When people think of the word "Indian", two things come to mind:
- People from India (Asian Indians), or
- Native Americans (American Indians)
When Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas, he had set out to find a new trade route to "India" (which to him, and other Italo-Spanish explorers, conjured a broad category that included the Indian Subcontinent, as well as the stretch from the Malacca Strait to the South China Sea, hence the reason why these regions were named Indo-China and Indonesia). Columbus reached land and mistakenly believed he had arrived in the Indies, so he called the native Taino people there "Indios". Even at the time, many expressed doubt that Columbus had discovered India or the "Indies", which had been visited a few times before (most notably by Marco Polo during the Italian Renaissance), and which had been consistently and accurately documented to be an urban civilization with ports, docks, armies, ships, merchant permits and everything. Definitely like nothing described by Columbus, and in a few short years everyone learned that it was a New World. But by then it was too late, the term "Indios" to refer to the inhabitants of the New World had caught on, and even local tribes interacting with Europeans had adopted the term in conversation. It became common for European settlers to refer to inhabitants as "Indiens" (by the French) or "Indians" even by the British Colonial settlers who knew full well (thanks to the East India Company, whose tea they dropped into the Boston Harbor) that there was a bigger and richer India three continents away (though it wouldn't stay rich for very long thanks to the same East India Company). Even after that misconception got cleared up, it was and is still fairly common for the indigenous people of the Americas to be referred to as "Indians". This sometimes leads to confusion between people whether something "Indian" is referring to something from India or something that is Native American.
In fiction, the dual meaning of the word "Indian" is sometimes used as a form of wordplay. Sometimes, this can result in a form of Who's on First? where people are confused on what kind of Indian someone is talking about. A common way fiction characters, in American media, distinguish the two kinds of Indians is by saying "dot or feather", with dot referring to bindis that Hindu women wear on their foreheads, and feathers referring to the feathers seen in some Native American tribal headdresses. This itself is another stereotype, since bindis are going out of fashion in urban India, and hardly seen outside of weddings and formal religious functions, and even then is largely a cultural practice of upper-caste Hindus rather than the vast numbers of Indian Muslim women, or Christians and Parsis. In other cases, this can result in a Visual Pun in which an Asian Indian takes a role typically portrayed by an American Indian, or vice versa. Other times, it can result in a person getting Mistaken for Racist or someone who is an Innocent Bigot, since some (though not all) Native Americans consider the term "Indian" to be outdated/offensive, while several others are more than happy with the term, and even happy to be associated with India. South Asian Indians themselves are a bit ambivalent though most hardly seem to put much mind to the problem. Hardcore nationalists sometimes use the Sanskrit term Bharat (which is seen as exclusionary in India), or even Hindustan (originally a geographical term connoting 'Land of India' but conflated later with "Land of Hindus"), and insist that the name India was coined by Westerners and ought to be removed altogether (even though "Hindu" itself was coined by Persians; it originally referred to the area around the Sindhu River
).note Most in India feel it's a minor issue, and it's not that different from the word "Roman" being claimed by people who live in Rome, people who lived in The Roman Empire, and the people who lived in the Byzantine Empire (which never ruled Rome), or how the word Anglo-Saxon is claimed by both the UK and USA (and for that matter how English refers to the language and the people of England). As the joke goes we use the Greek word for Persia/Fars and the Roman word for Greece/Hellas.
This is somewhat of a Discredited Trope nowadays, due to it becoming increasingly common for the word "Indian" to refer to someone from India, while "Native American" or a tribally specific name being a more appropriate way to refer to an indigenous person from the Americas. In the 21st century, it's far more likely for most White Americans or Americans raised by a hegemonic white popular culture to meet South Asian Indians than Native American Indians owing to population demographics (thanks to Manifest Destiny). However, it is still common for people to refer to Native Americans as "Indians", so it is still possible to play this trope straight. In the UK this is less of an issue, since the colonial history with India is longer and more deep-rooted there. It's also less of an issue with South Asian Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who are ethnically and culturally quite similar to Indians, and often confused with them in the diaspora community, but they don't necessarily call themselves Indian except in the older meaning of the term.
Sometimes overlaps with Mistaken Ethnicity or Mistaken Nationality when someone mistakes a person from India as a Native American or vice versa. Can be a type of Pun. See also Duck! and Fun with Homophones for humor derived from similar-sounding words in general. Compare Not That Kind of Doctor for humor derived from identities whose names have different meanings. Compare Spexico, where the USA's encounters with Mexico and the Southwest in general defines its conception of Spanish culture and identity far more than the European nation of Spain does.
NOTE: This trope is only for media acknowledging the dual use of the word "Indian" for a gag. It is not for media featuring both Asian Indians and Native Americans, or media that casually uses the word "Indian" to describe both.
Examples:
- Dave Barry occasionally uses the gag:
- In Dave Barry Slept Here, on the discovery of America:
Columbus: You guys are Indians, right?Chief: Ramanona, jaway, which means, "No, we came over from Asia 20,000 years ago by the land bridge."Columbus: Listen, we've spent weeks looking for India in these three storm-tossed ships and we have cannons pointed at your wigwams, and we say that you're Indians.Chief: Banama kawowi saki!, which means "Welcome to India!"
- In a column about the federal budget:
For many thousands of years, there was no federal budget. America was run by Native Americans, who had a tribal form of government and used a simple tax form made of bark. The first Europeans to arrive were the Vikings, who landed here around 700 A.D. but were eliminated in the playoffs. They were followed by Christopher Columbus, who actually thought he had discovered India (he thought this because the Native Americans, who were big pranksters, had erected a huge sign that said, "WELCOME TO INDIA!").
- In Dave Barry Slept Here, on the discovery of America:
- Nimesh Patel: In one stand-up routine, Nimesh recounts how he met a person who was Native American, and Nimesh responded "Oh, you're Indian? Me too!"
- The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: In "The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff", Scrooge's uncle Angus and the Apache Gokhlayeh pass a circus poster featuring an animal that the latter has not seen before, and when he asks what it is Angus explains that it's an Indian elephant. Gokhlayeh replies that he's never seen an animal this ugly in Apache lands, and Angus replies that it's not American Indian but Indian Indian, from a land over eleven thousand miles away that the first explorers had mistakenly thought they'd found when they landed in America. Gokhlayeh decides that this certainly explains why they needed to hire him to guide them.
- The Simpsons: In "Homer on the Range", Homer becomes the sheriff of a Wild West version of Springfield, gets challenged to a gunfight by Montgomery Burns and receives a revolver from Apu just before the fight:
Homer Why thank you, Chief, er — I mean, thank you, my Native American friend.
Apu: Why does no one listen? I am not that kind of Indian. - Teen Titans: In one issue, during a store robbery, Risk tells the Native American owner to "go back to India".
- Big Nate: In one strip, Nate Wright assumes the French and Indian War was a war between France and India.
- Dennis the Menace (US): In one strip, Margaret dons a turban and tells Dennis she is dressed like an Indian. Dennis immediatley asks "What kind of injun are you supposed to be?"
- With Pearl and Ruby Glowing: In the Soyal special, Sweet Grapes comments on a Soyal dance video by Hopi woman Jessica Rabbit, "I thought this was about actual Indians at first and was so confused." Cheka Kingscholar thinks she was calling Jessica a racefaker because Jessica has oculocutaneous albinism, which gives her red hair, and tells her off, only for Sweet Grapes' sister Sour Grapes to point out she means Asian Indians and they're both Bengali.
- Don't Look Up: While addressing the nation during the comet rerouting mission, General Drask gives a shout-out to "both types of Indians", and thinks it'd be cool if they could team up for something, remaining oblivious to how racist he sounds in the process.
- The Fall: Due to Alexandria misinterpreting Roy's story, the Indian warrior is presented as a man with features stereotypical of an Asian Indian, but Roy uses stereotypical and outdated terms such as "wigwam" to describe the character, making it clear he's meant to be an American Indian.
- Furry Vengeance: Lyman is planning a gala to court a group of Indian investors for the project, and his assistant Felder enthusiastically suggests an Indian-themed barbecue, where "instead of burger, we have buffalo burger, and we have wigwam, and teepee, and squaw!" When everyone stares at her like she's crazy, she sheepishly realizes that Lyman was "talking about the Gandhi type of Indians."
- Good Will Hunting: Professor Lambeau uses the story of Ramanujan to explain Will's potential. When stating that Ramanujan was an Indian, he clarifies "dots, not feathers".
- The Wolf of Wall Street: When telling the audience the history of quaaludes, Jordan Belfort clarifies that the Indian doctor who invented them was "dots, not feathers".
- Emberverse: Two members of Voegler's Villains are descended from people from India. As they live in what used to be the US where intercontinental travel is extremely slow and difficult, most people think they don't look Indian.
- The Cat In The Hat Beginner Book Dictionary: For the word "Indian", the dictionary shows both an American Indian and an Indian from India.
- No Place To Fall: The book's narrator describes another character as "part Indian. Red dot, not feather."
- Thiotimoline To The Stars: Since starships are driven by "endochronic" effects, sloppy piloting can result in displacement through time, in the worst case centuries before the invention of the necessary technology to refit one's ship. For this reason, the news that his interplanetary cruise bound for Lincoln, Nebraska, has touched down among "hordes of Indians" causes Admiral Vernon to Faint in Shock — his prankster of a lieutenant having omitted his observation that they'd landed near Calcutta.
- The Yiddish Policemen's Union: The book is set in Alaska, and the conflict between Jews and American Indians is a significant part of the plot. In one scene, Landsman meets an Indian doctor from India, who's "heard all of the jokes before".
- In the Paolo Bacigalupi novel Zombie Baseball Beatdown, the protagonist, Rabi, is multiracial with Indian (South Asian) ancestry. He faces racially motivated bullying from a kid who mistakes him for Native American, which continues after Rabi corrects him. The end of the story doesn't work out so well for the bully.
- The Big Bang Theory:
- In the episode "The Grasshopper Experiment," Raj arranges to meet a girl he knew from India as a possible candidate for an Arranged Marriage, Lalita Gupta. Sheldon tells her about a book his mother read to him about an Indian princess named Punchalli. When Sheldon mentions the book, Lalita asks, "Us, Indians or, 'Come to our casino' Indians?"
- One of Sheldon's mother's many, many politically incorrect moments is commenting on Raj's Drowning My Sorrows habit in the episode "The Rhinitis Revelation": "I thought it was our Indians that had the drinking problem."
- In "The Thanksgiving Decoupling," Raj helps out with preparing the Thanksgiving dinner, and he jokes, "it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without an Indian providing the food."
- Get Smart: Done in the episode "Washington 4, Indians 3," when a chief of a Native American tribe decides to rally various tribes together to retake the United States. Over the course of the episode, the following exchange takes place:
A: "The Indians are attacking!"B "But India is a neutral country!"A (or another character): (performs a war cry)B: "Those Indians?"
- It Ain't Half Hot, Mum: When an American camera crew show up to shoot a propaganda film, they ask one of the Indians to be in it, who shows up in stereotypical Native American costume.
- Las Vegas: In the episode "Everything Old Is You Again", the cast are all transplanted into a 1960s version of Las Vegas. Mike hits on Sarasvati, who is a waitress in the alternate Montecito. When she points out she's Indian, Mike assumes she means Native American and calls her "Pocahontas" before she clarifies the difference.
- The Neighbors: In the episode "Balle, Balle," Larry mentions how his Indian co-worker invited him to a traditional Indian wedding. He decides to do a full-scale Bollywood number as a wedding gift, but it turns out "Indian" referred to Native American.
- NYPD Blue: In one episode, a witness describes a suspect as "Indian" and Martinez asks "Do you mean from India, or like Cochise?" He isn't trying to be funny, he honestly doesn't know which one the witness meant.
- What We Do in the Shadows (2019): When Nadja meets a pack of werewolves, she asks if they're "Indians" like in The Twilight Saga. They explain that the alpha of the pack is an Asian Indian named Arjan. She also meets a werewolf named Marcus who actually is Native American, but he's very insistent that being a werewolf is not an ethnic thing.
- Apache Indian is a British reggae musician of Indian descent.
- Indians From All Direction by US-based rap group Das Racist (two members of which were of of Indian descent) and by Canadian Native electronic group A Tribe Called Red (later known as The Halluci Nation) plays on this joke and includes lyrics like "I'm Indian from all direction/from the West to the East" and "I'm on the track with a dot and a feather""
- The song Girls, Girls, Girls by Jay-Z mentions this trope, asking a girl if she's Indian, "red dot or feather".
- Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist: In this Wild West-themed game, the role of the Tonto-esque Indian sidekick is taken by Srini, an Indian from India.
- Camp Camp: In the episode "The Order of the Sparrow," David wants to perform a ceremony from his childhood time at Camp Campbell involving generic, stereotypical Native American costumes, which he describes as Indian to the campers. When the first attempt at the ceremony ends up ruined, Max sorts out traditional Indian silks and turbans for the kids to wear as a replacement.
- The Annotated Series:
- The series acknowledged the use of the trope in an annotation of The Wacky World of Tex Avery episode mentioned below, and the reaction from the annotators was not pleasant.
- In an annotation of the Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids episode "How The West Was Lost," whenever Johnny is referred to as an Indian, a Running Gag is the annotators joking how "Indian" also means people from India.
- Cracked: One article by Seanbaby used this gag as a setup: He wrote about going to dinner at "an Indian restaurant" and being disappointed that instead of a nice tikka masala he was served flavourless lentils instead. The article then Crosses the Line Twice with him digging himself deeper, first by trying to tell the proprietors he "got the wrong Indians", before adding that saying, "It's not like I stole your bag of foreheads, kemo-sabe!" most assuredly did not help the situation.
- Not Always Working: In the story "Did You Try Asking Her How She Felt First?"
, one employee at the submitter's workplace is a second-generation immigrant from India. The manager was under the impression she's Native American and so calls a meeting to discuss "racist and offensive language" used against her, saying he overheard the other employees calling her Indian. The submitter corrects him.
- SCP Foundation: SCP-953 is an Ax-Crazy nine-tailed Korean fox demon or kumiho, who hates being called a kitsune, a Japanese fox spirit. Her file has a note that "personnel asking what the difference is are to be reminded of the difference between a Cherokee Indian and a New Delhi Indian."
- In the Drawn Together episode "Ghostesses in the slot machine," Foxxy explains that the house where the gang lives was built on an Indian Burial Ground. Clara asks if she means the "Woo-woo or red dot" kind.
- Family Guy:
- In the episode "A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Bucks," upon arriving in New York City and the family observing the sights, Chris spots a hot dog vendor, only for Lois to tell him that they are going to an Indian restaurant later for dinner.
Lois: Not the (puts hand over mouth) whoop-whoop kind, but the (points to an imaginary bindi on forehand) kind.
- In "Road To India," Brian and Stewie see some kids playing Cowboys and Indians and Indians.
Indian Indian: I'll just stand here wearing a shirt that looks like a jacket!
- In the episode "A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Bucks," upon arriving in New York City and the family observing the sights, Chris spots a hot dog vendor, only for Lois to tell him that they are going to an Indian restaurant later for dinner.
- Josie and the Pussycats: While flying to a gig in Bombay, India (now Mumbai), an excited Melody remarks that she'll get to see handsome cowboys. Valerie points out that there aren't any cowboys in India (at least, not as Americans know them). "Oh yeah?" Melody retorts, "Everyone knows where there are Indians, there have got to be cowboys." After a shocked double-take, Valerie can only roll her eyes at Melody's logic.
- Looney Tunes: In the short "Who's Who In the Zoo", we are introduced to an Indian elephant from "far-off India'', who is revealed to be an elephant wearing a Native American headdress.
- Popeye: A Stealth Pun variation occurs in the short "I Yam What I Yam," where Popeye punches a Native American chief and turns him into Mahatma Gandhi.
- Rocky and Bullwinkle: In one Peabody's Improbable History segment titled "The First Indian Head Nickel," Mr. Peabody and Sherman travel back in time to meet Talbot Heffelfinger, who is creating the design for the Indian Head Nickel. However, instead of drawing a picture of an American Indian, Heffelfinger reveals that he has painted a picture of Mahatma Gandhi.
- Robot Chicken: In the "Girl Toys" skit, a "where are they now" mock-documentary about girls' toys from the '80s, Rainbow Brite talks about all the guys she dated: white guys, black guys, Korean guys, and "some Indian guys, dot and feather."
- The Simpsons:
- In the first "Treehouse Of Horror," in the segment "Bad Dream House," the titular house was built upon an Indian Burial Ground. The tombstones of the buried Indians include Geronimo, Crazy Horse, and Mahatma Gandhi.
- In "Much Apu About Nothing," when Lisa mentions American Indians, Apu assumes she was taking about him.
- In "The Sweetest Apu," Homer asks Apu to join their Civil War reenactment because "they need a lot of Indians to shoot." Apu replies that he doesn't know which part of that sentence to correct first.
- In "Eight Misbehavin," Homer gets terminology related to the word "Indian" confused, and asks Apu, "How's the tribe? Any papooses yet?".
- The Couch Gag in "Labor Pains" has the Simpsons as Pilgrims, with Apu playing the role of an American "Indian" in a headdress.
- The Wacky World of Tex Avery: In the episode "The Not-So-Great Train Robbery," Tex Avery decides to hire an "Indian tracker" to find a train that was stolen by Sagebrush Sid. The "Indian tracker" is revealed to be a man with a turban speaking in an exaggerated accent.
- Xavier: Renegade Angel: Xavier's mentor, Chief Master Guru, mixes Magical Native American tropes in his appearance with Indian traits (a bindi, a Vishnu statue on top of his totem pole, Devanagari ligatures and a lotus blossom on his tepee and Xavier calls him a "Apachestani Shaman"). However, it's also implied that he's a fraud and likely neither Indian or Native American.

