Reflection #4

Commissioner Cowboy

            The reason for the title of this reflection is because I had the odd experience of working the evening ceremonies/dinner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the Trade/Metro Centre last weekend. I am a server there, and as a result I am often involved in events that I would never normally attend. I will not divulge and confidential information that I was present for, but one thing that stuck out more than any all weekend was the fact that the head commissioner wore a ten gallon cowboy hat and cowboy attire during the ceremonies. Despite the fact that the commission appears to have had a restorative effect on the people who attended, the issue at hand- which was the cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples through forced assimilation- made itself more than felt to me when I saw the commissioner take to the stage dressed the way he was.

           

Michael Yellow Bird’s (2004) article “Cowboys and Indians: Toys of Genocide, Icons of American Colonialism” is what prompted me to view this seemingly subtle background feature within a weekend of people recounting very graphic and traumatic experiences as such a stand out element. The fact that the high commissioner was dressed in cowboy attire proves just how successful the assimilation and cultural genocide by Canada and the U.S. has been.

            Yellow Bird’s article explores the cowboy culture in the U.S. The cowboy mythology is a powerful one for people in the U.S., with many movies, toys, a lot of music and countless clothing labels devoted to keeping this myth alive. For Indigenous peoples in the United States, however, the cowboy is a symbol of oppression. At least for some it is. Yellow Bird (2004) brings up and takes severe issue with the fact that many Native American men dress like cowboys and argues that this is a perverted cooption of the master slave narrative that accompanies colonialism.

            Canada might not be such a cowboy oriented culture as the states, but the myths and imagery have the same effect and a very similar, if not identical meaning and bearing on identity construction. In reference to aspects of Yellow Bird’s article, I would ask this: What would be more shocking to a metro center full of indigenous peoples, the high commissioner dressed as a cowboy or as an SS soldier? I can safely answer that. I believe anyone reading this would be. It is less of a shock for the commissioner to take the stage dressed as the symbol of his peoples’ genocide, both physical and cultural, than it would be if he were to walk on stage dressed as an SS officer. The SS and the indigenous peoples of Canada had very little interaction to my knowledge, aside from maybe some who were soldiers in WW2.

            This is all running through my mind as I attempt to serve dinner. I’m thinking about how the idea of the residential schools was to assimilate children into whote society, to ‘take the Indian out of the Indian’. Yellow Bird refers to the reproduction of the “master narrative” (2004, p. 41). This is what I am referring to in regards to the commissioner. He is reproducing this narrative while chairing a council attempting to mitigate and heal the effects that this narrative had on a whole generation of Canadian Indigenous peoples. If I had not read Yellow Bird’s article, I certainly would not have found it unsettling. I’ve seen hundreds of Native men wearing cowboy attire in the past. It is actually quite common to see. The fact that the commissioner was wearing this in public and at such an event, and doing so in such a seemingly commonplace manner more than demonstrates Yellow Bird’s arguments.

 References

Yellow Bird, M. (2004). “Cowboys and IndiansL Toys of Genocide, Icons of American Colonialism,” Wicazo Sa Review. pp. 33-48.