Healing, Violence, and Native American Women

COLONIAL IMAGES AND TALES SUPPORT A CULTURE IN OUR SOCIETY THAT sanctions violence against Native American women. (1) To decolonize our culture, ritual affirmations of Indian women that offer alternatives to debasing and stereotypical representations need to be woven into everyday life. This essay will examine an American Indian Holocaust exhibit that translated colonial representations of Indian women, discussed their history and roles, and used tribal spiritual practices as a means for Native women and others to heal themselves from the debilitating effects of colonialism. These cultural approaches emphasize the importance of translation and transculturation as powerful tools to heal from the American Indian Holocaust. They also underscore the need to use Native rather than Eurocentric philosophy and viewpoints to begin to move beyond colonial hierarchies that have supported a culture that condones violence against Indian women. What Is Translation? When Europeans set foot in the Americas, they began a process of translating the world from their own point of view as integral to imperialism and taking over the land, resources, and Indians' labor for their own uses (Pratt, 1992). They used travelers' tales and images to support colonial hierarchies, placing men above women, and whites above Indians (Pratt, 1992; Mignolo and Schiwy, 2000). Consider, for instance, the famous image drawn by Jan van der Straet, in which he portrays the "discovery of America" as a sexual encounter between a European man and a Native woman (McClintock, 1995). In the image, the explorer, Vespucci, stands erect before a naked, erotically alluring woman who lounges in a hammock. She leans toward him with an outreached hand, communicating sexual desire and surrender. Caught in his gaze, the Native woman is vulnerable and his sexual advances are assumed to be welcome. Vespucci will, of course, inseminate her and the land that she represents with European ideas. In this way, he will civilize the wilderness (Ibid.). By exuding his power as a white male over the savage Indian woman, this representation supports racial as well as gender hierarchies, encouraging domination and its related potential for violence. Furthermore, Eurocentric tales described Native Americans in racialized terms as polluted and dirty, which encouraged violence against Indian women. In California, for example, Indians were viewed as remarkably dirty, ugly, and dark-complexioned. Hilton Rowan Helper's 1855 novel, The Land of Gold." Reality, Versus Fiction, describes Indians as disgusting and dirty. He writes, "partially wrapped in filthy rags, with their persons unwashed, hair uncombed and swarming with vermin, they may be seen loitering about the kitchens and slaughter-houses waiting to seize upon and devour like hungry wolves such offal or garbage as may be thrown to them" (Almaguer, 1994:112). These Eurocentric imaginings contributed to the extermination of California Indians, who evoked such strong expressions of repulsion and contempt (Almaguer, 1994: Hurtado, 1988; Rawls, 1984). Whites saw them as so primitive that they were more like animals than human beings. William Perkins, a white miner, described California Indian women as naked, dwarfish creatures around four feet tall. with heavy thighs, skinny, long arms, and pendant breasts. This description of these women, similar to early travelers' narratives, is more mythic in character than one of flesh-and-blood human beings. Dame Shirley, a female observer of mining camp life, for example, compared Indian women to witches. She described them as very ugly and haggard (Hurtado, 1988: 174-175). This loss of humanity made Indian extinction and extermination very desirable. For example, in 1851 the California governor, Peter H. Burnett, assured the legislature that "... a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct" (Almaguer, 1994: 121). …