Cannibalism And Infant Killing: A System Of "Demonizing" Motifs In Indian Captivity Narratives

The Puritan phase of the Indian captivity narrative, both in its binary "good vs. evil" oppositions and in its imagery, established the paradigm for much of the subsequent development of the Indian captivity narrative form -- helping to fix particular (and ethnocentric) views of the Indian in the American imagination, and thereby making those same images and motifs readily available for political and ideological manipulation.