Basketmaking Guides and the Appropriation of Indigenous Basketry

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-72
Author(s):  
Ellen Pearlstein
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Boarding Schools ◽  
Native Peoples ◽  
Indian Boarding Schools

The first quarter of the twentieth century saw Anglo entrepreneurs rapidly develop how-to books, instructional kits, and models for the manufacture of American Indian-style baskets. Purveyors appropriated styles, stitches, and tribal names, and zealously marketed such creations as more affordable than the purchase of an Indigenous basket. Books, imported materials such as raffia and rattan, and stitching methods were disseminated not only across the country and internationally, but to American Indian boarding schools, where instruction not only resulted in appropriation, but also in deculturing the Indigenous basket and Native peoples.

Indian Boarding School Gothic in Older than America and The Only Good Indian

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kella
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Boarding School ◽  
Boarding Schools ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Native North American ◽  
Indian Boarding School ◽  
Visual Sovereignty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indian Boarding Schools

This article examines the appropriation and redirection of the Gothic in two contemporary, Native-centered feature films that concern a history that can be said to haunt many Native North American communities today: the history of Indian boarding schools. Georgina Lightning’s Older than America (2008) and Kevin Willmott’s The Only Good Indian (2009) make use of Gothic conventions and the figures of the ghost and the vampire to visually relate the history and horrors of Indian boarding schools. Each of these Native-centered films displays a cinematic desire to decenter Eurocentric histories and to counter mainstream American genres with histories and forms of importance to Native North American peoples. Willmott’s film critiques mythologies of the West and frontier heroism, and Lightning attempts to sensitize non-Native viewers to contemporary Native North American concerns while also asserting visual sovereignty and affirming spiritual values.

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