Interesting thread. Here's my take, for what it's worth: I think noncontroversial that Twain wrote some things about Native Americans which would today be considered prejudicial and insensitive, to say the least. Why this was, on a personal/experiential level, I do not know. Has it been explored in the secondary literature? I expect so. Are these negative images counterbalanced with any positive ones? Again, I don't know. (Nothing leaps to mind. Anyone else think of any?) "Huck and Tom Among the Indians, " had he completed it, might have included a major meditation on these questions. But, all we have is the beginning. DDD