The Imaginary Indian: The Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture

by Daniel Francis

First published in 1992, The Imaginary Indian is a revealing history of the "Indian" image mythologized by popular Canadian culture since 1850, propagating stereotypes that exist to this day.

Images of First Nations people have always been fundamental to Canadian culture. From the paintings and photographs of the 19th century to the Mounted Police sagas and the spectacle of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show; from the performances of Pauline Johnson, Grey Owl, and Buffalo Long Lance to the media images of Oka and the Vancouver Winter Olympics?the Imaginary Indian is ever with us, oscillating throughout our history from friend to foe, from Noble Savage to bloodthirsty warrior, from debased alcoholic to wise elder, from monosyllabic "squaw" to eloquent princess, from enemy of progress to protector of the environment.

The Imaginary Indian has been, and continues to be—as Daniel Francis reveals in this book—just about anything the non-Native culture has wanted it to be; and the contradictory stories non-Natives tell about Imaginary Indians are really stories about themselves and the uncertainties that make up their cultural heritage. This is not a book about Native people; it is the story of the images projected upon Native people—and the desperate uses to which they are put.

This new edition, published almost twenty years after the book's first release, includes a new preface and afterword by the author.

Daniel Francis is an award-winning historian and the author of twenty books.

Genres: Nonfiction, Indigenous, History, Canada, Cultural

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[MasterSal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve put this review off for almost the entire month of November (I finished the book on Nov 10, 2019) because this is one of the more uncomfortable things I've read recently as it reminded me of all the stereotypes I've subscribed to and heard in my immediate circle - and as recently as last month.

This book is definitely worth reading, especially if you have little context of the portrayal of First Nations in Canada. This serves as a good introductory primer and survey of depictions in media with a particular focus on Canada. This book doesn’t compare the representations of the “Indian” against more “accurate” representation. As a result, the basic premise (that the portrayals of Indians have been flawed and a creation of European culture more than a reflection on First Nations) is set up quite quickly and the book does repeat. Each chapter deals with a different era but the premise is basically the same.

For readers who are familiar with the topic this book will be a little too introductory. I have seen this topic being covered with more feeling in Reel Injun and The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America. (The latter is essential reading for all North Americans I feel). This is an academic text which has its place but didn’t grab me as these others.

The book is actually quite easy to read and not dry so I would recommend this to everyone. I am rating it 4 stars only because I’ve actually read around this subject before and the other books made me cry and laugh at the same time as depressing me when I realised how much of this still continues in 2019.

[ella · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for school
technically didn’t have to finish it for the course but i wanted to so 🤷‍♀️

[Rach · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book forced me to look from a different view that I truly didn't think would happen. Living in Ontario I was constantly told that I was horrible for what my past relatives have done. I had seen racism but it was never that prominent in my area. I had taken a diversity class that explained certain problems but I never looked at the image of the indigenous people until reading this. book.

[GwenViolet · Rating 4 out of 5]

The kind of book that probably should be assigned in every grade 10 social studies/history/whatever class. As a piece of cultural studies it is fantastic breaking down the polysemic uses of "the Indian" in Canadian culture, showing how they feed into a broader notion of Canadian national identity.

Where it falters is made clear in the afterword, where Francis presents the Truth and Reconciliation-era of Canadian politics as a clean break from the earlier "assimilationist" "solutions" to "the indigenous problem," but I think he veers too much into a liberal triumphalism about how much white perceptions have been changed (which may or may not be true) but what I know isn't true is that a lot of the problems he describes (Lack of access to drinking water, disparities in education, etc.) are still pretty blatant problems. Ironically enough this "look how far we've come" becomes itself a building block in contemporary Canadian liberal/nationalist discourse.

That's an important nitpick, but I don't think it should detract from how useful the book is as an examination of white Canada.

[Michelle Boyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look at the ever-changing images of Indigenous peoples in Canada. As the author notes, "The image of the Other, the Indian, was integral to this process of self-identification. The Other came to stand for everything the Euro-Canadian was not" (p8).

Francis discusses the 'Vanishing' imagery that we've all come to see in film, literature, and policy itself. The images then change to celebrity Indians, environmentalists, etc. Throughout, Francis discusses how different images are appropriated and how there are dramatic changes as Canada evolves.

A fun read, despite the horrid treatment of Indigenous peoples by the Canadian government.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It was a little dry at times, but I thought it did a good job of covering the subject area and made some very good points. I didn't really buy his assertion that Canadians are uneasy with their status on this continent and that they feel they have to turn themselves into Indians to fit in. It sounds like the kind of thing people used to talk about in the '70s and before, when they'd wring their hands and say Canadians had no culture. But everything else in the book made a lot of sense to me, and I thought he did a great job of showing how the Indian as we picture them are a social construct invented by white people to serve a variety of different propaganda purposes.

[eenayde · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️4.5⭐️

Really fantastic, concise + well written book that explains the way the stereotypical images of the ‘imaginary indian’ has been constructed in North America as well as the ways this image has been used by the white population. The author is incisive and critical, asking important (and possibly uncomfortable to some) questions about how Canadians have treated and viewed indigenous peoples over the period of its history. Highly recommend to anyone to read!! It would certainly put some needed self awareness into some people…

[Harve Lemelin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book should be mandatory reading for all Canadians. For by exploring the centuries of colonisation in North America, Francis depicts the ongoing manipulations of Indigenous peoples by bureaucrats, leaders, artists, photographers and capitalists. Also discussed is the erasure of Indigenous peoples from the landscape and history, and the appropriation of Indigenous symbols (like totem poles) by the tourism industry.

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a notable characteristic of colonies of settlement that their indigenous peoples are often used as a way to mark distinctiveness even when there seems to have been a colonial policy of extermination (the US is an exception to the first but not second part of that statement). In this engaging, accessible and carefully developed account Francis explores various ways that the Canadian state (and its colonial predecessors) grasped the means to define 'Indianness' by writing them out of the past as anything other than savages (noble and not so noble). He then explores a series of ways the 'image of the Indian' was presented to develop a sense of First Nations peoples as defined by the colonisers: they performed, they became tourist versions of indigneous peoples, and those of childhood fiction, and then became a marketing tool for the state and tourist industries. As if this wasn't tragedy enough, Francis then shows how these colonial images shaped government policy and visions leading to assimilationist policies, policies that blame indigenous peoples for their dispossession and social exclusions, and that views them as archaic enemies of progress. Francis does not explore the impact of these views on the current treaty process (the book was written in 1992 before significant progress had been made in areas such as Nunavit or with the Ni'isga), but I suspect these views of First Nations as archaic are a major obstacle to meaningful developments in steps towards colonial justice. I adore this book – it is a real cracker.

[Matthew Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Imaginary Indian, by Daniel Francis, is an amazing history of the mythical North American Indigenous People, often called Indians. Or, should I say, this is the version of Indians that late nineteenth and early twentieth century North Americans believed Indians to be.

One of the most interesting aspects dealt with the contribution to understanding West Coast Indians better, as seen by the famous Canadian painter Emily Carr. Emily Carr wanted to preserve the architecture of the Indians and she devoted much of her artistic career to rendering these images for posterity.

At the turn of 1900, many people thought Indians were becoming extinct and therefore, this history needed to be preserved. However, this was not the reality, but the mythical version of a common image that was narrated and captured in artistic forms and later photography. These are the white man’s versions. The Indians were not really asked what they were all about.

The Imaginary Indian is both a pleasure read and an academic source for Aboriginal Peoples misrepresentations and the real facts.

[Whitney · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overview of mainstream images of Native Americans (Canadians). I especially appreciated the Canadian-centricity - aiming a lens north of our border to bring into focus events from a new point of view.

[Timothy Favelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, easy to read and understand, well organized and full of information contrasting the first nations of Canada with the indians of Canadian imagination. I quite enjoyed it.

[CJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author being white felt wrong some how