Ownership & Appropriation, Part IV: Appropriation of One's Own Cultural Style

Click the jump for the fourth part of the essay!

Photograph of totem poles depicting family crests.

            Appropriation is not entirely an issue of one culture abusing the work of another. Several cultures participate in self-appropriation: the use of one’s own historical artistic traditions in a way that abandons (or even violates) the art’s original intent and use. An excellent example of this, I believe, is Native American art. I am hesitant to use the broad term “Native American art” because each tribe has distinct cultural practices and, as a result, unique artistic motifs. However, to the lay non-Native person, there is a certain concept of what art produced by Native Americans looks like, and it is to this general style that I refer. Native Americans in popular culture have been recognized by a series of heavily-entrenched stereotypes for hundreds of years: totem poles, feather headdresses, tipis, tomahawks and the like. However, there are certain instances in which Native people indirectly reinforce these stereotypes by utilizing their cultural heritage in ways that it would never have been used before the intrusion of Western culture. Some Native American casinos are populated with images that would have traditionally been held with more respect by the tribes. Totem poles, for instance, were in most cases extremely important cultural artifacts for tribes on the northwest coast of America. Depending on the tribe, totem poles would be created to commemorate important ceremonies, tell the history of a tribe, “inaugurate” a new chief, or serve as a memorial for a deceased tribe member – sometimes even being used as a ceremonial casket. “You treat a totem pole…just like a person, because in our culture that’s what it is. …So it should be treated with respect and honour,” says one contemporary totem pole carver. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, non-Native museums and private collectors went throughout the northwest coast buying, stealing, moving, and painting totem poles. They did this without the permission of the tribes who created the poles, and sometimes with no goal other than entertaining the public in museums and along train tracks. 

 Seven Cedars Casino logo

 Seven Cedars Casino facade

            With this history in mind, observe the Seven Cedars Casino and Resort, located in Sequim, Washington. Upon visiting the casino’s website, the very first thing a viewer sees is Native American art. The resort’s logo is illustrated in a style strongly reminiscent of the northwest coast tribes’ traditional art, and the website’s introductory page follows this motif. The background image also contains images of totem poles, but if we enter the main website it becomes clear that this is not the only example of totem appropriation. In the “About Seven Cedars” area, a photograph of the casino’s façade shows three brightly-painted totem poles as the visual centerpiece. Further exploration reveals photos of numerous other totem poles scattered around the property as décor contributing to a Native American atmosphere. The casino even offers a program called Totem Rewards, offering frequent visitors special offers and discounts – accompanied, of course, by plenty of totem pole images (Seven Cedars). True, this casino is owned and run by a northwest coast tribe, and they certainly have a right to use their history as they please. To me, though, it seems strange and slightly hypocritical. Considering that totem poles were generally viewed as sacred objects, and that the people who continue to make them see them as an honored tradition, it is surprising that some Native people would perpetuate their use as a stereotype in an entertainment venue.

 Illustration from the Book of Kells

            I think Ireland is also guilty of a type of self-appropriation of cultural art and artifacts. Celtic art styles have been used as design inspiration in a myriad of products in Ireland, some of them drawn directly from an ancient source. The most visible example would likely be the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript – a bible with intricate illustrations and calligraphy (fig. 17). The Book of Kells is considered a national treasure and one of Ireland’s most important cultural artifacts. It dates from approximately the year 800 CE, and has been stolen and reclaimed many times throughout history until reaching its current location in Dublin’s Trinity College (Sullivan, p. 2-6). One historian described its “weird and commanding beauty; its subdued and goldless coloring; the baffling intricacy of its fearless designs; …[and] the unwearied reverence and patient labour that brought it into being” (Sullivan, p. 1). As an illuminated bible, it was not meant for daily prayer, but to appear on the altar on particularly holy occasions. Even if it was not a national treasure of Ireland, it would at least be viewed as an extremely sacred object, especially by those who created and used it. 

 Still from "The Secret of Kells"

            Recently, the Book was used as an inspiration for an animated film called The Secret of Kells. The film is about a young boy living in Kells Abbey in the early ninth century who meets the master illuminator of the Book of Kells and learns that it is his duty to complete and protect the manuscript (Bynum). In addition to the story, the film also takes its visual cues from the Book, using character designs stylized like the manuscript’s original portraits and backgrounds reminiscent of its decorative motifs (fig. 18). The creator, Irish animator Tomm Moore, said in an interview “[Kells] is kind of the high point of Irish art. … Everybody’s familiar with Celtic designs, which show up in pubs or tattoos or album covers or whatever. But all of that really started out in the Book of Kells” (Ebiri). The Secret of Kells could in fact be considered a new Irish artistic treasure, having been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2010. Clearly, appropriation of some sort is occurring, for the movie would not exist at all if the Book of Kells was not available to inspire its story. The visual aesthetic of the film is less dependent on the original work. It certainly draws inspiration from the Book’s illustrations, but takes the style in a different direction. Of course, the change in medium from static to animation adds an entirely new visual element as well. One could say that Moore’s film does a service to the Book of Kells, in that it is introducing the Book to a new generation of viewers in a compelling way. The Secret of Kells, then, is another example of art that draws from another source, but does not “appropriate” it in the full negative connotation of the word.