The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

What do you first think of when you think of an Indian? Is it a tall bronzed-skinned individual with long raven black hair, adorned with feathers? Or perhaps it's a man on a horse, or by a teepee or a man with a "peace pipe." Perhaps it is not a stereotypical image, but then what do we base our images on? Do we base it on the images we see on television or in movies? Where do we learn about Indians in our educational system? When do we think of Indians? In November, close to Thanksgiving, when grade school children learn to draw hand shaped turkeys and make construction paper "headdresses"? Or do we more often than not think turkey dinners and afternoon football?

What is the history of the Indian? Where does the Indian fit into contemporary American society? Where does the Indian fit into American history? Where does the Indian fit into American culture? Is the Indian still around?

Of course the answers depend on a variety of factors: one being location and presence of contemporary issues such as land claims, taxation issues and questions of sovereignty and rights. In certain locations around the country these are red-hot political issues that stir up controversy, emotion and at times hatred. What does this stem from?

It could possibly stem from the lack of understanding, acknowledgement of history and respect of a culture only slightly different from American culture. What may be a great discovery to many would be the significant contributions from the western hemisphere to the world as a result of Indian contact with western culture in 1492. Three-fourths of the world's agriculture originated in the western hemisphere, the seeds of democracy were already sown and flourishing in what was to become America.

Great ignorance abounds in America's understanding of Native American culture. How many treaties were signed? How many tribes/nations exist in the United States? Is it Native American or American Indian? Did the Indians lose the war, and were they forced onto the reservation? Is the Indian drowning in fights against alcoholism, poverty and despair? Did the term Indian originate with Columbus in 1492, believing he had found a vague area only known as "India"?

The answers to the questions are simple and yet extremely complex at the same time. Currently there are some five hundred and seventy plus Federally recognized Indian nations and some two hundred state recognized Indian nations. Over the course of American history some eight hundred treaties have been made with the Indigenous people of North America. No singular war causing the Indian to live on reservations ever occurred. In order to establish peace and friendship many treaties were negotiated with safety for both groups in mind. Reservations were not originally designed to be confinement areas, although throughout later history they would become that and thus entrenched in the collective American understanding. The reservation was originally intended to acknowledge the Indian culture and lifestyles. Although poverty, alcoholism and despair are part of the American Indian experience, it is also part of the American experience.

To the Indian, the connectivity was always here; stories do not tell of a mass migration across a frozen landscape. The stories tell of places located here in North America like Mato Tipilia (Devil's Tower) or Onondaga Nation Territory (the home of the Grand Council). To the Indian, they were always Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) Onodowaga (Seneca), Lakota (Sioux), Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) or Ongwehonweh (Real People.) The use of Indian became a common occurrence through the legal and historical thoughts in dealing with the US government, and because of the Boarding School era (1877-1925), which attempted to make classifications of different Indian nations irrelevant. In the Boarding School era, deliberate concerted destructive efforts were perpetuated upon Native children, where they may have arrived being Kanienkehaka or Lakota but left being "Indian." The best words to summarize this era came from Captain Richard Pratt, the father of the Boarding school era, who said their purpose was to "kill the Indian and save the man."

In books like Sherman Alexie's Tonto and Lone Ranger Fistfight in Heaven you will see modern Indians that still remember the past; you will read about Indians that live with the difficulties that stem from ongoing disputes with local, state and federal institutions over land, religion, poverty and substance abuse. But you will also see a resilient spirit that still loves to love, to laugh and to mostly be connected to others in community. There are times where the image of the Indian as stoic seems to conflict with the reality of experience. Indians find humor in a lot of things, and while sometimes some of the issues in this wonderful work may seem inappropriate to laugh at or unusually dark, it is in those moments you will find the soul of the Indian surviving and even thriving--continuing to live, love and laugh as we have always done.

It is in this vein of thinking and reading that I hope you will begin to examine what you truly know of and believe about Indigenous culture. It is through works like this that we can find commonality with each other in our shared experiences of this world. It is in works like this that we find that we are not altogether that different, and still have much to learn from each other. It is here with works like this that we hopefully begin to understand what our ancestors were trying to accomplish with the hopes of peace, friendship and forever.

Kevin J. White, ABD
Akwesasne Mohawk
Academic Planning Counselor-OLS
SUNY Oswego