When Keith Basso sent me his manuscript, it came as a gift, a gift of laughter. The fourth portrait especially dissolved me in delight, and delighted others with whom I shared it. When he invited me to write this Foreword, I found myself “gifted” again. There came a feather that a Cibecue friend had blessed. That unexpected symbol of reciprocity was dissolving too, making one for a moment light as breath. So it is twice a privilege, and responsibility, to share in presenting these portraits of ‘the Whiteman’.

The portraits speak for themselves, and Vincent Craig's cartoons make meanings immediate as well. The significance of the portraits to the understanding of Indian Americans and to the general understanding of culture is lucidly stated in the text. Like any seasoned scholar, of course, I can mention references that the author did not choose to include, and will. What I can best do, I think, is to try to highlight in words of my own the fact that the portraits do speak for themselves, while enlarging upon the context and importance of the fact.

The Apache portraits of ‘the Whiteman’ have analogues elsewhere in Indian country (cf. n. 21 of this book), but that is not often recognized. The great capacity of Indian people for creative wit has been obscured by the image of the Indian as silent stoic. Elsewhere Basso has helped us recognize that silence is a function of definition of situation (1970), as has his colleague, Susan Philips (1972, 1975). The general point was noted long ago by Washing-ton Irving, writing in the context of a tour on the prairies in 1832 among the Osage, but has had to be rediscovered and given substance today.