SOCI 2070 The Imaginary Indian

1. SOCI 2070The Imaginary Indian

2. Today’s Class • Colonialism, ‘Indians’, Land and Politics • The Rest in the West: Images of the Imaginary Indian • Are discourses of the Imaginary Indian ‘innocent’?

3. Today’s Readings Required • Daniel Francis,The Imaginary Indian: The Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture, 1-9, 219-224. • Valda Blundell ‘Aboriginal Cultural Tourism in Canada’ Joan Nicks and Jeannette Sloniowski (eds) Slippery Pastimes: Reading the Popular in Canadian Culture Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2002, 37-60. • Don Kelly ‘And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, Get Ready for some (Ab)Original Stand-up Comedy’ Drew Hayden Taylor (ed.) Me Funny Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2005, 51-65.

4. The Imaginary Indian “…my attention shifted from the display cases to the people who were tending them. I became aware that the facility was staffed entirely by Indians. But I found myself thinking that they didn’t look like Indians to me, the Indians I knew from my school books and from the movies, the Indians, in fact, who were depicted inside the museum displays I was looking at.” “The Indian is the invention of the European.” Daniel Francis

5. “a group of statements which provide a language for talking about (representing) a particular kind of knowledge about a topic” “it also limits the other ways in which the topic can be constructed” Stuart Hall Produces ‘meaningful knowledge’ Influences social practices Has effects: produces social relationships Connected to power: not ‘innocent’ Discourse

6. Land and Politics in British North America • Royal Proclamation of 1763 • Guaranteed Aboriginal title to land • Land treaties negotiated to expand European settlement • British North America Act, 1867 • ‘Indians’ and their lands are defined as a federal responsibility

7. Land and Politics in British North America • Indian Act, 1876 • Defined ‘Indians’ • “any male person of Indian blood reputed to belong to a particular band, any child of such person and any woman who is or was lawfully married to such a person” • Reserve system • Land set aside for Indians • Government policy of assimilation • Socialize Indians for integration into European culture

8. The Imaginary Indian “Europeans have tended to imagine the Indian rather than know Native people, thereby to project onto Native people all the fears and hopes they have for the New World. If America was a Garden of Eden, then Indians must be seen as blessed innocents. If America was an alien place, then Indians must be seen to be frightful and bloodthirsty.” Daniel Francis

9. Cowboys are good guys Settlers are innocents Indians are: Bad guys Wild and savage warriors Uncivilized Not trustworthy Childlike Simple minded: speak in ‘broken english’ The Violent Warrior The Drunken Indian Film Selections: Stagecoach (1939) Last of the Redmen (1947) Cowboys and Indians

10. ‘Real Indians’: Stoic (don’t show emotions) Noble Victims Spiritual Connected to the environment The Noble Savage The Spiritual Indian Film Selections: Indian in the Cupboard (1995) Beyond the Wild West?

11. Cultural symbols and practices thrown together to create the image of the Indian Ideas, assumptions, and forms of representation that may intersect with, justify/explain, and produce practices of economic, political, social, and cultural marginalization Includes: The violent warrior The drunken Indian The noble savage The spiritual Indian The Imaginary Indian