Indian Detours: Tourism in Native North America

With tourism becoming the largest single sector of the global economy it cannot but impact traditional societies in many ways, both detrimental and beneficial. Nowhere is the history of the tourist encounter between Native peoples and Euro-Americans as long and as intensive as in North America. From the 1870s transcontinental railroads and shipping routes along the Pacific coast opened up the North American West for travelers, wishing to get to know the spectacular country and its Native peoples. Leisure travelers came in rapidly increasing numbers, first from the United States and Canada, soon also from Europe, and more recently from Asia.

This volume is the result of the "North American Indian Tourism" sessions organized during the 2014 (European) American Indian Workshop held in Leiden, the Netherlands, from May 21-25. The conference was hosted by the University of Leiden and the National Museum of Ethnology (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde; now: National Museum of World Cultures). Most contributions address developments from the late nineteenth century to the present. The majority of the articles focus on the Greater Southwest, but the Natives peoples of the Great Plains take central stage in several contributions. Topics include: travels by Native Americans to Europe, the variety of encounters between Dutch travelers and tourists and Indians in Arizona and New Mexico, the role of the Indian casino industry, the production and consumption of Indian arts and crafts, tribal tourism policy, and the role of museums and tourism in the staging of Indian exhibitions.