Diversity Awareness – Annotated Bibliography & Media Representation – DUE Sun 10/17

HyperCultura Biannual Journal of the Department of Letters and Foreign

Languages, Hyperion University, Romania

Electronic ISSN: 2559 - 2025, ISSN-L 2285 - 2115

Vol 3, no 1/2014

Identity and Conflict in Cultural and Geo-Political Contexts (Part II)

......................................................................................................

Cristina Ene

Navajo Portrayals in the Mass

Media .....................................................................................................

Recommended Citation:

Ene, Cristina. ”Navajo Portrayals in the Mass Media”. HyperCultura 3.1

(2014)

Cristina Ene, ”Navajo Portrayals in the Mass Media”.

Identity and Conflict in Cultural and Geo-Political Contexts (Part II)

HyperCultura, Vol 3, no 1 /2014 Page 2

Cristina Ene

University of Bucharest

Navajo Portrayals in the Mass Media

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze Navajo portrayals in the mass media, taking as representative instances an

episode from Jamie’s American Road Trip (2009) and a Mars commercial, “The Indian” (1998). I will analyze

how the commercial and the episode from the TV series present the Navajo identity and if there can still be

found elements from the Noble Savage imagery. The starting point of this analysis is the theoretical framework

offered by Philip Deloria’s Playing Indian and Robert Berkhofer’s White Man’s Indian. While these works talk

about how Native Americans have been perceived in general, I will argue that the point made by these two

authors can be applied in the case of the Navajos, more specifically in order to analyze how the American mass

media has been representing them. The Mars commercial manages to present the Navajos as a distinctive

group, but at the same time, it uses stereotypes as the Noble Savage and the dying, nature – loving Indian, in

order to sell and to be understood by many. Jamie’s American Road Trip, like the Mars commercial, is proof

that trying to approach Native American cultures by comparing them with Western culture will result in

misleading conclusions.

Keywords: Navajo, mass media representations, Noble Savage theory, Jamie’s American Road Trip, images of

the Other

Introduction

The starting point of this analysis is the theoretical framework offered by Philip Deloria’s Playing

Indian and Robert Berkhofer’s White Man’s Indian. First, I will look at how Native Americans in

general have been seen by White America, as it results from the two authors mentioned above.

Secondly, I will demonstrate how Deloria and Berkhofer’s conclusions apply in the case of the

Navajos, focusing on the mass media representations of Navajos.

Navajos have been seen by the Americans as the Other, and this image was the result of Western

society’s imaginings and stereotypes: ”Indian Other has been constructed at the intersection of real

and imagined Indians. Colonists (mis)perceived real Indian people through a variety of European

cultural lenses. Religion, gender relations, subsistence, technology, these and many other

perspectives defined and distorted the way Europeans saw Indians” (Berkhofer 20).

Therefore, the representations of Native Americans in the American culture have more to do with

the way White Americans perceive the world than with how Native people see themselves.

Moreover, Western society tried to relate to the Native cultures and people through a series of

attitudes, as for example: ”(1) generalizing from one tribe’s society and culture to all Indians, (2)

conceiving of Indians in terms of their deficiencies according to White ideals rather than in terms of

their own cultures, and (3) using moral evaluation as description of Indians” (Berkhofer 27). These attitudes further fossilized in the American conscience the stereotyped view on Native

people, as “preconception seemed to have created image, and image in turn became fact”

(Berkhofer 17), thus making it more difficult to separate reality from imagination.

By denying Native Americans cultural individuality and by trying to understand Native cultures

through Western practices, a dual image of the Native took shape: one that emphasized the savage

aspect in order to justify the conquest of America, and one that emphasized the noble aspect, meant

as a critique to Western society. However, these two aspects were never fully separated, rather they

combined into one single image, that of the Noble Savage. This image of the Noble Savage has

nothing to do with how Native Americans perceive themselves; rather it shows how Whites have

Cristina Ene, ”Navajo Portrayals in the Mass Media”.

Identity and Conflict in Cultural and Geo-Political Contexts (Part II)

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perceived Native Americans. This dual way of looking at Native people has generated a dual attitude

towards them: one that glorified them, and one that sought to exterminate them.

The relations between White Americans and Native Americans and the way in which Native

people have been portrayed have been influenced by the fact that White Americans saw themselves

as the classifiers, which meant they had the power to imagine a role for the classified. This is what

Berkhofer argued by saying that ”the paradigm of polarity that lies at the heart of minority and race

relations assumes uniqueness for the Whites as classifiers and for native Americans as the classified

only through the content of specific imagery and the context of a particular history and space” (XVI).

Therefore, Whites have had the power to create an image of Native Americans that is not a

realistic one, but rather one that relates with White Americans’ way of seeing.

The particular history and space that Berkhofer mentions is strongly connected with the image of

the Noble Savage that was greatly reinforced after White America stopped perceiving Native people

as a menace. After the Native Americans’ defeat and their being sent to reservations, this romantic,

idealistic and at the same time stereotypical view on Native Americans was widely spread. Thinking

of Native Americans as Noble Savages has resulted in perceiving them as being outside history: as

progress could be found only in connection with civilization as Western society understands it, and as

the Natives have been seen as opposed to Western society, it results that there could not be any

progress or change in Native American cultures. In this way, the Natives were seen as static,

ahistorical, with no possibility of progress or change. If changes did happen, White Americans

interpreted it in a dual, contradictory manner.

On the one hand, White America has always considered that Western society was meant to take

over Native American cultures, and it was only a matter of time until this happened, as Berkhofer

points out: ”since the superiority of the American Way of Life appeared self-evident to them, they

thought that Indians too would see it in their immediate self-interest to adopt the habits and beliefs

of the (good) White American after a brief demonstration” (150).

On the other hand, if Native people did change their traditions, White Americans interpreted this

as adopting Western vices rather than Western culture. As Deloria points out, those Native

Americans that have changed their traditions to some degree, are being perceived as less Native

American.

Bearing these views on Native Americans in mind, I will show how they apply in the case of the

Navajos, by focusing on the Navajo portrayals in the mass media, taking as representative instances

an episode from Jamie’s American Road Trip – more specifically the one dealing with Arizona-,

released in August 2009 in the United Kingdom, and a Mars commercial, entitled “The Indian”, made

by D’arcy Sa, released in December 1998.

1. The Mars Commercial – 1998

The Mars Commercial, made by D’arcy Sa, was released in December 1998 and it features two

Native American men, an elderly person and a young one, speaking in Navajo. They wear the full

Navajo regalia and are shown climbing a hill in an arid zone that resembles the Navajo reservation;

they reach their target and the old men says to the boy: “My son, it is a good day today!” followed by

praying. All this is interrupted as the old man finds in the pocket of the young man a Mars bar, tastes

it and the pure joy that he finds in this makes him spread a tear and say: “Son, it would be great if

you could set me up on a date with Little Flower!”

The use of Native Americans in order to sell diverse goods has been going on for a longtime as

Berkhofer argues:

Real and imitation Indian jewelry festooned the arms and necks of White American men and

women, while bedspreads, towels, and tablecloths decorated with supposed Indian motifs

adorned their homes. Books by and about Indians made the best-seller lists, and Indian heroes

appeared upon movies and television screens. Authentic and fake Indians emerged in mass-

media advertisements to sell everything from breakfast cereals to ecology (XIII).

Cristina Ene, ”Navajo Portrayals in the Mass Media”.

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The emergence of Native Americans in the world of selling is no coincidence: to the White mind,

the Native is a person deeply connected with nature, appreciating simpler and purer things in life, in

other words, the Native is the reverse of the White urban American. Deloria argues that ”The Red

Men represented this unknowable knowledge with an enigmatic past that lay traced on the national

landscape in the form of thousands of mysterious burial mounds. Even as Indianness was imagined as

being temporally and intellectually outside national boundaries, it remained essentially American in

nature” (Deloria 60).

This, however, has not led to a realistic view of Native American identity.

Perceiving that the Natives have a deep connection with nature has not in reality led to a just

understanding of Native cultures, rather it has led to the image of the Noble Savage:

Along with handsomeness of physique and physiognomy went great stamina and endurance.

Modest in attitude if not always in dress, the noble Indian exhibited great calm and dignity in

bearing, conversation, and even under torture. Brave in combat, he was tender in love for family

and children. Pride in himself and independence of other persons combined with a plain

existence and wholesome enjoyment of nature’s gift. According to this version, the Indian, in

short, lived a life of liberty, simplicity, and innocence (Berkhofer 28).

This image of the Noble Savage is a persistent one and Berkhofer gives the example of John Collier

who ”saw the Indians as repudiating the materialism, the secularism, and the fragmentation of

modern White life under industrialism for a simpler, more beautiful way of life that emphasized the relationship of humans with one another, with the supernatural, and with land and nature” (Berkhofer 178).

Elements of this image of the Noble Savage can be found in the Mars commercial, even though

there are some elements that reinforce Navajo identity: the commercial features two Navajo men,

dressed in the traditional Navajo manner, walking through the Navajo reservation and most

importantly, speaking Navajo language. Wilkins argues that ”for untold generations the basis of unity

among Navajo Indians has been a well-defined territory, a common language, a shared heritage of

customs and beliefs, and a sense of ideological distinction separating them from all other tribes,

nations and groups” (Wilkins 6).

In this sense, the commercial shows important aspects of Navajo identity.

Despite these elements, the commercial does remit to the image of the noble Indian that

possessed great endurance and dignity, as the old man is climbing a hill in the desert to pick the place

for his final rest, all this without complaining. The Indian’s love for simplicity and purity had to be

present as the purpose of the commercial is to sell a chocolate bar that is supposed to be that good

and pure that even the nature-loving Indian would prefer to live in order to taste it.

Why the commercial uses this rhetoric is explained by Berkhofer:

the Indian lost his place as an important subject in what we might call elite or formal art and

literature. The Indian, however, did play a significant, if subordinate, role in the popular arts (…). If the elite artist appeals to the few, the popular artist entertains the many. The elite artist

presumes a rather exclusive audience with high critical standards searching for new ways of

interpreting experience, while the popular artist seeks as large an audience as possible, using the

predictable, familiar ways of looking at things (96).

As the target public of the commercial is not elite, but rather a wide and diverse group of people,

it uses common images and perceptions about Natives, even though the above mentioned elements

do refer explicitly to Navajo identity. This creates a problem, since the general perception of the

Native population by the White American society is that “all Indians possessed the same basic

qualities” (Berkhofer 26), therefore, elements of Navajo identity are known to Navajos and an elite of

people only.

Cristina Ene, ”Navajo Portrayals in the Mass Media”.

Identity and Conflict in Cultural and Geo-Political Contexts (Part II)

HyperCultura, Vol 3, no 1 /2014 Page 5

The solution to this dilemma can be found in Deloria’s affirmation that

as hobbyists imagined an accessible Indian culture, they also refigured racial difference around at

least three variables: genetic quantum, geographical residence, and culture attitude. The highest

possible degree of authenticity inhered in the traditional, reservation-based full blood. The least

authentic figure was the progressive, urban, low-quantum mixed-blood (143).

Therefore, full-blood Navajo would be perceived as being more in touch with nature and will

provide a higher degree of authenticity than mere imitations of the Native people.

Also, given that White Americans used to perceive the Natives as dead or at least regarded most

of their traditional culture as having disappeared, they started to be interested in what they

perceived as the past: “with the Indian past fading away, the documenting of it became a vital

activity” (Deloria 80). This contradiction of destroying Native cultures and then starting to show an

intensive interest in them can be explained by Deloria’s argument that ”Americans wanted to feel a

natural affinity with the continent, and it was Indians who could teach them such aboriginal

closeness. Yet, in order to control the landscape, they had to destroy the original inhabitants” (5),

remitting to the ambivalent way of how Whites have related to Native Americans.

Moreover, it should be noted that the commercial presents a dying man, and the association of

Native people and death has always been one that aroused sentimentalism, as Berkhofer argues:

“the nostalgia and pity aroused by the dying race produced the best romantic sensibilities” (88).

Sollors explains that Native Americans ”were associated with autumn leaves and death, with rocks

that are their nature and sepulcher at the same time. In the cult of the vanishing Indian, the children

of nature were forever imagined on the brink of the abyss” (117).

The playing with dying and living in the commercial can be linked to a general tendency in White

society that Deloria depicted as “a dual feeling about the Indian. The desire to extirpate [him]. And

the contradictory desire to glorify him” (4), this being an old time attitude towards the Natives.

In conclusion, the Mars commercial manages to present the Navajo as a distinctive group by

including specific Navajo elements - language, reservation, dress wear - , but at the same time, it uses

stereotypes as the Noble Savage and the dying, nature-loving Indian, in order to sell and to be

understood by many. This paradox is the result of the method of how White America is trying to

understand the Native cultures in general, and the Navajo culture in particular: by comparing it with

their own culture and basing the process of understanding on stereotypes and false expectations.

2. Jamie’s American Road Trip – Arizona

Jamie’s American Road Trip released in 2009 in the United Kingdom features one episode in which

Jamie travels to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona in order to learn about traditional Navajo food.

For a better understanding of how Navajos are portrayed in this show, we have to bear in mind that

what we see is through the presenter’s gaze and in this case it should be taken into consideration

what the presenter knows and what his expectations are. From the beginning, it is made clear that

the purpose of the show is to discover a piece of American cuisine, in this case “one that is on the

brink of extinction”, and the show host is honest in telling the viewers that most of his expectations

come from movies with cowboys and Indians and he does have an idea that Western people “haven’t

been nice to them”. These facts are vital for a correct analysis of how Navajo society is depicted in

the show, because the person who will realize most of this analysis has no real knowledge about the

Navajos, except that the Navajo reservation is “the largest area managed by Natives in the United

States”, a fact emphasized by Knowles – “it is the biggest Native American reservation in the

country” (Knowles 4) - and that “today, the Navajos are the largest native tribe in the US” (Rosinsky

5).

From the beginning, reality does not match the expectations: to the show host’s surprise, Roy, the

Navajo who is hosting him, offers Jamie a pair of moccasins “to reconnect with earth”; even the

Navajo corn seems different to the Western taste – “it’s blue and has a sweet taste”. This, combined

Cristina Ene, ”Navajo Portrayals in the Mass Media”.

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with the arid surroundings, creates the idea that the Navajo reservation is a bubble, that “this is not

America, it’s a different place”, which, in the eyes of Jamie, resembles “the third world” and the

African shabby towns, and reminds one at the same time that the Navajos “used to be great

farmers”. After spending more time in the reservation, things start to not look so bad, but the Navajo

lifestyle is still compared with the Western one, as Jamie feels that “it would be nice if this place had

a toilet”. This relates to the image that most Westerners had and still have of the Natives “as lacking

in European accomplishments but pleasant withal” (Berkhofer 6).

As the purpose of the show is to learn about Navajo cuisine, Jamie meets a local chef, whom he

describes as “the closest thing to a Navajo Nigella”, again comparing the Navajo lifestyle with the

Western one. Navajo food tastes different from the food Western society is used to, being thus

perceived as “weird”. Even if the presenter realizes that if Navajos eat it, then it must be good, he

cannot cover his suspicion, saying that “I can’t believe it’s going to taste good”. This method of

understanding the Navajo lifestyle by comparing it to the Western world and trying to find

similarities can prove misleading: for example, trying to understand the Navajo spirituality by

comparing it with the Western religions. Jamie assists Roy in the daily morning blessing, that he

describes as Roy starting “each day with prayers to the Navajo gods” and when Roy invites him to do

the blessing as well, Jamie says “I just want to say hello to all the deities”.

This does not correspond to the Navajo way of seeing life: the Navajo language lacks a word for

“religion” and the Western notion of gods, as influenced by polytheistic religions, has nothing in

common with the manner in which Navajos relate to the universe. The blessing Roy performs each

morning is part of hózhó, a central principal in the Navajo spirituality that refers to ”a state (in the

sense of condition) where everything, tangible and intangible, is in its proper place and functioning

well with everything else, such that the condition produced can be described as peace, harmony, and

balance (for lack of better English terms)” (Austin 54).

The blessing helps create the hózhó through creating what Austin presents as

harmonious relationship at three different levels that Navajos observe in daily life and in

ceremony: (1) the human level (e.g., relationships among family members, clan members, and

tribe members through k´é and the kinship system); (2) the universal level (e.g., relationships

among elements in the universe through universal laws - or natural laws - such as the sun and

earth in unison produce life on earth); and (3) spiritual level (e.g., relationships between Navajos and Holy Beings through ceremony, prayer, ritual, and offering) (84).

The pastoral aspect of the Navajo lifestyle is revealed when Roy teaches Jamie that a true Navajo

knows how to butcher a sheep, in the Navajo traditional style and also following the Navajo

traditional style, the sheep will be consumed entirely, nothing being wasted. Austin explains why

Navajos do not just use selective parts from the animal they hunt or butcher like the Whites do:

traditional Navajos pray before hunting and thank the Holy Beings and the “four-legged beings”

for a successful hunt - the latter for sacrificing themselves as food for “earth surface beings”. The

universal relations doctrine is about community and order; all the multifarious elements in the

universe constitute a community of relatives that exists in time and space in a harmonious

balance (84).

Unlike Westerners, Navajos do not consider that humans have the right to transform the

environment as they please.

Therefore, unlike the Whites who believe people are superior beings, hence, have the right to

subdue the rest of the beings and the environment, Navajos believe in what Austin describes as ”the

universal relations doctrine (T´áá altso alk´éí daniidle), a foundational principle in Navajo cosmology,

holds that all beings in the universe are interrelated, interconnected, and interdependent; thus, all

beings are relatives in a theoretical sense” (83).

Cristina Ene, ”Navajo Portrayals in the Mass Media”.

Identity and Conflict in Cultural and Geo-Political Contexts (Part II)

HyperCultura, Vol 3, no 1 /2014 Page 7

The butchering lesson brings out another problem: from the start, Jamie notices that Navajo

women wear Nike and not moccasins – and this contradicts his and most Westerners expectations

that Native people from today are the same as those of a century ago. Moreover, it shows that this

type of traditional Navajo food is not appreciated by the young, who prefer junk food. This leads

Jamie to a visit in the nearby towns where there are lots of restaurants that serve ethnic food,

especially Latino, but no Navajo restaurant, which makes him reach the conclusion that the Navajos

keep their traditions too close to them.

Berkhofer offers an explanation of why Westerners’ expectations about Native ways of living are

not going to meet reality:

Indian traditions have neither fossilized nor disappeared; Indian ways of today are not those of

centuries ago but they are nonetheless Indian. Indian cultural traditions have continued to grow

and change, and there has been constant integration of innovations into characteristically Indian

ways and Indian views (68).

While White Americans continue to view Native Americans as static, Native societies do change,

therefore, Whites’ expectations of Native cultures will never meet reality.

This contradiction between what Whites perceive as real Indian and what is actually real comes

from the fact that, as Deloria argues, “the only culture allowed to define real Indian people was a

traditional culture that came from the past rather than the present” (91) because ”after Indian

removals, Americans often denied the physical and social presence of real Indians, reimagining

vanishing Indian savages as now noble parts of a unified American past” (90). When Native people fail to meet the White man’s expectations and traditions change, the Whites

generally tend to interpret this as “the desirability and, indeed, inevitability of progressive American

individuals and institutions replacing the Indian tribes and their ways upon native lands” (Berkhofer

149), taking this as proof that the Western way of living is better since it seems to have overcome the

Native one.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the aim of my analysis was to show that even today, one can still find elements

from the theory of the Noble Savage in the relation of White America with the Navajos. Jamie’s

American Road Trip, like the Mars commercial, is proof that trying to approach the Native cultures by

comparing them with the Western culture and bearing in mind what Hollywood movies say about the

Native people will result in misleading conclusions. Furthermore, expecting Navajos in particular, and

Native people in general, to act today as their ancestors did two centuries ago is not realistic,

because the Navajo society has evolved and undergone changes, adapting to a new social and

historical context, to the same extent that the Western society has also adapted. In the case of

Native American cultures, cultural interchange has brought along an attitude of suspicion from the

mainstream society because, according to the theory of the Noble Savage, Native American cultures

are static and ahistorical. By changing their traditions, they stop being who they are and will lose

their identity. Navajos, as well as other Native American groups, contradict this view: “the Diné are

still here, doing what they’ve always done and changing as necessary” (Houk 7). This emphasizes that

changing does not mean loss of identity. The episode from Jamie’s American Road Trip demonstrates

the accuracy of Berkhofer’s assessment that “preconception seemed to have created image, and

image in turn became fact” (17). Moreover, it shows that approaching the Navajo culture through

comparison with the Western one is misleading, as two different cultures do not necessarily operate

with the same concepts and can have different attitudes towards life.

Cristina Ene, ”Navajo Portrayals in the Mass Media”.

Identity and Conflict in Cultural and Geo-Political Contexts (Part II)

HyperCultura, Vol 3, no 1 /2014 Page 8

Works Cited

Austin, Raymond Darrel. Navajo Courts and Navajo Common Law: A Tradition of Tribal Self –

governance. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2009. Print.

Berkhofer, Robert F. The White Man’s Indian. Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the

Present. New York: Vintage, 1979. Print.

Deloria, Philip Joseph. Playing Indian. New Haven: Yale UP, 1998. Print.

Houk, Rose. Navajo of Canyon de Chelly. Tucson: Southwest Parks and Monument Association, 1995.

Print.

Jamie’s American Road Trip. Dir. Tom Coveney and Kirsty Cunnigham. Perf. Jamie Oliver. 2009. TV

Series.

Knowles, Gerarld M. The Navajo of North America. Minneapolis: Times Media Private, 2003. Print.

Mars. Advertisment. France, Dec. 1998. Television.

Rosinsky, Natalie M. The Navajo. Mineapolis: Compass Point Books, 2005. Print.

Sollors, Werner. Beyond Ethnicity. Consent and Descent in American Culture. New York: OUP, 1986.

Print.

Wilkins, David E. The Navajo Political Experience. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003.

Print.

Author

Cristina Ioana ENE has a BA in American Studies, the topic of her diploma paper being Navajo

representations in American culture; she is currently working her MA in American Studies. She has

studied abroad, at the University of Jaén, Spain. Her interests are cultural anthropology, with a focus

on Native American, especially Navajo and Navajo mythology; other interests are South American

cultures, more exactly Ecuador. Her long-term plan is to continue her studies with a PhD program in

Ecuador, namely Andean Studies.

Contact: [email protected]