Intercultural exchange – is the traditional image of Native Americans changing in Germany?

By Christoph Huber

During my research for this individual project I was mainly looking for signs of Native American culture within a Central European or, more specifically, German context. What I originally had in mind was to find evidence that the traditional image of Native Americans in Germany has not really changed since Karl May’s published his famous books about the Native American Winnetou and his white friend Old Shatterhand in the late 20th century.

Indeed, this traditional image of Indians as a long-gone, no more existent culture and everything that was associated with them, such as myths and magic including peculiar ceremonies is still present to a certain extent. Especially as old Western movies still enjoy great popularity among the German audience, one can see that there is still a strong fascination about the Indian wars and the long-lasting conflicts between cowboys and Indians. Another aspect that Germans have always associated with Indians is definitely the aspect of the Plains of North America. Widespread, untouched nature is something very rare in a densely populated country such as Germany. This is probably why there has always been such a fascination about them. Ironically though, the movies about Karl May’s novels which built the framework for such imagination were never filmed in the Plains, but in parts of former Yugoslavia (today: Croatia) which is of course a country much closer to Germany than the “Wild West” or the Plains of the United States of America.

However, I wanted to find some evidence that the public image of Native Americans must have changed somehow, especially as many German people are quite well concerned with the social and political status of Aborigines in Australia for instance. I eventually came across the Youtube video above. The video is about a group of Native Americans who visited the Werner-Stephan-Highschool in Berlin in March 2009. A number of different Native American tribes were represented at this cultural exchange, organized by the US-embassy of Berlin with regard to their programme “Meet US” which supports constant cultural exchange between US citizens and German students. The Indians belonged to the tribes of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the Navajo Nation, the Three Affiliated Tribes and the Keepers of the Sacred Tradition of Pipemakers. During their visit, the Indians tried to provide a sophisticated image of the many different cultures and traditions of Native Americans through story-telling, performing traditional dances and Q&As or interviews. A very interesting aspect of the exchange is that they actually involved the German pupils in their presentations. Not only that they taught them some basic Indian language words, but also that they integrate them in some of their traditional dances and performances. Additionally, the pupils get to know where the main reservations of Indians are situated within the US today and they receive information on some non-profit US organisations which support the rights of Native Americans nowadays.

I personally think that this sort of intercultural exchange is a great way of making the contemporary cultures of Native Americans more accessible to German pupils and breaking the habits of promoting an image of them that used to be stuck in the public’s mind. Indeed, traditional costumes and habits were represented during their performances, but not in the way they are represented in popular culture and the media. Just as Bud Johnson, a member of the Pipemakers tribe who is interviewed for the report, explains, this intercultural exchange is about breaking down stereotypes. There is no single homogenous Indian tribe (or the remains of it) who rides horses and still lives in teepees (a way of living, which was primarily lived by the Dakotas in the Great Plains anyway while other tribes used different forms of housing).

What could be criticized about the video is probably that it is hard to answer whether there actually was an increase of knowledge among the German pupils from that highschool and whether they really represent an ongoing change of the public image of Native Americans in Germany. My answer to that is that even though some of the aspects that were supposed to be represented by the Native Americans during their performances could not be understood by most of the pupils, unless they were familiar with contemporary Native American culture, which is rather unlikely, it must have been a great experience for all of them. To see how students from a Western European culture receive an insight into the culture of a minority through their dancing and storytelling is just fascinating. And even though one could argue that this does not represent the public’s image, it must be mentioned that education is the mirror of a society and that programmes and exchanges like this are a first step into the right direction in order the change the mythical image of Native American cultures in many German peoples’ minds.

Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tDN3jbTiy4
http://german.germany.usembassy.gov/germany-ger/meetus.html
http://www.wso-berlin.de/