About everyone in this universe is guilty of pigeonholing against a certain race. faith. cultural group. nationality. etc. One of those groups that are stereotyped is the Native Americans. Ever since the Europeans “discovered” the New World. there have myths about the Native Americans that lead to this stereotyping. In the essay. “Myths That Hide the American Indian” by Oliver La Farge. many of those myths are brought up.
Due to these myths about the Native Americans. people’s positions. yesteryear and nowadays. of who and what they are have become highly deformed. or basically concealing the Native Americans from white people. One of the many myths that the Europeans created about the Native Americans is that they are bloody-minded. ruthless barbarians. Oliver La Farge does a good occupation in his essay of dismissing this myth by giving multiple illustrations of how most groups of Native Americans were a peaceable group of people that merely were non rather every bit good developed socially. economically. technologically. etc.
as the Europeans. Because of this deficiency of development on behalf of the Native Americans. the Europeans looked at the Native Americans as barbarian barbarians. The ground that this myth was even created was to warrant the slaughtering of 1000s of Native Americans at the custodies of the Europeans. with the justification being that they were inferior existences. which is another myth brought up. Once the Europeans had conquered the Native Americans. this myth was altered. now proclaiming that the Native Americans were drunken. lazy goldbricks.
La Farge besides discounts this portion of the myth in his essay. Traveling back to the point of the Europeans believing they were superior a superior race when being compared to the Native Americans. that would go on in any state of affairs if the fortunes were similar because it is human nature to believe that if one race able to suppress another race. so they will believe they are superior. This is one of the go oning myths that have hid the Native Americans from white people.
Another one of the myths that plagued the Native Americans is that the early European colonists tended to presume that all or most of the Native Americans had one civilization and that they were all at about the same phase of development. This myth could non be further from the truth. “The tribes and states that occupied North America varied tremendously. and their status was anything but static” ( pg. 7 ) . The civilizations of the Native Americans were similar snowflakes ; no two were likewise.
Many different types of civilizations are described in item in the essay. turn outing that the myth is wholly incorrect. Each folk of Native Americans had a civilization that. while considered backwards and incorrect by the Europeans. was alone. This myth helped to conceal the Native Americans from white colonists because if the Whites got to cognize the civilization of one folk. they would merely presume that all of the other folks had indistinguishable civilizations.
If that civilization they learned had some barbarian patterns. like the Aztecs giving work forces by rupturing out their Black Marias. they would presume that all folks did that and farther turn out the myth that Native Americans were barbarians. That is how this myth hid the Native Americans from white people. The first myth that was of all time started about the Native Americans is the Baronial Red Man or Child of Nature myth. What this myth is approximately is the Europeans considered the Native Americans to be kids of nature.
Besides. it “credited the Indian with either a preference for flowery but dull oratory or an inability to pass on beyond ‘Ugh’ and grunts” ( pg. 4 ) . This myth puts the Native Americans on the same degree as an animate being. If the Europeans thought the Native Americans were that ignorant. so it is no admiration why they thought that they were a superior race. The Native Americans became hidden by this myth because it is so wholly false and completely misrepresents them as a whole because they had developed linguistic communications and could pass on with one another.
Myths about Native Americans have. and will go on to be a cause of people pigeonholing them. Because of the stereotyping. most people will ne’er cognize the truth about Native Americans and they will stay concealed from white people. This stereotyping has gone so far that today. Native Americans will acquire dressed up for tourers in a costumes and set on war dances merely to delight tourers who believe in the myth because if they did non. the tourers would oppugn the legitimacy of them. That is how myths of the Native Americans have hid them.
