In 1971 the face of Iron Eyes Cody, the Crying Indian, and the slogan, "Pollution: it's a crying shame. People start pllution. People can stop it," helped shape America's idea of what Shepard Krech III refers to as the "Ecological Indian" in his book, The Ecological Indian: Myth and History (15). According to Krech, the Ecological Indian is "the Native North American as ecologist and conservationist," and this advertisements embodies this imagery . This image presents a myth about Native Americans: they were conservationists according to Western Science standards. The Native American conservationist "does not waste or 'despoil, exhaust or extinguish,'and that he does, with deliberation, leave the environment and resources like animal populations in a usable state for succeedding generations" (26). The image suggested Native Americans lived this definition. They always used every part of the animals they hunted, the didn't overhunt, they didn't leave animals dead and unused, and they lived in perfect harmony with the land, keeping it in a virginal state. White people were the destroyers of the land, land that was untouched prior to their arrival. The conservationst image this advertisement displayed was ultimately a myth; Native Americans couldn't be conservationsits because of their agricultural practices, use of fire, religious beliefs, and undying desire for foreign goods.
             The agricultural pracice of the Hohokam is an example of how the Native Americans didn't maintain a usable environment. This agricultural society used irrigation systems to maintain their farms in the Sonoran Desert. The canals brought salty river water to the land that had an existing high water table, which essentially drowned the plants, oversalienated the land, and made it unusable. The Hohokum also used wood in an area where it was scarce, which probably left many an...