Authenticity Test

Since my current research focuses on interpretations and appropriations of American Indian identity, image, history, and so on, I’d like to highlight Paul Chaat Smith’s words in Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong, in which he claims that “the continued trivialization and appropriation of Indian culture, the absolute refusal to deal with us as just plain folks living in the present and not the past—is the same as ever” (18). He claims that unlike the American Indian Movement in the 1970s, which brought about vast social change and political change for Indians, we are not likely to be able to conjure up such a movement now in terms of altering perceptions of the popular image of the Indian, most commonly seen through the image of “the Plains Indian of the mid-nineteenth century” (20). Now, instead of identifying Indians by tribal affiliation, “Indian” has come to define a much broader scope of individuals of many cultures. Smith explains that “[w]hat has made us one people is the common legacy of colonialism….Five hundred years ago we were Seneca and Cree and Hopi and Kiowa, as different from each other as Norwegians are from Italians, Egyptians, or Zulus….When we think of the old days, like it or not we conjure up images that have little to do with real history” (19). The problem facing Native Americans today is that colonialism has made all Indians “one people,” and romanticism springs almost organically from that metamorphosis. Now, our dilemma lies in distinguishing romanticism from reality, which given the complexity of Indian histories, is easier said than done. What we can do instead is begin to reconceptualize our notions of Indian identity through understanding bits and pieces of what constitutes Indianness today.

So what’s the big problem then?

The true story is simply too messy and complicated. And too threatening. The myth of noble savages, completely unable to cope with modern times, goes down much more easily. No matter that Indian societies consistently valued technology and when useful made it their own. (20)

 I pointed out in a previous blog that Vine Deloria, Jr. thought that one of the benefits of people idealizing Indians is that it inspires some to be more conscious of their impact on and connection to the environment. Here, Smith cites it as a problem: “Today the equation is Indian equals spiritualism and environmentalism (20). An “antidote,” he proposes, lies in reconciling manufactured history with “the secret history of Indians in the twentieth century,” and on the same page shows a picture of Geronimo in his 1905 Locomobile Model C (21).

More than simply having a penchant for keeping up with modernity, Indians also have a not-so-bright history, which includes “a riot of vastly different cultures, which occasionally fought each other, no doubt sometimes viciously and for stupid reasons. If some Indian societies were ecological utopias with that perfect, elusive blend of democracy and individual freedom, some also practiced slavery, both before and after contact” (19-20). Refusing to acknowledge otherwise is to refuse to recognize real history, even if it isn’t pretty. By valuing false, manufactured versions of people and their histories over real accounts, including glorifying stories of the greats—like Black Elk and Geronimo—we emphasize the importance of “the myth more than the genuine struggles of real people” (22). Smith explains that as contemporary American Indian people, if we “pretend we are real Indians, instead of real human beings, to please an antique notion of European romanticism, we may think we’re acting tough but instead we’re selling out” (23).

Since, as Smith claims, “[t]here will always be a market for nostalgia and fantasy,” he suggests that Indians as artists (and as I suggest, Indian writers, too) infuse their art with elements of real Indianness—which is often so much like the expressions of other artists, that it’s hard to label this kind of art as Indian in nature. Often, and sadly, others perceive that Indian art doesn’t meet the demands of the market for “Indian art” as it’s commonly preconceived. Smith states, “To be an Indian artist means always arguing about the rules, the process, the judges, the reviews, where the shows are and where they aren’t….In 1958 Oscar Howe famously protested his exclusion from the Phillbrook Art Center’s annual art fair. The judges said his entry was ‘a fine painting, but not Indian’” (35).

The problem lies not only in representations of Indianness through art, but also through film (which, I guess is also art when you think about it). Personally, the only movie with Indians in it that I can recall is Dances with Wolves, but since that presupposes much about Indians, I’ve read much debate on its legitimacy. Smith questions the appropriation of Indianness in film, especially film produced by non-Indians. He explains:

We are the Indians. On the screen, up there? That’s a movie about Indians. The films we write about and debate and criticize are usually about the idea of us, about what people think about that idea, about Vietnam, the West, or buildings and food. Often, we’re simply a plot device or there to provide visual excitement. That many of us would place real hopes and dreams of advancement in the hands of a business renowned for its single-minded focus on the bottom line speaks volumes about the intellectual state of Indian Country these days. (39)

His statement, of course, assumes that the market drives the role of Indians in film, and Indianness is appropriated through whatever means will ensure the attraction of consumers. Indians, again, are the objects of romanticism and stereotype.

His statement about movies being “about Indians” echoes Gerald Vizenor’s conjecture that appropriation does not equal authenticity. In Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance, Vizenor states, “The various translations, interpretations, and representations of the absence of tribal realities have been posed as the verities of certain cultural traditions. Moreover, the closure of heard stories in favor of scriptural simulations as authentic representations denied a common brush with the shimmer of humor, the sources of tribal visions, and tragic wisdom; tribal imagination and creation stories were obscured without remorse in national histories and the literature of dominance.” (17) He cites as an example artist Rene Magritte’s inscription on his painting of a pipe, which reads “Ceci n’est pas une pipe, This is not a pipe” (18). A painting of a pipe is not the same as a pipe in reality. So, too, are the Indians in the films Smith discusses. Smith might say in the words of Vizenor, “The portrait is not an Indian” (Vizenor 18): the films do not represent Indians, but merely appropriate their image and performance. However, the dilemma in representing truly authentic Indians and cultural practices disrupts popular notions of Indian identity according to the American public: they are reluctant to believe anything about Indians that doesn’t fit their definition of Indians. As an example, Smith refers to the director’s exclusion of Mohican farming settlements in the film Last of the Mohicans because “[p]ictures of Indian towns challenge the idea of settlers clearing a wilderness and instead raise the possibility that Europeans invaded and conquered and pillaged heavily populated, developed real estate.” He claims that the reason is “because the audience knows about Indians, and knows Indians didn't live in farming towns. To be outside the narrative, then, is not to exist. A film that attempted to show something more historically accurate would appear to audiences to be like science fiction, a tale from a parallel universe” (51). Smith, like Vizenor, points out that a close look at the dominant art/literature reveals the complete absence of Indians, and instead puts on a show of Indianness according to dominant ideology.

I’m including the following passage because I think it really illuminates some core issues that Smith explores in his text and poses some very real and important questions about notions of Indianness:

The particular kind of racism that faces North American Indians offers rewards for functioning within the romantic constructions, and severe penalties for operating outside them. Indians are okay, as long as they are “traditional” in a nonthreatening (peaceful) way, as long as they meet non-Indian expectations about Indian religious and political beliefs. And what it really comes down to is that Indians are okay as long as we don’t change too much. Yes, we can fly planes and listen to hip-hop, but we must do these things in moderation and always in a true Indian way.
It presents the unavoidable question: Are Indian people allowed to change? Are we allowed to invent completely new ways of being Indian that have no connection to previous ways we have lived? Authenticity for Indians is a brutal measuring device that says we are only Indian as long as we are authentic. Part of the measurement is about percentage of Indian blood. The more, the better. Fluency in one’s Indian language is always a high card. Spiritual practices, living in one’s ancestral homeland, attending powwows, all are necessary to ace the authenticity test. Yet many of us believe that taking the authenticity tests is like drinking the colonizer’s Kool-Aid—a practice designed to strengthen our commitment to our own internally warped minds. In this way, we become our own prison guards. (91)

Smith raises an important point: Indians in addition to non-Indians are responsible for perpetuating antiquated ideas of Indian identity and authenticity. If one needs to meet the above criteria in order to be Indian, well then, even as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, I’m not a real Indian at all. Time to dump that Kool-Aid!