BS: Indian or Native American?

Subject: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Nemesis
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 05:47 PM

Putting together publicity for our festival .. there's a talk about Geronimo ..etc etc

Help! What do the USA's Native people prefer to be called these days .. IS it Indians? Or is it still Native Americans? The person giving the talk says these days it's "Indians" ..

People of the Tribes - if you're out there please help .. Ethnologists / New Agers .. thank you but, let's hear it from Crazy Horse's own mouth please?

Thanks

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 06:19 PM

I once did some research on this very subject. The answer is there is no right answer. Here is a link that might help:

Ojibwe web site

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 06:32 PM

Native American is what I hear most. When "Indian" is used it is almost always followed by "American Indian, not India Indian."

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Haruo
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 06:49 PM

If it's specifically about Geronimo, how about calling him Apache? Calling him a Native American is about as meaningful as calling Julius Caesar (or Boadicea!) a Native Eurasian, don't you think? You might also call him, at least parenthetically, by his proper name, Goyathlay. (As Crazy Horse really ought to be called Taśunka Witco, Chief Joseph — Hinmatuyalatkeht, Chief Seattle — si?aL, etc.

Haruo

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: NicoleC
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 06:50 PM

I suspect Geronimo would prefer to be called Chiricahua Apache, or even Mescelero instead of lumped in with a generic term for a wide variety of cultures and religions.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 06:59 PM

american indian works....

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Midchuck
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 07:24 PM

"Native American" doesn't work, because I am, literally speaking, an native American, even though I'm only 1/64 or 1/128, or maybe less...one of those people we're talking about. I was born in the USA. Native American. Q.E.D.

"Indian" doesn't work because they aren't from India, or anywhere near there. Columbus was just plain lost.

I asked someone who worked in some kind of teaching or social function on a reservation, what they themselves preferred, and she said, as suggested above, to use the particular Nation or tribe name, instead of any generic one. But you don't always know what it is.

I kind of like the Canadian term, "First Nations." But if we adopt it, the Canadians are likely to think of themselves as entirely too clever, so that's no good either...

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 07:25 PM

As a member of the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, promoting Indian Arts with the historic Indian Market and awards in Santa Fé every year, I see no need for the cumbersome Native American. We speak of Native American Arts in some literature.

Website: SWAIA

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Haruo
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 07:42 PM

I agree, Nicole, that Chiricahua or Mescalero would be an improvement over plain Apache, although the "wide variety of cultures and regions" subsumed under "Apache" is not nearly as wide as that under "Native American" or "American Indian", and from the . Whether Goyathlay would particularly care, I am not sure. And what about "Bedonkohe Apache" (the group he was born into)? There appears to have been a great deal of fluidity among the Chiricahua and their near neighbors as to which bands were regarded as which "kind" of Apache. For people who are not really politically organized above the village level, and even more when the villages are nomadic in location, this is a normal state of affairs (something similar obtained here in the Northwest Coast region); it was the exigencies of the treaty-making and reservation-allocating process that was largely to credit or blame for the firm identification of "tribes" among groups like the Apache or the Puget Sound Salish.

I will agree with Guest that "American Indian" works as far as it goes (though the young lady who died in the recent shuttle disaster, whose name escapes me, is proof of the ambiguity of that solution, too...)

Most Native Americans and/or American Indians with whom I am acquainted do not make a big deal of the terminology, and when they do, they are just as lacking in unanimity on the subject as Euro-Americans like me who pontificate on the subject. Same goes for Alaskan Eskimos, many of whom are not Inuit but Yupik; if asked whether they are "Alaska Native" they will say yes, but if asked open-endedly for their ethnicity they will say "Eskimo". In my experience.

Haruo

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: open mike
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 07:52 PM

how about indigenous?
i, too , like the canadian term first nations,
but that would need an explanation,,or would it?>

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 08:51 PM

Oh christ, if you run into someone whose ancestry you think might include pre-columbian indigenes, ask them how they want their ethnicity described. For me, "Abekani" is fine (just don't ask me to prove it since it's only family legend).

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: X
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 09:00 PM

I'm one of the American Indigenous People you speak of. All I have to say is..."I say "tomato" you say "tomato" let's call the whole thing off!"

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 09:01 PM

I, too, like "First Nations" and applaud Canadians for thinking it up.

But I'll use "Indians" or "American Indians" or, better, refer to the nation of the person.

As a Potawattomi once said to me, "God, don't call me a Native American! Anybody born here is a native. Call me a Potawattomi or, if you really must, an Indian."

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 09:49 PM

My Mescalero Apache friend says Apache is just fine. He hates Native American and prefers Indian to that.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 10:28 PM

It is best to use the tribal affiliation, such as Apache, Lummi, Taino, Choctaw, etc.

People who are Indians generally prefer American Indian over the politically correct "Native American" if you have to use a label. Most Indians simply call themselves Indians.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 10:45 PM

I listen regularly to a radio program called "Native America Calling", which is for, by and about Indians. (And no, I'm not one, but they discuss a lot of interesting issues.) The people on it, except for the occasional Washington bureaucrat who is required to be politically correct, invariably use the word "Indian", without any "American" attached to it.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 12:11 AM

Native American is a silly term, rather like African-American, I think. It's a clumsy attempt to mollify people who are trying desperately to be "modern" and politically correct, which is their psychological problem, not mine. However, if it makes them happy to say Native American, that's okay with me. I can't see why it makes them unhappy if I say "Indian" or American Indian in the context of a conversation where it is plainly obvious that I do not mean people from India.

First Nations is another clumsy term, and could actually be a misleading one in some cases. The American Indians were and are a people of many nations, some of which have displaced others out of various areas of land in very ancient times...so who was really first?

Then you've got the Inuit.

What difference does it make what you call American Indians as long as the context makes it clear whom you are referring to, and it's not a deliberately insulting or pejorative term?

"Call me any name you like, I will never deny it" - Bob Dylan

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." - Shakespeare

Names are temporary labels, nothing more. When the fashion changes, so may the name. It doesn't matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 12:11 AM

Art, are you in Albuquerque? That's the only place I've heard that program with any regularity. What are the call letters of the station?

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: artbrooks
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 02:22 AM

KUNM, in Albuquerque

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 07:11 AM

In many ways this reminds my of the recent "Redneck" thread, as well as earlier threads that discussed "Blue Tailed Fly" and the infamous "N-word".

As someone in an earlier thread said, "We can tell when a word is used as an insult." I never considered "Indian" an insult until "Native American" came around, and I thought that a lousy construction. (Mind you, I grew up in a racially mixed neighborhood and never even heard the word "nigger" until I got to high school. When we played "Cowboys and Indians" everyone wanted to be Indians, because they always won.)

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Mooh
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 07:28 AM

Okay, so I'm Canadian...First Nations or Indigenous Peoples.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Nemesis
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 01:42 PM

Thanks everyone .. the context of the talk being given (Title: Geronimo didn't build casinos: The American Indian in Myth and Reality) is about representations of them in films (notoriously "DWW") making them footnotes to Frontier history and how "we" want them to be, rather than how they actually were or are ..

So, as an all embracing name I guess "American Indians" ..(qualified as indigenous peoples) ... just wanted to get it as near correct as poss (if not (clumsily?) politically correct **g**)
Interesting discussion though, it's turned out to be!

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 02:02 PM

My two cents

I believe the precise, correct term would be North America Aborignal.
Of course Aboriginal has come to be associated only with "Native Australians"

I think enough people probably know who Geronimo was that you could call him what you wanted to and folks would understand. I think the name you choose will be a big factor in how you want to characterize him. If you want to portray him as a savage who preyed on "white" settlers then Indian is a perfect word. But If you are going to protray him as something more noble, then you would do well to explain what the term "indian" means to you.

Look at what you want to say. Think about the message, the right word will come to you.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 02:16 PM

Best to lose the term "noble." It's an artifact and is not appreciated by most Indians I know.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 03:21 PM

If I talk to one of the members of the nearby Tsuu-T'ina Nation, he would laugh if I called him a "first nation." He is a Tsuu-T'ina or an Indian; "First Nations" is used only when they or outsiders are making speeches or lobbying about something or other.

And please do not confuse Inuit with Indians.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 04:32 PM

As a kid, no-one ever talked about American Indians, they were Red Indians. I was very disappointed when I found they weren't actually red.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 05:08 PM

Look at the attractive website of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, owned and operated by the 19 Indian pueblos, and designed to educate visitors to Indian Peoples and Cultures of the American Southwest.

Indian is the preferred term among them unless the person you are speaking to can be identified more closely.
Indian Pueblo website: Indian Pueblos

American (including Canadian) whites, in their stumbling attempts at political correctness, end up complicating issues.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 06:04 PM

I think the audience is the first consideration. I wouldn't say "Indian" in a presentation to non Indians without explaining it.

Stilly, If you are refering to my use of the word noble, I'd like to explain that I am not refering to the nobility of the Indian but to a hypothetical presentation about Geronimo. If you are refering to calling Geronimo a "Noble Savage", I heartily agree.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 06:12 PM

The Navajo Times, online edition printed weekly, often has references to Indians, but also uses the term Native Americans.
Navajo Times: Navajo Times

In the current issue, under the heading "The First Wives' Club Disbands," (click on the heading), the article has a lot about Dubya, and powers assumed by leaders. Interesting reading!

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 06:16 PM

Try again: Navajo Times

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 06:19 PM

The website is http://www.thenavajotimes.com/ . I'm doing something wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 06:27 PM

Q, your links all worked on my browser. Another good one is Indian Country Today.

Jack, I agree.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 06:39 PM

I prefer Cherokee instead of Native American or American Indian. It's 6 of one an a half-dozen of the other I suppose, but I think an individuals' nation should be used as his or her identifying factor.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 07:44 PM

Walking Eagle, I agree if you know the nation, pueblo, tribe. But a generic term is needed, and Indian is accepted by most Indians. In something like the Indian Market held in Santa Fé, there are Indians from Eastern Canada to British Columbia, Alaska to Mexico. Same for the Gallup Inter-Tribal gathering.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 08:38 PM

Like I said, six of one, half a dozen of the other to me. I don't much think about it until I have to fill out government forms or a white person of color asks me about it. By the way, I always wondered what the term Caucasian was all about. All white folks of color aren't from the Caucasus region are they?

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 09:07 PM

Caucasian in American usage is becoming obsolete. It once had a legal definition: "of or relating to the White race as defined by law, specif. as composed of persons of European, North African, or southwest Asian ancestry." This from Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

On police blotters arrests of whites would be marked Caucasian in the blank for race. Real estate contracts often had a restrictive clause- Caucasian race only. This pretty well was abandoned with the rise of the Civil Rights movement and repeal of racial laws. It was used in many restrictive laws and practices.

I don't know if the term is still used in physical and forensic anthropology where it has applications, or whether other, more specific, terms have been adopted.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 09:19 PM

Well, danged. Now we gottan have labels fir folks?!?

Okay, I'll play. In spite of my friend, LH's comments about "First Nation", I like it. Maybe I wouldn't if I were _________________. But I like it because it is a reminder of if the fact that the Europeans killed, colonized and marginalized the _______________'s.

So yeah, *First* Nation works for me just fine!

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Mooh
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 10:25 PM

Many "Reservations" in Ontario I regularly travel through are named as "...First Nation" on signs created by both provincial and First Nations governments, for what it's worth. When my folks were working and living among the Blackfoot in 1950s era Alberta, "Indian" was accepted though maybe not preferred, the Department of Indian Affairs notwithstanding. Circumstances of the past 50 years have changed things I suspect.

The TV network Aboriginal Peoples Network might have some ideas about this subject. I love it.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Troll
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 11:34 PM

I generally call 'em by their names. If I need to be general, I say Seminole. If I must be generic, I say "Indian". I know I'm gonna offend somebody no matter which way I go so I generally follow the preference of the people that I know who are of Indian descent.
Don Grooms called himself a Cherokee or an Indian and James Billie says Seminole or Indian. If it works for them, it sure as hell works for me.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 12:43 AM

The names that were originally understood and used by the colonizing populations were frequently the names one tribe would call another, so many of the names still in use today are words from one language that tend to mean "other" or "those people over there" and was never the actual name of the people in question. Clear as mud, right? An example would be a group like the Papago (called such by the Apache, or perhaps the Pima) now use the name they call themselves, which is the more complex Tohono O'odham.

In Canada the consensus has settled on "First Nations" but in the US the general non-Indian PC term is Native American; within the Indian communities it can be any number of things, but American Indian is most prevalent, following the use of the tribal name itself. And some of those names are so amazing--John Swanton wrote a guide to tribal names many years ago, and I'm sure it has been updated, but that big thick book (726 pages) has a lot of information about the regional names, if anyone is interested. Q and Walking Eagle touched on the reasons why sometimes the more general term is applicable, sometimes the specific is exactly what is called for.

Anthropologists are both a help and a hindrance to the process of recognizing tribes, and knowing what they call themselves. Those who had specific Social Darwinist agendas have been pretty thoroughly debunked (I can't name any off the top of my head, but I'm aware of many pseudo-anthropological tracts put out by missionary groups, for example, and they are dealt with in places like the novels of Gerald Vizenor and Leslie Marmon Silko). I think these days there is an uneasy alliance between Anthros and Indians. And books like Reading National Geographic help sort the anthropological agendas. Some of the best anthropologists in Indian Country are Indians themselves, though this is a highly-charged position for Indians to take.

And turn about is sometimes the best play. I have several Indian friends who have travelled to Europe and "claimed" various Euro landmarks in the names of their various tribes. In particular, one of the earliest was the Ponca and Osage poet Carter Revard, who claimed the leaning tower in Piza for the Osage Nation.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 12:55 AM

SRS, you can listen to Native American Calling, AlterNative Voices and a bunch of other all-NDN shows online at AIROS - American Indian Radio on Satellite.

We picked up a tshirt at a powwow one time. It shows some Indians on what is obviously an ocean shoreline and says Americans before Columbus. Of course, that's not what the continent was known as, but it gets the point across.

We could all do as Morris Dees suggests and does... calls people American first, then adds whatever if there is a need to identify, i.e. American of African descent, American of Irish descent, etc. I didn't ask him when we had dinner and visited, but I assume he'd say something like American of Native descent or maybe he'd use the above from the NDN tshirt: American of Before Columbus descent! (Just kidding!)

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 03:58 AM

Have I seen Amerindian somewhere?

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 10:56 AM

There are lots of attempts to catalog people, or to figure out politely what to call identified groups of people, and Amerindian is one of those attempts. Like using EuroAmerican or Euramerican when writing about or comparing/contrasting American Indian lit (giving everyone labels helps dispel a bit the "us vs them" paradigm). And the "NDN" shorthand is in frequent use on discussion lists.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 12:35 PM

"Amerind" was what I learned at the University of Minnesota 50 years ago. It has something going for it: It carries the sense of Indian, the qualifier that this is not the South Asian Subcontinent Indian but the American group, and it compresses it so that it's not cumbersome.

And when we use the word "aboriginal", the question comes to mind, aboriginal from what time. After all, all these Amerinds are descended from immigrants just as you and I are; it's just that their long-fathers came to this continet a long time before ours did. But they weren't originally here.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Mar 03 - 03:19 PM

I first learned the NDN from Keith Secola and Wild Band of Indians, in particular his song NDN Karz which has become known as the "contemporary Native American anthem."

I notice he won another NAMMY at the Native American Music Awards last year.

I first heard Keith and the band on AIROS, linked above.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 02:15 PM

Anyway, we're all African by descent, it appears, wherever we live.

"First Arrivals" would be quite a good term for the people who were there before the Europeans moved in and pushed them out.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 02:22 PM

Tribal affiliation first, Apache, Mescalero, Paiute, Shopshone, Crow, Lakota, Warm Springs, Lummi, etc. and Indian second - those are the choices according to the tribes I've affiliated with.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 05:05 PM

Kevin, but what if they didn't "arrive?" What if they just "were?":-)

GUEST, agreed, but "Shopshone?" (Just kidding, I know it's a typo.)

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 05:34 PM

They had to get here sometime, on the understanding that we all came from Africa. They just got there sooner, and treated the place better.

Subject: RE: BS: Indian or Native American?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Mar 03 - 05:48 PM

LOL - Shoshone - - actually this could merit a thread all its own! The Shopshone are the cousins to the Targetshones who are distant relatives to the K-Marshones.

Actually I think we all came from the French - prolificating little fornicators that they are - no style and no sense of decorum - nasty little gollums I think -