Tribes have distinct histories, cultures, beliefs, languages, and physical characteristics. However, some books oversimplify, combine disparate traits, or fail to identify the cultural affiliation of their characters. This image has been perpetuated for decades by the press, advertising, and Hollywood. This tendency to combine characteristics or discount differences is also prevalent in descriptions and illustrations of American Indian material culture. Some authors fail to research their subjects, preferring, for example, to show their characters traveling in birchbark canoes while living in tipis, or painting Southwestern-style pots while sitting beside totem poles.
Indian cultures are dead or dying.
Often the most subtle stereotypes are the most insidious. Many books, both fiction and non-fiction, are written in the past tense, perpetuating the idea that all Indian cultures are of the past, have died out, or are almost extinct. One variation of this stereotype is writing that concentrates on pre-reservation Indian life, with no recognition of the vital, flourishing, and constantly changing cultures that exist today. These books describe the gains made by native people in revitalizing their own traditions and demonstrate the challenges of living in a country where European values predominate. Indians are primitive and incapable of initiating action or controlling their own fate.