List of Racist Elements in the Jungle Cruise

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The racist scene of Trader Sam's Gift Shop!, a remnant of the infamously offensive character Trader Sam. (Photo additionally selected due to not being immediately triggering as a thumbnail)

The attraction The Jungle Cruise has a long history of featuring colonial propaganda, stereotypes, and other variations of prejudice against non-white peoples broadly earning the Jungle Cruise the reputation of being amongst the most culturally insensitive and outright racist Disney attractions. Many instances of the Jungle Cruise's insensitivities is affiliated with gallows humour AKA black comedy. Other instances of racism are the result of the adventure genera/lost world subgenera with many of the defining works in this genera such as King Solomon's Mines, Heart of Darkness, Tarzan of the Apes and The Lost World being derived from romanticized colonial propaganda, and the vilification of Indigenous peoples.

Content and trigger warning: This article lists several instances of offensive stereotypes against different races, mentions of colonialism, reference to ethnic genocide and different slurs and otherwise offensive terms. This page is for educational purposes and needless to say, Jungle Cruise Wiki condemns this bigotry along with those responsible for its integration and otherwise usage.

Jungle Cruise (Disneyland)

1955-2021

• The Jungle Cruise has an inconsistent history of romanticizing western society and the British Empire's colonization and exploitation of exotic regions via the Jungle Navigation Company. The company's characterization switches from being incompetent and corrupt to being a romanticized depiction of white colonialism depending on the incarnation.
• The trapped safari of the African veldt featured racist caricatures of Africana peoples working for a white colonial explorer at the top of the pole. The joke being a form of punching-down humour, putting most of the suffering on these black characters rather than the white colonists.
• Antagonists in the Jungle Cruise were a North African, "Headhunter tribe" which vilified Indigenous Africana peoples. The practice of, "Headhunting" is not affiliated with African cultures, instead being the result of European colonial exaggerations of Polynesian tribes. The, "Headhunters" or, "Umbala" were used to portray Africana people as violent, had stereotyped appearances including warpaint with minstrel-lips, and were given lines of gibberish yelled out in African accents in parody of African dialects.
  • Skippers would often make comments on the tribe, among other things claiming they have inhuman proportions, witch-doctors and potentially practice cannibalism.
• The character of, "Trader Sam" designed (and allegedly named for) artist Sam McKim was a stereotype of the Jivaroan peoples of the Amazon rainforest. Sam was originally depicted as a dark-skinned man in stereotyped garb selling shrunken-heads from an outpost along the Amazon river.  Skippers would also often tell jokes about Sam being a murderous cannibal. For a time, Sam was given an African inspired tribal mask with sharp teeth. Sam was shown attempting to trade shrunken-heads as common goods while in real-life history, these heads (known to the Jivaro as tsantsa or tzantza) are religious artifacts made to contain the spirits of slain enemies and which Europeans pressured them into trading to them as an exotic commodity.
  • A skipper joke about Sam and his family which effectively became cannon was that they were cannibalistic. This is not a trait affiliated with the Jivaroan or any South American tribe, instead being a general colonial myth.
  • Historically, the Jivaroan were vilified as unintelligent, "Savages" by the Spanish Empire as propaganda motivated by the empire's failures at stealing their land.
• English colonist character Nigel Greenwater can be heard on the Global Broadcasting Service, referencing the service under the moniker, "The Voice of Civilization", referring to colonial structures such as Greenwaters as, "Civilized" as opposed to the Indigenous land they occupy.

2021-time of writing

• While removing the vilified and otherwise stereotyped portrayals of Indigenous peoples, this refurbishment left in colonial British powers of the Jungle Navigation Company and integrated another colonial European presence through the Society of Explorers and Adventurers. Because of this romanticism and a lack of any Indigenous presence left in the attraction, it became emblematic of a form of racist settler propaganda known as Terra Nullius which is historically used to depict tropical regions as being, "Unpopulated" due to a lack of European agriculture.
• Both the colonial groups of the JNC and SEA were romanticized and glamorized for their colonial activities in the Jungle Cruise along with individual colonizer members such as Dr. Albert Falls and Lord Henry Mystic. These characters are influenced by historic European colonial explorers such as Sir Morton Stanley that are affiliated with the occupation, exploitation and affiliated atrocities in these locales. Dr. Falls in particular dresses in a pith helmet (a symbol of European colonialism) and named the African geographic feature of Schweitzer Falls after himself (a practice of land-theft affiliated with historic explorers, particularly Sir Morton Stanley with Stanley Falls).
• Trader Sam's Outpost was replaced by Trader Sam's Gift Shop! with the backstory that Trader Sam was put in charge of the Jungle Navigation Company's lost & found which he took over to sell belongings stolen from guests. This scene scripted by imagineer Kevin Lively not only continues to include the inherently offensive character of Trader Sam, but also to double-down on portraying him as an untrustworthy and opportunistic thief, continuing the ride's vilified depictions of Indigenous peoples and Trader Sam's harmful legacy.

Overlays

Indiana Jones Summer of Hidden Mysteries

• In the Headhunter camp was the headdress of Mola Ram, a vilified depiction of Indian peoples from the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), a film where his evil and the evil of his cult was used as justification for the British Empire's presence of India and genocide of Indian peoples. This headdress also featured a shrunken head on it.

Jingle Cruise

• In addition to the usual non-critical depiction of the Jungle Navigation Company's acts of colonialism, this refurbishment featured a generally positive depiction of them mass-polluting their stolen land with Christmas decor.
  • The portrayal of Indigenous characters celebrating and benefiting from this Christian-themed pollution from the JNC could also be interpreted as attempts to positively portray the effects of Christianization in colonialism, an aspect of colonialism affiliated with cultural-genocide and many human-rights violations throughout history.

Jungle Cruise (Magic Kingdom)

1971-2021

• The Jungle Cruise has an inconsistent history of romanticizing western society and the British Empire's colonization and exploitation of exotic regions via the Jungle Navigation Company. The company's characterization switches from being incompetent and corrupt to being a romanticized depiction of white colonialism depending on the incarnation.
• The ride frequently uses, "Pygmy" when referring to the Indigenous Africana peoples of the Congo Basin. Pygmy is a pejorative European term referring to a species of dwarf-like inhuman creature of Ancient Greek anthropology.
• Like in Disneyland, antagonists in the Jungle Cruise were a North African, "Headhunter tribe" which vilified Indigenous Africana peoples. The practice of, "Headhunting" is not affiliated with African cultures, instead being the result of European colonial exaggerations of Polynesian tribes. The, "Headhunters" or, "Umbala" were used to portray Africana people as violent, had stereotyped appearances including warpaint with minstrel-lips, and were given lines of gibberish yelled out in African accents in parody of African dialects.
  • Skippers would often make comments on the tribe, among other things claiming they have inhuman proportions, witch-doctors and potentially practice cannibalism.

• Chief Nah-mee was the counterpart to Trader Sam who was designed by animator Marc Davis for the Magic Kingdom's Jungle Cruise. Like Sam, he was a shrunken-head salesman often asserted to be a murderous cannibal. Unlike Sam who looked like a relatively normal person, Nah-mee was designed as a caricature complete with tribal makeup, and a top-hat with an umbrella as a form of irony in his, "Savage" portrayal. Nah-mee was also shown with a dim-witted expression, playing into a Spanish slur that the Jivaroan are unintelligent and the, "Antithesis of civilization".
  • The design of Nah-mee resembled a similar design created by Davis for the film Peter Pan (1953). In this film, a stereotyped depiction of an Indigenous American took the top hat and umbrella from the British boy John Darling.
  • Historically, the Jivaroan were vilified as unintelligent, "Savages" by the Spanish Empire as propaganda motivated by the empire's failures at stealing their land.
  • Some of the insensitive depictions of the Jivaro in the Jungle Cruise might be influenced by the character of Queequeg from Herman Melville's Moby Dick. While a Pacific Islander, Queequeg was a cannibalistic shrunken-head salesman with facial tattoos and who is often portrayed as wearing a top-hat.
• The radio broadcast of Albert Awol used the term, "Pygmy".

2021-time of writing

• While removing the vilified and otherwise stereotyped portrayals of Indigenous peoples, this refurbishment left in colonial British powers of the Jungle Navigation Company and integrated another colonial European presence through the Society of Explorers and Adventurers. Because of this romanticism and a lack of any Indigenous presence left in the attraction, it became emblematic of a form of settler propaganda known as Terra Nullius which is historically used to depict tropical regions as being, "Unpopulated" due to a lack of European agriculture.
• The impaled stack of skulls implied to be left by the headhunters does still appear nearby the Treasure of the Pacific.
• Both the colonial groups of the JNC and SEA were romanticized and glamorized for their colonial activities in the Jungle Cruise along with individual colonizer members such as Dr. Albert Falls and Lord Henry Mystic. These characters are influenced by historic European colonial explorers such as Sir Morton Stanley that are affiliated with the occupation, exploitation and affiliated atrocities in these locales. Dr. Falls in particular dresses in a pith helmet (a symbol of European colonialism) and named the African geographic feature of Schweitzer Falls after himself (a practice of land-theft affiliated with explorers, particularly Sir Morton Stanley with Stanley Falls). Unlike Disneyland, the Magic Kingdom's Jungle Cruise removed many/most references to S.E.A. and Lord Henry Mystic, only leaving in allusions to member Harrison Hightower III who is expressly a villain, not glamorized in the attraction and is traditionally used to criticize the colonial practices which Lord Mystic and Doctor Falls represent.
• Trader Sam's Outpost was replaced by Trader Sam's Gift Shop! with the backstory that Trader Sam was put in charge of the Jungle Navigation Company's lost & found which he took over to sell belongings stolen from guests. This scene scripted by imagineer Kevin Lively not only continues to include the inherently offensive character of Trader Sam, but also to double-down on portraying him as an untrustworthy and opportunistic thief, continuing the ride's vilified depictions of Indigenous peoples and Trader Sam's harmful legacy.
  • This version of the scene has a crate addressed to Trader Sam which tributes Chief Nah-mee.
• The wrecked plane formerly implied to belong to Aero-Casablanca (a tribute to the Jungle Cruise's connections with the film Casablanca) was retconned into instead belonging to one Hathaway Browne, a supporting character from the defunct dining-service The Adventurers Club in the defunct Downtown Disney. Browne was a womanizing aviator whose plane (the plane inferred to be present in the attraction) having been called The Gipsy Moth, named for an ethnic-slur against Romani people and based on the stereotype of them being conniving criminals

Overlays

Jingle Cruise

2013-2021

• In addition to the usual non-critical depiction of the Jungle Navigation Company's acts of colonialism, this refurbishment featured a generally positive depiction of them mass-polluting their stolen land with Christmas decor.
  • The portrayal of Indigenous characters celebrating and benefiting from this Christian-themed pollution could also be interpreted as attempts to positively portray the effects of Christianization in colonialism, an aspect of colonialism affiliated with cultural genocide and many human-rights violations throughout history.
• Chief Nah-mee was shown dressed as Santa Claus (or, "Trader Sam-ta") attempting to sell shrunken-heads as Christmas-gifts. This subscribed to aforementioned stereotypes depicting Indigenous peoples as opportunistic murderers.
• The Sankuru Sadie had a makeshift sign created by a tribal spear. After being installed in the 2021 Jingle Cruise, it was removed due to colonial/cultural implications. Following reports on this, the sign was re-added to the boat.

2021-Present

• Like earlier incarnations, the refurbishment continues to depict mass-pollution of the jungle and christianization of Indigenous lands under a generally positive lens.
• This update involved adding a tribute to the caricature character of Chief Nah-mee into the already offensive scene of, "Trader Sam's Gift Shop!". A crate from Nah-mee to Trader Sam can be found along with the, "Trader Sam-ta" outfit he wore while trading shrunken-heads in earlier versions.
• In 2023, a sign included a promotion for, "Trader Sam-ta" mentioning a, "Head start" on Holiday shopping, and not that, "Inventory shrinking". Both of these referenced Trader Sam's racially stereotyped shrunken-head dealing.

Jungle Cruise: Wildlife Expeditions

• Like in Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom, antagonists in the Jungle Cruise were a North African, "Headhunter tribe" which vilified Indigenous Africana peoples. The practice of, "Headhunting" is not affiliated with African cultures, instead being the result of European colonial exaggerations of Polynesian tribes. The, "Headhunters" or, "Umbala" were used to portray Africana people as violent, had stereotyped appearances including warpaint with minstrel-lips, and were given lines of gibberish yelled out in African accents in parody of African dialects. Unique to this version of the attraction, they had blowguns; not an African weapon but rather one of the Jivaroan peoples.
  • Skippers would often make comments on the tribe, among other things claiming they have inhuman proportions, witch-doctors and potentially practice cannibalism.
• Chief Nah-mee and his offensive caricature appearance still appear in this attraction albeit not selling shrunken-heads.

Jungle River Cruise

• The Disneyland version of the Lost Safari appears in the African veldt.
• Like in Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom, antagonists in the Jungle Cruise were a North African, "Headhunter tribe" which vilified Indigenous Africana peoples. The practice of, "Headhunting" is not affiliated with African cultures, instead being the result of European colonial exaggerations of Polynesian tribes. The, "Headhunters" or, "Umbala" were used to portray Africana people as violent, had stereotyped appearances including warpaint with minstrel-lips, and were given lines of gibberish yelled out in African accents in parody of African dialects.
  • Skippers would often make comments on the tribe, among other things claiming they have inhuman proportions, witch-doctors and potentially practice cannibalism.

Overlays

Jungle River Cruise: Curse of the Emerald Trinity

• The undead native peoples who attacked boats in this attraction were the, "Voodoo tribe", perpetuating myths that the religious practice of vodun is a form of black-magic.

Tie-in & spin-off attractions

Adventure Trading Company

• Much of this attraction was a romanticization of colonial explorers such as Dr. Falls and Lord Mystic along with colonial trading companies, namely the titular Adventure Trading Company. The Daily Gnus newspaper also romanticized the colonial group's operations in the fictitious East-African port of Harambe from Disney's Animal Kingdom, a location which significantly portrays colonial powers such as the trading company in a negative light and which at the time was being subjugated by European forces.
• The game revolved around the obtaining of, "Jujus", items appropriated from traditional African culture and used for exoticism.
• The Daily Gnus newspaper referenced Trader Sam running a cannibalistic cooking-class.
• The Tiki Mask Juju's mission involved guests saving employees of Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar from being decapitated by Sam for a mix-up.
• The character Lilikoi Humuhumunukunukuapuaa's name was made to mock how Polynesian names are spelled in post-colonial English alphabets.
• A map of Jackson Island referred to Indigenous American territory on the island as, "Indian Territory", Indian here being used as a racial slur against Indigenous American peoples.

Shrunken Ned's Junior Jungle Boats

• This attraction was named for, "Shrunken Ned", AKA Colonel Nedley Lostmore, a character who appears in South Seas Traders and Bengal Barbecue as the shrunken-head of a British man. While this can generally be seen as a form of punching-up humour against British colonists, Ned is also generally portrayed as benevolent despite being a British military colonist and also implies Jivaroan South-American peoples to be occult and violent.

Skipper Canteen

• Many elements of the canteen romanticized the operations of European colonizers within the Society of Explorers and Adventurers. Most egregious of these being the glamorization of Dr. Albert Falls for, "Discovering" the African landmark of Schweitzer Falls and naming it after himself or Falls being given the, "Hightower Spirit of Adventure Award", an award named for the evil explorer Harrison Hightower III.
• There are various books in the library written by Trader Sam including Friends for Dinner, Top Hats and Umbrellas, The Banana Trade, What's in a Name and The Missing Mask. The book Friends for Dinner references Sam being stereotyped as a cannibal while The Missing Mask references his stereotyped mask design.
• On the menu was a meal-item called, "Trader Sam's Head-On Shrimp", referencing Sam being characterized as a shrunken-head obsessed murderer. This meal-item was removed from the menu in 2022.
• On the bulletin-board in the Mess Hall, there is a sheet of paper promoting an annual Holiday party for JNC employees. On the topic of a potluck, the paper reads, "*Bring food for a pot luck* (except Trader Sam)", referencing Sam's cannibalistic tendencies.

Trader Sam's

• The Trader Sam's bars were based around the culturally insensitive character of Trader Sam, a caricature of Jivaroan peoples who was stereotyped as a savage, shrunken-head trading cannibal and thief. The bars also portrayed him as an ancient magic-user, playing into the offensive "Magical Native American" trope which has been criticized for being a minority-token trope that ostracizes Indigenous peoples, exploits Indigenous people as, "Exotic", and trivializes Indigenous spiritualism as Western perceptions of occultism and magic.
• Sam has the propeller and photos of the offensively named Gipsy Moth airplane.
• Up until 2021, the bars had shrunken-head and cannibalism motifs along with assorted artwork such as a framed comic-strip of dark-skinned tribal peoples dancing with the heads of explorers made by illustrator Charles Addams. The Enchanted Tiki Bar had many photos characterizing Sam as a prolific womanizer who would murder the women of the Polynesian village he lived in to take their heads and meat.
• The bar includes romanticized depictions of historic president Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919). While well known for his exploration and big-game hunting, Roosevelt was also a white-nationalist and supporter of eugenics with his brand of American racism having been cited inspiration for Germany's nazi party.
• Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar created the character of Billamongawonga A.K.A. Trader Bill, a character represented by racist concept-art of Trader Sam made by Samuel McKim. Bill is Sam's alleged grandfather, being shown as a murderous shrunken-head salesmen with a basket of severed heads.

See also

• Billamongawonga
• Cannibals
• Chief Nah-mee
• Gipsy Moth
• Headhunter tribe
• Jivaroan peoples
• Jungle Navigation Company
• Pygmy camp
• Shrunken heads
• Society of Explorers and Adventurers
• Trader Sam
• Trader Sam's
• Trader Sam's family
• Trader Sam's Gift Shop!
• Trapped safari