Inaccurate Indian Stories

This picture of the Indians presents one aspect of their culture in which they might recognize themselves. This is a way of shaping identity or reputation, a good way but there is also a bad way. This happens when Indians confess that: “We didn’t begin that way. We haven’t always been entertainment” but due to the lies and deceit and their effects on the Indian people “we ceased being people and somehow became performers in an Aboriginal minstrel show for whites in North America” (King 68). In fact, Indians are to some extent victims of inaccurate stories; these inaccurate stories present another façade of the Indian identity. It is clear that storytelling and even the storyteller had an impact on harmonizing story content but the side effect is the …show more content…
It is so confusing and frustrating for Indians that even among them the feelings toward self-identification is floating between a feeling of invasion by non-Indians and a feeling of being assimilated by non-Indians or becoming an “Apple” the other Indian or half Indian, red on the outside but white inside. These people (“Apples”) are not Indian enough because they carry something from the inaccurate storyteller so King reveals that it is not appropriate for “an “apple” to speak for [a] real Indian” (67). Being Indian enough takes all its meaning from the fact that an Indian should not be a mix of Indian with someone else, but just an Indian. It has to do with the necessity for the Indians to protect their identity, their race and its raw version and be able to auto-identify themselves. Being Indian enough is what it takes to be able to tell true Indian stories/history. Indians have been tricked and abused once, they have been represented and presented in such a wrong way that when the truth about their story is unveiled people express their surprise by saying “you are not the Indian I had in mind” (King,