p.192.

From the Enlightenment down to the present, the prmitive

has been a uniquely emplotted and powerful Western symbolic
construct.
p.192. As Ricoeur has said in the epigrpah to this chapter, our identity
is a function to the stories, historical and fictional, we tell about
ourselves.
p.192. The perspecive of the history of religions adopted here
ourselves not only on the historical Facuss of Indian captivity (how
many individuals were captured ina a given period, how many were
ransomed, killed, or underwent transculturalization) but more
importantly on the imaginal and representacional activity carried on
around the topos of captivity and the figure of the white Indian It was,
alter all, largely through narrative forms (supplemented by pictorial
representations and theatrical performances) that the facts
concerning white indians were constructed, circulated, and consumed
in the West.
p.192. For millions of Readers (and, more recently, moviegoers),
captivity tales have been important vehicles for exploring the
posibility of identity transformation. Representations of going native
including those that affirm the process and those that display abject
horror over its very possibility, are responses to a basic human
fascination with the thought og losing or changing ones identity. In
important ways, to lose ones identity and ten to assume another is
equivalent to dying and beigng reborn. Given this, many captivity
narratives functioned as secular equivalents of myths of death and
rebirth.
p.193.While the very idea of White Indians oponed up new posibilities
for reimaging personal and cultural identity and for making the term
humanity more inclusive, in actuality this rarely occurred. More often
than not representations of Indian captivity and of going native were
used to reinforme existing cultura categories and conceptual Systems
of exclusin.
p.193. For over three centuries, diverse representations of Indian
captivity have been an important vehicle for reflection upon the
primitive-civilized dichotomy. Through captivity narratives, Readers
could imaginatively identify with cautives and thus both enjoy the
adventures of white Indians and suffer with them.
p.193. The imaginal activity inevitably led to authors and readers into
comparative activities as they were drawn to evaluate their own lives,
society, and civilization in light of the different perspectives provided
by Indians cultures.
p.193. Still other captivity narratives employed the authority gained
by the narrator's firsthand acquaintance with the Indian life to criticize
aspects of Western society or Christendom, and even to question the
value of the purposed blessings of civilzation.

Some authors used the tales of indian captives to avaluate the quality
of human life with and without