<html><DIV>
<P><BR><BR></P></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Dear Folks, That was a really thoughtful discussion about sywash.
<DIV></DIV>>Thanks especially for sharing your family memories.
<DIV></DIV>>My one point is that intent is everything, and when we run across
<DIV></DIV>>these
<DIV></DIV>
<P>>disparaging words history isn't enough of a reason to forgive them.</P>
<P>That's a pretty absolutist statement, Kara. How can you say that without considering the whole history of the word, including the FACT that it was widely used _in_some_areas_ by native people themselves, whether in Grand Ronde's French-influenced prononciation or in the same-same prononciation common in BC. </P>
<P>William Safire would have a field day with the mutation of this word's meaning by region and era; ignoring or dismissing this history and the historical evolution of this word and others like it is REVISIONISM pure and simple. It's fine to say that "Siwash" is offensive NOW and was often used offensively, but it's also real and straightforward that MANY people used the word in a non-offensive way, including native people themselves as well as those non-natives who spoke the Jargon or simply used the term in English as a general reference word for natives without any derisive context; just as some older texts refer to nearly all the peoples of Puget Sound and Western Washington as "the tribe of Siwash Indians", as if Siwash were an ethnic designation. If anything any 19th Century citation of "there were two Siwashes sitting on the dock" need not be read as "there were two savages sitting on the dock" or in any other derisive sense.</P>
<P>Most of the rest of you are linguists and native politicos; I'm more of an historian and REALLY don't like it when someone tries to rewrite history to suit modern prejudices and perceptions. What I'm saying is don't throw the baby out with the bathwater; OK, OK, Siwash is derogatory now (unless pronounced Sawash and if you're in Grand Ronde) but don't go pretending that all historical uses/users of it were derisive and negative. This is plainly UNTRUE and "political correctness isn't reason enough to forgive" such a refabrication of history. Be wary of overcompensating for the vices and resentments of the past lest you create vices and resentments for the future. </P>
<P> </P>
<P>There was a parallel situation in BC concerning "Chinaman", when that word's historical and cultural origins (in Chinese-English pidgin and/or the Jargon) and its often-innocuous use by non-Chinese (historically) were bulldozed by tub-thumping Chinese politicos who know little of the history of North American Chinese, other than what's recited in the newly-prejudiced modern curriculums. The result? Resentment, hostility, and a revival of the use of the word in the non-Chinese population (as well as vindication of it by many multilple-generation Chinese </P>
<DIV></DIV>
<P>North Americans. Governments and university faculties can legislate words in and out of existence all the want; but it's actual usage and utility that determines a word's existence as well as its meaning, as Safire could tell you.</P>
<P>I sympathize with the Warm Springs resistance to use of the S-word to mean "Indian" or "native person" in the Jargon, since in their community (as in others) the word has become clearly derisive in context with many unpleasant memories, such that even "Sawash" isn't considerable as a useful alternative in modern terms; their use of "tillikum" as an alternate of course doesn't fit in other Jargon-speaking regions, especially in BC where it's often cited to mean "friend" as well as "people" or "person" (of any race). This might be due to misapprehension of the term, or simply an evolution of usage/meaning. But given the sensitivity of the term it's well worth considering that any new "Modern Jargon" which integrates Grand Ronde, "ahnkuttie", and regional variations is going to have to have such a word, unless simply the tribal names themselves are "borrowed in" as is often done in BC English nowadays. (some people don't even use "First Nations person" anymore, but will say simply "I'm Squamish" or "I'm Shuswap", never lumping themselves together racially ("native" or "Indian") but by actual _nation_........</P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P>>slightly open a related linguistic can of worms, but only for </P>
<DIV></DIV>>reference; the
<DIV></DIV>>term redskin first showed up in the Oxford dictionary in 1699 and
<DIV></DIV>>was
<DIV></DIV>>acknowledged then as derogatory to the indigenous peoples of North
<DIV></DIV>>America.
<DIV></DIV>> It's not that people meant the term any more kindly at that time.
<DIV></DIV>>It was
<DIV></DIV>>probably much worse historically.
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>>But the tide has turned and in many ways sensitivity is truly
<DIV></DIV>>reaching
<DIV></DIV>>beyond the Native American community into the mainstream
<DIV></DIV>
<P>>consciousness and law. </P>
<P>Someone else here may have noted that BC just passed laws/policies which will see all references to "Siwash" and "Squaw" dropped from BC maps as was done with "Chinaman" a couple of years ago. Don't know what Squamish word they're going to use to rename Siwash Rock (in Stanley Park) with, but for the sake of the tourist trade I hope it's pronounceable....</P>
<P> </P>
<P>MC</P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<P> </P>
<DIV></DIV>>Three U.S. newspapers, The Oregonian in Portland, the Minneapolis
<DIV></DIV>>Star
<DIV></DIV>>Tribune and The Salt Lake Tribune decided in the early to mid-1990s
<DIV></DIV>>to stop
<DIV></DIV>>printing Indian mascot sports team names. So sports writers write
<DIV></DIV>>around it
<DIV></DIV>>by awkwardly saying "the Washington, D.C., football team" and such.
<DIV></DIV>>Eight Native artists, political leaders, and writers sued the
<DIV></DIV>>Washington
<DIV></DIV>>team owners in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. In 1998 a panel
<DIV></DIV>>of
<DIV></DIV>>three Patent and Trademark judges decided to deny the team's
<DIV></DIV>>trademark when
<DIV></DIV>>it next comes up for renewal in a few years.
<DIV></DIV>>The judges, none of them Native American, ruled that the "R-word"
<DIV></DIV>>violates
<DIV></DIV>>United States trademark law by being - in the language of the law -
<DIV></DIV>>scandalous, derogatory and deprecating of a racial group.
<DIV></DIV>>Now this ruling doesn't mean the team has to change its name, it
<DIV></DIV>>just takes
<DIV></DIV>>the wind out of the team owners' best argument.
<DIV></DIV>>Team owners had previously argued that they would lose money if they
<DIV></DIV>>changed
<DIV></DIV>>the name. This ruling just means that the team will no longer have
<DIV></DIV>>the
<DIV></DIV>>exclusive merchandising right to the name.
<DIV></DIV>>In other words, they're going to lose money even if they don't
<DIV></DIV>>change it.
<DIV></DIV>>My offer is this, I have a few buttons that read, Redskins, and the
<DIV></DIV>>word is
<DIV></DIV>>crossed out. One of the Native leaders in the suit gave them to me.
<DIV></DIV>>If some of you on the Chinook Listserv would like one, send me your
<DIV></DIV>>whole
<DIV></DIV>>mailing address and I will snail mail one to you.
<DIV></DIV>>Best wishes, Kara
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>_________________________________________________________________
<DIV></DIV>>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
<DIV></DIV><br clear=all><hr>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at <a href="http://www.hotmail.com">http://www.hotmail.com</a>.<br></p></html>