Traces the roots of ideas about what makes Aboriginal peoples of North America 'real Indians'. Focusing on the northwest coast in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, this book describes how government officials, missionaries, anthropologists, reformers, settlers, and tourists developed definitions of Indian authenticity.

Taken together, these episodes reveal the futility of outsiders' attempts to define authentic Aboriginal culture. Raibmon argues that Aboriginal culture is much more than the reproduction of rituals; it also lies in the means by which Aboriginals generate new and meaningful ways of identifying their place in a changing modern environment.