Response # 6 -Daniel Francis (1992)

The imagined identities in Canada

            Daniel Francis begins the Introduction to An Imaginary Indian with an anecdote about his experiences traveling through the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Alberta. There, he observed Aboriginal members of a nearby reserve running the visitors’ center, giving tours and dressed in civilian (modern western) clothing. The mere fact that he experienced shock that the Aboriginal employees were not fulfilling a fantasized stereotype demonstrates how pervasive are the misconceptions and stereotypes about our Aboriginal communities. The question he reflects on is one of which all Canadians need to be cognizant: How had I come to believe in an Imaginary Indian? (Francis, 1992, p. 3).

            In this chapter, Francis makes the important distinction between “Native” and “Indian.” His frequent use of the term “Indian” throughout his writing is to highlight that Native people are not the subject of his book, Indians are. He explains that “this is a book about the images of Native people that White Canadians manufactured, believed in, feared, despised, admired, taught their children…it is the argument of this book that there is no such thing as a real Indian” (Francis, 1992, p. 5).

            So why, in the late twentieth/twenty-first century, do we still have these imagined perceptions? Francis’s anecdote and critique of his own mentality invites us to think about our own imagined perceptions of Aboriginal and other cultures foreign to us. Who put those misconceptions there, and what can we do to change them? There still exists this pervasive stereotype of Natives as being anything other than “respectable-looking…with well-washed unpainted faces, and combed and common hair” (Mair, 1899, as cited in Francis, 1992, p. 3). This is such a patronizing commentary on another culture that it makes it especially heartbreaking that those sentiments are still held over a hundred years later in Canada. The opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympics are a great example of how Canada highlights its rich Aboriginal culture only when there is a vested interest in doing so – highlighting it displays Aboriginal pride on a global scale, but only because it shows off the country as having a rich culture and heritage. The sordid history between the Aboriginal communities and the European colonists is withheld.

            Canadians are becoming more aware of why cultural appropriations can be very damaging – they perpetuate the imagined aspects of the culture, either romanticize or vilify them, and in the case of Indigenous cultures, devalue centuries of colonization and oppression. Appropriating art, clothing (especially ceremonial and religious), and colonialist designations (derogatory names, places, etc.) forces the Indigenous values to be seen as trivial when compared to the glorified colonial values.

            I attended a sharing circle led by the Truth and Reconciliation panel at the recent conferences at OttawaU. As many of the Aboriginal and non-aboriginal attendees shared their stories of oppression, hardship and victories, a common advice emerged: there is a strong need for all Canadians to be educated about Canada’s past and present relationship with her Natives and for that knowledge to be used to put agency and autonomy back into the hands of those Natives.

References

Francis, D. (1992). The Imaginary Indian. Vancouver: Arsenal Press.

Yanchyk, B. (2010). Aboriginal Canadians divided over Vancouver Olympics. BBC News. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8426055.stm