Posted on 02/22/2002 12:34:03 AM PST by kattracks
With five different places called Moose Pond, a Moose Cove, Moose Island, several Moose Creeks and a village called Moosehead, all on the shores of Moosehead Lake, it has always been rather too easy for the inexperienced visitor to get seriously lost in Piscataquis county, a thickly forested outpost of north-western Maine. Now, though, it is even easier. Compelled by a statewide law to change every place name containing the word "squaw", because it is considered offensive to native Americans, reluctant officials in the county decided to substitute every instance with a single alternative. Unfortunately, the word they chose was "moose". Which is why there are now places in Piscataquis county called Moose Bay, Moose Brook, Little Moose Brook, Little Moose Pond, Big Moose Pond, Big Moose Mountain, Little Moose Township, Moose Point, and a mountain officially known as Moose Bosom. The United States board on geographic names is threatening to withhold approval of the changes, and has given the county until next month to reconsider its decision. "Duplicate names do exist in many forms around the country, but the board doesn't like to approve new names that will create duplicates," the board's chief executive, Roger Payne, said. "We've asked the county to reconfirm that it really intends to do this, and that all interested parties, especially indigenous peoples in the county, have had a chance to comment." "Squaw [is] a corruption of a longer native word, otsikwaw, which referred to a female body part," according to Donald Soctomah, the state representative for the Passamaquoddy tribe in Maine. "To native females, this word continues to be a slanderous attack against them and their culture... It is hard for the general population to imagine how hurtful a word can be unless it is directed at them, their culture or racial background." According to the American Indian Movement, the word squaw as a derivative of otsikwaw is an insult referring to the vagina. It has also been used as a slang term for prostitute. Another Maine tribe, the Penobscot, had to change the name of one of its own properties, White Squaw Island. It is now called No Name Island. Similar legislation in Minnesota took years to enact because local authorities who objected tried to replace Squaw Creek and Squaw Bay with the names Politically Correct Creek and Politically Correct Bay. "Everywhere handles it in a different way," said Mr Payne, a little ruefully.
The idea that squaw means vagina (to use the polite term) first found its way into print in a polemical 1973 book, Literature of the American Indian, by Thomas E. Sanders and Walter W. Peek. Sanders and Peek, without offering evidence, advanced the theory that squaw derived from the Mohawk word ojiskwa' (sources vary on spelling), meaning vagina. This notion appealed to a certain mind-set and was circulated widely in the activist community. In 1992 it was revealed to the world at large on Oprah by Native American spokesperson Suzan Harjo: "The word squaw is an Algonquin [sic] Indian word meaning vagina, and that'll give you an idea of what the French and British fur trappers were calling all Indian women, and I hope no one ever uses that term again." This marked the beginning of organized efforts to remove the word squaw from place names, a campaign that continues today, so far with mixed success.
Hey, free country. Except that squaw doesn't mean vagina. "It is as certain as any historical fact can be that the word squaw that the English settlers in Massachusetts used for 'Indian woman' in the early 1600s was adopted by them from the word squa that their Massachusett-speaking neighbors used in their own language to mean 'female, younger woman,' and not from Mohawk ojiskwa', 'vagina,' which has the wrong shape [sound], the wrong meaning, and was used by people with whom they then had no contact. The resemblance that might be perceived between squaw and the last syllable of the Mohawk word is coincidental." This comes to us from Ives Goddard, a specialist in linguistics and curator at the Smithsonian Institution, writing in News From Indian Country, mid-April 1997.
Massachusett (no s), one of the Algonquian family of languages, was spoken by Native Americans in eastern Massachusetts. As is common with "first contact" languages, Massachusett and its Algonquian cousins contributed many terms, including papoose, sachem, skunk, opossum, and raccoon, that thereafter became standard English words, even in parts of North America where Algonquian languages weren't spoken. The first recorded use of squaw in English dates from 1622, and it had been adopted into the language by 1634. The Mohawks were 200 miles away, spoke a completely different language (Mohawk is part of the Iroquoian family of languages, not Algonquian, Harjo's statement notwithstanding), and were hostile to the Massachusett Indians.
The Enemy Way ceremony is paid for by families. If you attend, it is good manners to bring food. A sack of "Blue Bird" flour, a case of soda, or a can of coffee is very acceptable. The advice that people must be a friend to make a friend, works here too.
It is probably best if you attend your first "Squaw Dance" with a guide. Recently, emergency room staff in both Chinle and Ganado have commented that their case load increases dramatically, mainly in alcohol related injuries, when some large "Squaw Dances" are held nearby.
It seems illogical that he can gain support when "Squaw Dance" remains a term of choice in his homeland, where it is commonly used without disrespect by his constituents!
Heeheeheehee...
A Moose bosom once bit my sister. Or something like that.
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