Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Representations of American Indians as stereotypical “others” have circulated widely in Europe, the Americas, and beyond since the earliest reports of Columbus's voyages. Building on classical, medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Romantic, and modernist tropes of the “natural,” the “wild,” the “savage,” the “barbarous,” the “heathen,” the “primitive,” the “tribal,” and the “free,” these representations have spread from travel and colonial literature into an ever-widening set of cultural domains. These include theology and philosophy; law, policy, and philanthropy; art and architecture; public monuments, museums, and spectacles; history and anthropology; fiction, drama, and children's literature; sports, games, and youth organizations; photography, film, and websites; advertising, tourism, and gaming. With the growing prominence of Native American intellectuals, artists, and activists during the last quarter of the 20th century, representations by cultural outsiders have been criticized, subverted, and supplemented, if not replaced, by Native American self-representations. Nevertheless, certain representations of American Indians dating to the earliest colonial encounters have been remarkably persistent.Anthropology and its predecessor, ethnology, have been central to the production and circulation of representations of North American Indians. The discipline has also come to play ... log in or subscribe to read full text