King defines three categories of Indians that exist in real life: Dead Indians, Live Indians, and Legal Indians. These categories symbolize what King sees as a sharp disconnect between how North American culture perceives Native Americans and the reality of Native American oppression—a reality that goes unnoticed by the majority of the country.
King’s term “Dead Indians” evokes the stereotypes and cliched images of Indians that exist in old Western films. King suggests that when most of America thinks about Indians, they think of an extinct relic of a bygone era: “all those feathers, all that face paint, the breast plates, the bone chokers, the skimpy loincloths.” “Live Indians,” on the other hand, refers to Indians as they actually exist. These Live Indians are “invisible” to most of America because they do not conform to the stereotypical images of the Dead Indian, with the “noble” costuming and exotic, antiquated culture. King suggests that Live Indians are invisible because they are “unruly” and “disappointing,” and many Americans feel uncomfortable acknowledging their own culture’s complicity in the problems Live Indians now face. Lastly, “Legal Indians” refers to Indians as they exist according to government policy—that is, simply by virtue of their Indian Status and tribal affiliation.
King establishes these three categories of Indians to symbolize how years of systemic racism, exploitative federal policy, and cultural ignorance have oversimplified the North American perception of what it means to be a Native person. By calling attention to these somewhat reductive categories, King effectively highlights the ways in which uninformed narratives can skew the way people view each other, ultimately creating a disconnect between common perception and reality.
Dead Indians, Live Indians, and Legal Indians Quotes in The Inconvenient Indian
Indians were made for film. Indians were exotic and erotic. All those feathers, all that face paint, the breast plates, the bone chokers, the skimpy loincloths, not to mention the bows and arrows and spears, the war cries, the galloping horses, the stern stares, and the threatening grunts. We hunted buffalo, fought the cavalry, circled wagon trains, fought the cavalry, captured White women, fought the cavalry, scalped homesteaders, fought the cavalry. And don’t forget the drums and the wild dances where we got all sweaty and lathered up, before we rode off to fight the cavalry.
Film dispensed with any errant subtleties and colorings, and crafted three basic Indian types. There was the bloodthirsty savage, the noble savage, and the dying savage.
Indians come in all sorts of social and historical configurations. North American popular culture is littered with savage, noble, and dying Indians, while in real life we have Dead Indians, Live Indians, and Legal Indians.
Whites have always been comfortable with Dead Indians.
Dead Indians are dignified, noble, silent, suitably garbed. And dead. Live Indians are invisible, unruly, disappointing. And breathing. One is a romantic reminder of a heroic but fictional past. The other is simply an unpleasant, contemporary surprise.
Dead Indians, Live Indians, and Legal Indians Symbol Timeline in The Inconvenient Indian
