Is it possible to talk of the invention of the ecological Indian in the same way as one talks of the invention of the noble or ignoble savage in so far as all these representations were invented, created by colonizers sometimes in contradiction to the reality they observed and imposed on the colonized peoples? This is the question linking the essays in this fourth issue of Elohi. When used by colonial powers, language itself becomes a part of the colonizing force. Basing arguments on the writ..

Larré, Lionel

Machet, Laurence

Ventura, Antoine

English

OpenEdition

 
ELOHI
Peuples indigènes et environnement 
4 | 2013
L’invention de l’indigène écologiste
Introduction
The invention of the ecological Indian
Laurence Machet, Lionel Larré and Antoine Ventura
Electronic version
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/elohi/527
DOI: 10.4000/elohi.527
ISSN: 2268-5243
Publisher
Presses universitaires de Bordeaux
Printed version
Date of publication: 1 July 2013
Number of pages: 5-7
ISBN: 978-2-86781-927-8
ISSN: 2431-8175
 
Electronic reference
Laurence Machet, Lionel Larré and Antoine Ventura, « Introduction », ELOHI [Online], 4 | 2013, Online
since 01 July 2014, connection on 25 September 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/elohi/
527  ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/elohi.527 
This text was automatically generated on 25 September 2020.
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Introduction
The invention of the ecological Indian
Laurence Machet, Lionel Larré and Antoine Ventura
1 Is it possible to talk of the invention of the ecological Indian in the same way as one
talks  of  the  invention  of  the  noble  or  ignoble  savage in  so  far  as  all  these
representations were invented, created by colonizers sometimes in contradiction to the
reality  they  observed  and  imposed  on  the  colonized  peoples?  This  is  the  question
linking the essays in this fourth issue of Elohi.
2 When used by colonial powers, language itself becomes a part of the colonizing force.
Basing  arguments  on  the  writings  of  Michel  Foucault,  scholars  have  already  long
explored issues of the power of language in this context. Thus we need not dwell on it
here, except to say that the authors of the essays in this issue all focus on ways in which
those in power have used and even continue to use language and imposed definitions as
means of colonization and subjection.
3 Indeed we realize that these definitions don’t all pertain to the colonial past. They can
also be seen as pertaining to what can be called the neo-colonial present. Such is the
case  with  the  phrase  “the  ecological  Indian,”  according  to  Shepard  Krech  III,  who
focuses on North American Indians. He deconstructs the cliché of the ecological Indian,
deeming it unmerited.
4 Within recent popular culture the oppressive dimension of this cliché is nowhere more
present in terms of the power of such discourse to impact the public than in James
Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar. The film hyperbolically develops the romantic notion of a
people living in harmony with nature. The indigenous peoples on Pandora, their way of
life and the story of their encounter with the colonizers constitute a pale (or should one
write  “a blue”),  thinly  disguised representation of  the popularly  conceived life  and
history of American Indians themselves. The film plays on the cliché that Indigenous
peoples maintain a relationship with the forest they inhabit that one can call osmotic.
5 Whereas the previous issue of Elohi focused on the endogenous representations of the
relationship  the  indigenous  peoples  have  with  their environment,  that  is,  on
representations presented by authors who are themselves Indigenous, the current issue
Introduction
ELOHI, 4 | 2013
1
examines exogenous representations, i.e. the representations that have been devised
by authors who are outsiders to the life they describe.
6 In  our  paper,  entitled  “Has  William  Bartram  invented  the  ecological  Indian ?”  we
examine the work of this 18th century botanist and explorer. In the 1770s, as he was
exploring  the  Southeast  of  what  was  soon  to  become  the  USA,  William  Bartram
described the Indians whose territories he was journeying through. At the time, the
predominant rhetoric among colonizers was that the Indians left no trace on nature.
This could be interpreted in two contradictory ways: either it idealized the relationship
Indians had with their environment, or it reduced them to wild animals (Bradford 160).
In both cases, the Indians were dehumanized and ahistoricized the better to justify the
colonization of both land and souls. William Bartram, however, gives us a scientifically
forthright testimony of the ways the Indians interacted with their environment, and of
the impact they had on nature. To echo the title of the previous issue of Elohi, it can be
said that Bartram observes and reports the meaning of the life of indigenous peoples
and, as a consequence, historicizes the Native Americans.
7 If  Bertrand  Guest  argues  that  Henry  David  Thoreau  and  Elisée  Reclus  follow  in
Alexander von Humboldt’s footsteps, there are common features between the authors
he is dealing with and William Bartram. Guest observes, in these 19th century authors,
an attempt to reach beyond the myth of the Noble Savage. The question he asks sums
up  one  founding  the  questions  of  our  journal :  “How  do  these  two  philosophers
(Thoreau  and  Reclus)  trade  the  ‘good  savage’  myth  for  a  protoanthropology  that
manages  to  avoid  both  positivism  and  the  simple  idealization  of  American  Indian
civilizations (Guest) ?” Just like Bartram, these authors (especially the scientifically-
minded Reclus) provide, according to Guest, an “empirical description of the world”
that softens their idealization of indigenous peoples.
8 In  his  essay,  Frank  Usbeck,  who  deals  with  the  idealized  representation  of  North
American Indians in German popular culture and political rhetoric, focuses primarily
on  the  way  the  Nazis  used  imagery  stemming  from  a  long-term  enthusiasm  for
American Indian culture (“German Indianthusiasm”). They used this imagery in order
to promote the notion of German indigenousness in 20th century Europe and more
particularly  to  define the Germans’  own relationship with their  environment,  most
notably with the forest, which acquired a mythical and symbolical value.
9 This Elohi issue essentially  focuses on American Indians,  but one of  the authors,  N.
Jaëck,  widens the notion of  indigenousness in a  highly challenging and unexpected
way.  The  “savages”  who  are  colonized  are  in  fact  the  Scottish  inhabitants  of  the
Highlands, in R. L. Stevenson’s novel, Kidnapped. Jaëck explains that in the 18th century,
when the story takes place, the same language and the same rhetoric were used by the
English settlers and the Lowlanders to speak of the Highlanders as was being used to
speak of the Indigenous peoples who were being colonized overseas. However, under
the condescending tone of his Lowland narrator, Stevenson showcases a Highlander
who has an intimate knowledge of his environment, a knowledge which enables him to
claim his land from its legal owner, an Englishman. Stevenson presents the Highlands,
which, to the English, look like a desert, as a real habitat.
Introduction
ELOHI, 4 | 2013
2
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Avatar. Dir. James Cameron. 20th Century Fox, 2009. Film.
BRADFORD, William. Of Plymouth Plantation. 1630-1651 & 1856. The Norton Anthology of American
Literature. Sixth edition, Vol. 1. Nina Baym & al, dir. New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 2003.
157-196.
Elohi. La vie signifiante. 2.1 (janvier-juin 2013).
Krech III, Shepard. The Ecological Indian: Myth and History. New York, London, Norton. 1999.
ULLOA, Astrid. La construcción del nativo ecológico, Bogotá, Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e
Historia/Colciencias, 2004.
AUTHORS
LAURENCE MACHET
Université Bordeaux Montaigne
LIONEL LARRÉ
Université Bordeaux Montaigne
ANTOINE VENTURA
Université Bordeaux Montaigne
Introduction
ELOHI, 4 | 2013
3


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