taken in its entirety by request of website: http://www.nativecircle.com/ppdressingup.html
i will say this flatly - please do not dress yourself or your kids up
like 'indians'! although it should not be necessary for me to have
to explain why this is a no-no, i will elaborate briefly.... i have an
african american friend who told me that on several occasions
on halloween night he came to his door to find a white child who
was dressed up like a 'black' person, complete with painted face
and fake afro. he was never upset with the child, but did say he
thought the parents needed a swift kick in the rear! i also have,
as you can imagine with all the 'poca-haunt-us' hoopla, endured
countless cute little kids dressed up like 'indians' by their folks.
there are many problems with this. one big problem is that it
trivializes the american indian race. our traditional regalia is
much more than clothing. it is a sacred and personal spiritual
expression of our most holy ways. when we paint our face a
certain way, wear eagle feathers and design our incredibly
complex patterns bead, quill, leather, shell and so on, these
are all very holy and sacred interpretations of our spirituality.
to dress an innocent child in silly colored chicken feathers,
a brown paper sack and paint their face with mock 'indian'
designs is an insult to the sacred spiritual expressions of
american indian people. that having been said, i think it is
important to say that no one should ever 'dress up' like an
'indian', an 'asian', an 'african', or any other race. it is
simple common sense. to do this is to make a game of
somebody's ethnicity, to trivialize a race for the sake of
'fun'. by the way, a 'pilgrim' is not a race. *wink* so, it is
my hope that people will learn that it is insensitive and
just plain morally wrong to dress up like someone else's
race. may we all learn to be considerate of others.......
written by john two-hawks
