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Indigenous people tend to be, well, poor. Indigenous people also have a tradition of war, unlike the rest of the world. So of course they're badasses. No matter what era you're in, if you live in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, or Australia, indigenous people will be badasses. Rarely seen in the rest of the world, though. The American version of the Badass Native has costuming and prop elements as well. Note that this is Always Male, will often be magical. Overlap with Noble Savage.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Tatanka of Eyeshield 21 is the best high school linebacker in America mainly because he's a whopping 6'10. He also wears his hair in a long braid and wears war paint the field.
Comics
- James Proudstar aka Warpath from the X-Force is this, when written right. Recently, he has often been the Jobber.
Film
- Wind In His Hair in Dances With Wolves.
- Billy Bear in Predator.
- Red Blood has a whole tribe of them take on the mob.
- Victor Joseph subverts this trope; he has a "stoic face" to look badass.
- The Fetts. George Lucas probably chose Temuera Morrison to play Jango just to invoke this trope.
- The entire cast of Thunderheart.
- Transamerica has Toby talk about how his father's an Indian and a millionaire, only to learn that his father's really a Jew for Jesus who wants to become a woman.
- Hunter from Ginger Snaps Back The Beginning.
- Mani from Brotherhood of the Wolf, complete with martial arts.
- Gooch, a huge ex-con just released from prison at the beginning of Dance Me Outside, is certainly playing up to this trope.
Literature
- Sherman Alexie likes to play with this trope:
- The title character in "The Toughest Indian In The World" plays it straight, but is gay.
- Victor Joseph deconstructs it: He has a "stoic" face which involves looking like you just killed a buffalo (because you don't want to look like you just killed a salmon), and he's best friends with Thomas Builds-the-Fire, a gothic-looking storyteller who can't shut up.
- Arnold in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a Memetic Badass for a day. This despite being a nerd and excessive Ho Yay.
- In Flight, Zits enters the body of a Sioux boy, and he tries to prevent Little Big Horn, but... On the badass side of things, his father is compared to Arnold Schwarzenegger, he meets Crazy Horse, and he's in the most badass tribe in North America. He later meets his father, who is not a badass at all.
- Moon in At Play In The Fields Of The Lord.
- The Fremen in the first three Dune novels.
- Uncas and Chingachgook from James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans.
- In The Dresden Files, Listens-to-Wind*
a.k.a. "Injun Joe" . He's the Nice Guy on the Senior Council, sure— but he can also turn into a bear and go toe-to-toe with demigod-level Eldritch Abominations.
- In the Time Scout series, this is the general consensus on downtimers. Don't mess with them; they'll probably kill you. More specifically, the downtimers on-station, Skeeter's Mongolian family, and Jack the Ripper.
Live Action TV
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers had Tommy Oliver. Played with because he was raised white and it didn't come into play until late season three of MMPR (and was revisited during Zeo).
- Deadliest Warrior has had the Apache and Comanche featured in episodes, demonstrating just how lethal and badass they were in real life.
- Hawk from Twin Peaks is this trope.
- Criminal Minds has John Black Wolf. He's the de facto leader/police of his reservation, and when a group of armed men come with the intention of murdering their children to start a race war, he beats the crap out of them with his bare hands and a knife for self-defense. And he doesn't kill a single one outright.
Music
- Litefoot
- Iron Maiden's song "Run to the Hills" has this, though it also outright says that the US Army won because of superior numbers.
We fought him hard, we fought him well. Out on the plains, we gave him hell!
But many came, too much for Cree. Oh will we ever be set free?
- "The Ballad of Ira Hayes"
Oral Tradition
Professional Wrestling
Tabletop Games
- Werewolf The Apocalypse has two extant tribes consisting mainly of American Indians in the present day. The Uktena are Magical Native American, whereas the Wendigo are pretty much this trope down to the core. They're one of the major warriors tribes in what's already a Proud Warrior Race, were quite active in AIM in the Sixties, and still have a bit of grudge with the Europe-based tribes.
- The vampire tribes of Zendikar were designed with this trope in mind.
- This trope is taken advantage of by the Imperium in Warhammer 40000 - with countless worlds within its galactic borders and varying conditions and technologies on them, there are some which are so harsh that the world's inhabitants will be at Stone Age technology. Having individuals who survive harsh conditions and prosper with little more than their own strength, they are commonly used as recruits for the Adeptus Asartes.
- Soloha Salawa
 , a celebrated Hopi Ace Pilot from Crimson Skies.
Video Games
Western Animation
- King of the Hill's John Redcorn double-subverts this. At first, he averts it, but when Big Mountain Fudgecake is introduced, he plays it straight until he realizes he can make more money with children's songs.
- John Thunder, the Native American member of the Centurions.
- Jefferson Trueblood from ''Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends’’.
- Nathan Explosion of ''Metalocalypse’’ is only half native american, bit he fits the trope none the less
Real Life
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