Yes, Seneca Rocks is a gorgeous region, with towering, mist-veiled mountains and acres of trees just beginning to turn their leaves. Yes, we feel a special connection to the place and love camping in the shadow of the magnificent rock formation for which the town is named. Yes, this tiny little town attracts rock climbers, cave divers, and nature lovers from all over the country. But we are still in West Virginia, a fact I am reminded of as Jason and I turn into the driveway for Yokum’s Vacationland campgrounds, which is guarded by two thick-lipped, coal-black lawn jockeys.

The Yokum-owned Princess Snowbird Campground is named after a local figure who may or may not have existed - the daughter of a Seneca chief, who also may or may not have existed. Snowbird’s legend, as told by the Monongahela National Forest website, goes as follows:

The only daughter of chief Bald Eagle and his wife, White Rock, was Snow Bird. As a young girl she played at the base of these towering rocks, often gazing at their topmost peaks and longing to be able to climb to the tallest of them. As a young woman, she became the most beautiful of all the maidens of the Senecas. Her rank and beauty brought many men from her tribe and neighboring tribes courting her. The rivalry caused her to face the serious problem of choosing a mate. When the day arrived to choose a mate, seven young warriors, all suitors for the hand of the Seneca princess, assembled in an open space and arranged themselves in a semi-circle facing the mighty rocks. The faint-hearted had dropped from the contest, not daring to face the ordeal to which they were sure they would be subjected. Silence reigned on all sides. This rush of expectancy was on all until the beautiful Princess Snow Bird clad in the royal garb of her tribe, moved swiftly and gracefully into the circle and faced her lovers. She lifted her hand and silence fell upon the assembled. Ever since I was a little girl, I have watched yonder rocks push their rugged summits into the heavens and many times I have longed to be able to climb to their topmost crags. There have I spent the happiest, the most enjoyable days of my life. Of all the Seneca Indians, I am the only one who has accomplished the feat. One day, about a moon past, I decided upon a contest, a trial of bravery and endurance. You will soon engage in this contest, and to the successful one of you, I will give my hand, my heart and my life.”

Princess Snow Bird set out on the journey, followed by the seven braves. Upward they climbed, the sure-footed maiden always leading. As the climb became more and more difficult, three of the seven turned back, dispirited and disappointed. Another followed to the fifth pinnacle and then wearied of the struggle and gave up. A fifth man crumpled in a heap near the same pinnacle and was rescued from death by the fourth, who led him back to safety. The two that remained followed closely in the footsteps of the maiden. Finally, with renewed determination, they set out on the last and most dangerous stretch of the journey, the maiden as always, in the lead. At last she reached the summit and turned to look for her most persistent suitor. He was only a few feet below her. In this moment of waiting, his foot slipped on the ledge of rock. The maiden hesitated for a fraction of a second. Was he not the bravest and strongest of the Senecas? Where would she ever find his equal? So with the alertness and strength of her young arms, she caught the falling brave and drew him to safety and to herself. Long they sat together talking of their future, and then as darkness approached, the two lovers descended by the trail at the rear of the gigantic rocks. They stood before Chief Bald Eagle and White Rock. The great chief conferred upon his newfound son-in-law the authority to become his successor as chief of the tribe.

The roadside ads for the Princess Snowbird Campground nearly always feature a painting of her face. She looks like a European model, with a long, narrow nose, wide, round eyes, and pouty lips. The only thing that sets her apart are her two thick braids and the iconic headband with a feather sticking out the back of it. If she’d only fallen in love with a European pioneer, she’d epitomize the cliché of the Indian Princess. As it is, she is a mere NILF (Native I’d Like to…) The campground itself features a few different clumsily imitated totem poles in addition to its star attraction: teepees. I need not tell anyone who visits Anthropik that the Seneca neither made totem poles, nor lived in teepees. But the stereotypes don’t end there. To be perfectly honest, the teepees aren’t actually made of tinfoil, as the title of this article suggests. They’re made of sheet metal, with concrete floors, triangular wooden doors, and actual pane glass windows that you can open and shut. A number of long sticks randomly pop out of the tar-smothered roofs.

These sights of the weekend got me thinking about stereotypes. Although there are many different kinds of stereotypes - Asians can’t drive, blacks play basketball - the kinds of stereotypes that make sweeping, generalized judgments about the character of a person in a given minority group always seem to fall into one of three groups. The first group emphasizes how silly and harmless the minority is, the second emphasizes how dangerous and harmful the minority is, and the third offers up a rare minority to be admired on the grounds that s/he kowtowed to the infinitely superior white man. Each group gets one of each—at least. We laugh at Jumpin’ Jim Crow, we cower in terror from the gun-toting gangster, and we respect noble, selfless Uncle Tom.

The same goes for Native Americans. Native women specifically can either be homely squaws or Caucasion-looking “princesses.” Minority women, naturally, bypass the “scary and harmful” category because who could possibly be scared of a girl? Even the warrior women are just harmlessly feisty due to all their built-up lust from lacking a strong white man to have sex with for so many years.

As we see in the previous paragraph, stereotypes for female minorities tend to revolve around how easy it would be for a white man to have sex with them. On the other hand, stereotypes for male minorities tend to revolve around how violently desperate they are to have sex with white women. This only underscores the disturbing connection our culture has between sex and violence: we can only have positive associations with the people we wipe out if we approach them on a sexual level, and specifically, a subservient sexual level. The male minority’s sexuality is threatening and animalistic because in our culture, the male is dominant. The only way we can have a positive concept of a minority male is if we neuter him by presenting him as a sexless servant or a child-like innocent.

The Noble Savage or the Indian princess may seem at first to be positive stereotypes (if any stereotype can be said to be positive). But they only serve to reinforce the sexualized basis of white perception of the very real people involved. Not only are they only “good Indians” because they’re contrasted with the “bad Indians”; they’re also “good Indians” because they’re submissive to the white man, either literally (in the case of the princess and sidekick) or by proxy. (What’s the Noble Savage going to do to threaten the white man? He’s too damn peaceful!)

Vine Deloria, Jr. discusses the Indian princess fixation in Custer Died for Your Sins:

Whites claiming Indian blood generally tend to reinforce mythical beliefs about Indians. All but one person I met who claimed Indian blood claimed it on their grandmother’s side. I once did a projection backward and discovered that evidently most tribes were entirely female for the first three hundred years of white occupation. No one, it seemed, wanted to claim a male Indian as a forebear.

It doesn’t take much insight into racial attitudes to understand the real meaning of the Indian grandmother complex that plagues certain whites. A male ancestor has too much of the aura of the savage warrior, the unknown primitive, the instinctive animal, to make him a respectable member of the family tree. But a young Indian princess? Ah, there was royalty for the taking. Somehow the white was linked with a noble house of gentility and culture if his grandmother was an Indian princess who ran away with an intrepid pioneer.

The cover girl face of Princess Snowbird only masks a deep-seated fear of her brother, “the savage warrior, the unknown primitive, the instinctive animal.” The beautiful, glossy face of genocide can only exist so long as the darker terror remains. Will there be a day when neither is present in the American psyche? So long as the tinfoil teepees stand, the answer is no.