One of the most memorable aspects of the 1992 film by Michael Mann, “The Last of the Mohicans” is, unfortunately, the massive and rather gory violence. Like many Hollywood films, Mann’s treatment of James Fennimore Cooper’s novel sets up an unlikable villain as early as possible. Interestingly, instead of having the most awful villain as a white man, it is instead the brutal Huron, Magua. His cruelty is almost awe-inspiring because of its complete savagery, which of course makes him fall neatly into the category of the “savage” Indian (as opposed to the kinder, gentler, “whiter” Daniel Day-Lewis and his ilk who are friends with the whites.)

Later in the film by director Michael Mann we find out that his cruelty is not baseless, that in fact he is seeking revenge for the death of his children and the destruction of his village at the hands of Colonel Monroe. What many viewers probably don’t understand, however, is that such revenge-seeking was not part of some inherent bloodlust invoked at the smallest slight, but rather because of a warfare tradition among the Huron tribes. As one scholar notes, “The intensity of warfare within the Five Nations and with other tribes produced ‘mourning wars,’ a widespread Native American response to the killing of family members” (Oswalt 2002, 370). In other words, Magua’s brutal reaction and his subsequent ripping out of Monroe’s heart was not spurred by innate savagery, but because of a cultural way of handling the murder of family members. This cultural and historical fact is never explained thus even though the viewer may kind of sympathize with his loss, his savage reaction just seems to be because of inherent savagery.

The end result of this portrayal of brutal revenge is that the viewer is once again almost unknowingly trapped again into believing the old stereotypes that Native Americans are (and were) complete savages. This perception and stereotype is not at all helped by the fact that there are numerous gory representations of scalping and even Magua’s admission that he intends to eat the severed heart. Compared to the “quick and easy” killing via muskets and guns on the part of the whites, these raw violent scenes only reinforce negative stereotypes. Again, the average viewer is probably not aware of the more accurate truth behind such scenes. For instance, it should be noted that, “Scalps usually had sacred associations, but this was not true of heads taken by Europeans.

Furthermore, cannibalism was also practiced and it too usually had sacred associations (e.g. to gain the supernatural power of a slain enemy)” (Tooker 1991, 106). In other words, it was not just brutality for brutality’s sake that people were scalped or claims were made as to eating the heart of an enemy—these were cultural norms that were part of everyday warfare. While it would be easy to take the ethnocentric view and think of these acts as violent and detestable, it should be remembered that it was a cultural norm and our opinions should be discarded in our evaluation of characters and real Native Americans.

In sum, this film, “The Last of the Mohicans” did nothing to erase the stereotype of the “bad Indian” that has persisted since the first colonists came and wrote down their observations. On this note, it should also be stated that the “good Indians” have far more in common with the whites than the “bad” Indians do and this in itself is inherently biased (if not subtly racist.) Although there are any number of correct presentations of the more material aspects of Native American culture, the cultural and philosophical basis behind these demonstrations is altogether absent. Furthermore, this analysis cannot end without at least a brief mention of the romanticized scenes of love in “The Last of the Mohicans”—Anglo-style, that hold the plot together.

In essence, this is almost more of a romantic film than an action or historical film and it is no surprise that the white Indian gets the white girl. Although the end is not necessarily happy, it fulfills the expectations of Hollywood-fed audiences in which the good white guy overcomes his struggles and gets the pretty girl. The suggestion is that even though the Mohicans are dying, the possibility for really interesting little white children still exists. Overall, this is but a thinly-veiled pro-colonialist film with culturally-sensitive aspirations which unfortunately, peter out in the end and leave viewers with the same images of Native Americans that have persisted since the (re)telling of America’s history began.

Other essays and articles in the Main Archives related to this topic include :• Comparison of Actors : DeNiro and Pacino in “Heat” Directed by Michael Mann (1995) • James Fenimore Cooper : Biography and Novels in Context

Works Cited

Dunn, Shirley W. (2000). The Mohican World: 1680-1750. Blacklick: Purple Mountain Press.

Oswalt, Wendell. This Land was Theirs: A Study of Native Americans. New York: Mayfield Publishing.

Tooker, Elisabeth J. An Ethnography of the Huron Indians 1615-1649. Salinas: Coyote Press.