Colonial Representations of Natives - the Indian :: Essays Papers

Colonial Representations of Natives - the IndianAt the outset, it should be noted here that the use of the term Indian to come upon the aboriginal peoples of North America is aroundwhat contentious. As is well known, its use derives from Columbuss mistaken belief that he had arrived in the East Indies and this situating of Natives within an already factual European discourse is in manhoody ways paradigmatic of what was to follow during the centuries of colonisation and settlement. For it should be made clear that the Indian is a European invention, and that at that place has always been a great deal of slippage between the representations of this figure and the realities of the lives of Native North Americans. In fact, the Indian has always represented as much more or less European fears and concerns as it has about actual Natives. Add to this the fact that the popular image of the Indian has in large part been shaped by commercial message considerations - give the audience wh at it wants to see - and it becomes clear that we are dealing with a very complex set of relationships. For this reason, the purpose of this page is principally to outline some of the characteristics of the Indian as he has been created by Europeans, and not to consider the lives of real Natives.Now, the most obvious problem with the term should be that it lumps together all the miscellaneous nations, ignoring the wide differences which exist between the diverse cultures which originally inhabited the continent. But the masking effect of the stereotype runs deeper than this. As is often the case with westbound encounters with foreigner peoples, the representation bifurcates. What we tend to find is either the noble savage or the barbarous, bloodthirsty primitive. The first term here was coined by John Dryden, and conveys the idea of man in a state of nature, untainted by the perceived evils of civilisation, such as avarice or ambition. It is a projection of the fear that somehow the Western way of life has become corrupt, and is in need of redemption. Traces of this view of the Indian are still apparent in the twentieth century, when many people rely Natives to have a kind of spirituality connected to a universal harmony and a balance with the natural world. In the nineteenth century the Canadian poet Charles Mair wrote a long poem called Tecumseh, which included the lines