Let's get one important issue out of the way now.
We'll start with what to call American Indians.
First of all, you probably know that Columbus got it wrong when he came to the Americas.
He used the term Indios to describe the inhabitants of the Caribbean islands, thinking they were part of the sub-continent of India.
But there are other views. for example, American Indian activist Russell Means claims Columbus might have meant it as the Spanish "in Dios," meaning "in God," though we have no real record of his intent.
Whatever the case, the term "Indian" caught on among Euro-Americans and has stuck.
A common and old use is "American Indian" to make the distinction from Asian Indians.
In recent years, the phrase "Native American" has been used often, in fact, it’s in the course title, but there are also objections to that.
Some Indians don't want to be called Americans at all because it is a European name, and they rightly point out anyone born on the continent is properly a "native" American.
Canadians have settled on the use of "Native" for legal purposes, but this has some of the same problems.
Leonard Bruguier, a Yankton Sioux and formerly Director of the Institute for American Indian Studies at the University of South Dakota, dislikes both American Indian and Native American, preferring "Red Indian" to make a distinction from the people of India.
Many of his colleagues, however, object to the use of a color label, which makes some people think of the more derogatory term "redskin."
Upon describing this colleague, you'll notice that I used the term "Yankton Sioux."
Yankton is a Euro-American version of Ihanktonwan, Dr. Bruguier's people's own term for themselves.
This makes an important point.
Before the coming of whites, there was no recognition of anything close to a concept of Indian in the way whites use the term.
Most Indians had their own names for their own groups.
The word or phrase might often translate as something like "the people" or "the human beings," much in the same sense as the Israelites considered themselves to be "God's Chosen People," but these are only rough translations.
The names symbolized their identity and were ethnocentric; other groups living in the area were not quite as "good" as the group in question.
When Europeans came, these names were rarely learned. Instead, as Europeans asked one group what the neighboring groups were called they might easily have gotten a derogatory name.
Some neighbors of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota speakers, for example, used the word "Sioux" to name them.
In translation the name sometimes translates as "enemy" and sometimes as "snake." Little wonder that sometimes the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota speakers don't like the word Sioux!
Still, most people simply wouldn't know who was being talked about if you used the actual group name, Ihanktonwan, for Dr. Bruguier's people.
In truth, using the terms Lakota, Dakota and Nakota are also not the words used, but the names of the language dialects spoken.
These people also used many subgroup names.
The Lakota speakers, for example, are one of Seven Council Fires of the broader Dakota group, usually called "Teton" (a French word), but they also had seven bands, the terms they most often preferred to use:
You may have heard of Hunkpapa and Oglala, but not likely the others.
Should we call each group by its individual band name, its language name, or what?
Is it even possible to know all the names?
The term "Sioux," just like the term "Indian," is firmly entrenched in American culture and normally does not carry any particular negative connotations.
For example, Sioux people use the word Sioux to describe themselves, just as many Indian people use the word Indian to describe themselves.
That is exactly what we'll do in the course.
If it is the general population being discussed, the term Indian will usually be used, though sometimes American Indian, Native American or Native will appear.
When a particular nation is being discussed, the most common name for that group will be used, unless a key point is to be made about the group's unique nature.
The reasons for Indian people's concerns are many, often having to do with the dominant society's stereotypic view of Indians as being all one group, culturally the same.
Learn right away that they are not the same.
In fact, Indians are among the most culturally diverse populations on the planet.
For example, there were at least 300 mutually unintelligible languages in North America, and at least 2000 dialects of those languages!
You might also have noticed that I used the term nation, not tribe.
Like group names, this also represents an important distinction to many.
Though both terms are English words, they have different meanings.
Tribe has important sociological and anthropological meanings, but it is sometimes used in a derogatory way, connoting something "primitive."
Nation implies a group that is independent, with a totally different connotation of power from tribe.
For some, this difference is extremely is important. For this course, the terms will be used interchangeably, but you should recognize the difference.
What this discussion should do is to reinforce something you already know: people are concerned about what they are called and for a whole range of reasons.
Be aware of the issues and be as sensitive as possible to people's concerns!
Wow! All this and we are still considering what to call people. You'll find that this is just the tip of the iceberg. It gets even more complicated when we consider other stereotypes.
Places Names
Something you all know about. Indian is rife with them. Of course we have the state and city name itself.
Today’s Indianapolis Star story on looting of an ancient site.
Many American places have been named after Indian words. In fact, about half of the states got their names from Indian words.
The name of Kentucky comes from an Iroquoian word (Kentahten), which means "land of tomorrow."
Connecticut's name comes from the Mohican word (Quinnehtukqut), which means "beside the long tidal river."
And the word "Podunk," meant to describe a insignificant town out in the middle of nowhere, comes from a Natick Indian word meaning "swampy place."
Chesapeake (bay): Algonquian name of a village.
Chicago (Illinois): Algonquian for "garlic field."
Should this be a matter of pride, or is it another ripoff in the sense that Americans don’t even know the origins, but use the words anyway?
Hurtful Words
Rebecca Sockbeson of Portland, a Penobscot Indian,
was only 8 years old when she was first called a squaw,
and although she is not an adult, she remembers the
incident as painfully as it happened yesterday.
Socbeson was walking away from the cafeteria line at her school in Bangor, carrying her lunch tray and minding her own business, when an older non-Indian boy called her "a dirty squaw" and tripped her, sending her tray clattering to the floor. "I had never heard the word squaw before,” she said, "but at that pivotal moment, I knew it was hurtful."
A long list of Indian women recounted similar experiences in 2000 when a state of Maine Judiciary Committee held a hearing on a bill that would outlaw the use of the word "squaw" in Maine place names, while allowing its continued use by private businesses, such as the Squaw Mountain Resort in Greenville.
At least 25 geographic features in seven counties would be affected by the change, including Big Squaw Mountain, Little Squaw Mountain, Big Squaw Township and Little Squaw Township.
The only opposition came from government officials in the Greenville area, who said the proposed ban would hurt their region's economic development.
They argued that Squaw Mountain and other places were named by Indians or out of respect for them, an assertion that drew strong protests from Indian women.
Although several opponents of the bill claimed to know
Rene Attean, a Penobscot woman from Old Town:
"As a young girl growing up on the reservation, I was often called a'dirty squaw', which would reduce me to tears of pain and anger."
And she grew older, she came to realize that many of the town boys thought "squaw" was synonymous with sex.
She came to hate the word 'squaw" and the people who used it."
Research conducted by the Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission, a state agency that includes Indians and non-Indians, suggests that the word 'squaw' originated among Indian tribes in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and elsewhere as a neutral word for woman or wife. It is not found in the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy or Maliseet languages.
Over time, use of the word spread far beyond southern New England, and it developed a negative connotation. Several dictionaries say the word is often used in an offensive and insulting way."
Brenda Commander, Chief of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians: “I have not spoken to even one Maliseet woman who is not offended by the use of the word, because whatever its origin, it has been used to taunt, and degrade us as women. One experience that is burned into my memory was coming home one day (as a child) and seeing a big road sign at the end of our road that said Squaw Knoll. When I entered my home, I found my mother in tears, she was so humiliated."
Many Indians say that "Squaw" has come to be used by non-Indians as a synonym for prostitute and as a shorthand way of implying that American Indian women are inferior and sexually promiscuous.
Some see it is as insulting to Indian women as the most base racial slurs are to African-Americans.
Others see the word “Buck” to describe an Indian male as a similar slur.
Few are Innocent
This is not to say that Indians don’t do the same thing. It goes back a long way.
The poor Sioux: Snakes, gut-eaters, etc.
Words can change cultures.
Though some wish to call efforts to use the right names or at least names that don’t offend “political correctness,” real campaigns to change names do have an impact on people,
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis-In a simplified form, words color the way we see the world, or, in an opposite form, the words people use say what’s important to them
Shifts in names-Negroes to Blacks to African-Americans; Indians to American Indians to Native Americans to First Nations to First Peoples
Positive changes, suggested by people themselves, suggest a growing respect for the people; negative suggests the opposite.
What is the impact of all this?
In whose honor?