John M. Coward — The Newspaper Indian: Native American Identity in the Press, 1820-90; Philip J. Deloria — Playing Indian

Abstract

5 Indian, and now The Navspaper Indian and Playing Indian, are all agreed: "Indians" (and "whites," for that matter) are cultural fictions. They are ideological stereotypes which homogenize and debase real Native peoples, who are never fully available to "us," but always remain beyond "our" grasp. These texts all grapple with different facets of the representations of Indians which non-Indians have constructed in accordance with changing historical circumstances. John M. Coward's approach in The Navspaper Indian: Native American Identity in the Press, 1820-90 is the more straightforward of the two books under review, making the familiar argument that Indian identities constructed in the press were the product of interaction between "the major ideologies of nineteenth