Neverland Indian Tribe

The Neverland Indian Tribe are characters in the 1953 Disney animated feature film Peter Pan. They are a group of indigenous people living in Neverland. They are led by the Indian Chief.
Ever since the Lost Boys have lived in Neverland, the Indians and the Lost Boys have had an unending mock-war; at the end of any "battle", one of the groups would end up captured by the other, which would be marked down as a victory, and then would be released in anticipation of the next game.
Their chorus, "What Made the Red Man Red?", was voiced by The Mellomen.
==Description==
The Indians are based on similar characters in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan play and Peter Pan and Wendy novel.
The Indians are made to resemble cliché stereotypes of Native Americans prevalent in the 19th and early 20th centuries that were portrayed in European comic books before and around the time of the film's release. The culture as-well is a pastiche of real-life American Indigenous cultural practices.
==Appearances==
===Peter Pan===
The Lost Boys set out to capture Indians which they do on a regular basis; they are ambushed and captured by the Indians instead and are held captive. The Lost Boys are baffled by the Indians who believe the Lost Boys kidnapped their missing Princess Tiger Lily. The Indian Chief demands her return by sunset or the boys will be burned to death. Peter Pan rescues Tiger Lily who has really been kidnapped by Captain Hook and returns her to the Indian Chief. They free the boys and reward Peter an Indian headdress, resulting in a celebration for Tiger Lily's return as the Indians celebrate with the musical number "What Made the Red Man Red?". They are not seen for the remainder of the film.
===Jake and the Never Land Pirates===
None of the Indians make an appearance but in the episode "Basketballs Aweigh!", a basketball court built by the Indians was visited by Jake and his crew as well as Captain Hook. When first seen, vocalizations of the Indians were briefly heard.
==Controversy==
After the film was released, in recent decades, controversy has grown around these characters, which some consider to be an insensitive stereotype. The main reason is because in their song they are depicted as people or a race mainly defined by sexuality; the lyrics attribute the Indians' red skin to their pursuit of women.
Although a similar depiction was displayed within J.M. Barrie's original play, the characters have been omitted near-completely in later Disney media, such as Return to Never Land, Jake and the Never Land Pirates, and the Disney Fairies franchise. They appear physically in the 2002 video game Peter Pan: Adventures in Never Land and in the Disney's Magic English series. A 2024 update to Magic Kingdom's Peter Pan's Flight attraction would retain Tiger Lily, but replace the film's other Indian characters (including Tiger Lily's father who actually appeared in the film) with a new group of less caricatured characters including Tiger Lily's grandmother, despite the fact that most of them were already less caricatured compared to their animated counterparts, ironically.
The criticisms seem to be missing the point that the Indians, like everything in Neverland, are in fact attuned to the imagination of children, and they resemble these stereotypes because those are the stereotypes Edwardian-era British children would have held.https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/neverland-tribe/
Marc Davis, one of the supervising animators of the film, said in an interview years after the production, "I'm not sure we would have done the Indians if we were making this movie now. And if we had we wouldn't do them the way we did back then...The Indians were Ward Kimball's stuff. Beautifully done. The Indians could not have been done that way nowadays. I like them. Very funny. Very entertaining, especially the Big Chief." As Disney historian Jim Korkis clarified, "It is important to remember that Peter Pan was supposed to represent a young boy's impression of pirates, mermaids and Indians and, as a result, these fanciful creations bore more of a relation to popular culture storybooks than reality."Peter Pan Platinum Edition (Audio commentary). Roy E. Disney, Leonard Maltin, Jeff Kurtti, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Marc Davis, Kathryn Beaumont, Margaret Kerry. Burbank, California: Walt Disney Home Entertainment. 2007.https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0046183/trivia
==Trivia==
*John Darling concludes that the Neverland Indians are Blackfeet, a high plains nation of Montana and Alberta.
*They do not appear in the 2023 remake.
==References==
fr:Les Indiens
Category:Disney characters
Category:Peter Pan characters
Category:Animated characters
Category:Native American characters
Category:Males
Category:Females
Category:Characters in the Disney animated features canon
Category:Adults
Category:Characters in Disney parks