"Indian giver" is an American pejorative expression, used to describe a person who gives a "gift" and later wants it back, or who expects something of equivalent worth in return for the item. It is based on cultural misunderstandings that took place between early European explorers (like Lewis and Clark) and the Indigenous people with whom they traded. Often the Europeans would view an exchange of items as gifting, believing they owed nothing in return to the Natives who were generous with them, while the Indigenous people saw the exchange as a form of trade or equal exchange, so had differing expectations of their guests.
Contents
The phrase is still in colloquial use to describe a negative act or shady business dealings, but the racial implications are seen as not only inaccurate but offensive, especially by Native Americans, whose cultural traditions are based on hospitality and generosity, not deception.
Etymology
The phrase originated, according to researcher David Wilton, in a cultural misunderstanding that arose when Europeans first encountered Native Americans on arriving in North America in the 15th century. Europeans thought they were receiving gifts from Native Americans, while the Native Americans believed they were engaged in what was known to Europeans as bartering; this resulted in the Native Americans finding European behaviour ungenerous and insulting. The phrase was first used in print in 1765.
Usage
The phrase was first noted in 1765 by Thomas Hutchinson, who characterized an Indian gift as "a present for which an equivalent return is expected," which suggests that the phrase originally referred to a simple exchange of gifts. In 1860, however, in John Russell Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms, Bartlett said the phrase was being used by children in New York to mean "one who gives a present and then takes it back."
As recently as 1979, the phrase was used in mainstream media publications, but in the 1997 book The Color of Words: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias in the United States, writer and editor Philip H. Herbst says that although the phrase is often used innocently by children, it may be interpreted as offensive, and The Copyeditor's Handbook (1999) describes it as objectionable.