On Halloween I was sitting on the front porch watching Scrub
Jays dart from branch to branch. The evening shadows melted into liquid dusk. Then
I lit candles in the pumpkins we carved and waited for the parade of neighbor
kids Trick-or-treating. There was a rush of footsteps and
laughter. I chatted with parents, ooh and aah over the costumes. One kid was
dressed as a purple dinosaur. Another was made to look like grapes wearing a
green shirt covered with green balloons. And there was a tiny girl with two long black
braids, wearing faux-leather, dressed as Pocahontas and her dad
was wearing a headdress.
I love Halloween, but my thoughts are heavy
saddlebags. It was
unintentional, of course. This father was unaware that it is disrespectful to
dress his daughter and himself as Native American. I could shrug
it off as cultural borrowing and overlook cultural
appropriation, after
all, he means well. But I can’t. As Native American people we are a culture—not
a costume. I understand that wearing
a culture as costume is not intended to hurt most of the time. However, the
fact of the matter is that it does.
Native social justice
activists have been speaking out against Native American themed costumes for
decades, yet companies still produce them, and stores still order and sell
them. When I contacted a number of the costume supply stores in my city and
state the owners I spoke with said that their Pocahontas, Indian Brave and Big Chief costumes
are top sellers, and they would lose business if they didn’t stock and sell
them. Some people buy and wear these costumes out of naiveté and others in a blatant disregard, disrespect and
irreverence.
Our Native
American regalia is a tradition for our Native people, and the wearing of it is
a distinctly indigenous activity. It is imbued with spiritual meaning and an expression of culture and
identity. For Native dancers, not only is the act of dancing that expression, but
also the wearing of dance regalia is a visible manifestation of one's heritage.
Often
the beadwork contains personal motifs that reflect the dancer’s tribe and
frequently beadwork is created by a family member and given as a gift to the
dancer. Feathers receive utmost respect. Regalia is one of the most powerful symbols of
Native identity and is considered sacred. This is one reason why it is inappropriate to
refer to regalia as a "costume."
However we (by we, I mean American society) are stuck in a
mode where too many people tolerate imitating American Indian people. These
activities are indicative of an ignorant society that refuses to see American
Indian people as people.
Most damaging is the Halloween " Pocahottie” and “Sexy Indian Girl” costumes
which have gained popularity. I can begin by
referencing statistics about how many Native women are sexually assaulted (one
in three). The rate of sexual assault is more than twice the
national average, stressing the point that dressing up and playing Indian is
not a harmless activity.
When a costume or sexiness is based on race, ethnicity,
or culture, human people are being extracted for the sake of making the wearer
of the costume feel powerful, or exotic. There
is also cultural appropriation. It involves members of a dominant group
exploiting the culture of a less privileged group and equals belittling the
lived experience and ethnicity of those who have birthright.
Native American people are one of the most underrepresented and
misunderstood minorities in all of North America. Too often the First Americans
are depicted as existing during colonization and western expansion, as if belonging
only in the past, but not as people in todays world. No myth about Native people is
as prevalent, or self-serving as the myth of the vanishing Native, also known
as “the vanishing Indian” or “the vanishing race.” Therefore it’s no surprise so many feel that wearing Native
American-alike regalia as costume isn’t offensive—because in their mind Indians no longer exist.
In my mind the problem stems from the fact that America has a long
history of regarding its Native people as profoundly different and somehow not
human. By traditional western values Native peoples are viewed as creatures of
whimsy that have disappeared into history, making their images, cultures and
manner of dress and regalia available for the taking.
Copyright 2020 Terra Trevor. All Rights Reserved.
Author’s Note: As a writer of mixed descent, including Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, I neither presume to speak for any sovereign nation nor identify with the dominant culture.
