Bloody Savages/White Invaders: Images of the Other in Non-Native and Native Art

Abstract

Europeans, from the time of their first arrival in the Americas, documented the New World inhabitants and their "strange" customs via drawings, etchings, and paintings. These invariably inaccurate and stereotypical images of Native Americans as the "Other" are, even today, the basis for most people's beliefs about Indians. After European contact many Native Americans began to reinvent their traditional art forms by incorporating new materials brought from Europe, such as glass and ceramic beads, metal woodworking tools, and paint. And, like the Europeans, Native Americans began to document in their art the strange lifestyles of the Europeans who were taking over their homelands. This thesis examines the history and meaning of culturally biased European misrepresentations of Native Americans, the early Native American portrayals of Europeans, and an analysis of the art of two contemporary Native American artists, who address in their work the issue of the stereotyping and misrepresentation of the American Indians.