Squaw

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Squaw is an English loan-word whose present meaning is "(an) American Indian woman", regardless of tribe. The word was borrowed from Algonquian words meaning "young woman".

The English term is now considered offensive, partly but not entirely because of incorrect claims that it comes from a word meaning vagina.

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[edit] Objectionable meaning?

The word has a long history of neutral uses, starting with the first in English: "the squa sachim, or Massachusets queen" in Mourt's Relation, the first chronicle of the Plymouth colony (Goddard 1997). See also Barwood (2003).

However, the word took on derogatory connonations (Hoxie 1996). An example is "the universal 'squaw' – squat, angular, pig-eyed, ragged, wretched, and insect-haunted" (Steele 1883). One dictionary of American usage called it "a contemptuous term" (Crowell 1928). When Isaac Asimov (1950) needed a slur that science-fictional natives of other planets would use against natives of Earth, he looked to this word:

"Lieutenant Claudy… said harshly, 'Your name, Earthie-squaw?'
"The term itself was richly insulting…"

During the 1970s, some American Indian activists objected to the term. The earliest known such objection is from Sanders and Peek (1973):

"That curious concept of 'squaw', the enslaved, demeaned, voiceless childbearer, existed and exists only in the mind of the non-Native American and is probably a French corruption of the Iroquois word otsiskwa [also spelled ojiskwa] meaning 'female sexual parts', a word almost clinical both denotatively and connotatively. The corruption suggests nothing about the Native American's attitude toward women; it does indicate the wasichu's [white man's[1]] view of Native American women in particular if not all women in general."

The controversy increased when Oprah Winfrey invited the Native American activist Suzan Harjo onto her show in 1992. Harjo claimed on the show that "squaw is an Algonquin Indian word meaning vagina".

However, according to Ives Goddard, the curator and senior linguist in the anthropology department of the Smithsonian Institution, this statement is not true (Bright n. d.; Goddard 1997). The word was borrowed as early as 1621 from the Massachusett word squa (Cutler 1994; Goddard 1996, 1997), possibly combined with the Narragansett squaws (NSOED), both from the proto-Algonquian *ethkweewa[2] (Goddard 1997); in those languages it meant simply "young woman". Although Algonquian linguists and some Native American women (Bruchac, 1999) also reject this proposed etymology, this incorrect information has been repeated by several journalists (e.g. Oprah Winfrey).

Goddard also writes:

"I have no doubt that some speakers of Mohawk sincerely believe that it is from their word ojískwa 'vagina' (though I know that other Mohawks laugh at the whole idea), but the resemblance (if there is one) is entirely accidental. 'Vagina' was not a meaning that was ever known to the original users of the word, and although it appears in a college anthology published in 1973, it was not widely known before Suzan Harjo's appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show in 1992." (Random House, 2000)

He does not rule out the possibility that that etymology was believed by some non-Mohawks and thus does not here rebut statements tracing the etymology back to elders or more distant ancestors, for example, as quoted by Hagengruber (2006).

The word remains offensive to many Native Americans because of usage that demeans Native women. Such usage ranges from the condescending (e.g., picture postcards depicting "Indian squaw and papoose") to epithets. It is similar in tone to the words "Negress" and "Jewess," which treat ethnic women as if they were second-class citizens or exotic objects. Some consider this Massachusett word inappropriate for women of other tribes (Mihuesah 2003). Thus many Native people would like to see the word eliminated regardless of its etymology (Bright n.d.; Mihuesah 2003). This desire has inspired a number of local initiatives to change placenames that contain "squaw", such as Squaw Peak in Phoenix, Arizona, which was renamed Piestewa Peak after Lori Piestewa. In October 2006, members of Idaho's Coeur d'Alene Tribe called for the removal of the word "squaw" from the names of 13 locations in Idaho, with many tribal members reportedly believing the "woman's genitals" etymology (Hagengruber, 2006). Also, the American Ornithologists' Union changed the official American English name of the duck Clangula hyemalis from "Oldsquaw" to the long-standing British name "Long-tailed Duck", because of wildlife biologists' concerns about cooperation with Native Americans involved in conservation efforts, and for standardization (American Ornithologists' Union, 2000).

At least one Native American woman has defended and attempted to reclaim the word (Bruchac 1999), and at least one has opposed the renaming of Arizona's former Squaw Peak (Barwood 2003). However, dictionaries warn that the word is frequently considered (NSOED), can be (Merriam-Webster), or is (American Heritage) offensive.

[edit] See also

Bint

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Lakota, literally [he who] "takes the fat" or "greedy one".
  2. ^ Goddard notes, "In writing words phonetically I'll omit accents and write double vowels for long vowels, as in current Ojibwe spelling; the * means the word is unattested."
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