a man sculpting in a yard filled with other large face sculptures

Native American imagery is all around us, while the people are often forgotten

For indigenous people, everything from the word “America” to the insulting ways native symbols are used is a reminder of how those of European ancestry nearly killed a culture—and still misrepresent it.

Hungarian-American sculptor Peter Toth, at his Florida studio, has created 74 statues of native peoples in North and South America, part of his Trail of the Whispering Giants collection. Some say the images are rooted in physical stereotypes and caricature. While Toth’s work raises questions about authenticity, he says his work honors native culture.
ByMark Trahant
Photographs byDaniella Zalcman
10 min read
This story appears in the December 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine.

The problem began with one word: “America.”

That word, honoring Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, was coined in Europe in 1507, when it was used on a map of the New World. But back then, the only Americans were indigenous. It was our world, but it wasn’t our word.

young boys posing for a portrait dressed in red football uniforms
a fence with a symbol of an Indian chief
a man posing for a portrait surrounded by sports memorabilia
a high school mascot dressed as a Native chief
Ohio’s Cuyahoga Heights Middle School football team, the Redskins, gather after a game. Thousands of U.S. schools and collegiate and professional sports teams use native themes, including the Braves, Blackhawks, Chiefs, and Indians. Ohio ranks high among the states with the most Indian mascots.
Photograph by Daniella Zalcman

By the time the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, white people were simply referred to as “the Americans.” My ancestors were called American Indians. It’s a label twisted by accidents of history: The Italian explorer who gets his name on two continents and another Italian, Christopher Columbus, who dubbed indigenous people “Indians,” presumably because he thought he was in the East Indies.

American Indian: Two labels we didn’t choose. We might have been called something else. Columbus wrote on October 11, 1492, of encountering handsome people who “are of the color of the Canarians [Canary Islanders], neither black nor white; and some of them paint themselves with white, and some of them with red, and some of them with whatever they find.”

Canarians. Imagine if that name had stuck. These days American Indian symbols are everywhere. Think about all those college and high school football teams and their mascots. Think of Washington, D.C.’s National Football League team and the Major League Baseball teams in Cleveland and Atlanta. Think of boxes of butter. Or motorcycles. Or beer.

Indians are less than one percent of the population. Yet images and names of Indians are everywhere. 
Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, “Americans” exhibit, on display in Washington, D.C., until 2022.
a powow cleanser box on a white background
a coppertone bottle on a white background
two candles shaped as native american figures
native american legos on a white background
a Pontiac logo on a white background
a penny decorated with an indian figure on a white background
a burgundy onesie- "start 'em Young... Raise 'em Right!"
yellow corn meal on a white background
land o lakes butter pack on a white background
a native American barbie doll on a white background
a beer label on a white background
a savage arms 1979 catalog on a white background
a pack of American spirit cigarettes on a white background
colorful plastic cowboy figurines
a hanker chiefs box on a white background
1 of 15
Powow Cleanser Supreme, 1955.
Photograph by ERNEST AMOROSO, NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

They are caricatures, symbols of the European-American narrative that ignores the genocide, disease, and cultural devastation brought to our communities.

Our ancestors built indigenous cities such as ancient Cahokia (east of St. Louis, Missouri) and Double Ditch (north of Bismarck, North Dakota). But the First Nations often are dismissed as “rural,” or not urbane. Benjamin Franklin, for one, saw the richness of the native culture—and government—that was already here. He wrote in 1751, praising the Iroquois confederation of Indian nations, that “has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies, to whom it is more necessary, and must be more advantageous, and who cannot be supposed to want an equal understanding of their interests.”

Signs of indigenous culture are ubiquitous in America. But the people they represent are often forgotten.
a closed shop in the shape of a teepee
a statue depicting a teepee made out of concrete
a orange and beige color teepee
a gift shop in the shape of a teepee during sunset
The teepee, traditionally used by Plains Indians, is a popular—and sometimes co-opted—symbol of Native American identity. Images here: first, an Indian-owned, now closed espresso shop in Browning, Montana; second, a rest stop in Spearfish, South Dakota; third, a camping space for rent in Cody, Wyoming; and last, a gift shop, Tee Pee Curios, on Route 66 in Tucumcari, New Mexico.

The image of the American Indian as a marketing tool is partly rooted in the trade networks between indigenous people and European Americans. Native people excelled at trade. My favorite story about that comes from my own tribe’s encounter with the Lewis and Clark expedition in the early 1800s. The journal for the Corps of Discovery, as the expedition was called, mentions trading weapons to the Shoshone for horses. Days later, the journal complains that nearly every horse had a sore back. The pistols, ammunition, and knives were the better score.

But the story sold to the new Americans was the fiction that endured, enhanced by dime-store novels, shows such as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, and eventually, Westerns on TV and film.

a man reenacting the French Indian war poses for a portrait
Jeremy Moore, a reenactor, commemorates the French and Indian War at Fort Niagara State Park in Youngstown, New York, in July. He describes himself as Melungeon, a term used for some people of white, African-American, and Native American descent. The word “Melungeon” wasn’t commonly used to describe this group until the mid-1990s, and the group is not officially recognized by the U.S. government as a Native American tribe.
a non-Native man impersonating a Native person for a reenactment

Markus Vollack, a Swiss reenactor, gathered with other reenactors at Fort Niagara State Park in July to commemorate the French and Indian War. The weekend involved battle reenactments, living history camps, and other educational demonstrations for the public—largely meant to teach park visitors about the history surrounding the war. Indigenous allies fought on both the French and British sides of the war. A couple dozen reenactors who specialize in Native American impressions represented the Iroquois, Wyandot, and Algonquin fighters who participated in the war. Most of the reenactors were not Indigenous. Some came from as far away as Germany and Switzerland to participate.

Wars and diseases such as smallpox destroyed the world that was. With that destruction came invisibility. A recent study said that “contemporary Native Americans are, for the most part, invisible in the United States.” The report, called “Reclaiming Native Truth,” cited “the impact of entertainment media and pop culture” and “the biased and revisionist history taught in school.” It also noted “the effect of limited—or zero—experience with Native peoples.”

The ideals and people of the United States are better than this history. Yet it often still seems OK to mock the first Americans. A president can slur a woman with “Pocahontas,” and it’s not career ending. When my son played high school football, I would cringe when his team played a team called the Indians, knowing that ordinary, good people would chant silly, made-up songs and wear cartoonish paint and feathers. It’s beyond imagination that such disrespect would be shown to any other group.

a buss painted in green color and marked with "go Indian"
Native iconography in a drug store
a motel with a sign that says "Apache Motel"
a sign with a symbol of an Indian chief on the side of the road
theater with a sign that says "Redskin"
a cut out sign in a cemetery marking the spot where 96 Lenape people where killed
In Oklahoma, Catoosa High School’s team name, like many others across the United States, is the Indians.
Photograph by Daniella Zalcman
a statue in the dessert depicting two men on two horses

In 1877 Chief Joseph, depicted in this sculpture, led warriors eastward through the mountains of what is now Shoshone National Forest in northern Wyoming, chased by the U.S. Cavalry. Now known as Dead Indian Pass, the area is named for the one Indian who died rather than the hundreds who lived, evading the cavalry through the Nez Perce chief’s keen strategy.

a large statue depicting a face
Chief Leatherlips, a Wyandot leader who sided with western settlers and signed a treaty that ceded modern-day Ohio to the U.S. government, was sentenced to death by his tribe. He is memorialized in Dublin, Ohio.

Americans need to evolve. We need to think about why Civil War monuments are falling, yet Kit Carson, Andrew Jackson, and other Indian-killers remain celebrated.

It’s time to make Native Americans more visible. Explore the richness of our history and culture. Quit supporting insulting imagery and labels. It’s time to be real Americans.

Mark Trahant, of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, is editor of Indian Country Today. Photographer Daniella Zalcman’s work focuses on the modern legacies of Western colonialism.
This story originally published on October 5, 2018. It has been updated with additional photography.

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