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Gabo's avatar

Hi Caroline,

Romanticizations of indigenous culture I think always have to contend with the noble savage stereotype. It's unfortunate because Blanco is pretty clearly not making a colonial argument (I think), and yet you're right to make the association. Maybe part of the affinity is that by describing indigenous people as "pure" or "wild", Blanco is engaging in an essentialist project, and the obvious comparison to be made is the other prominent essentialist project- that of colonialism in general.

Gabo

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Orla's avatar

Hi Caroline,

When you brought up the noble savage in class I thought that was a great comparison! That trope seems to be the go-to, over-played, and frankly ancient in its way it strangles any potentially worthy representation of Indigenous people we could be viewing instead.

“ The use of ‘pure’ to describe these peoples is evident of the ‘noble’ status Blanco is ascribing to them. ”

I think the implication of faith here is interesting too. The way bodies become moral or immoral, clean or dirty, based on such arbitrary factors.

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Anja's avatar

Hi Caroline,

When I read the book the noble savage didn't come to mind but I can see how it comes in. Even though this often seen in western media and literature I think this trope is used around the world, just under a different name and maybe some different details to it. The noble savage definitely plays into how outsiders view indigenous peoples and how they think the "good ones" behave.

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Daniel Orizaga Doguim's avatar

"However, the concept was ever-evolving, so if an Indigenous people deviated from this criteria, they would lose this ‘noble’ consideration in an instant." I also see that this can be a game of mirrors, where there are mutual projections and reflections in those definitions. Another way to think about it is that expectations about what it means to be indigenous change, as you say, and sometimes it's a "strategic identification," even in terms of survival. The concepts of purity and nobility are also not fixed and are politically useful for certain groups.

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