A pervasive myth in North America supposes that Native people and Native culture are trapped in a state of stasis. Those who subscribe to it imagine that, like Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting For Godot
, Natives were unable to move forward along the linear continuum of civilization, that we were waiting for someone to come along and lead us in the right direction. To free us from ourselves.
In Beckett’s play, as everyone knows, Godot never arrives. In the Native version, Europeans never leave. In some ways, I envy Vladimir and Estragon. Who knows what unfortunate turns their lives might have taken had Godot managed to land on their shores?
