First of all I want to say this is one of my all-time favorites films. I always get close to tears every time I see it (Forrest Gump is the only other movie that almost makes me cry every time I see.)
To the Indian History aficionados out there: how accurate is the depictions of Indians in this film?
I think there isn't much of a message board participation on this movie but I'm giving this question a shot.
I applaud this movie for having the temerity to show a side of the Indians that no other movie effectively showed. I'm sure they had their share of problems the same as any other society. There had to be a gay Indian somewhere, and I'm sure he (or she) probably acted similar to the portrayed character. Ditto the crazy Indian who did everything backwards. And the one who was henpecked and humiliated by his domineering white (Swedish) wife Olga. This was about the only movie that didn't patronize and stereotype them to death, but instead portrayed them as human beings-- ironically, the term that Little Big Man uses to describe them. And Old Lodge Skins was about as authentic as it gets, plus he had a great sense of humor with some immortal lines, including his sad , prophetic one towards the end of the movie ("We won today--we won't win tomorrow.")Custer was a very brave and effective Civil War soldier, but his ego got the better of him eventually (without the goading of a Little Big Man)
I, too, see the obvious connections between this movie and Forrest Gump--I often call it the Forrest Gump of the Nineteenth Century. Both movies had just about every emotion you could want in a movie. And they are very similar fictional fantasy accounts of someone in all the right places at the right time as history unfolds before them.
I can't rememer if the wife was Swedish or not, but... err... Olga is not a Swedish name. Inga is /not limited to other Scandinavian countries, but Olga is a Slavic name.
shareShe was Swedish, Jack says when he first describes her
Tuco: I like big fat men like you. When they fall they make more noise.
Many tribes accepted gay people without a second thought. In fact, some tribes considered them sacred. Known as two-spirited people now, Different tribes had different names for homosexuals. It was a non-issue, in fact I think Homosexual persecution is a wholly western (christian?) ideal. Although other non-western cultures probably persecuted gays too. As for the Contrary, the guy who does stuff backwards? A particular tribe, I think a plains tribe, had people who practiced this. I can't remember why though.
shareyep gay bash its pretty much a Christian-hate thing,
Samoan culture has Fa-afines, similar as portayed in movie ,
very liberating "1970s" to include
I wouldn't call myself an "Indian History aficionado," but I'm an enrolled member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and I'm currently attending Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, KS. I felt it necessary to reply to your question, but it will only be my own opinion. I'm in the process of writing a paper about Little Big Man (writing assignment-we get to ask our elder family members what their favorite film was from 1946-1980). So maybe I could send my finished product to you. But real quick (I have to go to work), I think the movie was entertaining and did think of "70s version of Forrest Gump" while watching it. I did think of the "Last Samurai" also (reminded me of it just a little bit -will explain in my paper). I think the depiction of Indians was made a little more comedic/exaggerated than it really is, of course. But that's one thing you should know about Natives, we love humor and we love to tease and laugh more than anything. I've seen worse representations of Indians in movies (too many to list when it comes to old Hollywood) and I've seen better (have you guessed it already, "Dances With Wolves"). Let me know if your interested in me sending you my paper on Little Big Man. Thanks for asking. I cried when I watched Forrest Gump too.
shareHi, Camelitas_13. I love you to send me the paper. I had always wonder how accurate the movie is.
I really don't know much about American Indian history and kind of suspicious of certain history books on Indians (I only heard "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" got good revies but not sure how accurate it is.) I love to have certain soufces.
the horror...the horror...
I think the important thing with LBM is that it was perhaps the first major movie which tried to depict the Indians as individuals and as human beings, rather than as the stereotypical "wild injun" or the stoic "noble savage" of the previous 60 years of film. Before LBM, I don't think you'd find a movie in which an Indian is shown laughing or joking or behaving in a loving way toward another person.
shareYeah, it's kind of sad that Indians, after being almost wiped out in USA, also have horrendous stereotypes of them as savages in Hollywood films. Even if LBM is not totally accurate, it still shows a very different human side of Indians that was never shown before.
LBM is SUCH an emotionally devastating film. I liked it a lot better than "Dances with Wolves" even though I acknowledge DWW as a great film. I hope LBM will never be forgotten. It such an important film.
I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
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2004redsox
I suppose I could call meself an Indian History aficionado. If you're interested the book "bury my heart at wounded knee" by dee Browne is probably the best most concise history of the indian wars. It also explains a bit about various nations cultures including the high regard gay indians were held in and the reasons for some warriors doing everything backwards.
All in all I would say it was a fairly accurate depiction of cheyenne life or at least as accurate as you can get 100 years after the way of life has died out.
*+*+* All you base are belong to us *+*+*
Thanks, I actually got that book btw! But I've heard that it's too "pro" Indian (maybe from pro-US conservatives?)
I've still haven't read it yet but love to read it now.
Do you have any other books you recommend?
I've grown a futuristic tomato by fertilizing it with anabolic steroids.
Sorry for taking so long replying but I haven't checked the board in a few days.
I try to read anything I can get about Indians but a few books stand out from our (limited) public library. I'm also sorry that I wrote such a long reply. I know what a pain reading a huge waffling post can be, but once I started writing I couldn't seem to stop.
Geronimo : a biography by Alexander B. Adams
Covers a lot of other apache events and personalities as well and the writing is quite well paced too. (What I mean is it's not just a boring list of facts and figures like school history books were like)
The Lance and the Shield by Robert M. Utley
All about sitting bull. What's good about this one is it covers the obvious events like little bighorn and wounded knee but it also covers battles between the sioux and other indians which are usually forgotten by modern historians but were no less important to the indians as their battles with americans. It's also written as well as the one above.
Black Elk Speaks by Black Elk and John G. Neihardt
A peculiar one this. Depending on how you look at it it becomes an autobiography/history/philosophy/religious book. Black Elk was a holy man of the sioux who was encouraged by Neihardt in the 1930's (he was in his seventies at the time) to write about his life and the sioux religion.
The Geronimo Campaign by Odie B. Faulk
A bit more of a conventional history book this tells the story about the campaign to subdue Geronimo and the last of the apache renegades. What's unusual is it's largely written from the soldiers perspective (most of the sources are the actual officers diaries) and shows how they were stuck between a rock (american politicians, business men and public opinion) and a hard place (actually catching the uncatchable apaches).
Finally my absolute favourite :
Geronimo : his own story by (guess who)
translated by S. M. Barrett.
We'll never know how much of this was Geronimo's own words or how much was lost in translation or even made up by the translator. I'm inclined to believe it is completely exact for the pure and simple reason that it's so badly written. I don't mean it's bad to read (I've read it many times and it's always a delight) I mean it doesn't use any overly complicated words for waht he wants to say. Also an american/european story teller would be tempted to structure a story to have equal parts childhood, adulthood and old age as a prisoner.
The way Geronimo tells it he goes quickly through his childhood and he doesn't dwell on the imprisonment at the end. He knows he's a prisoner but he accepts he's beaten so he doesn't moan about it. The middle of the book is basically a long list of battles he's fought. They are exciting to read but you get the impression that he loves war and his free way of life above all else.
He makes absolutely no apologies for his life and he is a rebel to the end and thats why I believe they are his own words and why I really enjoy reading about thsi remarkable man.
I nearly forgot another great thing about this book is it's free to read at
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/B/geronimo/geronixx.htm
*+*+* All you base are belong to us *+*+*
Thanks a bundle. I'll definitely put these books on my list.
BTW, I should have clarified my earlier statement. When I said "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" might be too "pro-Indian", I meant that the book might be too patronizing; maybe the author only focused on being anti-American and thus at the end didn't give an accurate account. I want to read a book in which it's totally unbiased.
It's great to hear that LBM is accurate.
I've grown a futuristic tomato by fertilizing it with anabolic steroids.
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Wow! Thanks for the link. Though it's not so relevant to the question of how the Indians lived, I found the old Chief's description of the St. Louis World's Fair, near the end of the book, to be truly fascinating. He really was a savage. I don't mean that in a judgemental way; rather, I mean he was truly ignorant of things we take for granted, shades of Brave New World. Altogether, there's a lot of food for thought in that little book.
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Thanks, callmetom04. Your post is very informative about the indian culture.
Do you recommend any books for me to read? Many suggested "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee", but some has said this book is too biased towards the Indians' viewpoint. I want books that show viewpoints from both sides.
I've grown a futuristic tomato by fertilizing it with anabolic steroids.
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Hi, callmetom04. It'll be awesome if you can give a list. Thanks.
I've grown a futuristic tomato by fertilizing it with anabolic steroids.
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There's also a book out there of interviews of various famous Indians (including Sitting Bull) that participated in the Battle of Little Big Horn, giving their eyewitness accounts...
And it was Arrested Developmentshare
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This is supposed to be one of the most accurate depictions of the Native Americans.
I am not an animal! I am a human being! I...am...a man!share
I practically got a minor in anthropology and religious studies here at my college. I noticed a trend that 3 of my professors mentioned this movie and how accurate it was portraying native american life. My Magic and Whitch Craft professor (yes, i took a class about magic and alternative religions) made several references to 2 of the characters when discussing culture of tribes and the Cheyennes.
Also, another really good and very accurate film is A Man Called Horse. Another film that my magic prof went on about because of the "magic" preformed in the tribe and how respected the Sacred Sun Ceremony was treated in the film.
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Its been a while since I have seen Soldier Blue, but if I remember correctly, they mention Custer's Last Stand at the beginning and at the end, its the Sand Creek massacre.
Little Big Horn was 1876, Sand Creek was 1862, I believe. Whatever the year, it was during the Civil War. A glaring mistake, if my memory about the movie hasn't failed me.
I pinch. I want to pinch. Why no pinch? Maybe little pinch?share
My only problem with the film is that the natives don't speak native. They all talk english.
shareI don't think its politically correct to call them Indians, buddy, we have to call them ABORIGINALS now.
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I see this thread is over a year old, but just to add my own two cents' worth:
I have always said that this film broke a lot of ground for its time, insofar as its depiction of Native Americans. It is still very much a product of its time in that most of the Native characters (except for Dan George, I believe) are actually white actors, and the fact that the Natives speak English rather than the actual Cheyenne dialect (a subject I just addressed in another post). Also, this was at the height of the Revisionist era in which Hollywood, after years of portraying all Native Americans as savages, had gone the other 180 degree to romanticize them (Old Lodge Skin's speeches, though beautiful, memorable and often right-on, are nevertheless filled with Revisionist-era cliches).
But putting all this aside, what you have left is probably the first serious attempt to present Native Americans as three-dimensional, fully sympathetic characters (a credit that too often has gone, undeservedly, to Dances With Wolves--Little Big Man was the first). The white actors at least give credible performances, and an honest attempt is made to present the characters realistically.
It was the first film I'm aware of to accurately depict and recognize the various roles of Cheyenne men within their culture, from Contraire warriors to he'menahs (the honored she-he's). Much of the film's commentaries on Cheyenne social and family life are accurate.
Did not have time to read the whole thread, but I read som of what you said and I agree, this was a breakthrough for showing another side of US History.
This film along with Ralph Nelson's Soldier Blue will go down in History as two of the best films ever to show some reality of a long since History people try and forget..
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When people remember history, they focus on some things. It is never right to kill off people the way that the white settlers did when they came to America.
Nor is it right to judge how other people of a different cultures live and to say that our way of living is the standard, your way of living is wrong. This means and of course will lead to big culture clashes, which is basically what happened back then when the first Native Americans or by that time known as the indigenous people of the new land, met with the white settlers.
White people were saying that we who have invented wheels we who are Christians will show these savages how to live and be morally correct. The thing is to know that just because we live in one way and they lived in a very different way from us. That doesn't mean that the way they lived was wrong or that they were savages. It just means that we are different and that we came from different cultures.
Some tribes in the Amazons still practice cannibalism, but not to the extent or the way some people believe.
The film is very one-sided in depicting the Indians as sympathetic and the whites as cruel, foolish and hypocritical. I suppose this had a 'balancing' function in 1970, after decades of movies portraying the Indians as savages, but it makes it hard to sit through today.
shareThis movie is accurate in the way that the attack on the Cheyenne encampment is portrayed.The "Battle of the Washeeta" occurred in late November of 1873 in western Oklahoma.Custer's 7th Cavalry, along with Osage scouts,attacked Black Kettle's encampment at night in the dead of winter under orders of General Phillip Sheridan. The part of LBM where the Indian ponies were shot is true. That was part of Sheridan's strategy, besides burning lodges and destroying foodstuffs. Some of the cavalrymen actually cried while carrying out the order to shoot the ponies.So much blood stained the snow that the Indians called this event "RED MOON".I grew up in Oklahoma and am a big student of Western history.Beyond a doubt, Little Big Man is my favorite movie.
sharejust watch it again,
it shows injuns attacking whites stagecoach and dragging off their women
Thank you for bringing up Forrest Gump. I believe Forrest Gump played apon the format of this movie(Nothing Wrong with that, I loved Forrest Gump), but I have heard more than one person compare the two.
shareRegarding the 'contrary', Younger Bear, many of the tribes had similar individuals.
Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions has a chapter on the contraries. Those individuals are called heyoka. The word translates out as 'sacred clown' but I am afraid most folks don't get the right idea from that.
I am by no means an expert of any kind on this topic, but I knew someone back in the 70s that had strong tendencies in that regard.
I am not sure, but after watching the 'contrary' in LBM, and my experience with my friend, I think it is possible those folks experience/react that way because for the time they are heyoka, they actually experience the world that way. (as opposed to experiencing something and then working out how to act 'backwards') The backwardness comes 'naturally' as opposed to forced.
There are cases of heyoka warriors being told to retreat in battle, and they, naturally for them, do the opposite and were killed. Their families and tribes are the ones that have to consciously couch their words and actions to get the behavior they want/need from their heyokas.
My friend experienced cold as heat on several occasions, once attracting police attention. I had no reason to believe that he was 'faking' it, he really did feel warm. He would also dress inappropriately in hot weather, wearing a coat or sweater, because he felt a chill. He had several other 'quirks', in regards to his privacy, I wont go into too much detail.
I note some twinges of contrary behavior in myself, I think the exposure to 'the real thing' might have catalyzed something in me. (and I note this occurred prior to me reading the Lame Deer book)