Native Eyes Online Indigenous Studies

Humor is often culturally specific. What makes a Frenchman howl with laughter may leave an Englishman cold. A joke richly satisfying to White Southerners may be highly offensive to African Americans. What seems funny to a Pueblo may not amuse a Navajo. No doubt this has much to do with the fact that humor is so often dependent on cultural context and/or language. The other side of the coin is that when humor is shared across cultural lines it may sometimes function as a healing force for reconciliation. This week we explore the concept of humor and some of its cultural uses and manifestations.

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Because humor is so closely culture-bound, we can use it as an analytical tool to examine aspects of culture that may not be fully apparent on the surface. For example, in many cultures, especially Native American, there is an art of gentle teasing which functions, among other things, as a method of social control within the family or within the tribe. Thus, a person thought to have a swollen head may be brought into line without causing undue offense. Consider the college boy who returns to the Rez for summer holiday. Like any form of social control this device can be overused or hurtful. Consider the person who is thought to be a little too heavy. "Fat boy" jokes in American society may have originated as a form of teasing meant to be helpful.

Many commentators have recognised that teasing often performs intercultural work, White person to Red, as a means of social control and, Red to White, as a political statement or a response to perceived injustice. As Nancy Peterson puts it "Indi'n humor mediates conflicts between the dominant culture and Native America." And inflection of language, using Red English rhythms, tempos and textures, is one of the most effective devices for this mediation. Tribal or regional dialect works in many ways for Indian humor: not only to convey cultural distinction, but also to sharpen the irony, to intensify the political content, while sometimes softening or even hiding the full meaning from the non-Native.

On this issue Kenneth Lincoln quotes the noted Black writer Toni Morrison who answers the question "what makes a work Black?" "Its language," she says, "its unpoliced, seditious, confrontational, manipulative, inventive, disruptive, masked and unmasking language." Lincoln adds "tribal teasing, pan-Indian style with Red English, targets issues with an attention that roughs its audience affectionately, Indian-to-White." (Lincoln, 1993, pp13-16.)

We turn now to another example of Native American humor that functions in relation to the social interface between White and Red Americans. Thirty years ago, an anthropologist Keith H. Basso worked with the Cibecue community of the Western Apache people on the Fort Apache Reservation in Arizona. His work there resulted (among other publications) in an influential book on language play and linguistic portrayals by the Apache of the Anglo-Americans they encountered.

As we saw in the Readings by Deloria and Bruchac, much Native American humor is directed at the wrongs of the past, such as stolen lands, mass removals, and violated treaties. In the case of the joking performances studied by Basso, "these are not the messages communicated by Western Apache jokers. Their sights are trained on . . . making sense of how Anglo-Americans conduct themselves in the presence of Indian people." Basso shows how the humorous "portraits" clearly convey that White tourists, doctors, teachers, social workers and store owners are often seen to be impolite, arrogant, patronising, and even stupid in relation to their everyday social interactions with their Apache hosts.

Finally, we should note that Basso sees the joking performances as creative and artistic achievements, "more than mere purveyors of preexisting cultural forms. They are creators of culture as well, and serve in this capacity as active agents of cultural change."

It is well known that racial and cultural stereotypes are often wielded in the form of jokes specifically intended to denigrate other cultures. For the most part, we shall avoid perpetrating these because they are generally unfunny (except to the perpetrators) and usually beneath contempt. Such humor has the direct social function of confirming stereotypes that dehumanize, casting people of different race and culture into the realm of "the other," a concept we shall explore in later weeks. In many cases, this sort of humor is very effective in establishing and maintaining social roles dictated by the dominant social order. Sometimes such humor is obvious and deliberate; sometimes the humor functions with a sub-agenda, hidden well beneath the surface. In the next section of the study guide, we turn to look at common uses of the ethnic stereotype in relation to American Indians.

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