PAUL KANE’S WANDERINGS OF AN ARTIST AMONG THE INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA REFLECTING THE IMAGE OF “OTHER”

Abstract

Paul Kane’s Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America is a work in which Kane draws illustrative pictures of North American Indians and writes his experiences he had during the time span of a four year that he spent travelling among the Chippeways, Crees, Sioux and Blackfeet tribes of North American Indians. Though Kane’s work reflects a European gaze on Indians which can be framed with the ideology of white supremacy, it is not grounded on hostile intentions for Indian people. Kane acknowledges Indian people’s “wild nature”, yet, contrary to the ideology of settler colonialism which is mainly based on the claim for land and gradual erasure of native agency, he mostly insists on the valuable aspects of native people’s cultural life. Accordingly, this paper aims to show Paul Kane’s awareness of this erasure, and his effort to catch the image of Indian as an Other that struggles to exist in his/her Self which will diminish in time.