Stepin Fetchit Indians.

• Author: Mellor, Carl
• Position: Genet Gallery, Syracuse, New York

As a college student at the Rhode Island School of Design, Tom Huff began haunting flea markets and Salvation Army stores in upstate New York, collecting "Indian kitsch" - plastic Indian figures, toy tom-toms, souvenirs, bottles of firewater," and products such as Cherikee Red Soda and Pow-Wow Cheese Puffs.

"I couldn't believe how much was out there," says the artist, who has been adding to his collection for the last ten years.

There seemed to be an endless supply."

A few of these items are on display until December 16 at Syracuse University's Genet Gallery in a show entitled "Tonto Revisited: Indian stereotypes."

Huff and John Fergurson, a professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Cobleskill, selected a smorgasbord of objects and images for the show, including excerpts from history books, posters, magazine ads, cigar-store Indians, team mascots, and movies, including Drums Along the Mohawk and Dances with Wolves. The Lone Ranger's Tonto makes an appearance, as does Chief Leo, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Indian known as the "Flame-Shooting Feather-Topped Foot Fighter."

Huff has arranged these objects in such ironical displays as "Tonto's Revenge Dance Party," complete with disco lights and headphones, in which a plastic Lone Ranger figure is tied to the spindle of a record player while a toy Indian on a pony sits on a red record. As the turntable rotates, the Indian appears to chase the masked man. "I laugh at the absurdity of stereotypes, at the notion of relating to people on that basis," says Huff.

Other pieces in the show come from a...