-maker, is one of the most visible exemplars of this new tradition. His movie, Smoke Signals, is readily available on video and DVD, accessible to those with a moderate fluency in English, and deeply provocative.