In this contribution I analyze the rep- resentation of “Indians” in the earliest films about the American West. In film archives today we encounter a re- markable variety of images, interpre- tations and constructions of “Indians” or “Indianness” that do not resemble in any way the clichés and stereo- types of the famous Classical West- erns of Hollywood of the succeeding decades. In order to understand the sometimes crude, sometimes remark- ably nuanced visions—in the guise of comedies, tragedies, or ethnographic “documentaries”—it is necessary to focus on the ambivalence that is put forward rather explicitly in these early moving images. A clarification of ter- minology is called for here. In this essay I use the term “Indian” instead of the more historically correct term “aboriginal” or “native American” in order to distance myself from the moral uprighteousness such a “cor- rect” term implies vis-à-vis the older representations under scrutiny here. The Western is the cinematic genre par excellence in which “Indianness” is constructed. In my book The West in Early Cinema (2006) I have investi- gated the emergence of the western genre during the first two decades of cinema (1895–1915). I analyzed many unknown and forgotten films from international archives and traces the relationships between films about the American West, their surrounding films, and other popular media such as photography, painting, (pulp) liter- ature, Wild West Shows and popular ethnography. Through this exploration of archival material I was able to raise fresh questions of historiography and provide an innovative model for histor- ical analysis. I noticed that these first traces of the Western film reveal a preoccupation with presence and actuality that informs us about the way in which film, as new medium, took shape within the context of its con- temporary visual culture. In am not proposing a survey of ways in which Indianness has been constructed in the history of cinema. Such surveys are offered by others (e.g., Bird 1996, Bataille and Silet 1980, Kitses and Rickman 1998, Buscombe and Pear- son 1998). In this context, the follow- ing analysis must be considered. Hence, rather than offering a survey, I analyze the interaction between early cinema’s own place in its time, its generic openness, and the (de)con- struction of Indians therein. It is current useful, if not unproblemat- ic practice to critique, from a post- colonial perspective, the representa- tions of “others”—equally problemati- cally called The Other—throughout Western cultural history. In the case of early westerns, constitutive of my object of analysis, this wronged “other” is obviously the Indian. In films about the American West from the period 1895–1915, indeed, there is ample occasion to conduct such a cri- tique. This is not my goal in this essay, however. Instead, I am interested in studying the reprehensible aspects of this cultural legacy with the problem inherent in making such judgments. Whereas this critique increases our awareness of the violence of the colo- nial legacy that our current worldview still rests on, and whereas it is a use- ful exercise in de-naturalizing images surrounding us, the other side of the coin is the subsequent promotion of another othering. Now, it is not the ethnic or racial other we are encour- aged to feel estranged from, but our own past. The past, indeed, becomes the bad guy to our goodness; the Indi- an is wrongly represented but, by implication, today we do a much bet- ter job of interacting with the aborigi- nal. This historical finger pointing obscures a certain inevitable complic- ity that a different project might help to unearth. On the intellectual level, such historical othering simplifies both the historical object and the cultural pre- sent. It promotes an escapism from difficulty. Hence, lest we take a condescend- ing view of this early form of othering that so plagues our present cultural moment, the other side of the coin needs exploration within the same analysis. For, if the us/them discourse may betray an impulse that runs counter the documentary ambition to represent the West, this does not mean that it is completely successful in its compulsion to othering. Within many films there is a kind of internal, self-defeating logic at play, which undermines its own othering, in what has come to be known as a “decon- struction” of the films by themselves. In this essay, I will look at the way this “self-deconstruction” happens, by a consideration of the integration of four related phenomena. The first two inte- grate the Wild West within (urban) cul- tural life, the second two questions the very possibility of its representation. To avoid participating in the current loose usage of the term deconstruc- tion to the detriment of conceptual clarity, let me risk, rather, rehearsing the obvious, focusing a position in the philosophy of language on a cultural phenomenon that is essentially visual. As Jonathan Culler (1983) among oth- ers has explained, deconstruction is a perspective from within the utterance that critiques the inherent contradic- tions in it. The presence of contradic- tion within utterances is neither new nor surprising. Utterances, or state- ments, expressions, works, images, or films are bound to be inherently contradictory. This is so, because they are structured and hence, made understandable, by means of a binary logic that is logically untenable. The unpacking of the untenability of the NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES 21:1 2007 39 NANNA VERHOEFF MOVING INDIANS: Deconstructing the Other in Moving Images (1895–1915) Nanna Verhoeff is assistant professor at the Department for Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. Her book on early American and European Westerns, The West in Early Cinema: After the Begin- ning, was published by Amsterdam Uni- versity Press in 2006. Her current research project about virtual travel and screen media is a historical comparison of emerg- ing screen technologies and practices from both ends of the twentieth century, ranging from early cinema to digital games. Author’s address: E-mail: