Native American protagonists?

Is there any films/books/etc (especially in the Western genre) that portrays Native Americans in a positive light and even has a protagonist whose Native American? Or maybe a film/book/etc that accurately/realistically portrays Native Americans (regarding different tribe cultures for example is there a film that involves a Cliff Dwelling[/url]? Since I noticed that most films portray Natives living in teepees which not every tribe did that not to mention that tribes are completely diverse to each other and not all of them had the same practices/beliefs/etc), showing that not all of them were [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySuetopia]Mary Suetopias[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff-dwelling[/url] but they were still portrayed as human beings rather than monsters.

All of the Winnetou films portray the Indians fairly. Also most of the East German DEFA Indian films side with the Indians againstthe evil White-Eyes. The DEFA films starred Gojko Mitic in various Indian roles from eastern tribes Tecumseh, Osceola to western and Mexican tribes.

It depends what you have seen. How many movies?
for ex. Man called Horse is a movie portraying indians and their rituals (dont know of what tribe) in very realistic way. I think
it had two follow-ups.
Little Big Man is also a classic.
I´m not sure about these Winnetou movies, i mean how exactly they are precise. Somewhere i red that Apache tribe
portrayed in these films had Siouxie tribe dresses - but really don´t know if this is true.
Yeah, and White Comanche is probably fairest movie about indians (no, just a joke) :stuck_out_tongue:

try to get “Joe Hembus - Western-Lexikon” . there are reviews of 1567 films from 1894 to 1995 (but only in german) and i got my copy second-hand for € 20.-

positive indian films are :
little big man
dances with wolves
cheyenne autumn
broken arrow …

and here is a link : http://www.indianer-wiki.org/Liste_der_US-amerikanischen_Indianerfilme

Since the success of Broken Arrow (1950) the western was flooded with westerns showing the Indian side of the wars and with positive Indians.
If any of them is really historically accurate is another question. Most of them surely not so much as the western was rarely a genre suitable for historians.

Well, some tried, and A Man Called Horse was one of them, but still was criticised to be wrong even in simple details.

You won’t find any accurate portrayals of Native Americans in SWs, but you will see positive and heroic portrayals.

Off the top of my head, here are a list of SWs and Euro westerns with Native American protagonists

Return of Ringo
Navajo Joe
His Name was Holy Ghost (Vassili Karis version, not the one with Gianno Garko)
Captain Apache (LOL)

Images of Indians: How Hollywood Stereotyped the Native American

Worth a watch.

Having read a great deal about the American Indians, I think that the three most accurate films to portray them as they were are Black Robe, Ulzana’s Raid and Windwalker. Unfortunately, while it is unfair to dismiss the Indians as ignorant savages, it is also inaccurate to portray them as proto-hippies. Most tribes were extremely warlike and it’s impossible to comprehend American history without having an understanding of the importance of warfare and torture in American Indian cultures.