Xwa! XawElh ma munk nawitka ukuk! ("squaw") (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

<snip
>> *Almost* certainly -- certainly *probably* -- I would think, but not 100%
>> necessarily. After all, "squaw" is of Algonquian origin, and there were
>> Algonquian speakers (e.g. Blackfeet, Cree) resident not all that far from
>> Kamloops. So it *could conceivably* have come directly from one of these
>> other shawash wawa, with bastEn wawa's mediation. I think I recall that
in
>> Plains Cree "woman" is "iskwew"; "girl" would be "iskwesis", I think.
>
>Eng. SQUAW definitely comes (in 17c.) from an Eastern Algonquian (prob.
>Massachusett) word for 'woman'.
>
>> PS: Are you sure about the "shawash lhuchmEn" gloss, as opposed to its
being
>> a simple synonym of "lhuchmEn"? In bastEn wawa "squaw" certainly carries
the
>> presumption of Indianness, but I don't think this is true in Algonquian,
and
>> am not sure from the citation whether such an implication is present in
the
>> CJ.
>
>The Algonquian words all mean 'woman', but it is possible that some of the
>negative force of the word had its origins in native usage:
>
>"the greatest insult to an Indian is to say to him "Go, you are a squaw (a
>woman.)"
>
>(1828 J. C. Beltami _Pilgrimage in Europe & Amer._ II. 146; the ref. here
is to
>either the Dakota or the Ojibway, probably the latter)
>
>So it may be that at least a part of the disparaging character of the
English
>word now considered so offensive by many Native Americans has its ultimate
>source, not in Euro-American attitudes, but in those of some Native
American men
>toward women.
>
>Alan

<snip>

alan, kanawi-tillikum

it seems a bit disingenuous to claim that the origin of the term
[squaw--women > squaw--derogatory meaning] has changed as result of Native
American usage and that we native peoples are responsible for the terms
derogatory meaning.  simply said, this kind of reasoning could be used in
unkind ways to say and mean that we Native Americans are responsible for our
own racism and dehumanization.  at the same time, this reasoning tends to
sanitize the terms history by erasing its stereotypic usage by non-natives
(i.e. the fur-trade era and later 19th century popular culture > the 1913
movie "The Squaw Man").
sterotypes are simple but harmful renderings, cultural conceptions of
"others" that tend to deny (you and I, us, we) our humanity, diversity, and
place in the world.  given the current history of the term, the word [squaw]
is one of these stereotypes.   as a native person, i would rather not see
the discussions of the list take something as problematic (fraught with
fears and bigotry) as the term [squaw] to become seemingly naturalized or
justified by ignorance.

fyi, i have enclosed an early defintion i found on the web (although
outdated compared to the Amercan Heritage dictionary which states it is an
offensive term):

~~~
'Squaw' entry from Hodge's Handbook

     Abstract: The 'Squaw' entry from Handbook of American Indians North of
Mexico, edited by Frederick Webb Hodge (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of
American Ethnology Bulletin 30. GPO: 1910.)

     Author: Alexander F. Chamberlain of Clark University

Squaw. An Indian woman. From Narragenset squaw, probably an abbreviation of
eskwa, cognate with the Delaware ochquea, the Chippewa ikwé, the Cree
iskwew, etc. As a term for woman squaw has been carried over the length and
breadth of the United States and Canada, and is even in use by Indians on
the reservations of the W., who have taken it from the whites. After the
squaw have been named: Squawberry (the partridge berry), squaw bush (in
various parts of the country, Cornus stolonifera, C. sericea, and C.
canadensis), squaw carpet (a California name of Ceanothus prostratus), squaw
fish
(a species of fish found in the N. W.), squaw flower Trillium erectum,
called also squaw root), squaw man (an Indian who does woman's work; also a
white man married to an Indian woman and living with her people), squaw mint
(the American pennyroyal), squawroot (in different parts of the country,
Trillium erectum, the black and the blue cohosh, Conopholis americana, and
other plants), squaw sachem a term in vogue in the era of New England
colonization for a female chief among the Indians), squaw vine (a New
England name for the partridge berry), squawweed (Erigeron philadelphicum
and Senecio
aureus), squaw winter (a term in use in parts of the Canadian N. W. to
designate a mild beginning of winter). A species of duck (Harelda glacialis)
is called old squaw. (A. F. C.)


phil cash cash
cayuse/nez perce