"Erdrich, Heid E." wrote: > Copyright SisterNations > Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002. > > Butter Maiden and Maize Girl Survive Death Leap > > Even now, Native American Barbie gets only so many roles: > Indian Princess, Pocahontas, or, in these parts, Winona- > maiden who leapt for brave love from the rock overlooking > that Minnesota rivertown where eagles mate. > > In my day, she might have been asked to play > Minnehaha, laughing waters, or the lovely one > in the corn oil ads: "We call it maize..." > Or even Captain Hook's strangely Asian Tiger Lily. > > Oh, what I would have done for a Chippewa Barbie! > My mother refused to buy tourist souvenir princesses > in brown felt dresses belted with beads, stamped Made in China. > "They're stunted," Mom would say. Her lips in that line > > that meant she'd said the last word. She was right, those dolls' > legs were stubby as toddlers, though they wore sexy women's > clothes. They were brown as Hershey bars and, Mom pointed out, > also clothed in bandanas and aprons when sold as "Southern Gals." > > Most confusing was the feather that sprouted at the crown > of each doll's braided hair. "Do they grow there?" > a playmate once asked, showing me the doll her father > bought her at Mount Rushmore. I recall she gazed at my > > own brown locks then stated, "Your mother was an Indian Princess." > My denial came in an instant. My mother had warned me: > "Tell them that our tribe didn't have any royalty." > But there was a problem of believability, you see, a crumb > > of fact in the fantasy. Mom had floated in the town parade > in feathers, raven wig and braids, when crowned "Maiden" > to the college "Brave" in the year before she married. > Oh, Mom...you made it hard on us, what you did at 18, > > and worse, the local rumor that it was you on the butter box > from the Land O' Lakes that graced most tables in our tiny town. > You on their toast each morning, you the object of the joke, > the trick boys learned of folding the fawn-like Butter Maiden's > > naked knees up to her chest to make a pair of breasts! > Cont... > > > I cannot count the times I argued for Mom's humble status. > How many times I insisted she was no princess, though a beauty > who just happened to have played along in woodland drag one day. > > I wonder, did my sisters have to answer for the princess? Did you? > Couldn't we all have used a real doll, a round, brown, or freckled, > jeans and shawl-wearing pow-wow teen queen? A life-like Native Barbie-- > better yet, two who take the plunge off lover's leap in tandem and survive. > > Heid Erdrich, copyright 2002
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