Eurocentrism and the Noble Savage

[mbarrick]

These are from the Natural History Museum in New York, from the West Coast Native Indian exhibit. These depictions and ones like them hang over the area devoted to each grouping (i.e. Salish, Nootka, Haida, Bella-Coola, etc.) and were clearly done in the late 19th century. The Classical Academic style just killed me.

"House Building Ceremony - Nootka" Elaine got a particular chuckle out of the Christ-like representation of the shaman. Personally I liked how the unpainted totem-pole is made to look like a classical stone column.

"Cooking Clams - Salish" What exactly is that stone-looking structure in the background supposed to be? Last time I looked around the Indian reserve in Duncan I didn't see any Hellenic temples...

To be fair these paintings date from a whole different mindset and the artifacts and text displayed beneath them were more in keeping with contemporary standards.

Comments

Misinformed

[sovietnimrod.livejournal.com]

When I was in England in 1983 to visit relatives, I went out one night with my cousin and chilled with a few of his friends at the local watering hole The Gate (this being England and able to go into a pub at age 14 with an adult...

Anyways, my cousin's friends had the most misinformed notion of Canada - especially when it came to Indians. Some of them thought that moose and elk wandered our downtown streets as frequent as the squirrels.

They also thought that Indians still lived in teepees. One guy, I think his name was Warren, actually thought that Indians lived in teepees downtown as well as the 'burbs, but had modern paved driveways, letterbox, and manicured lawns.

I was however able to convince him that Indians no longer raided White settlements for food...