American Indian Culture and Research Journal

There have always been the songs, the prayers, the stories. There have always been the voices. There have always been the people. There have always been those words which evoked meaning and the meaning's magical wonder. There has always been the spirit which inspired the desire for life to go on. And it has been through the words of the songs, the prayers, the stories that the people have found a way to continue, for life to go on. It is the very experience of life. It is the act of perception that insures knowledge. For Indian people, it has been the evolvement of a system of life which insists on one's full awareness of his relationship to all life. Through words derived from one's thoughts, beliefs, acts, experiences, it is possible to share this awareness with all mankind. -Simon Ortiz An indian identity is a tricky thing to define. It is perhaps debatable whether it should be defined at all. As a construct imposed on the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the conceptualization of the indian is fraught with problem. How does one determine who exactly is indian and, perhaps more importantly, who is responsible for that designation? Further, what is the distinction between, for example, a Sioux indian and a Cherokee indian? How can they both be indian yet not the same? The list of questions is infinite. Nevertheless, there are college courses on American indian studies and sections in bookstores on Native Americans that exist ostensibly to study this vague character. ”In spite of its wide acceptance, even appropriation, by Native Americans,” writes Louis Owens, “it should be borne in mind that the word Indian came into being on this continent simply as an utterance designed to impose a distinct ’otherness’ upon indigenous peoples. To be ‘Indian’ was to be ‘not European.’ Indigenous peoples, now Indians, are all the same by virtue of this “othering.” Pantribalism is based on this very concept of ”sameness”: In relation to the U.S. and its history of expansion, non-indians perceive native peoples as an undifferentiated whole, a view sometimes shared, though for different reasons, by indians themselves.