Powerful Images: Portrayals of Native America

May 15 - August 16, 1998
Buffalo Bill Historical Center

Created by Museums West

For many non-Native people, the term "American Indian" brings to mind a warrior on horseback, eagle feather bonnet streaming behind him as he rides at full gallop across the Western Plains. That image is one of the stereotypes that the Powerful Images: Portrayals of Native America exhibition hopes to dispel.

The exhibition compares the "popular" images of Native Americans in mainstream literature, art, film and advertising with how Native Americans represent themselves through their own artistic traditions. Materials range from paintings and sculptures to children's toys and neon signs.
For example, probably no stereotype is more pervasive than that of the feathered war bonnet.

"The image of a mounted warrior wearing a flowing eagle-feather headdress is the first thing that pops into many people's minds when they hear the words 'Native American'," said Ray Gonyea (Onondaga), curator of Native American art and culture at the Eiteljorg Museum. "Historically, Native Americans all wore distinctively different styles of headdress, clothing and decoration to differentiate themselves from their enemies before they got too close."

The exhibition includes an eagle-feather headdress with trailer from the Lakota (Sioux), circa 1890, a Nakoda (Assiniboine)/A'ani (Gros Ventre) feather war bonnet, and a sign from the 1960s depicting - in neon - an Indian in a feathered headdress.

Emma Hansen (Pawnee), curator of the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, writes, "There is incredible diversity in native cultures of North America, evident in their different languages, economies and lifeways. The tribal groups of the Plains are probably most familiar. Images of the Lakota or Cheyenne warrior on horseback with his eagle feather war bonnet or the Navajo weaver or Puebloan potter have been repeated time and time again."

More than 500 cultural groups in eight broad geographic regions throughout the United States make up Native America. The incredible diversity in language, customs, clothing, lifestyles and religious practices should make generalizations impossible.

Unfortunately, such diversity did not make for good films, where the American Indian often was typecast: deerskin moccasins, feathered bonnets, horses and tipis. Even some of the most well-known Western artists romanticized Native Americans by choosing special, ceremonial activities to represent daily Indian life and by depicting these frozen moments in time as dramatically as possible.

As a result, the public developed mental images of Native Americans that were erroneous.

In the foreword of the exhibition catalogue for Powerful Images, Peter Hassrick writes, "Artists and writers, anthropologists and politicians, have over the centuries enshrouded their impressions upon America's native peoples, shaping through their images, their analyses, their prejudices and motivations the public perception of who the Indian is and how to know, appreciate, and, too often, manipulate Indian culture. Despite the diversity of native North American cultures, languages, economies and individuals, images in the popular imagination have tended to be generalized and one-dimensional."

Hassrick not only names 19th-century Anglo writers for creating strong impressions; he also cites museums: "From the earliest years of this nation's existence, museums have also played a vital role in establishing and perpetuating public perceptions of native life. The first proposed national museums were not displays of pilgrim curiosities, but collections of portraits of leading Indian figures as limned by George Catlin or Charles Bird King."

Organizer

The exhibition was created by the Museums West consortium - a group of 8 museums across North America whose collections focus on Western American art, history and ethnography.

The exhibition finished its national run at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming from October 8, 2000 through January 2, 2001.

Sponsorship

The exhibition and its North American presentation were made possible by Ford Motor Company. Additional funding for this exhibition was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, federal agencies, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

IMAGES

Image 1: American Indian Gothic, David Bradley (Chippewa/Lakota), 1983. Color lithograph. Buffalo Bill Historical Center, gift of Mrs. Damaris D.W. Ethridge. 1.84.5

"When I first entered the somewhat glamorous world of professional art, I thought I would steer clear of politics and keep my life as simple and positive as possible. Eventually, I realized that Indians are, by definition, political beings... I saw the continual exploitation of the Indian art community by museums in the Southwest...I witnessed multi-million dollar fraud by pseudo-Indian artists... and so [I] began to speak out on what I saw as widespread corruption in the art world." - David Bradley (p. 112).

Image 2: Feather bonnet, Nakoda (Assiniboine) or A'ani (Gros Ventre), Fort Belknap Reservation, Montana.