Hi, Coll:

Thanks for the sensible response. I'd like to see the "original" native
names used for some of the birds...if I could pronounce them!:-)

Regards, Joanne
Reardan (Spokane) WA
mailto: jhpowell at iea.com
-----Original Message-----
From: C. Thrush <ishriver at u.washington.edu>
To: Tweeters Birding List <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Date: Friday, May 19, 2000 7:21 AM
Subject: Re: [Re: Birding by Ear] being politically correct.........


>
>Folks,
>
>I thought I'd add something to the discussion of "squaw" briefly, since I
>do a lot of work with Native issues. It's definitely become a hot topic
>lately, but it's very complicated. Many Indian activists hate the term,
>because it has a long history of being used as a derogatory slur against
>Indian women (you should see some of the sources I come across in my
>research!). Often, it's used like a few of our other awful words for
>female genitalia. So it's clear that there is a racist history here.
>
>On the other hand, there are a number of Native women from Algonquian
>speaking communities who have pointed out that skwa is a root word meaning
>woman, and don't see it as a big deal. I've seen some really hot debates
>about this on a couple of lists. It seems to me that the source of the
>word is in fact a group of Native languages, but what 19th century
>Americans did with the word isn't particularly honorable. Marge Bruchac,
>one of the Algonquian women who have written about this, has become the
>target of much criticism from activists (even though she is one herself),
>so you can see how tricky this is.
>
>One interesting fallout of all this is the move to remove "squaw" as a
>place name -- Maine, for example, is doing this right now. While many of
>us would prefer not to see Nigger Creek or Chinaman Gulch on maps,
>"Squaw's Tit" and other place names still exist on a lot of maps. One
>issue, though, is that a lot of place names like these actually attest to
>the historic presence of real people who were black, Asian, or Indian --
>when we remove these names, do we remove what little evidence is left of
>those people, in effect "whitewashing" the landscape? I've proposed that
>local historians get involved in finding out who the "nigger," "chinaman,"
>and "squaw" really was, and rename those places after them. (This is
>especially important, since a lot of these often rural places are assumed
>to have always been "white space.")
>
>So anyway, it's really complicated. I don't know about the oldsquaw and
>where that term comes from specifically, but I don't think it hurts to
>talk about this issue. As for those who dismiss all this as "political
>correctness," you might want to rethink it -- this matters quite a bit to
>a lot of people. Saying "get over it" simply doesn't address the long
>history -- and ongoing challenges -- of Indian-white relations. Are we
>REALLY that invested in a particular name for a mountain or a bird? I
>mean, what if "Squaw's Tit" was renamed with its Yakama name, or
>"oldsquaw" was replaced with the Inuit word for that species (if not just
>long-tailed duck)? Wouldn't that actually be more interesting?
>
>Just my two (well, maybe ten) cents' worth first thing in the morning.
>Now back to birds!
>
>Coll
>
>*************************************************************************
>Coll-Peter Thrush
>Doctoral Candidate in History
>University of Washington, Seattle
>ishriver at u.washington.edu
>*************************************************************************
>
>
>