May 3, 2020

"My father had been interested in art since boyhood, when he drew images related to his Ojibwe culture."

"After leaving Pipestone boarding school in Minnesota in 1942, he joined the Navy and was assigned to San Diego, where he worked alongside animation artists from MGM and Walt Disney producing brochures and films for the war effort. In 1946, he established himself as one of the first modernists in American Indian fine art. After I was born in 1946, my family moved from Red Lake, Minn., to Minneapolis, where my father broke racial barriers by establishing himself as an American Indian commercial artist in an art world dominated by white executives and artists.... By often working with Native American imagery, he maintained a connection to his identity.... With the redesign [of the Land o' Lakes butter packaging], my father made Mia’s Native American connections more specific. He changed the beadwork designs on her dress by adding floral motifs that are common in Ojibwe art. He added two points of wooded shoreline to the lake that had often been depicted in the image’s background. It was a place any Red Lake tribal citizen would recognize as the Narrows, where Lower Red Lake and Upper Red Lake meet.... Mia simply didn’t fit the parameters of a stereotype...."

From "My Native American father drew the Land O’Lakes maiden. She was never a stereotype" (WaPo).

96 comments:

rhhardin said...

One hardly knows what to be outraged about these days. It's stupid to get rid of the viral Indian boobs trick, though, brandwise.

paminwi said...

People went crazy over nothing with zero knowledge.
Once again a corporation folded like a cheap suit and gave in to whiny liberals.
No surprises here except maybe the WaPo doing a story on the reality of the drawing..

Big Mike said...

No Social Justice Warrior cares about the artist. It’s all about the neverending culture war.

robother said...

SJWs with degrees in Ethnic Studies are the only qualified judges of stereotypes and cultural appropriation. What does some Indian off the rez know about such esoterica?

Jersey Fled said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jersey Fled said...

Another lefty meme comes up short.

Jersey Fled said...

On the other hand, props to WaPo for printing Mr. DesJarlait's story.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

I love it when the pasty white upper middle class SJW's decide on their own what is offensive to brown people, that they don't know and would never in their "real" daily lives deign to associate with. (yes...ended on preposition..sue me) It shows their hypocrisy and narcissism and total lack of self-awareness.

They presume to know the inner minds of everyone and especially people that they imagine that they know anything about. (Clue...they don't know)

They think they are protecting the tender sensibilities of the "lesser" persons and treat them like children or sub-level people.

Shower thought. SJW's = Karen's Bunch of buttinski busybodies.

William said...

I don't think it was a derogatory stereotype, but it was rather inappropriate. Indian maidens were not known for their butter churning skills. Very difficult for Indian maidens to milk a buffalo, particularly the female ones so they didn't even try....The world changes and moves on. There was no malice behind the Aunt Jemina logo, but its time passed. I think Betty Crocker has been given frequent do-overs. She has been made to look more managerial than matronly in keeping with feminist ethos. Why should the Indian maiden be sacrosanct?

David Begley said...

The CEO of Land o’ Lakes is Beth E. Ford. She’s a lesbian. What do lesbians have against Indians?

Fernandinande said...

"My Native American father drew the Land O’Lakes maiden. She was never a stereotype"

What's the exact relationship between being drawn by an Amerindian and not being a stereotype?

Wince said...

The Land o' Lakes woman, the Vermont Maid maple syrup lady and Aunt Jemima.

Come to think of it, my childhood breakfast table probably provided me with my first heterosexual "highlight reel".

Now that's the power of inclusion!

No offense to the gay community, but thank god it wasn't "Snap, Crackle and Pop".

Lurker21 said...


He also created the Hamm's Beer Bear, and say what you will, that bear definitely looks like a comic stereotype -- it does not reflect the proud culture of Ursus americanus, who was on this continent long before we were.

wendybar said...

Just more dumb progressive liberal stereotype political correctness crap. They won't stop until they can change EVERYTHING we love.

Lurker21 said...


Aren't we jumping to conclusions to assume that she's a lesbian just because she is married to a woman?

----

Two blondes with short hair.

"Karen" marries "Karen" and hilarious fun ensues.

Tonight on ABC.

Lurker21 said...

I get that everything butter related is a big story in Wisconsin.

Will the governor take advantage of the shutdown to get margarine banned again?

Amadeus 48 said...

I woke up scweaming. They had long ears and big fwont teeth. They were wabbits.

I dweamed they were coming for Elmer Fudd.

Kate said...

It's a great story. If the SJWs didn't try to ban the maiden we probably never would've heard it.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

That fake Indian created by the artist had more legitimacy that Warren’s claim ever did. Just amazing how SJWs destroy so many things that they are too ignorant and incurious to understand. Funny how that was the Left’s complaint about W, but NOBODY is as incurious as a programmed leftist automaton SJW spouting propaganda. And dang if they don’t make “progress” in their determination to reduce culture by bitching about it. Amazing.

chickelit said...

What about the images on older American coins: the Indian head penny? the buffalo nickel?? a couple gold pieces???

Racist stereotypes?

Also, Leinenkugel Beer features or used to feature an Indian maiden on its products. Is that gone too?

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

William, she represents the area, the Land of lakes where her tribe thrived.

Kate they didn’t just try. The damn Karens have succeeded in changing the label.

Fernandinande said...

Would she still be a maiden after being kidnapped and raped by the Iroquois?

Fernandinande said...

There are several hateful stereotypes in the avatars on this thread, and I bet none of them were drawn by a Native American father.

Howard said...

She was the saint Pauly girl of butter

RMc said...

SJWs with degrees in Ethnic Studies are the only qualified judges of stereotypes and cultural appropriation.

It's nothing new. 30 years ago, my college was forced to change its unique Native American nickname ("Hurons") to the boring, cookie-cutter "Eagles". (Interestingly, another school in my state was told to eliminate "Chippewas"; they laughed and told the PC crowd to go sleep it off, so they got to keep their name.)

Stu Grimshaw said...

The new label has “Farmer-Owned” in big letters across the top. That’s a good selling point - I.e., we’re not a faceless butter conglomerate but a group hardworking dairy farmers.

However, “Farmer-Owned” above a kneeling Indian maiden becomes problematic.

‘‘Twas the marketing department not the SJWs that killed the brand.

Howard said...

The worst impact from these SWJ's is that it has the opposite effect thereby reinforcing and justifying the racism of deplorables. Therefore ipso facto swjs are deplorable. You people are like two sides of the same disgusting coin

MayBee said...

Some people just don't understand when they are supposed to be offended, and here this nice middle class person will just explain it to them. Or be outraged for them, if they are to stupid to get it.

Phil 314 said...

I was always intrigued by the Land o Lakes Indian maiden because she was holding a package of butter with the Land o Lakes maiden on it and presumably that package’s maiden was also holding the same butter with the same image and so on and so on.

She was my first glimpse into infinity.

Maillard Reactionary said...

This will make a great case study for MBA students, along with e.g. the New Coke and the Chevy "no va" fiascos.

Standing by for the Harvard Business Review article...

Darrell said...

Did your father intentionally add shadows to her knees so that they would become bare breasts when you folded them to her chest and cut out a flap with an X-Acto knife?

Inga said...

I’m going to miss the lovely Indian maiden. I used to beg my mother to buy real butter instead of oleo margarine so I could see the beautiful packaging. And I love the bear from the Land of Sky Blue Waters.

Howard said...

My mom grew up in Minnesota so we always had Land O lakes butter. that packaging as a child was better than the Sears catalog or the national geographic for that matter. Fortunately my mom was kind of crazy and she suspected that margarine and oleo was poison twin the experts were telling everybody that it was healthy

CWJ said...

RMc, what is it with Eagles. Marquette got the same treatment and adopted the same (Golden) Eagles solution.

Ironclad said...

Was the Indian maiden milking beavers or foxes to make the butter? There were no sheep, goats or cows at that time and Opossums don't exactly give milk. It's hard to know really what to be offended by actually - at the SJW mob for their cultural "appropriation" baloney or the artist that had zero historical knowledge about the "native foods" or LoL that just folded like a wet noodle over outrage.

In in event, I sent a nice email to LoL and told them I wasn't buying their butter anymore (used it for 20 years+) and got a saccharine reply - but what do you expect from twitter whimps?

hombre said...

For a moment I thought this was written by Elizabeth Warren. Why not Ojibwe and Cherokee?

JAORE said...

The SJWs collect another scalp.

Bruce Hayden said...

I have taken to checking the packaging I see in the store. Still seeing more with the Indian maiden, than without.

WhoKnew said...

If the SJWs get their way and only American Indians are allowed to write about or use Indian imagery, they will finally and truly disappear from American culture. After all, they represent less than 1% of the population and in many states are essentially absent. Heck, there are only about 46,000 Indians in Wisconsin. If the other 5,834,000 of us aren't allowed to have anything to say about Indians, they will be forgotten entirely.

Mark said...

RMc said...30 years ago, my college was forced to change its unique Native American nickname ("Hurons") to the boring, cookie-cutter "Eagles".

Ooo, Ooo, emu, emu, emu, emu, emu.

The insiders get it.

In other news, looking at the stats, that town has been rather hard hit. Not as hard as the adjacent county, but it is the worst in the county it is in.

Gk1 said...

Branding is a funny thing. One of my absurd hobbies was collecting books on trademarks and other advertising icons starting from the 1800's to today. There is a regional aspect to why some trademarks used mascots (for want of a better term). One way to show the wholesomeness of the product is by using an indian nymph in buckskin and head dress next to a pure Minnesota lake. That sort of iconography was fine for the 1920's but no longer cuts any ice today. Best not to get too invested in an advertising gimmick. It reminds me of the Groucho Marx gag "Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others"

robother said...

Howard: "You people are like two sides of the same disgusting coin."

The lonely lives of the Elect.

YoungHegelian said...

It's not just getting rid of the Indian Maiden on Land O'Lakes butter that's a yuuuge screw-up. It's what they replaced it with. Now, what's visually prominent as you look over the butters on display is the "O" in "Land O Lakes". So, essentially, you're reaching for the BIG ZERO brand of butter.

The Suits in Marketing really fucked up big on this one. Not quite "New Coke" level, but still up there.

n.n said...

The "I have an indigenous American friend" defense.

SJW's decide on their own what is offensive to brown people

I thought indigenous Americans were "red" people. Diversity breeds adversity.

Howard said...

Do you know the way to Ojibwe?

Don B. said...

RMc at 9:13

Yes, Eastern Michigan University. Too bad the effort to re-name as the "Emus" failed.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

DBQ, it wasn’t white SJW who did this. It was Indigian activists, including one named Buffalo (not Bison) who called it offensive.

If Indigian agitators say it’s racist, and the Indigian artist’s son says it’s not, they’re both right. After all, they were born with virtuous genes.

The more important question is “who is wrong?”, and the answer, of course, is white people.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Iron Eyes, you can milk anything with nipples, including Indigian maidens.

Bill Peschel said...

The article also mentions that the Redskins logo was created by a Native American, and he was proud that his people were being depicted as fierce warriors (as they were).

Best line about the new packaging: "They removed the Indian and kept the land. Again."

buwaya said...

I used to prefer Land O'Lakes butter myself, indeed for the sake of the label, in spite of my wife's occasional complaints that it wasn't the cheapest in the grocery. I liked the character and retro "American" image of the thing, American as American full stop, nor "native American", vs the bland anonymity of most of the rest of anything else in product packaging. Irrational of course, but so are most human things.

I love American things. I love the things that are of you. I grew up playing cowboys and Indians and watching your movies and TV and our school readers had your stories and symbolism all over them. But these days you seem to hate yourselves and all your symbols.

You will find that most of your immigrants are delighted to see your symbols and identify with them, if given a chance, which they are, more and more, unable to.

This situation is very sad, and this little thing makes me a bit sad too. Better here, now, where the people like themselves better.

buwaya said...

It is of course part of the American cold civil war, and that is in the main being fought between castes of white people.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

However, “Farmer-Owned” above a kneeling Indian maiden becomes problematic.

5/3/20, 9:25 AM

Why? When did dairy farmers ever own Indians?

Lurker21 said...
I get that everything butter related is a big story in Wisconsin."

The butter is made in Minnesota. I get that non-Midwesterners are too lazy to distinguish one Midwestern state from another.

Gk1 said...

Imagine the corporate mascots these new liberal sensibilities will develop? Frumpy she-males with adams apples and hairy mid-drifts holding a small butter pat sitting on top of a veggie burger. I think Mr.Show did a bit on Advertising in the future.

"The largest growing demographic in the future will be transvestites. They buy for two!"

RigelDog said...

"Was the Indian maiden milking beavers or foxes to make the butter?"

She was milking mice. You can milk anything with nipples.

buwaya said...

When the kids were little we would go to Disneyland, in Anaheim, about every year.
One boy, obsessive, rode the #$%&&$ Casey Jr. train 20 times one year. My girl chased down every Disney "princess" then on offer, for her autograph.

What struck me was the content of the original Walt Disney concept, which was explicit in the original 1950's plan, and still survived, mostly, in the 1990s-2000s. Its obvious that the Walt Disney themes were those that he had accurately distilled out of what was in the American mind of the day.

He built into Disneyland every theme he could out of American history and memory. He did an entrance facade of the small-town Midwest. He put in "the frontier", with a stockade fort, a retro-railroad, a western "cowboy" strip, a Missisippi riverboat (still an impressive technical achievement), a Southern (haunted) mansion, a Louisiana swamp (the Blue Bayou restaurant), the animatronic presidents, and on and on, plus of course whatever Disney property tie-ins he could manage. Go, if you haven't been, and ask yourself why any bit of it is in there.

The tie-ins were there for good reasons of course, but the "American" stuff wasn't a tie-in.

For the most part he was selling Americans a reflection of how they saw themselves, those parts they wanted to look at anyway. Americans loved to see America, in a nostalgic, idealized, romantic manner, but America nevertheless.

That stuff the modern media-advertising-educational world refuses to present anymore.

GingerBeer said...

A nice story from Mr. DesJarlait, but what does any of it have to do with allowing white liberals to feel better about themselves?

buwaya said...

Its those "American" things in Disneyland, the oldest parts of it, that were my personal favorites.

buwaya said...

Its funny to think that these advertising, entertainment uses of symbols, cynical, artificial and manipulative, are so significant. But they are. They would not be used if they did not refer to something much more honest in the minds of the people to which they are directed.

effinayright said...

chickelit said...
What about the images on older American coins: the Indian head penny? the buffalo nickel?? a couple gold pieces???

Racist stereotypes?
**************

How about the 20-odd US states with names of Indian origin?

Or the US state seals, crests and emblems depicting Indians?

Or the thousands of US cities and towns with Indian names? Milwaukee, Wisconsin? Chicago,
Illinois? Saginaw, Michigan?

Commemorating peoples we despise is a sure sign that we are all h8tin racists--at least to deranged SJW bitches.

effinayright said...

robother said...
Howard: "You people are like two sides of the same disgusting coin."
************

Does that coin have an Indian on one side?

Biff said...

No doubt there will be activists who accuse the author (and the artist) of "selling out" to whitey.

mikee said...

This is gonna end up just like the death of Mr. Peanut, isn't it?
A lot of hype - and at the end it will turn out to have been a commercial marketing gimmick, aided by the amazingly useful idiots of the American Left.
Bring back the nice lady, and end this crapfest of marketing hype.
I, for one, buy the HEB store brand butter because it is $2 less expensive per pound, and exactly the same butter as in the Land O' Lakes box.

narciso said...

indeed I don't get the logic here, but maybe there isn't any,

FWBuff said...

I grew up on a sheep farm in West Texas in the ‘60s and ‘70s. As the youngest child, one of my first permanent chores was to bottle feed orphan lambs. (We usually had 20 or so each year, often when a ewe didn’t have enough milk for twins or triplets.) My first exposure to the Land O’ Lakes Indian maiden was on large sacks of powdered lamb formula. I didn’t even know that Land O’ Lakes made butter or other dairy products till I was an adult.

Howard said...

Ricky Recardo: it's a wooden Indian Head nickel

buwaya said...

Its complex, isn't it?

The tendency to use enemies symbols as ones own is a human universal, and explains part of whats going on with Indian symbolism.

That American Indians were on the one hand seen as romantic, exotic figures. Beloved to a degree, in a rather distant sense. That was the Land o'Lakes maiden.

In the other sense they were seen as powerful enemies, and their conquest was a great achievement. Their symbols were therefore souvenirs of power and they were invoked as ideals of masculine virtue. There was some great mana in them.

In other places and contexts you see the same thing. For example there are tons of Turkish-derived martial symbols in Europe, from the long series of Turkish wars from the 14th-19th centuries, crescents, musical instruments, horns, uniforms, Turks heads, hats, etc., besides civilian themes of all the above and more.

You see the same in spades re the Moors in Spain and Portugal.

buwaya said...

The Romans did the same btw. For instance the ritualized styles/categories of the gladiators in the arena were meant to represent ancient enemies, the Samnites, Thracians, etc. Romans depicted their enemies in art, and adopted many of their symbols in a military context such as the Celtic torc.

narciso said...

that part I understand, but the notion that Hannibal was right, or vercintorix was misunderstood, the Russians through Tolstoy, regard the chechens or noa as is their description as worthy warriors,

Paco Wové said...

"It is of course part of the American cold civil war, and that is in the main being fought between castes of white people."

E.g.; The Two Middle Classes

Paco Wové said...

Though one of Kotkin's points is that this isn't just an American phenomenon, but one shared by much of "the West". Perhaps those nations born of European colonialism are more prone to this sort of corrosive self-loathing.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

somewhere in Logo-land, a mascot regrets

First,
They came for Aunt Jemima, but I wasnt black, so I said nothing
Then they came for The Land O Lakes squaw, but I wasnt native..

...Sunmaid Raisin Girl, you privileged white bitch,

...they're comin' for YOU!!

buwaya said...

Thank you, good essay, I hadn't seen it yet. Puts into words the caste-definitions I had in mind.

Jim at said...

Just another example of what a stupid time it is to be alive.

chickelit said...

buwaya said...Its those "American" things in Disneyland, the oldest parts of it, that were my personal favorites.

My favorite ride at Disneyland is the "Mark Twain" riverboat.

Jim at said...

Why should the Indian maiden be sacrosanct?

Because today it's the Indian maiden. Who in the hell knows what they'll be offended by tomorrow.

Lurker21 said...


The butter is made in Minnesota. I get that non-Midwesterners are too lazy to distinguish one Midwestern state from another.

Um, the blog comes from Wisconsin ...

Lurker21 said...


Was Mazola's 1970s ad campaign "You Call it Corn, We Call It Maize" inspired by Land O’Lakes Indian maiden Mia? There could be a connection. Or maybe they were inspired by the crying Indian commercial, or Marlon Brando, or the seizure of Alcatraz.

Ad week article: Land O’Lakes Isn’t Talking About Its Logo Change, and That’s a Big Mistake

The author paraphrases a marketing expert about why Land O’Lakes didn't talk more about its decision to the media: "This is a mistake, in part because younger consumers are increasingly demanding to know what brands stand for—and research has shown purpose-driven companies that take stands are more respected, even by consumers on the other side of the spectrum."

Is that really true? Or is it just that any publicity is good publicity? Or that the people who complain aren't the people who buy the products?

It also quotes an activist who worked to get the maiden off the butter box: "We deserve better than this Land O’Lakes mascot, and hopefully we’ll get it."

How realistic is that? Isn't the effect of protests just to take Indians out of advertising, whether the images are positive or negative?

Kyjo said...

The alleged Chevy Nova marketing failure in Spanish-speaking countries is an urban myth.

I grew up with Land O’Lakes butter. I never perceived the Indian maiden as a derogatory representation, but then again, we white people are oblivious racists even on our best behavior. My mother tried at some point to switch from butter to margarine, but the family was not fooled. (She similarly switched us from whole to skim milk; the ultimate compromise was 2%.)

Fun fact: Land O’Lakes produced only the “Eastern” style of long and skinny butter sticks till 2007, when it started selling “Western” style short and stubby sticks in markets west of the Rockies. I never realized there were regional differences in butter stick shapes until I moved back to California after many years in Virginia, and couldn’t find the long and skinny shape I was used to both from my time in Virginia and from my childhood familiarity with Land O’Lakes. I had to toss my glass butter dish, useless fro Western butter sticks, but found that Rubbermaid was still producing the same butter dish my mother has had for decades. That fits both types of sticks.

narayanan said...

Blogger paminwi said...
People went crazy over nothing with zero knowledge.
Once again a corporation folded like a cheap suit and gave in to whiny liberals.
No surprises here except maybe the WaPo doing a story on the reality of the drawing..
-----------============
The Corporate poohbahs should have known about the original design?!
so they cancelled an iconic art achievement >>>> racists virtue siganllers

Michael said...

Well, what about Aunt Jemima ?

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

@Phil 314
@JAORE

u made us LoL !

effinayright said...

Kyjo said...
The alleged Chevy Nova marketing failure in Spanish-speaking countries is an urban myth.

I grew up with Land O’Lakes butter. I never perceived the Indian maiden as a derogatory representation, but then again, we white people are oblivious racists even on our best behavior.
**************************

What a stinking pantload of bullshit.

Kyjo said...

So it is!

n.n said...

The SJWs collect another scalp.

The double-edged scalpel is a progressive-liberal-"moderate" conviction. #HateLovesAbortion

Rory said...

"Perhaps those nations born of European colonialism are more prone to this sort of corrosive self-loathing."

Most of this stuff had its roots in Soviet propaganda initiatives. They found fertile soil in our academia, who've managed to make a virtue out of snobbery toward their own countrymen.

Derve Swanson said...

I've always been uncomfortable using Mr. Clean, even though it appears he enjoys his domestic subjagation. Uncomfortable having muscular bald earringed men clean for me...

Drago said...

Howard: "The worst impact from these SWJ's is that it has the opposite effect thereby reinforcing and justifying the racism of deplorables. Therefore ipso facto swjs are deplorable. You people are like two sides of the same disgusting coin"

Once it is clear that a transgression by the left/dems cannot be covered up or justified or rationalized, the responsibility for that transgression is immediately shifted to non-leftists/dems by the Usual Suspects.

This is why after every islamic supremacist attack the entire left/dem crew goes into immediate Attack Christian mode. Remember the Pulse Nightclub attack?

By now its so rote its boring.

Derve Swanson said...

subjugation, even...

Bunkypotatohead said...

LOL butter is actually pretty crappy. Worse even than the generic store brand where I shop.

Maillard Reactionary said...

buwaya: I enjoyed your comments. Human nature is the same everywhere in time and space.

If one understands that, one understands a lot.

ken in tx said...

Minnesota is supposed to be The Land of a Thousand Lakes, but the company is head quartered in Wisconsin.

chickelit said...

ken in tx said...Minnesota is supposed to be The Land of a Thousand Lakes, but the company is head quartered in Wisconsin.

Minnesota is actually the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Wisconsin only has about 1000. But Wisconsin invented limnology. Plus Wisconsin is still America's Dairyland.

chickelit said...

I always buy and sample Wisconsin cheese when I see it in stores and I live in California where the cows are supposedly happier.

Lurker21 said...


Remember Dutch Girl Cleanser? Actually, it was Old Dutch Cleanser, but the logo of the Dutch girl with the wooden shoes, the bonnet and the stick was more memorable than the name.

Old Dutch products may still be sold in Canada or Indonesia (to people who thought they didn't get rid of the Dutch fast enough?) but the sterotype may have been too unwoke for the American market, so the Cleanser (something like Ajax or Comet) is no longer available here.

MadisonMan said...

I can only assume that Land O Lake is losing market share to Kerry Gold, and they wanted to (cough) garner some publicity with the change. Oops.

Nichevo said...


RigelDog said...
"Was the Indian maiden milking beavers or foxes to make the butter?"

She was milking mice. You can milk anything with nipples.

5/3/20, 1:44 PM


Has anyone here ever tried or know of anyone who has tried to milk a pig?