Origin of word "redskin"

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 03:07 PM 5/26/2005, you wrote:
>On May 26, 2005, at 7:33 AM, Sam Clements wrote:
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM>
>>Subject:      Origin of word "redskin"
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>--------
>>
>>Sorry if someone already posted this.
>>
>>While driving to work Wednesday morning, I caught the NPR segment with
>>=
>>Frank Deford talking about sports teams names and American Indians.
>>
>>The thing that Deford said which set off my BS detector was that the =
>>origin of the word "redskin" was NOT in relation to the color of the =
>>Native American's skin, but rather the scalp that he sometimes took
>>from =
>>a victim, (with blood dripping?).=20
>
>FWIW, I once read somewhere or other that scalp-taking was inspired by
>the European custom of paying/trading for pelts. I've never heard of
>Indians taking the scalps of other Indians. This means nothing, of
>course.

No, but whites took plenty of scalps from Indian heads, and that's not
generally documented.

>Further FWIW: the only pronunciation of "Indian" that I've ever heard
>in BE is [InIy at n].
>
>-Wilson Gray

And western Indians tend to pronounce it [Ind at n] vs. the palatalized
[IndZ at n] of earlier whites.



>>I hope my link to the interview will work    =
>>http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3D4665930
>>
>>The OED cites it from 1699, but it isn't clear in that cite to me.
>>And =
>>the next cite there is from 1823, so leaves a big gap.
>>
>>Anyone done work on this one?
>>
>>Sam Clements