From Young Hawk To Tommy

 I’ve always been intrigued why there haven’t been more Native Americans in video games. Like comic books, this seems like a media outlet where some of the aspects of Native culture could be exploited, for what it’s worth, for good and bad. The first comic to exploit this was Turok.

 Doing a little research in Wikipedia on Turok, it was found that his creator originally wrote a series of stories on a pre-Colombian Indian who is trapped in a valley filled with dinosaurs. Later, Dell Comics used Turok after developing his character in the Lone Ranger series. In the beginning a Native American youth, Young Hawk, is given a story line in the Lone Ranger comics and his character is developed over the years. In a spin-off series, Young Hawk matures and is given the adult name of Turok and then him and his brother become trapped in some canyons where “ancient life-forms exist.”

 Given the isolationism of the Americas and the fact that the indigenous peoples have roamed this continent for 40,000-60,000 years, it’s not possible that actual Natives battled the dinosaurs but many forms of primitive animals continued to exist until eradicated before the arrival of the white man. Giant bears, sabretooth tigers, and mastodons are all animals that the Natives were known to have dealt with.

 In speculating how man may have hunted and been hunted by dinosaurs, the idea that Natives could be used to expand on this concept was a natural. It was just taken to its logical conclusion when an evil force turned the dinosaurs into robotic bionosaurs. These bionosaurs are the type which were a deadly, menacing foe on the Nintendo 64 in Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. This is the Turok that so many of you gamers know and love.

 What is not natural is the concept of ancient Indians being abducted by aliens and using spiritual powers to defeat the alien horde. From the 3D Realms website:

 

 

 

 Among the tools available to our rez hero is the ability to Spirit Walk and a sidekick, a spiritual hawk that can help him and decipher alien language. Whew! Good thing about that language thing, otherwise this would have been a pretty short game. Ha!

 While I’ve played Turok on the Nintendo and completed that game, I’ve only played the demo of Prey. When Turok: Evolution came out, I heard it was so bad, I never sought it out to try for myself.

 If you know me, I just cringe when I hear about a new book or movie with Indians using spiritual powers and having vision quests and the like. Ugh.

 The difference with Prey I suppose, is that with the Native Americans battling someone else who wants to take their land (sorry, couldn’t help that one), this batch of aliens are alien to the planet. The science fiction angle on this story takes it completely over the top. For all the fantastic things the aliens can do or weapons they possess, it just seems natural that Tommy has some inbred Native power, teachings from the elders that can overcome, or an animal spirit sidekick. Uh, yeah, okay, sure…

 I had heard at one time that the Cherokee spiritual beliefs were used as the basis for this game. I know a few Cherokees but don’t know any of them that have played the game. I’d like to talk to them about their take on this but from what I know about Native spirituality and the Longhouse religion, all of the things that were presented in the game that I saw were completely out of left field. But hell, I’m a Star Trek fan and nobody can use a teleporter yet either.

 The quality of the Prey game seemed pretty good and I’m for anything that portrays Natives in a positive light. I’m hoping that the next installment of Turok, due on the 360 and PS3, is of equal calibre.

 

 Research for this blog included finding out there’s a Native guy by the name of Michael Sheyahshe who has written a book on Natives in the comics and most recently, an article on Natives in video games for the January edition of Native Peoples Magazine. For more on Sheyahshe, see:

 

 

Native Americans in Comic Books, is a study and critique of the way in which Indigenous people are represented in the medium of comic books. This work takes an in-depth look at the world of comic books through the eyes of a Native American reader and offers frank commentary on the medium's cultural representation.
For this book, Michael Sheyahshe has interviewed a host of individuals in the comic book and video game industry: Tim Truman (creator/writer/artist for Scout), Alvin Schwartz (writer for Tomahawk from the 1940s), Terry LaBan (creator/writer/artist for Muktuk Wolfsbreath), Steve Englehart (creator/writer/artist for Coyote), John Ostrander (writer for Blaze of Glory), Rachel Pollack (creator/writer for Vertigo's Tomahawk), Jon Proudstar (creator/writer for Tribal Force), Mike Grell (creator/writer/artist for Shaman’s Tears) Bradford. W. Wright (author of "Comic Book Nation"), and Jacquelyn Kilpatrick, Ph.D. (author of "Celluloid Indians").

 

Native Peoples Magazine

 

 For more on the actor who portrays Tommy in Prey: