Authentic Indians: Episodes of Encounter from the Late-Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast

by Paige Raibmon

In this innovative history, Paige Raibmon examines the political ramifications of ideas about “real Indians.” Focusing on the Northwest Coast in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, she describes how government officials, missionaries, anthropologists, reformers, settlers, and tourists developed definitions of Indian authenticity based on such binaries as Indian versus White, traditional versus modern, and uncivilized versus civilized. They recognized as authentic only those expressions of “Indianness” that conformed to their limited definitions and reflected their sense of colonial legitimacy and racial superiority. Raibmon shows that Whites and Aboriginals were collaborators—albeit unequal ones—in the politics of authenticity. Non-Aboriginal people employed definitions of Indian culture that limited Aboriginal claims to resources, land, and sovereignty, while Aboriginals utilized those same definitions to access the social, political, and economic means necessary for their survival under colonialism. Drawing on research in newspapers, magazines, agency and missionary records, memoirs, and diaries, Raibmon combines cultural and labor history. She looks at three historical the participation of a group of Kwakwaka’wakw from Vancouver in the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago; the work of migrant Aboriginal laborers in the hop fields of Puget Sound; and the legal efforts of Tlingit artist Rudolph Walton to have his mixed-race step-children admitted to the white public school in Sitka, Alaska. Together these episodes reveal the consequences of outsiders’ attempts to define authentic Aboriginal culture. Raibmon argues that Aboriginal culture is much more than the reproduction of rituals; it also lies in the means by which Aboriginal people generate new and meaningful ways of identifying their place in a changing modern environment.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Native American, Indigenous History, Anthropology, Academic

328 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2005

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paige Raibmon's work challenges the ideas of "authenticity" when applied to First Nations groups on the North-West coast. Her examples are excellent and her argument really shifted my views of documents related to "tradition" and "authenticity" and sharply brings into focus how damaging these ideas can be. For any historian of First Nations or indigenous peoples, this book is well worth a read.

[Lloyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This text is useful in examining the concept of authenticity and the impact it has had on Indigenous societies. It also provides some context on why authenticity has become a troublesome area for Indigenous identity and representation.

[Jpeg · Rating 3 out of 5]

includes some of the little academic work on hops industry in the northwest around the 'turn of the century'

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to the concepts of authenticity, modernity, cultural survival and adaptability in the context of colonialism and indigenous encounters.