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NATIVE HUMOUR AND IDENTITY CONTESTED THROUGH LITERATURE AND THE ARTS identity by contesting these Indian stereotypes through reverence and ironic humour. Figure 3. Bill Powless, “Urban Indian Lost in the Woods” acrylic on canvas board, 1995, Tribal Vision, n.d. http://www.tribalvisiondance.com/p/original-artwork-bybill-powless.html. By permission of artist. The above paintings and drawings are charged with gentle wry humour, but do we as a non-Indigenous audience understand their underlying hints? Powless remarked that those who saw his works displayed, and especially Indians’ Summer, “weren't sure whether to laugh or not. Some people just broke out [in laughter], they couldn't help it, [...]. I could see them trying to hold it back” (Ryan, 19). Like Powless, Arigon Starr engages in collective memory resilience. Her work Super Indian (2012), a comic book, activates intergenerational memory, and the roots of genealogy go deep. The story is set on a reservation in the United States and relates how Hubert Logan obtained his superpowers. Is he the Indigenous version of Superman, the popular superhero? Starr elaborates, “[wlhen I tell people Hubert got superpowers from eating tainted commodity cheese, it usually gets a laugh, [...] Hey, it’s highly processed food! Could have happened to anyone!” (Starr, “Super Indian”). Within her work, Starr uses comedy, humour, and irony to explore social problems, combat racism, stereotyping and start conversations, but mostly to make people laugh. As in all Indigenous works, comedy is a form of healing and education that strengthens Indigenous identity. According to Starr, + 99 +
