Cannibal Fictions: American Explorations of Colonialism, Race, Gender, and Sexuality

4. Turning Back the Cannibal: Indigenous Revisionism in the Late Twentieth Century

4 Turning Back the Cannibal Indigenous Revisionism in the Late Twentieth Century They plainly proved, and as there were no Indian writers arose on the other side, the fact was considered as fully admitted and established, that the two-legged race of animals before mentioned were mere cannibals, detestable monsters, and many of them giants . . . Indeed, even the philosophic Bacon declared the Americans [Indians] to be people proscribed by the laws of nature, inasmuch as they had a barbarous custom of sacrificing men, and feeding upon men’s flesh. Washington Irving, A History of New York A dangerous enemy has arrived on our shores with weapons of fire. He is camped a few days away in the town of Talisi. He will devour your family. Soon he will be on the move again. He’s a very different kind of Osano, bloodsucker, he always hungers for more. Lee Ann Howe, Shell Shakers Steven Yazzie’s (Navajo/Diné) multiple-panel mural “Fear of a Red Planet” (8 feet by 160 feet), in the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, features in an initial frame a bloody eagle eating its own tail (East Wall).1 This symbol of democracy is eating itself, caught in a perpetual, solipsistic loop of self-destruction. Its eyes are sewn shut, blind to the reality that the nation’s expansion west requires the swallowing of resources, 130 lifeways, and people. This point is made all the more poignant if viewers recognize that for Diné people the eagle has connections to the creator , so much so that feathers are used in healing ceremonies. The eagle emblem floats above a mixed backdrop of a chessboard with strewn pawns that is transformed into a bloody battlefield, littered with gruesome skeletons. This image is mirrored by the image of Kit Carson on a chessboard, moved by a giant hand, suggesting that he is a bit player in a more universal game. The parallelism of these icons more than suggests that the principles of democracy were betrayed by Carson’s campaign to expand the American frontier by rounding up Navajo people and containing them at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. Yazzie’s juxtaposition of cannibalism and democracy highlights the contradictions inherent in the U.S. national project. Ironically, the atrocities Yazzie depicts occurred during the Civil War, when the Union Army fought in the name of human freedom. This first panel is followed by depictions of other important events related to southwestern Native life, arranged in chronological order. Despite the atrocities experienced in the nineteenth century, later panels appeal simultaneously to tradition and to transformation through cross-cultural contact. The possibility of renewal and rebirth is suggested, although the color palette is quite dismal as is the content of later panels. For example, the North Wall depicts the bloody conflict between the Yaqui Indians and the Spanish; as well as the loss of culture, and, in some cases, the loss of life that came with the forced boarding school experience. The South Wall offers a commentary on the state of humankind in a natural landscape that has been neglected and harmed: ecological damage is posited as the result of U.S. westward expansion and development, something the panacea of gaming/gambling is unlikely to fix. The panels flow into one another, suggesting very clearly that the past is linked to the present and the future , and the future is limited, quite likely a bloody—that is, lifeless— continuation of the past century and a half. Yazzie’s title for the installation deserves some mention as well. “Fear of a Red Planet” quite literally evokes the fear-inspired rationale espoused by those supporting programs meant to stifle the full sovereignty of Indian nations. It draws attention to the tenacious, systematic efforts on the part of the U.S. government to eradicate indigenous cultures and peoples. Simultaneously, the title reflects the fears and agony experienced by those from the red planet, those of Native descent , from the “Long Walk” period up through the current moment, suggesting that the effects of the Long Walk have, indeed, been much Turning Back the Cannibal 131 • longer than the four-year period of 1864–68 when Navajo people were imprisoned at Ft. Sumner, New Mexico.2 On another level, the destruction of Native people and lifeways has upset the important balance of nature, a balance not fully understood by the proponents of human...