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Author: Linda Scarangella McNenly
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806149809
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199
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Book Description
Now that the West is no longer so wild, it’s easy to dismiss Buffalo Bill Cody’s world-famous Wild West shows as promoters of stereotypes and clichés. But looking at this unique American genre from the Native American point of view provides thought-provoking new perspectives. Focusing on the experiences of Native performers and performances, Linda Scarangella McNenly begins her examination of these spectacles with Buffalo Bill’s 1880s pageants. She then traces the continuing performance of these acts, still a feature of regional celebrations in both Canada and the United States—and even at Euro Disney. Drawing on interviews with contemporary performers and descendants of twentieth-century performers, McNenly elicits insider perspectives to suggest new interpretations of their performances and experiences; she also uses these insights to analyze archival materials, especially photographs. Some Native performers saw Wild West shows not necessarily as demeaning, but rather as opportunities—for travel, for employment, for recognition, and for the preservation and expression of important cultural traditions. Other Native families were able to guide their own careers and even create their own Wild West shows. Today, Native performers at Buffalo Bill Days in Sheridan, Wyoming, wear their own regalia and choreograph their own performances. Through dancing and music, they express their own vision of a contemporary Native identity based on powwow cultures. Proud of their skills and successes, Native performers at Euro Disney are establishing promising careers. The effects of colonialism are undeniable, yet McNenly’s study reveals how these Native peoples have adapted and re-created Wild West shows to express their own identities and to advance their own goals.
Author: Linda Scarangella McNenly
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806149809
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Get Book
Book Description
Now that the West is no longer so wild, it’s easy to dismiss Buffalo Bill Cody’s world-famous Wild West shows as promoters of stereotypes and clichés. But looking at this unique American genre from the Native American point of view provides thought-provoking new perspectives. Focusing on the experiences of Native performers and performances, Linda Scarangella McNenly begins her examination of these spectacles with Buffalo Bill’s 1880s pageants. She then traces the continuing performance of these acts, still a feature of regional celebrations in both Canada and the United States—and even at Euro Disney. Drawing on interviews with contemporary performers and descendants of twentieth-century performers, McNenly elicits insider perspectives to suggest new interpretations of their performances and experiences; she also uses these insights to analyze archival materials, especially photographs. Some Native performers saw Wild West shows not necessarily as demeaning, but rather as opportunities—for travel, for employment, for recognition, and for the preservation and expression of important cultural traditions. Other Native families were able to guide their own careers and even create their own Wild West shows. Today, Native performers at Buffalo Bill Days in Sheridan, Wyoming, wear their own regalia and choreograph their own performances. Through dancing and music, they express their own vision of a contemporary Native identity based on powwow cultures. Proud of their skills and successes, Native performers at Euro Disney are establishing promising careers. The effects of colonialism are undeniable, yet McNenly’s study reveals how these Native peoples have adapted and re-created Wild West shows to express their own identities and to advance their own goals.
Author: L. G. Moses
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826320896
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388
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Book Description
Examines the lives and experiences of Show Indians from their own point of view.
Author: Paul Reddin
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252067877
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356
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Book Description
The Wild West: a term that conjures up pictures of wagon trains, unspoiled prairies, Indians, rough 'n' ready cowboys, roundups, and buffalo herds. Where did this collection of images come from? Paul Reddin exposes the mythology of the American frontier as a carefully crafted product of the Wild West show. Focusing on such pivotal figures as George Catlin, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Tom Mix, Reddin traces the rise and fall of a popular entertainment shaped out of the "raw material of America." Buffalo Bill and other entertainers capitalized on public fascination with the danger, heroism, and courage associated with the frontier by continually modifying their presentation of the West to suit their audiences. Thus the Wild West show, contrary to its own claims of accuracy and authenticity, was highly selective in its representations of the West as well as widely influential in shaping the public image of life on the Great Plains. A uniquely American entertainment--colorful, energetic, unabashed, and, as Reddin demonstrates, self-made--the Wild West show exerted an appeal that was all but irresistible to a public hovering uncertainly between industrial progress and nostalgia for a romanticized past.
Author: Stephen Currie
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781560063520
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 100
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Book Description
Discusses life in a Wild West show, including its origins, the show content, the performers, its relation to Native Americans, moving the show, daily life, and the death of the Wild West.
Author: Linda Scarangella McNenly
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Circus performers
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
This dissertation engages with anthropological debates of the representation of Native peoples in performance through a series of comparative case studies that examine Native North American participation in wild West shows. Using multi-sited ethnographic and ethnohistorical approaches, it investigates the experience of some Native performers with the top wild West shows historically (1885-1930), of three Mohawk families who performed in a variety of spectacles (early 1900s), and of contemporary performers in wild West show re-creations at EuroDisney (France) and Buffalo Bill Days (Sheridan, Wyoming, U.S.A.). This research focuses on Native performers' perspectives and experiences in order to complicate the picture of exploitation and commercialization in this context. In this dissertation, rather than focusing solely on the production of stereotypes, I trace the extent and various forms of Native agency and expressions of identity through a series of encounters that occur in a wild West show "contact zone." Drawing on the concept of transculturation, I argue that Native performers adopted and used contact zone encounters as a space to express their opinions or to maintain, express, and/or contest Native identity. I thus elucidate the various forms of agency that Native performers wielded, whether expressive, communicative, performative, or agency of cultural projects. A "cultural projects" approach to agency considers Native performers' own goals and social relationships in addition to the socio-political constraints and power relations that structure their lives. Native performers had their own cultural projects; they actively pursued the opportunities and benefits of working in wild West shows. I argue that narratives of opportunity, success, and pride found in the employment encounter, in oral histories of Mohawk performers' experiences, and in interviews with contemporary performers, represent agency of cultural projects. Oral histories from Mohawk performers' descendants and their interpretations of the archival record were crucial for revealing and substantiating these alternative perspectives of Native experiences in wild West shows and spectacles.
Author: Joy S. Kasson
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 1466895373
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
A fascinating analysis of the first famous American to erase the boundary between real history and entertainment Canada, and Europe. Crowds cheered as cowboys and Indians--and Annie Oakley!--galloped past on spirited horses, sharpshooters exploded glass balls tossed high in the air, and cavalry troops arrived just in time to save a stagecoach from Indian attack. Vivid posters on billboards everywhere made William Cody, the show's originator and star, a world-renowned figure. Joy S. Kasson's important new book traces Cody's rise from scout to international celebrity, and shows how his image was shaped. Publicity stressed his show's "authenticity" yet audiences thrilled to its melodrama; fact and fiction converged in a performance that instantly became part of the American tradition. But how, precisely, did that come about? How, for example, did Cody use his audience's memories of the Civil War and the Indian wars? He boasted that his show included participants in the recent conflicts it presented theatrically, yet he also claimed it evoked "memories" of America's bygone greatness. Kasson's shrewd, engaging study--richly illustrated--in exploring the disappearing boundary between entertainment and public events in American culture, shows us just how we came to imagine our memories.
Author: Jennifer Silate
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
ISBN: 9780823943296
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 40
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Book Description
In 1885, sharpshooter Annie Oakley has to prove herself to Buffalo Bill Cody, owner of a popular Wild West show.
Author: Morgan Baillargeon
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774842121
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
Throughout the world, the cowboy is an instantly recognized symbol of the North American West. Legends of Our Times breaks the stereotype of 'cowboys and Indians' to show an almost unknown side of the West. It tells the story of some of the first cowboys -- Native peoples of the northern Plains and Plateau. Through stories, poetry, art, and reminiscences in this lavishly illustrated work, Native people invite the reader on a fascinating journey into the world of ranching and rodeo. The book also presents the special relationship between Native people and animals such as the horse, buffalo, deer, and dog, which have always played an important role in Native spiritual and economic life. By the mid-nineteenth century, Native people were highly valued for their skills in horse breeding and herding, and could take advantage of new economic opportunities in the emerging ranching industry. Faced with limited resources, competition for land, and control by governments and Indian agents, many Native people still managed to develop their own herds or to find work as cowboys. As the ways of the Old West changed, new forms of entertainment and sport evolved. Impresarios such as Buffalo Bill Cody invented the Wild West show, employing Native actors and stunt performers to dramatize scenes from the history of the West and to demonstrate the friendly competitions that cowboys enjoyed at the end of a long round-up or cattle drive. The popularity of rodeos also grew within Native communities, and arenas were built on many reserves. Native rodeos are still held, while many Native competitors ride in professional rodeos as well. Today, Plains and Plateau peoples proudly continue a long tradition of cowboying. Legends of Our Times is a celebration of their rich contribution to ranching and rodeo life.
Author: Norman K Denzin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131542679X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
Even as their nations and cultures were being destroyed by colonial expansion across the continent, American Indians became a form of entertainment, sometimes dangerous and violent, sometimes primitive and noble. Creating a fictional wild west, entrepreneurs then exported it around the world. Exhibitions by George Catlin, paintings by Charles King, and Wild West shows by Buffalo Bill Cody were viewed by millions worldwide. Norman Denzin uses a series of performance pieces with historical, contemporary, and fictitious characters to provide a cultural critique of how this version of Indians, one that existed only in the western imagination, was commodified and sold to a global audience. He then calls for a rewriting of the history of the American west, one devoid of minstrelsy and racist pageantry, and honoring the contemporary cultural and artistic visions of people whose ancestors were shattered by American expansionism.
Author: Sam Maddra
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806137438
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
"In Hostiles? Sam A. Maddra relates an ironic tale of Indian accommodation - and preservation of what the Lakota continued to believe was a principled, restorative religion. Their alleged crime was their participation in the Ghost Dance. To the U.S. Army, their religion was a rebellion to be suppressed. To the Indians, is offered hope in a time of great transition. To Cody, it became a means to attract British audiences. With these "hostile indians," the showman could offer dramatic reenactments of the army's conquest, starring none other than the very "hostiles" who had staged what British audiences knew from their newspapers to have been an uprising.".
