History's bad guys, according to this theory, are Dead White European Males (DWEMs). Their ruthless quest for power has allegedly imposed misery on the rest of the world. The good guys are the DWEMs' innocent victims: "people of color," women, the disabled, indigenous peoples, etc. The conclusion we're supposed to draw from this? That until greedy white males stop running the show, America will remain irredeemably racist, sexist and environmentally exploitative.

In the "good guy/bad guy" theory of history, no oppressed group is closer to New Age sainthood than native peoples, among them American Indians. Ask any sixth-grader about the Plains Indians -- the Dakotas, for example. He or she is likely to give you the "Dances with Wolves" perspective: The Dakotas were a deeply spiritual, peace-loving and environmentally sensitive people, whose life close to nature was destroyed by callous white settlers. In fact, the Dakotas were fierce, brutal and inveterately warlike. (The Pawnees, whom the Dakotas regularly terrorized, called them the "Throat Cutters.") But those who romanticize Native American culture find such facts inconvenient, since they undermine the ideological agenda behind "good guy/bad guy" history.

Now the tendency to romanticize native peoples has crossed the Pacific Ocean, as I saw on a recent trip to Maui, Hawaii. In Maui, my family splurged on tickets to a stage show called "Ulalena," which is billed as a dramatic overview of Hawaiian history. "Ulalena" is a music and dance extravaganza, heavy on mime and symbolism; critics have labeled it a "must-see." The show is probably the primary way that visitors to Maui learn about Hawaiian culture and history, since every tourist with a credit card and a free night seems to see it.

I entered the theater with a certain advantage: I had actually read about Hawaiian culture and history. Consequently, I had to rub my eyes as the show unfolded. "Ulalena" portrayed the early Hawaiians as childlike innocents frolicking in a Garden of Eden. Men and women danced and sang together with easy familiarity, clearly perceiving one another as equals. Occasionally, men quarreled, but an admonishing look from a peaceful woman was enough to diffuse their anger.

The Europeans, who arrived with Capt. Cook, were an altogether different lot. "Ulalena" depicted them as the personification of evil, who destroyed all they touched. The Europeans heartlessly struck down Hawaiians with disease, partying while expiring natives wheezed at their doors. Then they dragged oppressed people from all over the globe to labor in agony in Hawaii's sugarcane fields.

How did the largely white, middle-class audience react to this one- dimensional account of Hawaiian history? They gave the show a thunderous standing ovation. Most likely, many returned to their hotels feeling far superior to their European ancestors, who had supposedly ground native Hawaiians into the dirt without a second thought.

Yet the "Ulalena" depiction of Hawaiian history was grossly one- sided. Native Hawaiians were far from peace-loving egalitarians. (Cruelty and selfishness, after all, abound in all human groups.) In fact, pre-European Hawaiian culture was rigidly authoritarian. A small noble class held absolute power over commoners and slaves, and could order the instant death -- by clubbing or strangling -- of a commoner who broke one of a myriad of social taboos. (A man who inadvertently let his shadow fall across a noble could suffer this fate.) Women were hardly men's equals. They were forbidden, for example, to eat with men, and to partake of delicacies like pork, bananas and coconuts, which were reserved for male consumption.

Hawaiian chiefs did not reject violence. On the contrary, they fought constantly among themselves, and ruled over a culture that practiced human sacrifice.

Native Hawaiian culture was far from perfect. Nevertheless, like many indigenous cultures, it was an extraordinary human achievement. For Hawaiians accomplished remarkable things with the limited resources available to them. They were resourceful food producers, masterful navigators, gifted artists and eloquent poets.

Here's the irony. Individuals like the producers of "Ulalena," who romanticize native cultures, intend to honor those cultures. In fact, they merely patronize them. They do not examine native people honestly, but use them, first and foremost, as ideological props. They portray native cultures as better than they were, in order to make Western culture -- by comparison -- appear worse than it is.

Such distortions of reality may be well-intentioned. In the end, however, they do not advance native people's interests, but disparage their real achievements.

-- Katherine Kersten is a senior fellow of the Center of the American Experiment in Minneapolis.