strut on a line, it's discord and rhyme

[lotesse]

If you were to give Tiger Lily a tribe, what would it be? Textually, her people are the "Pickaninnies" (oh my god, Barrie, oh my god), and they're contrasted with the Hurons and the Delawares, both of which are Northeastern peoples, but the pirate stuff in Neverland always makes it seem vaguely Caribbean to me, which is going to be Arawak peoples. "Happy hunting grounds" and "tomahawk" are not good cultural markers - and apparently beating the tomtom was actually a Desi Imperialism thing.

Digging through critical writing on Peter Pan's race issues, I keep turning up stuff about the Disney film, rather than Barrie's work, and looking for stuff on Victorian stereotypes of Indians turns up Desi Imperialism stuff.

(this post has no relationship to the fact that I sat up in bed at 1:30 am and started writing Pan fic, and then got stuck on trying to make Bechdel passes happen with grossly stereotypical characters. what would give you that idea?)

Also, a somewhat-related link: Andrea Smith's piece on the problem with privilege and the way that privilege has become yet another empty way for white people to feel better about racism without having to deal with any icky POC really resonated with me, as a white girl trying to teach a white classroom N.K. Jemisin and Janelle Monae.

(how good is her new album, y'all? down in southern Indiana, we be jamming!)

Comments

[staranise]

I think trying to reconcile Tiger Lily with reality is doomed to be an exercise in frustration, but FWIW I think the caricatures Barrie was going off of would have been of Iroquois and Mohawk people (using propaganda/depictions from the French and Indian Wars, War of 1812, etc). Which keeps it in the northeast; but those tribes did most of their travel by water in canoes.

[wishfulclicking]

Monae's album is a complete treat; I prefer the first half more than the second but I have enjoyed it all.

[highlyeccentric]

Can you explain the Desi Imperialism concept in relation to first nations peoples? My understanding had been that 'Desi' referred to subcontinental cultures in diaspora - does it not?

[lotesse]

I was trying to distinguish between Native Americans and Indians, pointing out that the confusion between the terms made it somewhat different to track down the ways c19th Britain received its stereotypical ideas about 'Red Injuns.' Sorry if I used any terminology incorrectly.

[highlyeccentric]

I don't know what the correct use of the term is, I'm afraid! I take it, then, that you were saying that the idea of the tomtom was in fact drawn from the subcontinent?

[lotesse]

Yes that!