The Indian

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Eva Marie Garroutte

Numerous tribes of Indian people populated the Americas for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. As Jack Weatherford writes in his book, Indian Givers, these peoples created great architectural monuments, made intelligent use of natural resources, created new plant species through selective breeding, made great discoveries in mathematical and astronomical knowledge, and reshaped the physical landscape. But as impressive as the achievements of Indian peoples have been, the image of "the Indian"--in literature, in the visual arts, in advertising, in entertainment, and elsewhere--has cast a far longer shadow upon the consciousness of the Euro-American society than the living individuals themselves. This has been true since the earliest days of European contact.

One of the earliest outlets for disseminating the image of "the Indian" was the outpouring of "Indian captivity narratives," which began in the early eighteenth century. These popular writings recorded hair-raising tales--both true and fictional--of settlers captured by Indians. Bearing titles such as The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion (1707) by Massachusetts minister John Williams, they followed a rather predictable formula. In it, a white hero or heroine was abducted, underwent sufferings and even torture, was initiated into Indian society, but was finally and miraculously delivered once again to his or her own people, through the grace of God. The Indian which emerged out of these narratives was typically a savage beast: primitive, sadistic, cunning, filthy, villainous, and altogether terrifying. Especially in the Puritan era, he was often shown as a direct tool of Satan, and he shrank not even from such vile acts as human mutilation, dismemberment, and cannibalism.

The captivity narratives were more than just a well-loved form of American entertainment, although they were certainly that: virtually no first edition copies of captivity narratives exist today because people actually read them until the pages disintegrated. But besides diverting their audience, the captivity narratives also instructed. Their wide circulation made them a very influential source of information about Indians in both America and Europe, and one which allowed the Puritans to think through their place and mission in the "New World." In them, America became the new, biblical "Promised Land" to be given over to them, the children of God, after the occupying hordes of pagans, the children of Satan, had been driven out.

It is hardly the case, however, that all the images of the Indian in America have been negative. To stand alongside the "bad Indian" of the captivity narratives, Americans also invented a "good Indian" or "noble savage." The good Indian was handsome, strong, gentle, kind, brave, intelligent, and unfettered by the artificiality and various corruptions of "civilized" life. One powerful version of the "good Indian" appeared in the early nineteenth century. This was the image of the Indian as wise healer. By this time, Euro-Americans had discovered that American Indians had a sophisticated knowledge of a great many medical procedures and preparations (including bone setting, febrifuges, and painkillers). Whereas the "bad Indian" had been ideologically useful to the dominant society, the Indian healer turned out to be commercially useful. White purveyors of patent medicine began capitalizing on widespread respect for Indian medical knowledge by associating their products with Indians, and traveling medicine shows such as the Kiowa Indian Medicine and Vaudeville Company often featured Indian performers. Unfortunately, however, the main ingredients in patent medicines commonly consisted of alcohol, cocaine, or opium, rather than any of the more useful therapeutic substances known to Indian physicians. The increasing sensationalization of medicine shows, along with the professionalization and increasing social power of white physicians, eventually caused "Indian medicine" to fall into disrepute.

Nevertheless, "the Indian" did not disappear from public consciousness with the eclipse of the "healer" image. In 1883, William F. Cody or Buffalo Bill introduced a new kind of traveling entertainment, the wild West show, which also featured Indian performers. Here, however, these performers appeared as ferocious warriors. In staged battles, they assaulted wagon trains, fired off volleys of arrows, and displayed impressive equestrian skills. Many Indian people--including even the great Sioux chief Sitting Bull--acted in these shows. The same warrior image had been featured in the cheap paperbacks of the mid-nineteenth century known as "dime novels," and it was eventually transferred with little alteration into Western movies, the first and most famous of which was The Great Train Robbery. Like the captivity narratives which were their literary forebears, the Western movies frequently thematized the savage horrors which awaited whites who fell into Indian hands. "Save the last bullet for yourself" was Hollywood's oft-repeated advice to anyone fending off an Indian attack.