Reflections on Native American Identities

Alison Crane

"What tribe are you, cousin?" Victor asked him.

"Cherokee."

"Really? Shit, I've never met a real Cherokee."

"Neither have I."

And they laughed.

Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and

Tonto Fistfight In Heaven.

The issues of identity regarding Native American peoples are complex

and multi-textured. How does one define Native American identity and what

does it mean to be Native American today and in the past? Who does the

defining and what are the implications of that definition? These questions will

be explored along with my own personal quest for knowledge and understanding

of what it means to be Native American.

Personally, I have been confused by the issues of Native American identity

while searching for answers regarding my own Native American heritage and what

that identity means to me. Is being an Indian based on biological or physical

characteristics such as skin, hair, and eye color? If so, with my white skin and blue

eyes, I would not classify myself as a Native American. I think that these inherited

physical traits of race are arbitrary and meaningless anyway, since physical

categories of race are socially constructed concepts. But I suppose these

constructions are meaningful in our society because we choose to make them so.

These types of racial distinctions are part of the belief system that contends

that real or alleged differences assert the superiority of one group over another.

These types of judgments are what perpetuate stereotypes - exaggerated,

oversimplified images of people. Perhaps distinct ethnic or cultural characteristics

such as language, dress, and religion are more apt ways of categorizing groups of

people. That being the case, I still cannot identify myself as Native American.

Technically, by definition no one is an Indian, at least not prior to Euro-Westerners

contact since "Indian" was a word derived from Columbus to describe distinct

peoples who were part of their own cultural groups or tribes. The problem with

lumping native peoples under one big Pan-umbrella is that even some of the

distinctions within the various tribes are lost with the stroke of a single defining

label.

Today, even within tribal groups themselves, there are different criteria for

defining who is an Indian of a particular tribe. For example, the Cherokee of

Oklahoma simply require proof of descent from an ancestor on the tribal roles no

matter how small that descendants' fractional proportion may be. Since, I am one-

ninth Cherokee, (as if humans can be constructed with fractional parts like a recipe)

this criteria would allow me to claim Cherokee membership along with the

accompanying benefits, rights, and privileges. But just because I can doesn't allow

that I should. One needs to question underlying motives behind desiring

membership. While surfing around the internet I discovered a website’s headlines -

"Caution! Fake Indian Tribes." It seems that peoples' desire to claim tribal

association and the accompanying government benefits that go along with

membership has created a plethora of phony and fake "tribal organizations" who for

a fee will provide anyone with a "certified membership card" proclaiming Cherokee

status.

As evidenced from the website’s warning, fake tribes are being invented

because of people's desire to profit in some way. Therefore, Indian identity can

become a commodity that can be bought and sold in the market to anyone for the right price. This relegates the identity to being no more valuable than the paper it is written

on. I had considered applying for my Certified Degree of Indian Blood, not for the

benefits but as a proud acknowledgement of my heritage. However, I reconsidered

because I felt to do so would be dishonest and inauthentic, like a slur against Native

peoples past and present. In Vecsey's "The Emergence of the Hopi People", one

reads the mythical story that recounts the origins of the Hopi people and that defines

Hopi identity. A Hopi is "someone living in community with others of the same

origin, language, history, and customs." It is the community that is necessary for the

continuation or Hopi life (1983). I believe this is true, so since I do not live among

Cherokee people, I cannot claim that community, therefore I do not claim that

identity.

Besides, there are enough imposters, misrepresentations and false

portrayals of Native peoples in history, literature, art, and media. I have been

seduced by the mythological creation of the movie Indian such as those portrayed in

the film "Dances With Wolves". But I now realize that Native Americans' identities

are at stake in what is being portrayed. In 1950's Hollywood, Native American's

were portrayed by white actors in makeup, a kind of "redface" if you will. Today,

real Native actors are used, however as in the case of "Dances With Wolves", the

question arises - how accurate is its portrayal of Native Americans and how

legitimate is the representation when the movie is written, directed, and acted by

white man Kevin Costner? Even though the characterizations and stories presented

onscreen are assumed to represent true Native American identities, the vast

majority of their images reduce native peoples to romantic or noble savage

stereotypes. This occurs because nobility makes good box office. Nobility

demands of the Indian purity and integrity even while they are simultaneously being

exploited for their land.

The "pure" Indian is yet unspoiled by the corruption of capitalism and

because of this, evokes our sympathy. These media images that permeate our

popular culture demand that the noble Indian always be the benevolent benefactor

of the natural world, a designated purveyor of ecological virtue in a world of

environmental destruction. Who can forget Native American Iron Eyes Cody's anti-

pollution commercial when he cried a solitary tear for the littered landscape? The

irony is that the more Native Americans suffer injustices, the more deserving they

are of receiving the sympathy of whites. Yet when natives resist or rebel against

"the powers that be", the "savage" stereotype conveniently manifests.

Sometimes stereotypes are useful to the people who use them because they

offer a simpler, more orderly analysis of a minority group. But for some groups this

can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, some Mohawk Indians were

referred to as "skywalkers" because of their supposed innate fearlessness of

heights. In their book, Oswalt and Neely examine why Mohawk men were such

successful high - beam steel workers, constructing bridges and skyscrapers under

extremely dangerous working conditions. It was suggested that at least some

Mohawk men did not fear heights and that because the work was dangerous, it

became an attractive type of employment for them. In this same book, Morris

Freilich confers that Mohawk skywalkers repressed their real fear in order to

"behave as warriors and prove their courage" (1958). One can glean how the

"brave warrior" stereotype is at the root of Freilichs assertions. He simplifies and

reduces their emotions, or lack thereof, to an exaggerated belief that Mohawks

engage in bravado as part of their cultural heritage. One can see how the

"skywalker" stereotype gets perpetuated.

Furthermore, Oswalt and Neely (1999) state that "some outsiders have suggested

that an absence of a fear or heights was inborn but it seems more likely that the trait

was learned.". I believe that the trait was learned out of necessity. For

example, when the skywalkers were competing with other minority groups for these

relatively high-paying construction jobs, to be timid could mean unemployment so

Mohawk men learned how to cope with fear. On the other hand, the employer gains

by filling undesirable, hazardous positions with groups who are isolated from the

mainstream labor markets thereby ensuring the employer of a steady supply of

labor. Two cycles appear to be at work here, the Mohawk need the high salaried

work, so they display "no fear" in order to be hired and dangerous jobs need to be

filled so "expendable" groups are hired.

The issues of identity are far reaching because they help define the past as

well as the present. They allow us to ask the question of how one reconciles

traditional identities with present assimilation. Tradition or doing things the "old

way" often validates one as a true Indian. For example, Yellowtail a Crow Medicine

Man extols the virtues of traditional ways. Harkening back to the time where Indians

were free, he says that whether in dress or beadwork or whether hunting and

making weapons "you were participating in a sacred life and you knew who you

were and carried a sense of the sacred with you" (1991). According to Yellowtail,

native identities were formed by the very traditions that enveloped the tribal people.

Thus he equates rituals, customs, and beliefs as being the very essence of Native

American identity. Therefore, if one does not embrace cultural traditions, one risks

becoming inauthentic or worse yet trapped "between two worlds" - the traditional

and the modern (DeLoria 1970). Vine DeLoria mockingly blames this purgatory

on Native American's supposed propensity to drink alcohol. DeLoria argues that

Indians adopt the role of a "drinker" because they are attempting to emulate the

traditional role of a "real Indian" (real Indians" drink) and because they are aspiring

to "re-create glories of the past" (1970). As told, traditional identities can have

problematic implications for modern Native Americans.

Traditions can also signify, especially to non-Indians, the mythic past of

feathers and tipis. Marie Mauze describes a present-day Native American

community that is socially stratified in terms of economic status. Some inhabitants

own fancy, fishing boats pulled by brand new pickup trucks. They watch sports on

television, vacation in Hawaii, and eat out in fancy, white restaurants. Mauze

wondered whether she was among "real Indians." She says that "I had internalized

the claim that the economic conditions of native peoples could be nothing other

than poverty, an inevitable consequence of the confrontation with the white world"

(1997). The irony is that if Native Americans seem to enjoy the trappings of modern

or non-Indian societies they are considered progressive or assimilated and some of

their "Indianess" is contaminated or diluted, yet if they do not change and remain

with their traditional identities intact, they are denied a real existence in the modern

world.

When I visit The Interpretive Center at Cahokia Mounds, I see the lifeless

diorama of Mississippian peoples who are preserved in time. One does not even

know by what name they chose to call themselves because that aspect, like many

aspects of their culture and identity, was not recorded. Many questions still remain

unanswered about the identity of those people whose empire thrived hundreds of

years ago, practically in our backyards. Where did they go? What became of

them? It causes one to question Native American existence and identity. Since

Native Americans are not around to teach us anything, one might incorrectly

conclude, whatever they had to teach us is not valuable or worthy because it didn't

help them to survive into the present. This belief perpetuates the myth or stereotype

of the "vanishing Indian", yet another image with which native peoples have to

contend.

Because of conflict over past vs. present and some media portrayal, it is not

difficult to understand why these myths and stereotypes still persist. But perhaps

there is another reason. Maybe we still need myths because, as Alcida Ramos

contends, "Indians are very good at making whites reflect upon their self-image"

(1991). As white, Euro-Westerners, we need native peoples to be similar to us but

still maintain their identity as the inferior "other." This in turn allows us to feel

superior. If like Ramos said, people are mirrors, I wonder how I, a white female,

make Native Americans reflect back on their self-image. While stopping for gas at

a gas station in Alaska I was approached by an Alaskan native who asked if she

could hitch a ride. Why did she ask me? Did she identify me as a privileged, white

tourist with adequate means transportation? She told me she needed to get home

and visit her ailing mother in the hospital but would I first mind stopping by a liquor

store. Did I represent authority or someone who might deny her access, hence the

sentimental story to appeal my compassionate sensibilities? This encounter

allowed me to examine feelings of guilt, remorse, and sadness. Personally and

metaphorically I reflected on why I was in the driver's seat and she was in the back.

Another example of whites making Indians reflect back on their self-image is

when natives use certain stereotypes for their own purpose. Was this what the

hitchhiker was doing? Did Mario Jurana, the Native American who flagrantly

accused the Figueiredo government of corruption, use exoticism as a tool to break

down political barriers while he served in Congress? Ramos finds that his

"Indianess" allowed him to express dissenting views without suffering any

consequences and exonerated him from losing the support of constituents. His

exoticism coupled with the media's ministrations turned him into a kind of folk hero

(Ramos, 1991). Philip DeLoria suggests that Indians "did not stand idly by, exerting

no influence over the resulting Indian images. He says that native people have

"often attempted to nudge notions of Indianess in directions they found useful"

(DeLoria 1998). For example, Ely S. Parker, a member of the Seneca tribe, helps

American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan, a white man, create an Indian literary

club and in turn receives assistance from Morgans' network of well connected

friends in the Indians' battles against the federal government. DeLoria labels this

behavior "American Indian Play" and traces its origins to white male dominance.

Performing "Indian Play" for white people reflects the power structure of society at

large, in other words DeLoria argues, it is through the lens of the white male that the

images and constructions of native identity are formulated (1988). Nonetheless,

native people actively exerting their influence in helping define native identity and

maneuvering to further their self-interests within the social framework given to them

are simply being politically savvy.

When Native Americans are put in stereotypical boxes and seen primarily

with symbolic identities, understanding can become rigid and categorical. If

indigenous people can't live up to the noble and pure expectations we require from

them, we can become disappointed and another identity might permeate our

beliefs, that of the marginalized Indian plagued by social problems. It is important to

recognize that natives are flesh and blood people who can own a full range of

identities but more importantly it is vital to understand the native dilemma of being

inextricably trapped in the identity defining contexts of past vs. present, traditional

vs. modern, and noble vs. savage. Perhaps the answer lies in allowing tribal people

to define themselves using indigenous concepts of cyclical time. Where past and

present intermingle, where identities are neither constructed or modified

but living in the here and now and where tradition is invented and recreated in an

attempt to "read the present in terms of the past by writing the past in terms of the

present" (Lindstrom, 1982). The beauty in the "present and past myth" is that it

allows me the ability to see my own native identity as mutable and changing. In

much the same way, my Native American identity will continuously be nurtured by

new ideas and as such become an evolving ethos that I can continually construct for myself.

Alison Crane is an undergraduate student in the Department of Sociology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. cranealison@hotmail.com

References

Alexie, Sherman. 1993. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.

De Loria, Philip. 1998. Playing Indian. New Haven: Yale University Press.

DeLoria, Vine. 1970. Custer Died For Your Sins. New York: Avon.

Freilich, Morris. 1958. "Cultural Persistance Among the Modern Iroquios."

Mauze, Marie. 1997. Past Is Present: Some Uses Of Tradition in Native Societies. Marie Mauze, ed. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Oswalt, Wendell and Sharlotte Neely. 1999. This Land Was Theirs. Mountainview, CA: Mayfield Publishing.

Ramos, Alcida Rita. 1991. "A Hall of Mirrors: The Rhetoric of Indegenism in Brazil." Critique of Anthropology 11, 2: 155-169.

Vecsey, Christopher. 1983. "The Emergence of the Hopi People". American Indian Quarterly, Summer: 69-89.

Yellowtail, Thomas. 1991. Crow Medicine Man and Sundance Chief: An Autobiography. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.