ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the biases that give rise to the distorted image of indigenous persons in the popular mind, while grossly misinformed, also pervade scholarly literature on Native people. It demonstrates that the indigenous image, which pervades the Western consciousness and manifests itself in popular culture, is also sometimes evident in criticism by Western scholars of Native literature. Perhaps more than any other group, North American Indians have been subjected to erroneous, degrading, and startlingly persistent stereotypes, as the ongoing sports mascot controversy makes evident, and such persistence may be attributed to an equally persistent tendency to read “from the outside in.” When literary consumers of the indigenous image enter into real North American space, that is, real Native people are misrecognized as the indigenous image of literature. Furthermore, in print-based cultures, the inscribed image, while not based in reality, is granted authenticity by simple virtue of its inscription.
