Week 9 Response

Mr. Deloria,
Thank you for  this eye-opening account of the appropriation of Indian dress and Indian roles by white Americans. Exploring the ways in which whites have used this appropriation to shape national identity in different eras is very stimulating. I had never thought about the ways in which appropriation could shape one’s thoughts about an ethnic group or even the ways it could be used to create national identities over time. Colonial rebels dressed and imitated Indians at the Boston Tea Party to claim an aboriginal American identity allowing men during the nineteenth century to rethink the idea of a revolution as well as consolidate national power. Appropriation was also used to help city dwellers deal with concerns about nature, anxiety from the Cold War, and relativism. However, you shed light on the facts that playing Indian has been connected with conquest and dispossession of Indians. What was even  more interesting was the account of how Indians have reacted to these imitations of their native rituals, language, and culture. Highlighting the ways in which Indians challenged these preconceived notions of suggest the strength of Indian peoples and other marginalized groups. I would be interested in your exploration of playing Indian in modern day, specifically the way whites use Indianness to create personal identities and cultures for themselves.
An intellectually curious student

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  1. sadhanaMay 29, 2018 at 12:10 PM

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  2. sadhanaMay 29, 2018 at 1:16 PM

    Thank you for your post about the ways in which white appropriation of Native American culture is a historic manifestation of white American identity crisis. In fact, the very reason for the instability of American identities, as Deloria points out, "stems from the nation's inability to deal with Indian people." As the title of Deloria's piece indicates, the act of playing Indian —— appropriation which is performative —— manifests the creation of American identity itself. Just as the nation of America as we know it was created from the massacare of Native American peoples, the myth of American identity to hinges on that same history. It too starts from the same place. We must not forget that history.

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