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On AICL, there's a page of "the foul among the good" that catalogs books in which Native people are stereotyped, objectified, and mocked in celebrated or popular children's books. Some of the images there are in old books that are still being published, and some are from newly published books. I've got another new one to add...

John Segal's Pirates Don't Take Baths is about a pig (kid) who does not want to take a bath. The pig proclaims "No! No! No! I'm not taking a bath. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Never." The pig parent says "Never?" 

From there, kid-pig imagines him/herself (gender not specified) as "someone else." Here's the summary from the publisher's page:

For any young child (or pig), there are few things more excruciating, more traumatic, more torturous than bathtime. And this little pig is putting his hoof down. No. More. BATHS. But how can he possibly accomplish this? Well, by being someone else, of course. After all, everyone knows that pirates, astronauts, and knights in shining armor - just to name a few - never, EVER take baths. Now if only he can convince his mother . . .

In his hilarious new picture book that is sure to become an integral part of bathtime routines, John Segal documents one particular skirmish in this never-ending battle of wills.

With each "someone else" pig-kid comes up with, pig-parent counters with a reason why the "someone" won't work. For example, pig-parent tells pig-kid that pig-kid can't be a pirate, because pig-kid gets seasick. So, pig-kid moves on to another "someone."

Most of the suggestions pig-kid comes up with are things someone can choose to be.

Astronaut? A job one might choose... Knight in shining armor? Ditto. Cowboy? Again, a choice. Same thing for treasure hunter.

In the midst of all this someone-elsing is Eskimo.

Pig-kid says "I'm an Eskimo. They can't bathe. Its TOO COLD."

Pig-parent says "Yes, but do you know what Eskimos eat? Whale blubber and walrus liver." To which pig-kid says "Blubber and liver? That's gross."





Come on, John Segal! Eskimos--who prefer Inuit, Inupiaq and their own names for who they are--take baths. You're having fun at their expense, and you're contributing to misinformation about people who Americans know so little about!

I'm curious, Mr. Segal...

You've got kid-pig playing Cowboy on one page, but you don't have the usual playing Indian alongside it. I wonder why you didn't do that? I'd like to think you knew better, but the Eskimo page tells me otherwise. Playing Eskimo is just as bad as playing Indian.

And---what's up with making fun of food Alaska Natives eat?! As Erin (a librarian who works with Inupiaq children) writes in her review at Goodreads,

The Iñupiaq people practice a subsistence lifestyle that many people may regard as “gross” because it is unfamiliar. Bowhead whales are harvested and used to feed the entire community. 

Erin writes that she's sending the book back to the publisher. I wonder if she included a letter stating why. I hope so! And, I wonder what would happen if ten people did that?

Segal's choice to make light of Alaska Natives backfires. For a thoughtful essay on humor, take a few minutes to read Uma Krishnaswami's article at Horn Book: "No Joke! Humor and Culture in Middle-Grade Books." Though her essay focuses on middle-grade books, her words apply to picture books, too.

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Last year, students in Ohio University's S*T*A*R*S (Students Teaching About Racism in Society) student group launched a campaign to push back on Halloween costumes of cultural groups. They created a series of posters, including this one, in which the people (in the photo) are wearing feathered headbands, in what they believe to be Indian costumes.

The campaign got some national media attention from CNN. Dressing up as an "Indian" is not ok. Though it is often well-intentioned, its outcome is generally one that puts ones ignorance on display. Will you say anything to students you see dressed like Indians this Halloween? I hope so.

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A reader of AICL wrote to tell me that the main character in Catherine Bateson's Being Bee plays Indian at one point in the novel. On page 65, Bee puts a feather in her hair:

That made me an Indian so I whooped around for a while and pretended to stalk some buffalo, but then Honey, the dog from next door, spotted me, so she stopped being a buffalo.

Bateson is Australian. Being Bee won the Children's Book Council of Australia Award in 2007. Obviously, Bateson is relying on stereotypes of American Indians that circulate around the world.

Bateson is portraying something that kids do (play Indian). Several weeks ago, I used Survey Monkey to see how common the activity is, not knowing that Survey Monkey's free service only applies to the first 100 responses, which I got within a couple of days.  Survey Monkey would let me see additional responses if I subscribed to their service, which is quite expensive!

I immediately closed the Survey Monkey survey and sent out an email letting people know I'd closed it. Several readers replied, suggesting I use Google's survey option next time. I'm grateful for the suggestion and will look into it.

Reading the 100 responses I got gave me some info about the "play Indian" activity, but it also taught me a bit about constructing surveys. For now, here's a summary.

12 of 100 said they've seen it in the last year. Three provided details. One said it was at a school event at Thanksgiving, and one said it was at a girl scout event and the third one person said it was teens, not young children.

12 of 100 saw it within the last ten years.  One provided details, saying it was at a birthday party for a five-year old.

23 of 100 saw it longer than 10 years ago.

20 of 100 saw it longer than 30 years ago.

33 of 100 respondents said they have never seen a child playing Indian at playtime.  Five said they did see it at a school Thanksgiving event, and two saw it at Halloween.

96 respondents saw the playing Indian activity in the US. Two respondents saw it in Australia and 2 saw it in Canada, with all four seeing it over 10 years ago.

What can we conclude from these responses? I could say that almost 10% of the respondents saw it in the last year. For me, that suggests the activity is common--more common amongst young children than I thought.

I see it at the University of Illinois all the time. Adults put on headdresses to go to Illinois basketball and football games, even though the "Indian" mascot is no longer being used here. There were people in headdresses at the World Cup games. My mother has been ill (her illness is the reason my website was not updated for so long), and as I sat with her in the hospital, I saw a patient watching The Price is Right game show. A contestant (is that the right word?!) was wearing a headdress. And the new fashion trend "hipster" is using a lot of "Indian" motifs...

All-in-all, discouraging.

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Periodically I have conversations with someone who is determined to figure out how to justify playing Indian. I understand the impetus. Movies, television shows, and many children's and young adult books have shown American Indians in such a way as to cause Americans to think about an Indian way of life as a thing to be desired.

American Indians "lived off the land" and their material artifacts (housing, weapons) were "so cool" and they lived "as one with Mother Nature."

There's powerful allure in all of that, and playing Indian seems a way to put in practice something one has learned about an Indian way of life, or is is seen as a way to honor American Indians in that particular pre-contact period of history.

But.

If you take the stance of a Native person, however, who looks back on Native history, there's more to consider. If, for example, a non-Native person wants to play Indian, and do it "right" (accurately), he or she might choose the Lipan Apache and read books about the Lipan Apache.

My first questions are: What books did you read? Who are they written by? When were they written? Are they accurate? How do you know they are accurate? What time period of Lipan Apache life are you playing? 

I've selected Lipan Apache for a reason. Below is a clip from The Lost Ones: Long Journey Home. It is a documentary about two Lipan Apache children. Their people were being pursued by the army in the 1870s. The two children survived the attack and ended up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. They were among the first students to attend the school. For over 100 years, the Lipan Apaches have told stories about those attacks and about the two children, wondering what happened to them. The Lost Ones is about the children, and how the Lipan Apaches found out that the children ended up at Carlisle. A few years ago, tribal leaders went to Carlisle and visited the cemetery where the children are buried. 

As you watch the video, imagine yourself playing Lipan Apache prior to these pursuits by the army. Lots of people have cultural and religious ways of being that are different from, say, a mainstream American one.  Would you play Jew in the time period before the Holocaust? Would you play African before the slave ships arrived? 

I'm uneasy asking those questions but I'm grasping at straws, trying to get people to see us as people, not as romantic figures of the past.

Playing Indian, no matter how well intended, confines us in a past in a way that prevents people from learning that we're still here, and that we're part of today's society, just like anyone else. Just because we use modern tools does not mean we are no longer "Indian." And, doing all that research to play Indian "accurately" means you're not spending any time studying and thinking about something you could do that would actually be helpful to those Indians you want to emulate and honor. Instead, why not do some research into cases being heard by the Supreme Court this year? An excellent source for that information is Turtle Talk, a blog published by several Native lawyers. Another good source is the Native American Rights Fund.

If you're amongst those who want to play Indian or want to justify playing Indian, revisit that idea as you watch the video.