Native American Art Listings

We’ve never had a piece of true Native American artwork before. We’d just call to ask.

How often do you find these pieces?

On the one relevant item I have listed in recent memory I was able to complete the listing after including the required information.

Could it be that the term “Native” is considered offensive?

I know that in Canada, it is not politically correct to use “Native” nowadays. The terms now in use are “Indigenous” or “First Nation” or specific name like “Seneca” or “Mohawk”.

The Canadian government is doing a good job with a “Reconciliation” project as of late with Indigenous groups and educating non-Indigenous people as to what they suffered through. Things can never be made right, but at least apologies and understanding is starting to happen.

A quick search shows me that “Native” isn’t the same in the U.S. yet:

The term “native” does not denote a specific Aboriginal ethnicity (such as First Nation, Métis, or Inuit). In the United States, the term “Native American” is in common usage to describe Aboriginal peoples. In Canada, the term “Aboriginal” or “Indigenous” is generally preferred to “Native.”

The term “Native American” itself should not be a problem at least in the US since there are eBay US categories using that term in the title. However, eBay prohibits the use of the term unless the item can be identified as authentic. Tourist shops especially in Arizona and New Mexico have employed tribal members to turn out vast quantities of jewelry and art for many years to the present day so there are more “authentic” items out there than you might think.

I had a lovely brass plate made in India, the country, that I listed as Indian brass. It was flagged as inappropriate because you have to use Native American. *eye roll* So I changed the listing to East Asian and it went through with no hassles.

If you can identify the tribe and use that instead of Native American, or just the artist’s name, that might be better. Think about it – you don’t say European Artist Monet painting, or even French Artist Monet Painting, do you? You just say Monet. Okay, that’s a bit of a crappy analogy, as everyone knows Monet, but if the painting was NOT Native American, you’d list it by characteristics and artist, yes? Add in keywords like Authentic, Indigenous, and the tribe (if known) to get more hits. If it’s listed in the Native American category, that should do it for you.

We have several Native American art pieces listed and haven’t had any issues. Could it be the category you are using? What categories have you gotten that error with?