The Invented Indian

by James A. Clifton (Editor)

This is an explosive collection of essays, written by leading scholars of North American Indians, most of them heavily involved in service and applied work, often on behalf of Indian clients, communities, and organizations. In an area saturated with deadening, consciously politicized orthodoxy, these seventeen essays aim at nothing less than the reconstruction of our understanding of the American Indian-past and presentThe volume examines in careful, accurate but uncompromising ways the recent construction of the prevailing conventional story-line about "America's most favored underclass." The first eight essays introduce the volume and treat a variety of specific invented traditions concerning Indians. These are followed by four essays on broader, thematic issues related to the demographic, religious, cultural, and kinship elements in Indian studies. The final five chapters express a comparative from Anglo and French Canada, Europe, from inside the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and from a legal position.The Invented Indian explores how cultural fictions promote divisiveness and translate into policy. Throughout, the volume reveals a deep and abiding respect for Indians, their histories, and their cultures, saving its critiques for jaundiced academics and callow politicians. Representing years of cooperative effort, this work brings together a group providing breadth and balance. Far more than a critical collection, it is a constructive effort to make sense of a field displaying empirical confusions and moral muddles. The volume will be of interest to anthropologists, professionals in Indian studies, and policymakers.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

James A. Clifton, an ethnohistorian and psychological anthropologist, is emeritus Frankenthal Professor of Anthropology and History at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, and is currently Scholar in Residence at Western Michigan University.

Reviews

[Indigo bear · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is an extremely problematic and racist book. See Vine Deloria Jr.'s essay in the edited collection, "Natives and Academics: Researching and Writing about American Indians" (1998), for a thorough deconstruction of the arguments of each chapter. The collection is edited by Devan A. Mihesuah. Deloria's chapter is called, "Comfortable fictions and the struggle for turf: An essay review of The Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies".

Deloria doesn't find major problems in every chapter. But almost all of them are revealed to be deeply flawed and problematic. He appreciates the Richard de Mille chapter, "Distinguishing two components of truth", and the Christian Feest Chapter, "Europe's Indians" (even if the latter is disturbing because it shows "Europeans build up fantasies about Indians the same way American Whites do" [p.81 of the Mihesuah book]).

Deloria concludes, though, that "Every Indian should read this book [The Invented Indian] because it does represent the attitude of a significant percentage of American and Canadian citizens who, knowing very little of their own history and having great personal psychological problems, tend to vest their hope for reality in an image of savage nobility which they and their predecessors have created. Not willing to admit it, they then blame us for perpetuating whatever images become popular among whites" (p.82 of the Mihesuah book).

Deloria's chapter was also published in the Winter 1996 edition of America Indian Quarterly (the special issue published there was the basis for the publication of the Mihesuah edited book).

[Michelle Boyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great collection of essays dealing with Native American depictions, as placed upon them by others. These "invented" ideas exist even today.

[Donn Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Common sense approach to the mythology that our government was based on the Native American Iroquois Confederation. One mention in a letter years prior to either the Articles of Confederation or The US Constitution does not an influence make. Rather look at what the Founders themselves read and wrote and you will find the influence of Enlightenment Philosophs; and the authors of Classical Antiquity; the writers who commented on the Common Law; and New England Covenant Ideology originally derived from the New England Puritans and their special interpretation of the relationship between man and God as a Covenant and defused through Colonial America, softened in its denominational rigor until this idea influenced how men interpreted their relationship with government. All of these and the Eighteenth Century Commonwealthmen cited as the catalyst by their decrying the corruption in the English Parliament- these influences (that the Founders wrote about)gave the American Founders all of the influence they needed to make a government- without the help of the Iroquois Confederacy. The simple fact is that our Founders were men of their time, not ours and they did not respect anything of the Native American as we do; and they saw no possible way anything could come from Native American culture that had not been given to them by Europeans.

[Dean Akin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very informative read. This book is 15 chapters in total with each chapter written by a different anthropologist. The authors
each take a different topic to expound upon the greater myths that westerners believe about the American Indian.
It was disappointing to find out that much of the rhetoric that we as americans where lead to believe about the american indian,
is just a lot of anti-western history revisionism. The idea that the AI was very advanced both technically and civilly before the
europeans started visiting these shores is unsubstantiated at best and in some cases a complete fabrication. It is a fact that ALL
major advancements that where observed of the american indians by the colonists did not exist prior to the 16th century. What most
moderns fail to recognize is that indians where a neolithic people and in a state of stagnation as human beings. Only as you head down
to Mexico do you come to the Aztecs that where more advanced but no less savage. A culture living in a complete state of barbarism that no
european could ever imagine. This book is not against American Indians but rather sets out to correct a grievous error that has had a disastrous
affect on our identity as a culture and a nation.