I’ve been thinking about the term “indian giver”, mostly because my daughter (1 yr old) seems to be one. I’ve always disliked it, thinking it was another example of “White Man’s 1001 ways to screw over the Red Man”. This week I realized that I was misunderstanding this figure of speech; an “indian giver” is not “one who gives, then takes back like a good-for-nothing redskin,” rather, he/she is simply one following the standard practice of “the White Man” in dealing with Native Americans. One gives to an indian, then one steals it right back. Not “an indian who gives” but “one who gives to an indian”. This is how you can find humor in anything. Funny how I’d been seeing it upside-down all this time.
Art by Jim Pezzetti