My birthday is approaching quickly and I am beginning to dread it already. Not because Father Time seems to be eating a bigger slice of my birthday cake every year, but because of the presents I might receive from well-meaning friends. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, it's an interesting comment on society when, as a native (Ojibwa) person, I often receive gifts from my non-native friends that run the gamut of every possible native-influenced present that could be bought in a store.
For some unexplained reason, there seems to be this subconscious belief amongst my many white acquaintances that since I am native, I must therefore be given a native-flavoured present at every possible occasion, like a tin logo of the Indian Motorcycle Company that currently hangs on my bedroom wall. It seems to be mandatory. To do anything else would be rude and possibly precipitate a blockade of some sort. Thus the clay pottery I have received over the years that dots both my house and my mother's.
In birthdays past, as well as housewarmings, Christmases and a variety of other well-known seasonal celebrations, I have received art prints, dreamcatchers galore, medicine pouches, videotapes of native movies and enough T-shirts for a dozen wet T-shirt contests.
For instance, on my last birthday, a good friend of obvious Caucasian ancestry gave me Where White Men Fear to Tread, the autobiography of Russell Means, famed American Indian Movement activist. I appreciated the gesture but it was a rather long book about a man I wasn't particularly interested in knowing better. Being native doesn't automatically make you interesting. But don't tell him that. I thanked my Caucasian buddy for the gesture anyway.
Thus the conundrum. You appreciate the social and financial support for your culture and its many artists, but sometimes you just want a pair of black loafers. With no feathers attached.
My girlfriend took part in the wedding of a long-time friend, she the only native participant, and all the bridesmaids and ushers received presents for their efforts. Everybody else in the wedding party received faux diamond jewellery. Instead, my girlfriend received something called an Answer Feather that consisted of the three staples of first nations gift-giving; a leather strap, a small obliquely carved piece of bone and a lone feather -- quail, I believe. According to the tag, it was a "traditional healing tool for those seeking answers." To questions like: "Why didn't I get any real jewellery?"
Yet on the other hand, my native friends often give me (and I should add that I often give them) culturally vague clothes, books, appliances, music and so forth. On many long drives, a CD of Shaggy is just as enjoyable as Kashtin. As I'm writing this, I am wearing a straight black T-shirt with no identifiable native logo anywhere on it, given to me by a Mohawk family.
If you go to my mother's house on the reserve, you will notice very little of a representational aboriginal content in her house. Other than what I give her from the seasonal celebratory overflow that I frequently encounter. In fact, she does have a decidedly non-aboriginal barbecue I gave her for Mother's Day a few years back. And she's as native as they come. I will confess, however, I did give her moccasin slippers one year for Christmas, but only because they were a lot prettier than those worn paisley ones she had. But please don't hate me for that.
It makes me wonder if native people are the only recipients of culturally appropriate tributes. Do Caucasian people feel the urge to give the Japanese chopsticks as a wedding gift? Or maybe Mexicans get sombreros for graduation? Do the Swedish get their national flag at a baby shower? On Arbour Day, do you present your favourite American with an assault rifle? These are difficult questions.
I realize that one shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth -- in fact, some may consider it rude and, if so, I apologize. But I would just like to point out that it is possible to give a gift with no cultural baggage attached. We do manage to exist in other areas of reality besides the indigenous one. As one friend put it, "There is no particular native way to boil an egg." The same goes with gift-giving.
I look up on my wall, to my Native Images calendar, with a good-looking Indian guy in a leather vest representing the month of May, and see my birthday not too far distant.
I could really use some new dress pants but I better clear a shelf for all the Jack Weatherford and Tony Hillerman novels I know I'll get.
Drew Hayden Taylor lives in Toronto.