Jesuits, indians, and the legend of ondessonk

This is an experimental text with a performative cast, the aim of which is to enact, excavate, chronicle, and interrogate the racialized experiences and spectacles endured, consumed, and performed by the author in the course of a two-week stay at a Native American themed catholic summer camp during his youth. Following Philip J. Deloria, it is argued that the camp's history and appropriation of Native American culture eventuate in the formation of a highly racialized space where relatively well-off white children come to “play Indian,” a space that furthermore conspires in the construction and maintenance of “whiteness” as a cultural identity. The text is characterized by its multiple and rotating speaking parts and thus lends itself to both impromptu seminar readings as well as more elaborate forms of theatrical performance.