where does the phrase "Indian giver" come from?

Answer 1

From 'Word Origins'

Indian Giver

There are two popular etymologies for this term for a person who gives a gift only to later demand its return. The first is that it is based on an unfair stereotype of Native Americans, that they don't keep their word. In the other popular explanation, the term doesn't cast aspersions on Native Americans, instead it echoes the broken promises the whites made to the Indians. Neither is accurate, although the first is closer to the truth.

Instead the term comes from different commercial practices. To the Native Americans, who had no concept of money or currency, gifts were a form of trade goods, of exchange. One didn't give a gift without expecting one of equivalent value in return. If one could not offer an equivalent return gift, the original gift would be refused or returned. To the Europeans, who with their monetary-based trade practices, this seemed low and insulting, gifts were not for trade but were to be freely given.

The noun Indian gift dates to 1765. Indian giver follows about a century later in 1865. Originally, these reflected simply the expectation of a return gift. By the 1890s, the sense had shifted to mean one who demands a gift back.

;-D Sorry I just copied and pasted!

Answer 2

Phrase Indian Giver

Answer 3

The term Indian giver was given to the Indians but not as a bad thing. when English settlers first came here, the Indians would bring gifts to them in order to establish a relationship and was a from of balanced reciprocity. when the settlers did not give a gift back to the Indians, they took that as they were taken advantage of them so in turn, the Indians took their gifts back and that's where the phrase Indian giver was derived from.





(Balanced or Symmetrical reciprocity occurs when someone gives to someone else, expecting a fair and tangible return at some undefined future date. It is a very informal system of exchange. The expectation that the giver will be repaid is based on trust and social consequences; that is, a "mooch" who accepts gifts and favors without ever giving himself will find it harder and harder to obtain those favors. In industrial societies this can be found among relatives, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Balanced reciprocity involves a moderate amount of trust and social distance.)

Answer 4

Indian Giver
There are two popular etymologies for this term for a person who gives a gift only to later demand its return. The first is that it is based on an unfair stereotype of Native Americans, that they don't keep their word. In the other popular explanation, the term doesn't cast aspersions on Native Americans, instead it echoes the broken promises the whites made to the Indians. Neither is accurate, although the first is closer to the truth.

Instead the term comes from different commercial practices. To the Native Americans, who had no concept of money or currency, gifts were a form of trade goods, of exchange. One didn't give a gift without expecting one of equivalent value in return. If one could not offer an equivalent return gift, the original gift would be refused or returned. To the Europeans, who with their monetary-based trade practices, this seemed low and insulting, gifts were not for trade but were to be freely given.

Answer 5

that's a derogatory term for somebody who supplies something away, alterations his thoughts and needs it lower back. for 3 hundred years, diverse Indian communities made treaties with the British then US governments wherein they bought land for funds or products. quite usually, the Indians later needed the land lower back. The whites seen this to be a foul ingredient and for this reason the term Indian Giver got here into being. yet what exchange into relatively occurring exchange into between right here: a million. The Indians usually did not understand what they have been signing and signed with an X as they did not examine or write, 2. The brokers for the U. S. government who instigated the treaties usually tried to trick the Indians into signing by utilising plying them with liquor, 3. the U. S. government brokers could have Indian Chiefs not linked with the tribal land sign the treaty without the certainty of the tribe who definitely owned it. 4. Treaties that have been legally signed and understood by utilising the Indians have been usually broken first by utilising the white men. usually there exchange right into a clause in the treaty which reported that the Indians retained a ingredient to the ancestral tribal land, which white settlers had to stay off of. while the whites surpassed over this area of the treaty, the Indians assumed, rightly, that the entire treaty exchange into now null and void, 5. Indians did not understand the seen land possession and did not understand that in the event that they bought the land they could not hunt, assemble, or survive it.

Answer 6

OK, this is how I understand it. First, I don't know where it began or who started it, but I believe it stems from when the American Indians sold Manhattan to our sneaky government for some beads. Then when they realized how they were lied to, they wanted it back.
From what I have read and heard was that American Indians had no CONCEPT of what owning land meant. They didn't understand how anyone 'OWNED' land. To them, the land was on loan to them from the Great Creator. How can anyone own it?
Please don't take this as a cut against American Indian nations.
Despite our earlier governments efforts to wipe them off the face of the earth, they prevailed.

Answer 7

Indians?

Answer 8

misunderstanding by white people, due to cultural differences and different paradigms, different assumptions. The indians gave a warm welcome to share the land, and white immigrants (later, invaders) thought it was their gift to possess and thereby have the right to forbid Indians access, then the white people felt resentment, and use this derogatory phrase to describe any person who takes back something good which was given, or who breaks a deal