Native American Halloween Costumes Are a Bad Idea

Dancers during Grand Entry at the Choctaw Nation Labor Day Festival Powwow in Tuskahoma, Oklahoma. Photo by Wyatt Stanford. 

Yesterday, I was scrolling through my Facebook memories when I found a very pertinent video I had shared last Halloween season. The video ,created by Buzzfeed, dealt with the topic of Native American costumes during Halloween. Native American costumes are a bad idea for a Halloween costume, and I'm not sure if the general public has caught on as to why.

Someone mentions in the video that it's not like dressing up as a Roman or Viking for Halloween. Native Americans are still very much here, and this is reality for most of us. We are a people and not a costume. 

The costumes worn in the video were very offensive and made me think of what other Native-American-themed costumes exist. In the video, the women were given costumes that were risqué and the men were given costumes that portrayed Native Americans as savages or warriors, as if that is all Native American men are. 

Just out of curiosity, I did a Google image search of "Native American costumes." The results were not that different from the costumes displayed in the video. The female costumes were highly sexualized and the men were all portrayed as warriors. 

Many of these costumes contained commodified representations of of important items of Native American regalia. As mentioned in the video, bead work on powwow dresses has important significance. War bonnets hold a very special honor in some Native American tribes. To put all of that out there to sell without examining its significance in the cultures from which they originated is just ridiculous.

I've been told a thousand times not to worry about Native American Halloween costumes because they are "no big deal." Let me re-frame the situation. Putting on a Native American costume is like putting on black face. If it isn't obvious by looking at many of the costumes, they maintain terrible stereotypes and depict Native people as one homogeneous group.

These stereotypes that Native Americans are savages or that we all do something like live in tepees, like stated in the video, are keeping Native Americans in the past. I think it is an archaic notion to believe Native Americans are one huge group. We are a diverse group made up of tribes and tribal nations with distinct cultures, practices and languages.

I wish society would rethink its costume choices and see how racist these costumes really are. I'm not shaming anyone who has worn a Native American Halloween costume. I hope this post shed some light on the subject.