Native American Stereotypes

To begin with, American culture has lead many to characterize Native Americans in a stereotypical manner with grandiose feathered headbands and colorful war paint. Popular culture has infiltrated this generalization in films, television shows, movies, and professional sports teams. Stereotypical dressing consists of brown dresses that are occasionally fashioned with feathers or beads.

Contemporary artists of Native American descent do not recoil from these stereotypes. In contrast, they draw upon these characterizations and combine it with their first hand experience to convey a truly significant piece of historical and artistic perspective. The contemporary artist’s versions are not as theatrical in appearance as the mainstream depiction.

With the exception of Lawrence Paul Yuxweltuptun, the website’s contemporary artists generally operate with a more simplistic style and the color range appears to be vastly smaller. In fact, two of the five artists express their artwork in total absence of color using black and white photographs

The Self-Portraits on the websites are referred to as aboriginal because they are vastly simplistic compared to other American Indian depictions in the chapter. In most of

Beginning in simple trappings of just a loin cloth to a perceived Indian chief in the 18th or 19th centuries then lastly to a modern American Indian in khaki pants and a collard shirt who continues to honor his culture with a tribal necklace and traditional hairstyle. This artwork follows in accordance with the rest of James Luna’s work, which mostly pays tribute to American Indians and captured using a camera. For example, “Half Indian /Half Mexican” reveals that James Luna carries the same principles as “Take a Picture with an Indian” through his visual art