Note as prologue to the book "Stolen continents"

How I loathe the term "Indian" . . . "Indian" is a term used to sell things — souvenirs, cigars, cigarettes, gasoline, cars. . . . "Indian" is a figment of the white man's imagination. — Lenore Keeshig-Tobias, Ojibway, 1990

Any book about the Americas is fraught with problems of terminology. Until 1507, when the name first appeared on a map, there was no "America" and there were no "American Indians." The idea that America might be part of Asia wasn't scotched until 1522, when the survivors of Magellan's fleet returned. The word Indian merely commemorates Columbus's mistake. Amer-ica has since become established as a name for the entire so-called New World and, confusingly, for its dominant nation; we are left with the problem of what to call its peoples. In 1492, Europeans seldom used the term "European"; they defined themselves by their nations and ethnic groups, or as Christians. Ancient Americans did the same, calling themselves Mexica, Maya, Tsalagi, and so forth. In English, these aboriginal people and their descendants should collectively be called Americans, just as the people of Asia are Asians. (That America is not a native word is beside the point: neither is Asia.) This was indeed the primary usage until the eighteenth century, when British settlers became "Americans" in the way that South African Dutch became "Afrikaners." AUTHOR'S NOTE / X Today some American Indians call themselves Indians; others dislike the word. The main objection is that "Indian" hides he true diversity, and the true names, of widely differing cultures. (And in Spanish, indio became a term of racial abuse.) But one needs a generality to set against "white," "European," ind "invader." So I use "Indian." I also use "Native American," `Amerindian," and the adjectives "aboriginal" and "indigenous." Objections, semantic and political, can be raised to any )f them. These are not the only loaded words. An entire vocabulary s tainted with prejudice and condescension: whites are soldiers, Indians are warriors; whites live in towns, Indians in villages; vhites have kings and generals, Indians have chiefs; whites have tates, Indians have tribes. Indians have ghost dances, whites lave eschatology.' In 1927, the Grand Council Fire of American idians told the mayor of Chicago: "We know that [school his-rjes] are unjust to the life of our people. . . . They call all white ctories, battles, and all Indian victories, massacres. . . . White [en who rise to protect their property are called patriots indians who do the same are called murderers."2 Another minefield surrounds the origin of America's peoples. [any American Indians believe that they were created in America'-, in the words of the eighteenth-century Iroquois, they came out of this ground." Archaeology and genetics suggest at their remote ancestors peopled America from Asia via Bering land bridge that existed between 15,000 and 35,000 years ago (long before the growth of civilization anywhere on earth). The same lines of inquiry, taken further back, indicate t all human beings came from Africa. There need be no conflict between sacred tradition and scientific evidence. The traditions are philosophically true. Native ericans have been here since time immemorial; their langes, cultures, and civilizations developed here. They are erican in a way that no others can be. Even if we suppose t their ancestors arrived "only" 15,000 years ago (the ar-eological minimum), they have been here thirty times longer anyone else. If we call that time a month, Columbus came yesterday. Finally, a word on crackpot ideas that the American Indians and their achievements hail from Egypt, Phoenicia, the lost tribes of Israel, medieval Welsh princes, Irish monks, Atlantis, or outer space. Such "theories" are a measure of Europeans' inability to accept Native Americans for who they are. The implication behind them is often subtly racist: that Amerindians could not have done what they did without help. There may indeed have been odd contacts between the hemispheres from time to time, but these were neither culturally nor genetically significant. No New World artifact has been shown to have an Old World prototype, or vice versa. And Native Americans' terrible vulnerability to Old World disease is proof enough of long isolation. So is the uniqueness of plant and animal kingdoms: not even rats or cockroaches — good sailors both — had reached America before Columbus.

Author: Ronald Wright