"Indian/Not Indian " Topic

"People don't really like Indians," declared Fritz Scholder (1937-2005), whose taboo-breaking, colorist images of fellow Native Americans now showing as Indian/Not Indian at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) still provoke controversy.

"Oh, they like their own conceptions of the Indian – usually the Plains Indian, romantic and noble and handsome and somehow the embodiment of wisdom and patience. But Indians in America are usually poor, sometimes derelicts outside the value system…we have really been viewed as something other than human beings by the larger society. The Indian of reality is a paradox -- a monster to himself and a non-person to society"

Showcased in this, the largest Scholder retrospective to date – including the sublimely hued Super Pueblo (1968), the elegant American Indian (undated) [right], and the controversial Indian with Beer Can (1969) – are the prolific artist's radical transformations of both Native American art and viewers' perceptions of tribal peoples…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Indians on reservations tend to be poorer than the self-governing nations such as the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. There is no doubt about that.

All papers by Native Americans indicate that they prefer the term 'First nations' or their tribal name.
No Native Americans or Indians.

As someone with a number of First Nations people in my familyl I would second Rudy – their preferred term is either "Cree" or "First Nations"

As a person who lives in Indian country, whose school is on Indian land, and who has numerous Indian students and close friends from a wide variety of tribes (not to mention that I am married to a women who is also an Indian), I can tell you with great confidence that First Nations seems to be more of a Canadian term or one used in Yankee states. Around here every Indian that I know (and I know a lot) prefers the term Indian (well actually they prefer to be called by their tribe's name).

Also, to back up what Choctaw is saying, the economic conditions of Indians varies greatly by tribe and location (not to mention individual basis). For example, around here, one associates Chickasaw with affluence.

My experience is much more limited than Kevin's, but from spending time on and near the Crow and Northern CHeyenne reservations for lengthy vacations for the past 40+ years, I definitely agree with him.

As one Lakota said (paraphrased), "Native American doesn't say anything. Everyone born in the U.S. is a native American. American Indian would be the best, but it is too long. Indian is just fine."

He also said the tribal name is best, but the foregoing refers to a term for all of them. They think of themselves first as a Crow, a Northern Cheyenne or whatever. There can still be trouble between some tribes like the Lakota and the Crow.

Most of my contact is with the Crow and I have noticed that at least some of the younger ones are starting to use the term Native American. This probably comes from schools and the media.

Tom

Quite interesting to know… thanks!

Amicalement
Armand

I can back up what Kevin C and Garyowen had written. Here where I live there is a Reservation just to the South of me and another a little further to the north and a third to the Northwest. I went to school with them some were very close friends and I've worked with man. None of them had an problem with being called Indians.

Time to start on that ridiculous "African American" (this post written by an African).