Natives don't wear top hats, or why I do what I do

Originally, this post was going to be called “Deviantart featured a Hipster Headdress, or why I do what I do,” and it was a rant against white, blonde, naked women donning headdresses and how annoying it is that a lot of Native-inspired art is stereotypical. But that was forever ago and I sort of cooled down a bit. Besides, people like Adrienne K. have already made some pretty good arguments about the subject already.

Today, on the other hand, I saw on Deviantart a picture from someone who doesn’t think that top hats, nor turkey feathers, are traditional and therefore the person who wore the top hat was doing “comical cosplay.”* Now before assuming that this was some hipster wearing a top hat with turkey feathers, and warpaint, I’m going to tell you it wasn’t. It was an older man, definitely past his 50s, and his dress wasn’t some cobbled up mess of stereotypes. Most of what this older man was wearing is pretty typical of Great Lakes powwow regalia. But the photographer doesn’t think that top hats are “traditional”, and neither are turkey feathers. Now, the turkey feather thing is straight-up ridiculous, lots of NDNs use turkey feathers, either they use the feathers with their natural colors or they paint turkey feathers to look like eagle feathers. Hell, the ancestors of my tribe used chicken feathers in Nee-Dosh, a traditional dance. But people are more inclined to agree that top hats are not “traditional”. I’m going to get into why that is and isn’t correct in a few. Right now I'm going to start talking about steampunk.

For those who don’t know, steampunk is a kind of an alternative history/science-fiction mash-up that takes place around the beginning of the industrial revolution when steam-power was used, so that would be the late 19th century to early 20th century. A lot of steampunk involves Victorian and Edwardian fashion, combined with steam-powered technology. A lot of the alternative-history aspect of steampunk revolves around Europe (mostly England) and US America. Or at least that was the way it used to be.

Now though, there's more of a push for multiculturism in steampunk. There's a drive to incorporate cultures other than Victorian England and the styles they had in around the time that steampunk typically takes place. And of course there are those who strive to make a Native Steampunk style. In my case, I try to make art that is Native steampunk in style and there's of course a good reason to start such trends.

While it is true of many (if not most) cultures around the world, it is also true that the indigenous cultures of the American continents work well with steampunk, and it is because Natives are pretty good at adapting new and different styles and technologies, and incorporating new ideas into our cultures and lives. We did so before Europeans came to the American continent, and we did so after, and do so now. Take beading for example. Before contact materials such as quills and shells were sewn into clothing. After contact, Natives took up using using glass beads from Europe, and now beaded clothing and accessories are considered regular staples of Native designs. We took on a lot of things and made them our own: horses(okay not tech or fashion but still), mirrors, blankets, wool clothing, ribbons, and yes, sometimes top hats. Right now I'm just using examples from North America, there are plenty other cultures on the American continents that adapted to European and American(as in the descendents of European) styles and tech. Very unfortunately, many times Natives had to take the language, culture, and styles of Europe and America by force, due to cultural and physical genocide. But even during such oppression Natives were very innovative.

This is not to say that other cultures didn't adapt and change over time. All cultures do exactly that, but for whatever reason, people like the photographer mentioned above don't believe that happens with Natives. Traditional always means the same. Except that it is and isn't. Top hats aren't traditional sure, but it is pretty traditional to take on new styles and ideas and materials, so a top hat isn't much less traditional than using seed beads or silk in regalia.

And that's why I like making Native Steampunk art. I'm tired of all the Native-inspired art out there that has a bunch of loin-clothed women in headdresses running around with their spirit-animal wolf and friends and trees being one-with-nature. Steampunk allows me to express that NDNs like technology and like using technology and like adapting technology. It allows me to express that we like to adapt and adopt different styles. And because steampunk is also alternative history, I can imagine an alternative history where Natives had more sociopolitical power, and tribal entities had more autonomy.

Of course, I've had a small journey since my first picture. At first I made art that today feels like I was using things that were typical of both the Native aesthetic and the steampunk aesthetic. Okay, I wasn't so stereotypical as to use headdresses or warpaint, but did I have to use so many dreamcatchers? or clocks? I know that I based my character designs on powwow regalia of the Great Lakes region, and I did that because I knew that beaded designs in the Great Lakes region were often inspired by Victorian patterns, but still. Now however, I'm making steampunk art that draws from the cultural region that my tribes hails from, specifically the California/Oregon border near the coast, and there's definitely a difference. I can definitely see the possibilities, such as the fact that after contact regalia used coins, thimbles, or bells, so having gears or any of those other things at the end of dentalium shell bead strands would make sense. Or that the cultures around here put an emphasis on wealth, so it would make sense that we could have done that by displaying the advanced tech devices we had, along with necklaces made of shells, gears and coins, and expensive silk dresses. Only problem with using my culture as a basis for my steampunk would be that Natives of California and Oregon are so off the radar of what non-Native people think of as NDN that even people living in California and Oregon don't know what Californian and Oregon NDNs look like. So, I'm sure that whenever some usual non-Native comes across one of my newer pictures, they don't know what the hell they're looking at. Oh well, it's the price to pay to come up with something others haven't seen before.

So that's why I do what I do. I should do a tl;dr synopsis, but hell, no one reads me anyway (good thing I don't post often). Next time: should be talking about the new picture I finished if I'm not too lazy to so.

*not going to link to picture. If you go search in deviantart, all you have to type in is "Native American top hat" and you'll find easy-peesy.