Subject: Re: Long-tailed duck, Northern Pikeminnow
Date: Dec 07 20:43:30 1998
From: Don Baccus - dhogaza at pacifier.com
At 06:54 PM 12/7/98 -0800, sanjer at televar.com wrote:
>When we went to see the Crested Caracara at Neah Bay we were at a small
>cafe that had a outside covered deck that overlooked the Marina. The
>owner (Indian) gave me permission to set up the spotting scope. It was
>raining naturally. As I was checking out the marina, several Indians (old
>and young) gathered around and one of them asked me what I was looking
>for, I said I was looking for an---you guessed it--Oldsquaw! Quicker then
>you can bat an eyelash I whipped out my Peterson's Guide and showed them
>a picture of it, saying "see here-- it's a duck. I am quite sure by their
>non-reaction that it bothered me more then it bothered them. :-)
>I was talking to a 76 year old Indian Lady and she said "once I was
>working during a younger ladies day off and two young bucks came in
>looking for the young lady and all they found was an old squaw (referring
>to herself.) She laughed and laughed. Side note--she had the "happiest"
>eyes I think I have ever seen.
>I would think that as beautiful and the Oldsquaw Duck is, that the
>elderly would take it as a compliment. I think it is a small minority
>that takes offense. To those (minority) I would apologize if any thing I
>said was offensive. It was not intended to be.
Small or not, they are very vocal. And I've had e-mail discussions on
this issue with Indian women who are very offended by the term. For
starters, I would doubt that the term would be particularly offensive
to NW Indians because it isn't derived from their language, nor from their
experiences with whites. Opposition to the term seems to be stronger
further east...big surprise, hey, where the trappers and Spanish and
French and English and all that kinda stuff was going on back as far as
before Lewis and Clark were born, or before their parents laid eyes
upon each other?
I have mixed feelings. I personally feel it is a tempest in a teapot.
Then again...I'm not a squaw...nor am I a whore, you know? Should I
claim the same lack of self-experience as a defence of the use of that
word?
In the large scale scheme of things, scientists claim that it is really
bionomials that count. Birds are a bit different as common names are
recognized as a convenient shorthand to facilitate communication between
amateurs and professionals.
We change our common names as we bow our heads to the English, acknowledging
our inferiority as Colonists to that country when we agree that a Marsh Hawk
is really a Northern Harrier (a bit rebellious, because we didn't agree to
"hen harrier"). If we cave to the Brits, who we soundly drove from these
shores, with little upset, why are folks perturbed when we cave into the
wishes of a minority of our citizens, who after all are the first owners
of this land, when they take offense to a sexist, racial slur?
If the change in name bothers you - use the bionomial or four-letter
banding code.
- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
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