Native American Artists’ Use of Irony in Works Restating the Past

History has recorded that the whites who came to America did not always acknowledge the existence of the Native Americans of North America, including the First Peoples of Canada, as that of a human race with a rich cultural heritage of its own. Instead, these interlopers created images that have varied considerably over the last half millenium reflecting both European and Native American social history during specific periods. These images more often than not have been, as Patricia Trenton and Patrick T. Houlihanphrase it, “paradoxical stereotypes” of Native Americans as “bloodthirsty savage and heroic warrior; hopeless drunkard in need of protection; victim of deceit, corruption, and greed, grudgingly but philosophically accepting his fate” 7 .

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