Fighting Colonialism with Hegemonic Culture: Native American Appropriation of Indian Stereotypes

Chapter 5 Marketing Spirituality and Environmental Values

Chapter 5 Marketing Spirituality and Environmental Values Indian people pray to the WATER SPIRIT. . . . For pure water is necessary for a long and healthy life. Revered and protected, these waters have retained purity for thousands of years beneath a blanket of ice and snow. Today, with thanks to MOTHER EARTH, the great WATER SPIRIT continues to give life through good water. We are proud to offer you this rarity, pure and clean . . . WATER SPIRIT. —Walter P. Twinn, chief of the Sawbridge Cree People Due to the very nature of their product, it is incumbent on bottled water companies to concern themselves with purity and to highlight this aspect of their merchandise. Most do so by promoting the technology used to filter and purify the water before packaging. Untaintedness also is hyped by misleading label copy and advertising images of mountain crags and crystal streams.1 Brands of bottled water featuring American Indian imagery take concerns over pureness a step further by also playing off the long-term connection made by consumers between Native Americans and nature. Each of these cases of reverse commodity racism cater to customers seeking authenticity, for what can be more genuine than a supposedly pristine, previously untouched spring guarded by the first Americans? They also provide complex and compelling examples of how contemporary Native 133 134 Fighting Colonialism with Hegemonic Culture Americans are using hegemonic culture to fight colonialism at home. The label of every bottle of Indian Wells Spring Water prominently declares for example, “An American Indian Product” and “One with Nature.” Moreover, these examples individually offer excellent opportunities to observe exactly how American Indians use the discourse of Indianness to produce product labels, label copy, and supporting materials aimed at selling product. Asking consumers to “Dive into a Legendary Water,” the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, located in Western North Carolina, launched a bottled water enterprise in summer 1998. The interrelatedness among this water product, Native Americans, and nature is emphasized at every turn. Emblazoned with the image of a classic Noble Anachronism with feathers hanging down from the left side of his head as he stands framed against a mountain lake, the water in bottles of The Original Cherokee Great Smoky Mountains Drinking Water is said to come from the “ ‘Land of Blue Mist,’ the ancestral homeland of the Cherokee Indians.” Customers are invited to “share the same exceptionally good water that has nourished the Cherokee for countless centuries as it flows from the highest peaks in the Great Smoky Mountains.” Greg Duff, general manager of Cherokee Bottled Water, points out that this association between water and mountains is intentional, noting “People equate mountain water as good water and we perpetuate that further with [the] Native American theme. The fact that it comes from Cherokee ancestral lands, it’s attractive to people.”2 Potential purchasers are told that the proffered water is captured from the Oconoluftee River, just outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In addition to an ancestral people then, within a few sentences, this water product has been linked to mountain lakes, peaks, and rivers as well as a national park. Technical language is mixed with mythical lore, when buyers are told it is treated and then filtered to remove all chemicals introduced during the treatment process. It is then exposed to ultraviolet light before being shipped to a contract bottler in South Carolina where it is ozonated five times to ensure the highest quality of water (Figure 9). In August 2000, The Rosebud Sioux Tribe purchased Lakota Water, Inc. Under its new ownership, bottles of Lakota Water now sport a bright red label with a Lakota warrior wearing a feathered headdress and sitting astride a war pony. Lakota Water takes its water from the Ogalla aquifer, which lies two hundred feet below the surface 135 Marketing Spirituality and Environmental Values of tribal lands. Claiming that although its purity alleviates the need for additives or special processing, the company’s water is still ozonated and UV filtered before bottling to ensure pureness (Figure 9). Priding itself on “Bringing a Taste of Native America to the Bottled Water Industry,” the company web page asks consumers to look for future products, which include “Native American-flavored waters in chokecherry, wild plum, buffalo berry, ciaka, wild grape and sage flavors. We appreciate the support you show by purchasing our products. Mniki le yatkanye hecel zina ya unkt’e! (Drink this water...