Seldom do I speak, write or think about the word "squaw." Recently,
however, I have learned much  from articles and editorials in the Asheville, NC CITIZEN-TIMES and the Asheville TRIBUNE about the Squaws of Erwin High School. I have also spoken with some  Erwin High School students and other local people (none, alas, native Americans). Their opinions, all hotly expressed, range from "much ado about nothing" through "let the people at Erwin High School decide" to "this is a major human rights issue."

Might it help if we lightened up a bit? Here are six thoughts.

(1)  WHAT ARE THE ISSUES? The girls' athletic teams at Erwin High School in Buncombe County are called "Squaws." Is the word offensive to some, to many or perhaps to all American Indians?  If widely offensive, should a publicly funded school allow the word official usage? And who should decide?

(2) RECOLLECTIONS OF A ONE TIME TEEN AGER. I  studied at an all-boys high school in Shreveport, Louisiana.  Our sports teams had the uncontroversial name "Flyers." In Shreveport the word "squaw" was  heard only in cowboy movies. The word clearly denoted  "Indian woman." Its overtones were vaguely comical or negative, though not appallingly  negative, compared with other words then circulating.

I was also a member of  one mildly disdained local minority group  in
Shreveport.  This caused me to make my own the jingle, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Recently a businessman spoke about our local "squaw" controversy.  He said: 
 

"I believe in insensitivity training. By that I mean training people to be less sensitive! Teach us all  to stop seeing ourselves as victims and to start growing thick hides."

I like the notion that I myself should be strong and not allow myself to be changed by people calling me names.  But I was also brought up to be sensitive to others' reactions and not to inflict pain, even petty, silly pain, on the innocent.

(3) ETYMOLOGY. Thanks to the August 15th [1997] Asheville TRIBUNE  we now have a passable understanding of the history of the word "squaw." In  parts of the USA and Canada, some people find its current usage so offensive that they demand to change place names such as Squaw Valley.

Words do change in both denotation (the object they point to) and
connotation (the emotions which the words express or evoke).  Thus some words which began as mockery later became badges of honor, for example: Quaker, Shaker and Jesuit. Sometimes good people use hurtful words innocently because unaware of their connotation. It is said that Saint Joanof Arc, having heard  her French military colleagues regularly refer to their English opponents as "les god damns, herself used this blasphemous expression. But then the Maid of Orleans did not understand  English.

(4) EMPATHY. I  know few native Americans and have not held serious discussions with any since 1986-87 when I was visiting professor at the University of Oklahoma and simultaneously advised a committee of the State Legislature. But I hold that we should empathize with anyone who with good reason finds the word  'squaw' distasteful. That is elementary politeness. God surely does not want us  walking about hurting innocent  people's feelings.

(5) HUMOR. Might not humor help us keep the local Squaws controversy in perspective?  I once heard an Air Force General lament the waning  of ethnic humor. His tongue in cheek solution: if you must tell ethnic jokes, then tell them about extinct peoples. He suggested the Hittites of Mesopotamia. They are long vanished. So who among us has standing to object? The General then began his joke: 

"There were these two Hittites: Johannson and Swenson ..."

Do you insist on thinking creatively of  your female athletes as "native
American women?"  Then why not  take a leaf from the General? Pick a dignified word which nobody has used in real life for a long time but whichexpresses your ideal for your teams. 

My dictionary traces today's "squaw"  to the 16th Century Massachuset Indian word "squa,"or "eshqua." Scholars  have surmised that those words derive from the unattested Proto-Algonquian "ethkwewa," meaning "woman."  But  there are no living Proto-Algonquins  to object if you borrow their word. So, whom would the girls  reasonably offend were they to call themselves the Erwin High Ethkwewas? The  word's denotation is accurate and the connotation is positive. Better yet: research whether there is a Proto-Algonquian or Proto-Cherokee word meaning "teen age girls who love sports!"

That is my "modest proposal" in the manner of Jonathan Swift. If tempests there must needs be, then at least allow a sense of humor to confine them to teapots.

-000-

for Asheville TRIBUNE