#being ndn is a horror man

[circumpolarvampire]

"*X country* should colonize the US! Please nuke the US!"

You all will do anything to not give us our land back huh

[neechees]

I searched through your blog to see if you've answered a question like this before - if you have I missed it so sorry if I'm making you repeat yourself ^^

Are there things you see in Indigenous characters in media that you wish were less common ? What about things you want to see more in Indigenous characters in media ?

I dont think I have actually so you're fine! :)

So this is just my opinion obvi & some ppl might not agree with everything below, but here are some tropes or really common devices I see in Indigenous characters I hate and/or would like to see less of:

Interracial relationships but ONLY White person/Native person. I don't think this should stop or not be portrayed at all, but at this point it feels like we have more interracial relationships featuring a white person than we actually do depicting relationships between even Native people with each other. ESPECIALLY NATIVE WOMEN PAIRED WITH A WHITE MAN. God I am so sick of it, please give us Native/poc & Native/Native relationships for once, I promise it happens irl

That trope where a White person joins a Native tribe & essentially becomes one of them. For similar reasons as above, and again I don't think this portrayal should stop 100% & it's not necessarily "bad", but I'd like to see more diversity or a different approach to it. It seems like most of these are inspired by historical accounts of this happening irl, but most aren't historical depictions of actual historical people, which I actually WOULD like to see (White or not) more of, instead of just fiction. Also just kinda seems like wish fulfillment with White audiences who have a fetishization of Native people sometimes. Maybe I also hate it so much since it very often goes in with the white savior narrative too

Native women being brutalized on screen, oh my god. Seeing this over & over as a Native woman is literally so retraumatizing. A lot of times it gets to torture porn or voyeuristic, & wasn't even necessary to begin with. I don't care if it's to show how "bad" things are for us, I know, show it some other way.

White ppl making shit off of our Spirits & legends. Just leave us alone. They never get it right.

Just a lot of Native tropes in general because they're overdone. The Noble savage? Indian burial ground? Booooring. Unoriginal. Lazy.

Things I want to see MORE of:

This is just me because I LOVE history, but more historical Native settings BUT, set during Pre-colonization & precolombus. So many historic films about us are during colonization & being persecuted, & I think this is why so many Native people hate films with ndns set in history (in addition to making it seem like we ONLY exist in the past, which is fair), & other than that, makes it seem like our history begins & ends with being colonized

More badass Native ladies. I wanna see Native women who are femme fatales, wrestlers, assassins, martial artists, warriors, gunslingers, athletes, the works. I wanna see untouchable, dangerous Native women.

More fantasy & horror stuff I'm begging, I'm on my knees

The list for what we should STOP seeing in Native characters is honestly shorter because of 1. how severely underrepresented we are, and 2. Where we DO have rep has a lot of tropes that are very very overdone & constantly reuses those tropes, (besides the much lesser known, obscure stuff made by us for us, which isn't as high in number by comparison) so like the list for what we SHOULD try is literally so big I'll just end it here

[dovebuffy92]

https://fandomopolis.com/2021/08/17/reservation-dogs-season-1-episode-3-uncle-brownie-review/

Reservation Dogs Season 1 Episode 3 “Uncle Brownie” Review

Elora Danan Postoak (Kawennahere Devery Jacobs) takes the Reservation Dogs to meet her recluse Uncle Brownie (Gary Farmer).

Spoilers Below

In Reservation Dogs Season One Episode Three, “Uncle Brownie,” directed by Blackhorse Lowe, the three teenagers hang out with Uncle Brownie as he attempts to sell his ancient weed and teach them how to fight. The director Blackhorse Lowe is an award-winning Navajo Nation filmmaker. After Bear Smallhill (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) was beaten up in the “NDN Clinic,” Elora decides to take him and Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) to meet up with her uncle cousin Brownie whose known for knocking out loads of people at once at Ol’ Muggy’s Bar. Brownie is Elora’s deceased mother’s cousin, but they were raised together like siblings. “Uncle Brownie” re-writes what it means to be a warrior.

The dramatic opening sets up a powerful motif that is woven throughout “Uncle Brownie.” An older White couple driving along a highway argues over whether indigenous people in Oklahoma deserve their land back. Distracted, they crash into a deer on the road. The screen goes black. Then there is a wide shot of the dead deer in the foreground and right behind it, on the highway, looms Elora’s Grandmother’s car. Elora, Willie Jack, and Bear climb out of the vehicle. Elora correctly states that “old white people did this.” Bear says that they should take the deer with them in the truck. So they can cook the backstrap tonight. Elora, Bear, and Willie Jack carry the deer in their trunk throughout the entire episode.

At first, the way awkwardly transport the deer reveals that these indigenous teenagers still have a lot to learn. When Uncle Brownie comes out to hitch a ride into town with them, he notices the dead deer in the trunk. The smelly deer carcass has gotten bigger, probably because it’s swelling in the heat. Uncle Brownie spats in disgust. Bear explains they found it on the side of the road and plan to make backstrap out of it. Uncle Brownie wisely explains that they needed to gut it and butcher the deer first. That way, they could safely transport the meat. These teenagers know the value of a dead deer, but not the steps to bring the meat home safely. Now the venison is probably spoiled. In the final scenes, Elora uses the promise of the backstrap to convince Uncle Brownie’s old friends at the local bar to forgive him. Elora and Uncle Brownie bond while trying to get deer blood off their faces. Their plans to have backstrap for dinner are a tool to move the story forward since it reveals how the teenagers need Uncle Brownie’s teachings and then bring people back together.

Uncle Brownie shows an alternative way of being a warrior. Like the viewers, Bear and his friends are influenced by Western Media’s views about what an indigenous warrior or fighter looks like. In many ways, Uncle Brownie appears to be the opposite of a traditional stoic muscular leather-wearing warrior. He is a large man who spends a lot of his time smoking weed and lounging around his remote cabin. He wears a leather vest with a marijuana patch, a hat, a black t-shirt, a grey button-up shirt, and jeans. Uncle Brownie says he lives off the land, but his home is full of Sonic fast-food wrappers. Though at the same time, his knock-out left hook is legendary—we flashback to a younger Uncle Brownie at Ol’ Muggy’s Bar knocking out one person after another. Uncle Brownie was always drunk or high during these moments, but his strength is still impressive. Brownie is a flawed human being but a true warrior to Elora and her friends.  They call him uncle as a sign of respect.

The Reservation Dogs with Uncle Browning drive around town trying to sell his dried-out weed. Uncle Brownie coaches them on the warrior mindset. Bear keeps on bugging the elder to teach him fighting techniques. Finally, Uncle Brownie swings at Bear from the front seat. He advises the teenagers always to be ready. Throughout the episode, Bear tries to catch Uncle Brownie off guard. Bear points out that he still needs to train them on how to fight correctly. Uncle Brownie explains that indigenous don’t teach like White people. They don’t hand out books or have structured fighting lessons. Instead, the elders talk, and the young people learn by listening. Uncle Brownie has been teaching them this whole time.

The warrior teaches the youth that sometimes, one needs to get beaten up to become stronger. A warrior is somebody who gets back up after they fall. Until now, Uncle Brownie hasn’t truly lived by example.  He hid from the world. When Willie Jack sees the animal skulls nailed to the trees outside his cabin, she calls him a shapeshifter. He spits at her to reverse the curse, but The Thing movie poster on his wall suggests he feels like a monster. The 1980’s horror movie is about a shape-shifting alien. Shapeshifters appear to be bad luck in the series; associating Uncle Brownie with them suggests he is in a dark place. But in the eyes of the Reservation Dogs, he is a hero.

Watch FX’s Reservation Dogs on Hulu!

[moniquill]

So today I read a book called Sister Raven.

It’s by Karen Rae Levine. Here’s its goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16128296-sister-raven

This is a book that I wanted to like, but it illustrates perfectly why I'm so fucking done reading depictions of ndn folks written by non-ndn folks. This book made me hurt in my breastbone, made me ache in the space behind my eyes. 

The whole thing is written in the stilted, hyperformal language that white folks often take when taking upon themselves to retell Authentic Native Stories. 

Folks have names like Gray Wolf and Two Feathers and Dancing Otter. There is Rampant Capitalization, and awkwardly transliterated phrasing. No one uses contractions, and there’s the Cadence of Importance , something touched upon in this article about the langiage of horror: http://allthingslinguistic.com/post/132692150326/the-linguistics-of-horror

It's not Raven Man, it's Man Who Is Raven. It's never sunny out; it's Grandfather Sun Showing His Face. We have constant and perpetual reference to Grandfather Sun and Grandmother Moon.  Much is made of The Great Spirit. Things take Many Moons. Everyone speaks in parables.

This is a story with NDN characters - they seem to be paleo-algonquin, I guess - but no NDN values. The main character goes through the motions of living in a pre-Columbian northeast tribe; she lives in a bark-and-hide covered bentwood dwelling that she calls a lodge. She wears moccasins, and oils and plaits her hair. She grows corn and squash and beans. She refers to raccoons and beavers, deer and chipmunks. She harvests maple sugar and wild strawberries. She uses accurately-described neolothic technologies, the author clearly did her research.

But she is fundamentally a European fairytale heroine.

She was stolen as a baby by an evil witch who wanted to raise her for her own personal gain and was denied knowledge of her origins and identity (Rapunzel).

She has six brothers who have been transformed into birds but can transform back into humans at night, and somehow only she can fix this (The Wild Swans).  

Whereas actual NDN lore generally fixates on the number four (four seasons, for directions, four stages of human life, four sacred medicines, four sacred paths., etc) this story decides that seven is better. The author  takes the four directions and adds ‘earthward, skyward, and within’ to make a total of seven.

There’s a kind of fervent obsession with spirituality and gratitude, everyone is prayerfully thankful for everything in a very performative way. The author’s note at the end says this:

“It’s difficult to categorize Sister Raven. I prefer to think of it as historical fantasy. The historical part of the novel is the culture and lifestyle of the pre-Columbian Native Americans who inhabited what is now New England. The Fantasy, however, is completely of my own making. I chose a fifteenth century Native American setting because I felt it was the best fit for the mood I wanted to create and for the story I wanted to tell. I approached the historical research of the novel with diligence and respect.”

I don’t think that Karen Rae Levine is a bad person with bad intentions. I’m not angry about this book the way that I was angry about CSE Cooney’s story Household Spirits ( https://moniquill.dreamwidth.org/350055.html ) I’m just…. Tired.

This book was on my list because at some point it was recc’d to me as a good fantasy story with NDN characters. I don’t remember who or where.

I’m tired, because apparantly my people and my history are a mood. They’re a setting that anyone can pick up and play with, and if they ‘approach the historical research of the novel with diligence and respect’ they’ll get national book awards for having done so, and be praised for Good Representation.

And I’m TIRED.

I’m tired of people telling our stories from the outside, from a fundamentally misunderstanding place, and being lauded for doing so.

Numacheem yeu kesuckok.

Nus sauunum.

Nuttannakous muttae moocheke yeu kesuckok; Nuttiyam moskehtu newutche nuhhog.  

Nuttisowis Mosketu Kongkontu.

Nus sauunum.

Nukquenauwehik anue.

I’m not feeling well.  

I’m tired.

I worked very hard today; I made medicine for myself.

My name is Medicine Crow.

I’m tired.

I want more.

[last-tarrasque]

That kind of nonsense shows that land back has been made into nothing more than a slogan used to signal how “progressive” you are, not the slogan of a serious political movement. Liberal “progressives” do not seriously believe that the land belongs to indigenous people, but simply want to boost their “progressive” credentials. On a broader sense this helps declaw indigenous nationalism and redirect politics that would otherwise threaten the continued existence of the Amerikan settler colony into a safe, useless direction.

"*X country* should colonize the US! Please nuke the US!"

You all will do anything to not give us our land back huh