Even you will become an Indian – Native Americans in Polish Forests

by Elżbieta Wiącek

It may be surprising to hear, but one of the most popular children’s games in communist Poland was to play Indians. The games took their inspiration from the classic novels of James Fenimore Cooper, Jack London and Karol May, as well as from books written by Polish contemporary writers such as Arkady Fiedler or Alfred Szklarski. The figure of the Indian appears in one of Zbigniew Nienacki’s series, a sequence of historical detective stories centering around a museum employee. In Mr. Little Car and Winnetou (Pan Samochodzik i Winnetou, 1976), the second protagonist in the title is the Polish artist who tries to cultivate Indian culture on his own way. The “Polish Winnetou” is a member of ecological organizations and an activist who fights against people using motor boats on the Masurian Lakes. The protagonist of another novel, Even You Will Become an Indian (Nawet ty zostaniesz Indianinem, 1960) by Wiktor Woroszylski, is a boy who receives a tomahawk from his uncle living in the United States. He begins seeing Indians in his everyday life. Later, it turns out that they are the members of a society of Polish fans of Indian culture. Another good example of the penetration of the Indian theme in Polish culture is the ninth part of popular commix series Tytus on the Wild West by H.J. Chmielewski, published in 1974.

Page from the comix Tytus on the Wild West by H.J. Chmielewski (1974).

Why did indigenous warriors from another continent became so popular in a Slavic country situated in Central Europe, behind the Iron Curtain? Why did the authorities of the Polish People's Republic (PRL) tolerate the Indian’s fans? Thanks to the image of Indian tribes suppressed and exploited by the greedy and ruthless Americans, the Soviet Block gained a strong propaganda argument against the capitalistic USA. Moreover, the Polish people were always famous for their individualism and independent spirit, but under the oppressive communist regime they could not exhibit this tendency openly, because national traditions were considered reactionary by the authorities. Under these circumstances, they turned to foreign models. In PRL the Indian style of life based on freedom and being in tune with nature was a kind of “paradise lost,” or a wind from another world. The Indians’ rituals, system of values, and names were widely adapted by postwar Polish scouting (harcerstwo).

In the communist-period Polish literature describing Indians the patriotic motif is quite common, especially in the Indian trilogy written by Longin Jan Okoń. The Indian fighting to regain his land became a symbol of the Polish people fighting with the partitioning powers. The enemies of Indians are usually the Americans, while the friends of Indians are usually Poles or people of Polish origins. Polish writers developed a kind of pattern for creating the representation of Native Americans. Typical features of Indians in Polish novels are life according to the rhythm of nature, deep respect for nature, strong attachment to the tradition of ancestors and their rituals, and special prophetic and healing abilities. Why does the same pattern repeat in all the books? Most of the Polish writers were not familiar with the real life of Native Americans, so they borrowed stereotypes taken from other books by European authors. On the other hand, even those writers who travelled to North America and had contact with real Indians were not free from these stereotypes. They shaped their literary figures according to the idea of the “noble savage” coined by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, deeply rooted in European culture.

The Prairie in Fire (Płonąca preria 1986), by Longin Jan Okoń

The Polish Movement of Indians’ Friends (Polski Ruch Przyjaciół Indian, PRPI) has been functioning continuously in Poland since the middle of the 1970’s. This informal movement is a social group of hobbyists interested in the Indians living in both American continents, but the majority are fans of the material cultures of former inhabitants of North America. PRPI is an informal movement, with no supervising authority, no official organizational structure or registered office. Most of the activities of the members of PRPI are spontaneous, but there are also annual at nationwide and local gatherings, or pow-wows. Most meetings include more 500 participants. PRPI organizes conferences and presentations about the culture of Native Americans, exhibitions of Indian craft, open-air shows of Indian dances and ceremonies. Four decades after its beginning, PRPI is now a multigenerational movement, but it retains a counter-cultural character.

An important figure in the Polish "indianist" movement was Sat-Okh (c. 1920 – July 3, 2003), also known as Stanisław Supłatowicz. He is claimed to be the son of a Polish mother and Shawnee father, born in Canada. Sat-Okh’s mother, Stanisława Supłatowicz, was sent into exile to Siberia in 1905 by the authorities of the Russian Empire. In 1917, together with the group of other Polish Sybiraks1, she was able to escape from Siberia. Thanks to the aid of indigenous Chukchki people she escaped across the Bering Strait to Alaska and then made her way to Canada. The exhausted woman was saved by a Shawnee tribe. She became the wife of the chief’s son and she took new name, Ta-Wach. Their son Sat-Okh grew up in Canada among Native Americans. In 1937 Ta- Wach and her son travelled to Poland to visit their family, and the outbreak of the Second World War made it impossible for them to return to Canada. As Stanisław Supłatowicz, Sat-Okh joined the Polish resistance movement during the German occupation, earning several medals. After the war, he enlisted in the Polish Navy, where he served for six years. Under the name Sat Okh, Supłatowicz published several autobiographical novels for children in Polish, which were translated into several European languages. The books describe a boy's childhood and coming of age among the Native American tribe in the Northwest Territories in the 1930s, but contain many descriptions of Native American life and customs more appropriate to an earlier time and other geographical locations. His debut was the autobiographical novel The Land of Salt Rocks, (Ziemia słonych skał) published in 1958. The most famous book by Sat-Okh was White Mustang (Biały mustang, 1959), a collection of Indian legends and fairy-tales2.


1 The Polish term sybirak (plural: sybiracy) is synonymous to the Russian counterpart sibiryak (a dweller of Siberia). It generally refers to all people resettled to Siberia, but more specifically it refers to Poles who have been imprisoned or exiled to Siberia and even to those sent to Arctic Russia and Kazakhstan in the 1940s. Many Poles were exiled to Siberia. After the change in Russian penal law in 1847, exile and penal labor (katorga) became common penalties for participants in national uprisings within the Russian Empire. This led to an increasing number of Poles being sent to Siberia for katorga, who were known as Sybiraks. Most of them came from the participants and supporters of the 19th century November Uprising (1830) and January Uprising (1863), and the participants of the Revolution of 1905 unrest. Norman Davies, Europe: A History, Oxford University Press, 1996, Google Print, p.664.

2 Other books by Sat-Okh also concern the culture and customs of Native Americans: Fort over Athabaska (Fort nad Athabaską, written with Yackta-Oya, 1985), Sounds of the Prairie (Głos prerii, 1990), The Mystery of Beaver River (Tajemnica Rzeki Bobrów , 1996), Chippewa's Heart (Serce Chippewaya ,1999), Fighting Lenapa (Walczący Lenapa, 2001).

Sat-Okh at the XXV Rally of PRPI, Nowa Wieś Ujska, July 2001
Source: http://www.indianie.eco.pl/r2003/satokh.htm

Sat-Okh
Source: http://funkydiva.pl/miejsca/place/muzeum-indianskie-im-sat-okha-w-wymyslowie-k-tucholi/

Indian village in Szczyrzyc, Poland. Source: http://www.wioskaindianska.pl/img/wioska/wio1.jpg

One of the most important of fields of activity of the Polish Movement of Indians’ Friends are Indian villages in Poland3. Usually they consist of small museums, a dozen or so tipis, and a playground. Children or adults can participate in educational and entertainment programs, which include elements of Indian culture. You can learn how to throw a tomahawk, to make your own dream catcher, to play on Indian musical instruments, and you can watch a shaman’s practices. The website of Polish Indian villages advertise them as a “certified” and “ecological.” The owners of a village named “Pocahontas” even suggest that it is a great place to hold a family party after the First Communion ceremony. One may wonder if the catholic character of the celebration doesn’t collide with the pagan character of the village? The answer is that even in Indian villages you can find catholic accents. In Pocahontas’s village near Wrocław city, you can find a small shrine of Kateri Tekakwitha - a Roman Catholic saint who was an Algonquin–Mohawk virgin and laywoman. She was known for her virtue of chastity and mortification of the flesh, as well as being shunned by her tribe for her religious conversion to Catholicism. She was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on 21 October 2012. The establishing of the Saint Kateri Tekakwitha shrine in Pocahontas’s village in July 2014 was a good strategy to make Indian culture more Polish.

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha
Source: http://www.catholictradition.org/Eucharist/kateri1.htm


3 The best example is the Indian villages in Szczyrzyc ; http://www.wioskaindianska.pl/

The Indian boom briefly died down after the political transformation in Poland in 1989. However, its revival came quickly, after the premiere of the movie Dancing with wolves (1990) by Kevin Costner. The Indian lifestyle became popular again as a remedy for the hardships of economic changes and the consumer mentality brought by the arrival of capitalism. Whatever happens in Poland, it is always good to play Indians.

Dr. Elżbieta Wiącek was visiting professor in the Skalny Center in Fall 2014. She is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Regional Studies, Department of International and Political Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.