In Authentic Indians: Episodes of Encounter from the Late-Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast, Paige Raibmon argues, “Whites imagined what the authentic Indian was, and Aboriginal people engaged and shaped those imaginings in return. They were collaborators – albeit unequally – in authenticity. Non-Aboriginal people employed definitions of Indian culture that limited Aboriginal claims to resources, land, and sovereignty, at the same time as aboriginal people utilized those same definitions to access the social, political, and economic means necessary for survival under colonialsm” (pg. 3). Through a series of case studies, Raibmon details how different tribes negotiated terms of “authenticity” alongside white definitions.
Examining British Columbia, Raibmon argues, “The Kwakwaka’wakw who resisted colonialism’s prescriptive vision were not simply resisting change or modernity. They were asserting their right to a place within modernity” (pg. 28). Further, “Kwakwaka’wakw communities demonstrated creativity and strength in their conversations with colonial society. By the end of the century, many Kwakwaka’wakw were adept at turning the White economy back on itself” (pg. 33). Raibmon writes of the 1893 Columbian Exposition, “Set within their broader context, human exhibitions served a dual purpose: they demonstrated the state’s power to impose conditions of performance upon the colonized; and, at the same time, incorporated viewers into a body politic that manifested its power through the ability to view” (pg. 35). Broadly, Raibmon writes, “Survival under colonialism required compromises, but these compromises were not necessarily symptoms of decline and could be signs of resiliency” (pg. 64). Even those who worked in the Western economy shifted their behavior under the colonial gaze. Raibmon writes, “In many ways, life at the hop camps was a de facto performance for Aboriginal pickers, who found themselves in front of an audience without setting foot on an actual stage. But pickers also catered to spectators by organizing formal performances” (pg. 92).
The imposition of state authority also changed behaviors. Raibmon writes, “During the late nineteenth century, colonial interventions made it more difficult to host and attend Aboriginal gatherings such as potlatches. Colonial boundaries were one reason. Colonialism had drawn lines dividing Aboriginal people from one another, an international line divided them into ‘Canadian’ Indians and ‘American’ Indians, while intranational lines divided them into ‘reservation’ and ‘non-reservation’ Indians. These lines hindered movement, curtailing not only personal freedom but cultural practice” (pg. 103). In spite of this, Indians also incorporated the celebration of national holidays such as Victoria Day or the Fourth of July into their traditions (pg. 108).
Aboriginal groups also became tourist attractions for whites. Raibmon writes, “The immediate economic benefits Aboriginal people derived from marketing their culture by selling baskets and carvings, posing for photographs, and performing dances reinforced larger assumptions about authenticity that situated Indians in opposition to modern, civilized life. These were the same assumptions that legitimated colonial assertions of superiority and control. This was the dark side of the ideology of authenticity” (pg. 116). Turning to Alaska, Raibmon writes, “Sitka Tlingit wove lives that defied binary categorization as ‘traditional’ or ‘modern,’ authentic or inauthentic, in order to survive in a changing and often hostile world” (pg. 136).
Raibmon concludes, “Notions of authenticity that were closely related to the myth of the vanishing Indian simultaneously generated and delimited opportunities for Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people did not exercise much control over the terms of this discourse, but they often manipulated it to their benefit” (pg. 198). Further, “Aboriginal lives were complicated and hard-won blends of indigenous and colonial practices, but this fact was lost on authenticity-seeking viewers” (pg. 198). Finally, “Although rooted in assertions of stasis, definitions of authenticity shift over time. Elements that were initially seen as corruptions of ‘tradition’ because they developed from contact with non-Aboriginal cultures – Haida argillite carvings, Navajo wool blankets, or even horses on the Plains – have become benchmarks of Aboriginal authenticity” (pg. 202). ( )