malinche II

[Michael Mccafferty]

>
> On Sat, 5 Feb 2000 Yaoxochitl at aol.com wrote:
>
> > Please rid yourself of the term "indian" from your vocabulary when referring
> > to the indigenous people of these lands.  It is an inaccurate label.
> >
>
All the Indians I know, including my Cherokee relatives, refer to
themselves as Indians. No one is particularly enamoured of the term
"Native American." It sounds contrived, like something
concocted in a scientist's laboratory. "Native American" is, of course,
used in official correspondence with the government and that sort of
thing.

When you think about it, Germans are not really Germans. That term just
refers to a Germanic-speaking tribe. And how about the French? There they
are bearing the name of *German* tribe. Wonder if the French thought
about that during WW I and WW II.

Fortunately, as a soothing balm for the inordinately politically correct,
English at least no longers uses "savages" to denote American Indians.
This unfortunate term, of course, was simply a skewed borrowing from the
French /sauvages/, 'wild ones'. However, it is dismaying how often
"savages" continued to be seen in the work of historians even into the
second half of the 20th century.

Michael McCafferty
Indiana University