American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Save a walleye, spear a pregnant squaw! —Anti-spearfishing protesters in Wisconsin “Squaw” is not an English word. That’s the bottom line. —Marge Bruchac I am a woman, hear me roar. I am not a squaw. —Avis Little Eagle In a recent electronic discussion of the significance of the word squaw, Ted Nawa asked a deceptively simple question: “Who would refer today, in English, to an Indian woman as a squaw, instead of as an Indian lady, or Indian woman?” Although posed rhetorically to underscore the presumed absurdity of the term, it would surely disappoint Nawa and others to learn how many individuals and institutions continue to use the term with little or no reflection. In March 2000, Stu Mackroon, a radio personality on KISS 94.5 in Maine, joked that the then recently introduced golden dollar coin bearing the visage of Sacagawea should be referred to as “the squaw buck,” playing off “sawbuck,” a popular slang term for a dollar bill. Less than six months earlier, after a much debated intervention by the Justice Department, Erwin High School in Buncombe County, North Carolina, chose to drop Squaws as the name of its girls’ sports team. Even after the decision, the gym wall announced “Home of the Warriors and Squaws,” and the sentiments of many community members echoed Bob O’Connor of the Erwin Booster Club, “The name should not be changed after so many years because a certain group is offended.”

After seeing Disney’s Pocahontas, every kid wants to be John Smith. —Television commercial for Burger King’s Pocahontas Kids Meal The last three decades of the twentieth century have seen a resurgence of films with Native American themes. In addition to a growth in the number of such films, there has been a qualitative difference: the new generation of films has attempted to counteract previous stereotypes, to accurately portray the history and culture of Native groups, and to be sympathetic to the political claims of Native Americans. There has been a concomitant effort to include Native Americans on every level of production, not only as actors, but also as screenwriters, directors, and historical consultants. Films that favor Native Americans to some degree have existed from The True Heart of an Indian (1909) to Broken Arrow (1950). By the late 1980s, however, almost any film about Native Americans had to pay at least lip service to these concerns. This trend has been recognized and referred to as “sympathetic” or “progressive” Indian films. Be this as it may, even many of these “progressive” films depict Indian culture primarily through the experience of a white (and usually male) protagonist. The white mediator fills a range of functions, which progress chronologically as the concerns of the larger white American society shift. This progression involves a debate on the white conquest of Native America, first affirming and celebrating it, and then critiquing it. The subjects and concerns of these films then shift from the actions of society as a whole, to the role of an individual white in either accepting or rejecting his place in this conquest. The concern with collective responsibility will be abandoned, as the repercussions of this responsibility would indict American society as a whole. Instead, the actions of a single white protagonist, often an outcast from society, provide the audience with a vicarious reprieve.

I’ve been attending the annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Conference (SILC) since 1999, and have presented papers there every year. SILC is a unique conference that brings together educators and researchers of indigenous languages (mostly Native American ones), most of whom work in and for programs at the primary and secondary levels. The conference program focuses on what’s being done in various communities to reintroduce, revitalize, or stabilize indigenous languages. A great deal of effort is going into Native American language programming. Dictionaries and grammar books, although still sometimes used, have been replaced in many schools with immersion-type programs and interactive computer software. The sheer volume of available materials and the commitment of those who dedicate themselves to keeping Native American languages alive are impressive. Invariably though, when asked about the level of fluency of students coming out of these programs, presenters claim that the languages are not very strong, that almost everywhere they’re “dying out” and being replaced by English. This is disturbing, especially when there is widespread sentiment that one’s language is intimately related to one’s cultural identity. Why aren’t these programs working when so much is at stake and so much tireless devotion is put into the goal of keeping these languages alive? Various reasons have been proposed. Most have to do with the experiences of Native American children in government-operated residential and boarding schools, where Native languages were forbidden, and Euro-American society infiltrated almost every aspect of Native American life (through such media as television). In most Native American communities, the ancestral language has not been learned by anyone as a mother tongue for many years, and the responsibility for teaching the language to children has been placed on schools. So when children are taught their ancestral language at school, they’re already speaking another language, usually English. Learning the structures of their ancestral language is difficult for them because these structures will be quite different from those of English; however, learning vocabulary is easier for them.

In Osage writer Carter Revard’s short story, “Report to the Nation: Claiming Europe,” the narrator claims much of England, France, Spain, Italy, and Greece for the Osage Nation: “I waved an arm as I was passing over the Garonne, in Bordeaux, so we now have the area of Aquitaine as I understand,” writes Revard. After asserting his claim, the narrator questions whether or not the French actually understood that their country therefore belonged to the Osage Nation. But, he continues, the people “were friendly and they fed [the Native conquistador] well, accepting in return some pretty paper and some metal discs with which they seemed very pleased.” After commencing with surface playfulness, Revard implies an underlying seriousness in his response to Europe and the colonization of North America by the Spanish, French, and British. When he talks of the Osage people actually settling in Europe, he echoes the words of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European colonists in the New World: “It would at first be a hard and semi-savage life, and there would be much danger from the Europeans who in many cases would not understand our motives; as a chosen people, setting up standards, we would probably have to suppress some opposition. . . . We will, however, as the superior race, prevail in the end.” In a sense, then, Revard as a Native conquistador leads the way into Europe. He is followed by Gerald Vizenor (Heirs of Columbus, 1991), James Welch (The Heartsong of Charging Elk, 2000), Leslie Marmon Silko (Gardens in the Dunes, 1999), and Louise Erdrich (The Master Butcher’s Singing Club, 2002). All four well-known authors send their characters to Europe, compelling the former colonial powers to deal with this insurgence of Native writers and characters. Although there are significant differences among the works by these Native writers, they all share an important similarity: the return to Europe, to a place where each of the authors, if not always the characters, has an ancestral history.

After many years of intense debate, the idea that the Iroquois helped shape democracy has passed into the realm of general knowledge the length and breadth of “Turtle Island,” and beyond. Although a few brushfires of criticism remain in academia, many people and organizations have been applying Iroquois political principles in their daily lives. As of 21 November 2003 our roster of annotations had reached 1,404 items. According to our records, the issue of Iroquois influence had appeared in 350 books; 184 articles in scholarly journals, including commentaries, letters to the editor, book and film reviews, and bibliographies; 169 other periodical articles, including book reviews; 377 newspaper or news-service articles, columns, letters, or book reviews, and 189 websites. Additionally, influence has been raised in 82 other venues, including several documentary films; a commencement speech at Wellesley College by Gloria Steinem; a radio essay by Hugh Downs; a presidential proclamation by Bill Clinton, several college course outlines and other school curricula; a segment of Larry King Live on Cable News Network; a speech by Canadian Minister of Constitutional Affairs Joe Clark; and a feature film, The Indian in the Cupboard, in 1995. The subject now has its own Library of Congress classification, citations in three dozen legal journals, and was mentioned by Janet Reno in a speech when she was U.S. Attorney General.