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CANADIAN LANDSCAPES/ PAYSAGES CANADIENS [t]here aren’t many if any Native superheroes that are created by Native people. The ones that have been out there stick to the stereotype with the leather and the feathers and the shaman sidekick kind of thing. My guy’s not a sidekick. He’s the main character, he’s carrying the show, and he’s Native. That just wasn’t out there. It was strange to me that it wasn’t out there (Sutton, “Art Talk with Arigon Starr”). CONCLUSION Contemporary Indigenous authors and artists offer a vast array of works that look to their ancestral heritage as the foundation of their emerging voices. Stereotypes, native symbolism, and humour are the elements through which these artists look toward the future in a global and transcultural world, in which their aim is to step out of the shadows that have been cast on them and strengthen their ancestral native identities through tools like literature and the arts, which educate Indigenous youth and link Indigenous culture with the contemporary world. Their aim is to assist people to better understand Indigenous issues and talk about them openly. Their works are self-deprecating humour at its best, which parallels a visual manifestation of gathering Aboriginal awareness and confidence (Ryan 21). Since the 1980s time has shown that critical satire is just one of the aesthetic strategies used by Indigenous artists to interrogate history and illuminate contemporary experience. And as for the future, the critical essays reveal a deepfelt optimism; Darrel J. McLeod (writer, educator, activist) says: “Indigenous people have only just begun to reclaim our space in the broader human context, and I’m filled with optimism and hope about the future. Let’s paint it red” (21). As the Hopi proverb says, “[a] smile is sacred.” Therefore, it is fitting to conclude with Don Kelly’s comment: “[p]eople who know Indigenous people will say to me, you guys are funny. And if that’s a stereotype, I’ll take that one” (Howells, “These Indigenous Comedians”). WORKS CITED Atwood, Margaret. “A Double-Bladed Knife, Subversive Laughter.” Native Writers and Canadian Writing, edited by W. H. New, UBC Press, 1992, pp. 243-50. Burnstick, Don. Cultural Diversity. “Laughter — Good Medicine”. San Carlos Apache Community, 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5_U32Uj-V4. Deloria Jr., Vine. Custer Died for your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. Macmillan, 1969. Gessell, Paul. “Laughing with the Trickster: Tomson Highway.” Fifty-Five Plus Lifestyle Magazine, October 2022, https://www.fifty-five-plus.com/blog/entertainment/laughingwith-the-trickster-tomson-highway/. + 100 +
