Are generalizations about all American Indians made on the culture of one tribe or tribal group?
The U.S. Government recognizes over 500 tribes. Culture and beliefs vary from tribe to tribe. Check for tipis on the desert and war bonnets in the Eastern Woodlands. • Are tribes and culture groups presented in an oversimplified way? Are the members all craftspeople, warriors or medicine people? Tribal societies were, and still are, complex. • Are American Indians in fiction and biography portrayed as real human beings with strengths and weaknesses, dreams and disappointments and joys and sorrows or are they one-dimensional characters? One-dimensional characters are usually stereotypes or token characters, dropped into a book so it can be labeled multicultural. • Does the book portray American Indians as decision makers or are they viewed as pitiful, passive and defeated victims? Beware of books that describe Indian people as a vanishing race or imply it. American Indians have not vanished. To be spoken of as invisible is demeaning. • Are American Indian heroes and heroines who helped
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