This post features kitsch from the Totem Pole Trading Post, the oldest trading post in Missouri. Aside from the slew of non-Native, stereotypical “Indian” kitsch found inside, the “Totem Pole” in the store’s name itself is interesting granted totem poles are traditional to indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and British Columbia and are carved sculptures from large (typically Red Cedar) trees—which do not grow in the Midwest. I asked the man in the store the namesake of the Totem Pole Trading Post, and he said, “because Indians make totem poles.” This exemplifies the understanding of many non-Natives that Indians are of one, non-distinctive heritage. This assumption blends the individuality of Native peoples from many diverse tribal groups into one Indian stereotype that is made up of favored traits—in this case, the craft of totem poles is assumed to be something all Indigenous Northern Americans do.
Notice the juxtaposition of the confederate flag thimbles and the totem pole tchochtkes.
Some photos taken in Pontiac, IL, a town named after an Odawa (Ottawa) war chief known for his role in the Pontiac War against British military occupation of the Great Lakes.
I made it back to my adopted hometown Chicago, but no blatant Indian-ness imagery was to be seen in the areas in which I spent time—the downtown area, Hyde Park, and northern suburbs. However, the word “Chicago” comes from the Miami-Illinois word “Shikwaakwa,” which means “striped skunk” or “smelly onion.”
The explorer Robert de la Salle is credited with the first precursor to Chicago, “Checagou.”
Anglo-Americans “gringo” traditional names and places in their mispronunciations and spellings, which endure because their white tongues are the ones empowered. “Chicago” is the mispronunciation and writing down of “shikawkwaa,” an eraser obliterating the traditional history of Indigenous Americans and redefining the word.
In the same way that La Salle whitewashed a word from a Native language, Anglo-Americans in power appropriate sacred symbols of Indigenous peoples for kitsch and commercial uses. Favored characteristics of a myriad Native identities are blended and synthesized into one, sole “Indian” identity.
The road trip I will be taking over the next week will display the ways this synthesized caricature is manifested.
(These bottom three photos were taken in Tokyo, Japan, and though not taken en route on my Route 66 trip, show how universal the American Indian aesthetic is.)
Waiting for my flight to depart from Denver International Airport, I stumbled upon a store in Terminal A called “Spirit of the Red Horse.” Inside were bourgeois, Native-esque tchotchkes that paint all of Colorado as a western, high-class society, despite that the expensive kitsch only characterizes the aesthetics of places like the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs and parts of Denver—the wild west but fancy.
The items inside mix cold beads and feathers with warm leather in the colors of the earth, and the store’s name hints at the belief that horses are an integral part of Indians’ life and culture—which would be a true assumption for many Plains Indians years ago, but the same cannot be said for tribes of other regions.
The imagery of the kitsch in this store, as well as the name of the store itself, promotes various stereotypes about Indians, and although not on Route 66, this store was still a part of my journey getting to Route 66 and is an example of Indian kitsch close to my home in Colorado Springs—a pre-game of the kitsch I hope to see along Route 66 if you must.
This past fall, I did visual analyses of postcards from the James R. Powell Route 66 Postcard Collection (1920s-1960s) in the Newberry Library in Gold Coast, Chicago, during which I focused on stereotypical portrayals of American Indians. I used these vintage postcards as an object and method to evaluate popular culture expectations and aesthetic signifiers of what make something “Indian” and why these representations endure.
Building on the research I did last fall, I’m about to drive the entirety of Route 66 (Chicago to Santa Monica, CA) to photograph examples of Indian stereotypes I see along the way. I will also purchase contemporary “Native”-esque postcards and tchochkes sold in gas stations, gift shops and at other tourist attractions along Route 66 to create a comparative analysis of the postcards from the Newberry Library and the kitsch I see and collect to examine how/whether the “Native” stereotype has (or has not) evolved since the 1920s-1960s.
I am using a blend of material culture studies and American Indian studies frameworks to treat the Indian kitsch as both object and method to understand the landscape identity of Route 66 and the racial stereotypes that embody it through landscape observation, data collection and interpretive analysis.
The central aim of my project is to document the examples of the “American Indian” stereotype and their “Native” lifestyle through time that has created much of the mystique and touristic allure of Route 66, a cultural landscape that has endured “in part due to the very same effective hype, hucksterism, and boosterism that animated it through its half-century heyday” (roadtripusa.com).
“Sleep in a Teepee at the Wigwam Motel” Photo courtesy of wrennee.com
The road trip will take place along the entirety of Route 66—Chicago to Santa Monica, California—over 10 days (July 26 – Aug. 3). Through CC, I will be spending the month of September 2018 writing a dissertation about my findings, and April 2019 will be devoted to organizing the evolution (or lack thereof) of American Indian stereotypes in kitsch in a visual way that will be exhibited as a gallery on Colorado College’s campus and shared in a visual format universally online.
