When it comes to indigenous people, there’s often a tendency to erase them. This is either accomplished through genocide or by destroying their culture through appropriation and ignorance, but regardless of the method being used this hurts actual indigenous people a lot. People like L Frank Baum don’t just advocate killing them outright, one can disrespect indigenous people through cultural appropriation.
Things like claiming to have a totem animal, even though your culture doesn’t have one can be damaging to those who hold totem animals truly sacrosanct to those who have them. If your culture has a sacred animal, the only people who can receive them are those born into those communities or have received them with the spirit’s blessing. As far as I understand and recall.
While it’s true not all indigenous people have sacred spirit animals, it shouldn’t be taken so lightly to cultures that have these at all as these are important to them. As far as I know about African cultures, the only African cultures I can think of that have totem animals are the Cameroonian Bamilekes and the Ghanaian and Ivorian Akans. With the former, the animals associated with royalty are the elephant and the leopard but only the leopard’s the chieftaincy’s totem animal.
I could be wrong, but anybody who isn’t Bamileke or Akan claiming to have the leopard as their totem animal is taking their culture and beliefs very lightly. Similar things can be said about dogs and it should be noted that among the Akan, leopards are associated with aggression and dogs are associated with adroitness. Even then, these are totems that can only be inherited within certain Akan families from mother to child.
Any indigenous community with totem animals wouldn’t take these animals lightly and these are only passed down from relative to relative. Claiming to have a totem animal can and will erase cultures that rightfully claim to have these at all, it shouldn’t be taken out of context and so lightly. Likewise, even if not all indigenous Americans don feathered regalia but because it’s so important to certain Plains communities that it ought not to be taken lightly either.
I think that’s the problem with cultural appropriation, not only does it lack authenticity in terms of borrowing and appreciation for a foreign culture but also how appropriation takes certain cultural artefacts and beliefs too lightly. If it’s something that’s very important to their cultures, it shouldn’t be taken so lightly and the only way one can use these at all if there’s either cultural appreciation or if their culture gets influenced by that one.
For instance, in order for the Philippines to do more Chinese customs it has to be more strongly influenced by China. This would be the best situation for the Philippines to get away with doing these things, if because it’s now influenced by China a lot. Likewise, a popstar who stayed in Iran for a long time would do and get Iranian culture better than anybody who barely has any experience with it while appropriating it at the same time.
It seems if this were true, whatever attempts at appropriating indigenous cultures (or any other, often nonwhite) culture stem from insincerity. They may admire the culture, but only to an extent as they appropriate only the cool stuff but not the inner workings and they neither show respect to the people either. It’s like how many Evangelicals are tone-deaf to Jews who say they appropriate and bastardise Jewish practices like seder and Passover.
(No Christian, to my knowledge, has ever bothered learning Aramaic and Yiddish which makes one wonder if their interest in Judaism is more superficial than one realises.)
It seems to me, when it comes to people appropriating indigenous people’s cultures it feels very superficial and hollow as they only go for the cool stuff but not the inner workings and the deeper philosophy. To put it this way, this would be like only dressing up in Plains clothing but never standing up for Plains Indians’ rights, never hanging out among them for long and never learning their languages.
(This is where learning a language to know what’s actually going on elsewhere has over merely using the language one knows since childhood.)
It’s fairly not uncommon to see fancy dress that stereotypes indigenous people a lot, whether if it’s the Pocahotties or the warriors which not only appropriate indigenous fashions but also perpetuates harmful beliefs about them. In the sense it’s really just what they wear and not what the outfit means to them, especially if it gets sold to non-indigenous people and never profit from actual indigenous talent.
Those living in the North, especially in the circumpolar regions, wear buckskin and fur because it’s widely available and not so much as a fashion statement beyond what they can do with limited resources like these. These came about because the world they live in isn’t conductive to agriculture, though they do farming to a degree some of them are hunter-gatherers constrained by limited resources. The only plant-based clothing they wore was bark clothing.
Most Europeans, by contrast, came from a place with climate mild enough to cultivate and farm plants with so that’s why they wear linen clothing. (As for white Russians and Yakuts, a similar pattern follows to an extent since there are parts of Russia that have very mild climates like in Sochi for instance.) It wouldn’t be any better if there are plant-based indigenous costumes that are appropriated by non-indigenous people, but this goes to show you the problem with the extent of cultural appropriation taking place.
Another form of erasure is through stereotypes and misrepresentation, which not only generalises Indigenous peoples and cultures but also risks telling something harmful about them. Pocahontas, for instance, is a real person but the way she’s represented in the media is something that’s hurtful and demeaning to many Native American and First Nations women.
Though she was a young girl, she never fell in love with either John Rolfe or John Smith. But perpetuating the story that she fell in love with John Smith, alongside sexualisation of them, puts Native women at increased risk of violence from non-Native people. The fact that Missing, Murdered Indigenous Women as a hashtag was created to raise awareness of this should point out something. It’s even said that Pocahontas was the first MMIW, due to being kidnapped and raped by the English.
Ali Nahdee had to make a test to see if fictional Native women can escape certain cliches that harm their real life counterparts a lot, it goes like this: does the indigenous woman not fall in love with a white man, does the indigenous woman not get raped or murdered and is the indigenous woman the main character of the story? There aren’t that many stories that pass this test, which makes one wonder if they really care about the well-being of indigenous women at all.
Pocahontas doesn’t pass the test, which is saying when it comes to the way an actual historical figure’s portrayed. The fact that the protagonist was aged up to seemingly get away with interacting with John Smith makes you wonder whether if they see indigenous children as they really are. Instead of portraying them as mini-adults, which’s also the case with how some people see black diaspora children as.
It seems when it comes to indigenous representation in the media, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered an indigenous geek the way I do in the real world (online encounters included). Black nerds and black people involved in STEM like Baxter Stockman, Lunella Lafayette, Shuri and Riri Williams are well-represented in fiction, not so much for indigenous geeks and those in STEM even though they exist. Likewise, indigenous cat owners don’t exist in pop culture either.
Even though they do in the real world, not just in academic studies but also outside of it like ordinary blogs for instance. I could also say that black cat owners also exist, if it seems surprising to some people that black and indigenous people own cats as well as Asian people caring for dogs make me wonder whether if they actually knew such people or are too biased to see anything else.
It’s unfortunately easy to forget these characters exist. That’s why representation matters, where it’s like if you always show black people only doing sports that’s going to ignore black people who do other things like science and art. That would alienate black people who don’t fit the stereotype, or if one wills always thinking that or portraying black men with large penises ignoring those who might not be that well-endowed.
In the case with indigenous women, it’s like if they’re portrayed as either subservient/adjacent to white men or as wise sages and princesses wouldn’t that alienate indigenous women who don’t fit into these stereotypes? If you keep on portraying Asians as abusing animals, that would alienate those who genuinely like and take care of them. That’s why representation matters, especially if such portrayals are either stereotypical or offensive.
Even both. I think even the most well-meaning white people will turn to racial stereotypes, regardless of how long they’ve been with blacks or Asians because I think on some level they see them as other. Not quite like them, which is racist in that it kind of dehumanises them if one were to stereotype them at all. A certain white person may say they stand up for blacks, but if they appropriate the beliefs of certain black people like claiming to have a totem animal it can risk being insincere.
In the sense of being unaware of how important totem animals are to certain black cultures such leopards for Bamileke chieftains or dogs and vultures for certain Akan clans that they might as well be taking it lightly. I even think intersectionality’s the best thing to happen to social justice in that it addresses things that are unique to certain groups that those of the majority demographic don’t face.
Especially if they intersect, such as how racism and sexism intersect for many women of colour especially in the West. While women of colour face racism, some of these problems are unique to their own communities and ethnicities. Black women are frequently denied of their vulnerability and humanity, since they’re expected to be strong regardless if they have legitimate mental health problems.
It can be said that if some black women aren’t that strong, especially if they have mental health issues so this is a good argument for taking their vulnerability seriously. Some black women aren’t physically strong either, but there’s an unfortunate tendency to regard blacks as invulnerable to pain which dehumanises them and denies the help they really need.
Expecting black women to be mentally strong ignores their trauma, anguish and pain. Likewise, expecting Asian women to be demure and submissive ignores the more strong-willed, assertive and brash among them. Expecting Asians to be good at math ignores those who struggle at it (I’m Asian and I struggle with math), it also ignores those who might be better at say rugby (Eddie Jones at some point).
In the case with indigenous women and to an extent indigenous people in general, when they appear at all they often appear as stereotypes that paint them as either sexualised, primitive or abused. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be addressed at all, but the fact that there’s not a single indigenous geek appearing in fictional stories (as far as I know) says a lot about ignoring indigenous people and who they really are.
If indigenous people are proven to be marginalised by immigrants through hard data, they can also be marginalised by not appearing much in fictional media as well. If indigenous portrayals tend to be stereotypical, this would be disappointing to any indigenous person seeking representation at all. Indigenous people aren’t just physically exterminated, they’re also ignored if they don’t fit stereotypes.
If true, there must be something done about it.
fynm 