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The Indian Burial Ground Trope

While America keeps building it’s pop culture towards the future, it’s roots are created from the past foundation laid by Native Americans. Native American culture has become notorious from it’s appropriation in the media. This has led to multiple misconstrued ideas and viewpoints. Because of the history’s previous attempts at genocide along with the gradual resurgence of information from research and historical fact, Native American culture has begun to exceed it’s stereotypes that are rooted in media. One of the most popular and well known troupes in media is the “Ancient Indian Burial Ground” troupe, that exists in many horror movies involving the supernatural. Satire is beginning to circulate more in recent years regarding how America being built on an ancient burial grounds have led to a wide variety of disasters afflicting North America, such as The Onion releasing a video in 2011 entitled “Report: Economy Failing Because U.S. Built On Ancient Indian Burial Grounds.”

Puritan Minister Cotton Mather

Colonization in America

Early beginnings of New England. Those who were already occupying this territory were the Algonquians. Because the Puritans were strongly devout and strict in the practice of Christianity, all other outsiders were deemed to be under the power of evil. In 1693, Puritan Minister Cotton Mather exemplified this fear with his preachings and sermons. “[‘T]is to be supposed, that some Devils are more peruliarly Commission’d, and perhaps Qualify’d, for some Countries, while others are for others. This is intimated when in Mar. 5-10, The Devils besought our Lord much, that he would not send them away out of the Countrey. Why was that? But in all probability, because these Devils were more able to do the works of the Devil [i.e. Satan], in such a Countrey, than in another. It is not likely that every Devil does know every Language; ٠٢ that every Devil can do evei^ Mischief... .^:cordingly, why may not some Devils be more accomplished for what is to be done in such and such places, when others must be detach’d for other Territories? £ach Devil, as he sees his advantage, cries out, let me be in this Countrey, rather than another.” (Caterine, Darryl V)

This would be the start of a long line of systemic racism targeting Native Americans in efforts to assert their dominance over the territory and using religion as their justification. Many travelers and arriving colonists would read national and religious rhetoric that depicted Native Americans as “demons” needing to be driven out of their lands. Such as Emmerich de Vattel in The Law of Nations 1758, which asserted the right of agriculturalists to acquire land for expansion as superior to the claim of the primitive hunter. Other published stories include Samuel G. Drake’s bestselling Book of the Indians of North America and The Token short story by anti-expansionist novelist Lydia Maria Child. Early North America began to become more familiar with the violence Native Americans were capable of and the idea of seeking revenge by means of violence or "cursing" the land inhabited by white settlers. But this also cemented the idea of Indian culture being apart of American culture as well as the nation subsequently grew.

Cthulhu mythos

Modern Horror Stories

Entering the 20th century, literature began to evolve with the changing times. H.P Lovecraft began to gain popularity for horror stories published magazines, that derived from the early "demon indian" narratives written by Puritans, which fit inside his cosmic and horrific fictional landscapes. "In a collection of tales that Lovecraft fans would later distinguish as outlining the so-called Cthulhu mythos, foe main character, typically a learned sleuth, gradually comes to realize through his own antiquarian, folkloric or archeological research that a race of foul extraterrestrial creatures lurks below foe ground or beneath ocean waters in otherwise familiar settings. Lovecraft referred to these creatures as foe Old Ones. Having come to the Earth eons ago, they mated with distant human ancestors and left behind a mutant subspecies that has survived to present day. In tales like “The Dunwich Horror,” foe protagonist stumbles across mutants in a remote and forgotten backwater; in others, like “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” he realizes he is turning into one himself. Throughout, Lovecraft references Puritan belief in a demon haunted wilderness or Algonquian tales of monstrous beings living in New England woods as veiled references to foe Old Ones, which foe narrator comes to realize were real all along."

The Amityville House

Modern Horror Cinema

Horror fans generally trace the concept to the 1977 book, The Amityville Horror, later turned into a 1979 movie (and 12 other movies, including a 2005 remake). The Amityville Horror purports to be the true story of the Lutz family’s experience after moving into a Long Island house in which, a few years earlier, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. shot and killed six family members. In the Amityville Horror, there are similar tropes of horror seen in Lovecraft's fiction that are being brought back though the author, Jay Anson. Tropes such a hell portals, necromancy or witchcraft, human or animal sacrifice. An explanation for the various horrible supernatural things that supposedly happened to the Lutzes (ranging from weird sounds to levitation, visions, and physical transformation) was provided in the book: their house was constructed on an Indian Burial Ground. The Amityville Historical Society says that “the Shinnecock Indians used land on the Amityville River [i.e., his property] as an enclosure for the sick, mad and dying, penning up the unfortunates until they died of exposure.” Although this idea has become disproven, that any of the 13 tribes living in long Island (Shinnecock, Montaukett Nation, e.t.c) were not in the area, this idea would later spawn other well known horror movies.

In the early 1980’s, movies such as The Shining (1980), Poltergeist (1982), and the book version of Pet Sematary (1989), with the book previously published in ‘83. “The basic idea is that much disruptive ghost behavior can be traced back to current Americans (and Canadians) disrespecting a place where American Indians are buried by, say, building a house or a hotel on the spot.” In some arctic communities, the dead were simply left on the ice to be eaten by predators, whereas other groups practiced more familiar burial forms ranging from mass graves to careful and solemn burials to burials performed quickly and with great fear of the corpse.

Present Day

TV Tropes calls this a “Dead Horse Trope,” saying “If it gets used, it’s often at least slightly tongue-in-cheek, humorous, lampshaded or subverted. In any plot with something weird happening, a Genre Savvy character may make the Obligatory Joke that it’s due to an ancient Indian burial ground, even if they’re in Europe or Asia.”

It’s no coincidence that just as Indian Burial Ground trope emerged in the 1970s, so did many activist organizations: The American Indian advocacy group, began in 1968. The Trail of Broken Treaties, a massive coast-to-coast protest, took place in 1972.” (Nosowitz). In 2000, Terri Jean, an American Indian writer, penned a short essay on probable causes, one of which reads “Karma and guilt. Americans know that atrocities were committed and hundreds of nations were obliterated or nearly obliterated. Retribution is feared, and some people may believe that the ghosts of those who died due to this nation’s invasion and European takeover will some day come back to get their revenge.”