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Of the eight predators on this list, it is interesting to note
that seven are either individual species or generic collections
of species whose numbers have declined precipitously in the past
500 years, hunted to the brink of extinction. The exception, bulldogs,
is an artificial creation through selective breeding. The progenitors
of bulldogs, wolves, were hunted to the brink of extinction just
as the other predators on the list were.
The preponderance of nicknames used for American college teams
conjures up images that evoke fear and loathing in Americans. Indeed,
these species were eradicated because of the images Americans concocted
for them, the contempt Americans held for them, and the fact that
they occupied land that Americans wanted for themselves.
Franks' top-ten list is based on the total number of college
sports teams that bear those particular nicknames. The two names
that do not reflect predatory animals, Warriors and Indians, both
refer to humans indigenous to the Western Hemisphere. College teams
named after Indians are actually underrepresented in Franks' list.
Excluded from the overall count of "Warriors" and "Indians"
are all the American college teams named for individual Tribal groups,
including Apaches, Chippewas, Fighting Sioux, Pequots, and Fighting
Illini. In addition, numerous college teams sport nicknames of generic
Indian themes, among them the Chiefs, Chieftains, Braves, Redskins,
Redmen, Tomahawks, and Savages. As Franks notes, if all the college
teams with nicknames associated with American Indians were combined,
their number would exceed that of its nearest rival by a considerable
margin.
Why are so many college sports teams named after Indians? When
challenged by critics that such names are racist and offensive,
a common response is that the names were intended to honor American
Indians. Supporters of Chief Illiniwek, mascot of the University
of Illinois' Fighting Illini, are quick to raise this flag of "honor"
in defense of their moniker. When Indians insist that "honor"
is in the eye of the beholder, and that such nicknames are insulting,
supporters retreat behind the nebulous camouflage of "tradition."
Indian nicknames and mascots for sports teams only reflect a tradition,
their defenders maintain, that American colleges and universities
want to preserve.
It is remarkable that this "traditional" defense is
correct. A quick glance at the history of the Western Hemisphere,
and in particular the settlement of North America by Europeans,
reveals that Indians belong on the football jerseys and baseball
hats of America's teams just as surely as tigers, bears, and wolves
do. Europeans and their descendants have conferred on Indians false
attributes that strikingly parallel those ascribed to bears, wolves,
and other animals that festoon sports teams. From the very beginning
of European colonization of the Western Hemisphere, Indians have
been portrayed as "barbaric," "wild," "bestial,"
and "savage," (see Berkofer, 1978; Bosmajian, 1974; Churchill,
1992; Pearce, 1988; and Sale, 1990, for overviews of European and
American characterizations of Indians).
Indians received not only similar descriptions to those given
predatory animals, but much the same treatment as well. George Washington,
revered as the father of the country, wrote that Indians "...were
wolves and beasts who deserved nothing from the whites but 'total
ruin'" (Stannard, p. 241). Thomas Jefferson, acclaimed proponent
of freedom and democracy, argued that the United States government
was obliged "...to pursue [Indians] to extermination, or drive
them to new seats beyond our reach" (quoted in Takaki, 1979,
p. 103). Andrew Jackson, founder of the modern Democratic Party
and greatest Indian killer of all American Presidents, urged United
States troops "...to root out from their 'dens' and kill Indian
women and their 'whelps'" (Stannard, p. 240). Jackson was so
effective at rooting women and "whelps" from their "dens,"
he adopted the habit of cutting off his victims' noses as trophies
to commemorate his exploits. He earned the name "Sharp Knife"
from Creek Indians for his penchant for skinning victims and using
the cured and braided tissue as reins for his ponies (Takaki, 1994).
The extirpation of Indians, of course, did not begin with America's
founding fathers. United States citizens and public servants like
Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson, were only following a tradition
that had long been established by European colonists. Like most
American traditions, it was chartered by religious zealots. Puritan
Saints who governed the Massachusetts Bay Colony, within a decade
of its founding in 1630, passed what amounts to the first gun-control
legislature on the continent when it legislated that settlers could
not "...shoot off a gun on any unnecessary occasion, or at
any game except an Indian or a wolf" (quoted in Lopez, 1978,
p. 170). Lopez notes that the Puritans used similar tactics in liquidating
both wolves and Indians: "He set out poisoned meat for the
wolf and gave the Indian blankets infected with smallpox. He raided
the wolf's den to dig out and destroy the pups, and stole the Indian's
children" (1978, pp. 170-171).
White "settlers" required little prodding to kill
Indians, but the Colonial governments spared no expense in ridding
the New World of its old inhabitants. Just as bounties were paid
for the legs, tails, or ears of animals regarded as a nuisance to
"civilization," so were bounties paid for the scalps of
Indians. "By 1717, all the New England colonies had bounties
in place, as did New Jersey. Massachusetts rescinded its Scalp Act
in 1722, on the grounds that it had become 'ineffectual,' but reinstated
it by public demand in 1747" (Churchill, 1997, p. 182).
When Christopher Columbus first passed through the waters surrounding
the Caribbean islands we now know as Hispaniola and Cuba, he noted
that they were "...filled with people without number"
(quoted in Stannard, 1992, p. 62). Modern population demographers
estimate that 100 million people inhabited the New World before
it was "discovered" by Columbus; 12 to 15 million resided
within the present-day confines of the United States (see Dobyns,
1983; Thornton, 1987). Four centuries later, the hemispheric indigenous
population had been liquidated to fewer than four million; barely
a quarter million survived within the United States.
Genocide is the most salient feature of American history. European
settlers took it upon themselves to exterminate the life forms that
now are celebrated as nicknames and mascots of America's sports
teams. And exterminate they did, with a viciousness and relentless
malignancy that drove those life forms to the brink of extinction.
In violent team sports where participants are expected to be "vicious
or predatory" (Nuessel, 1994, p. 101), those teams could not
be served better than by nicknames and mascots that reflect the
very targets of American extirpation. Sports teams presumably want
to win, to beat opponents, and those wishes are embodied in mascots
that depict historical species so thoroughly beaten that their few
remnants today are most likely encountered in a zoo or reservation.
The University of Illinois, with its Fighting Illini nickname
and mascot, Chief Illiniwek, provides an exemplary model of the
spirit of genocide. The five Illini Tribes were expelled from the
geographical terrain that now encompasses the state of Illinois
and completely destroyed as a Tribal entity.
As impeccable as the Illinois nickname and mascot were at their
point of origin, they approach a mythical perfection in today's
world, where Indians object to the name and mascot as symbols of
this genocide. As Americans systematically annihilated Indians,
they disregarded their critics and dishonored their victims with
righteous indignation. It is in perfect keeping with the Spirit
of the University of Illinois to continue to disregard and dishonor
those who object to Indian nicknames and mascots. And as impeccable
as such ignominy is in the University's retention of those racist
symbols of a genocidal past, it is raised to a mythical perfection
by the offer of a bounty by the Chief Illiniwek Educational Foundation
for an essay that touts the Spirit of Illinois. Such actions reflect
the true spirit of the University of Illinois, one that transcends
college sports. It is truly the genocidal Spirit of America.
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Berkhofer, Robert F., Jr. (1978). The white man's Indian: Images
of the American Indian from Columbus to the present, New York: Vintage
Books.
Bosmajian, Haig. (1974). The language of oppression, Washington,
D.C.: Public Affairs Press.
Churchill, Ward. (1992). Fantasies of the master race: Literature,
cinema, and the colonization of American Indians, San Francisco:
City Lights Books.
Churchill, Ward. (1997). A little matter of genocide: Holocaust
and denial in the Americas 1492 to the present, San Francisco: City
Lights Books.
Dobyns, Henry F. (1983). Their numbers became thinned: Native
American population dynamics in eastern North America, Knoxville,
TN: The University of Tennessee Press.
Franks, Ray. (1982). What's in a nickname? Naming the jungle
of college athletics mascots, Amarillo, TX: Ray Franks Publishing
Ranch.
Nuessel, Frank. (1994). Objectionable sports team Designations,
"Names," 101-119.
Pearce, Roy H. (1988). Savages and civilization: A study of
the Indian and the American mind, Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Sale, Kirkpatrick (1991). The conquest of paradise: Christopher
Columbus and the Columbian legacy, New York: Plume Books.
Stannard, David E. (1992). American holocaust: The conquest
of the new world, New York: Oxford University Press.
Takaki, Ronald T. (1979). Iron cages: Race and culture in 19th-century
America, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Takaki, Ronald T. (1994). The metaphysics of civilization: Indians
and the age of Jackson.
In Takaki (ed.), From different shores:Perspectives on race
and ethnicity in America, New York: Oxford University Press.
Thornton, Russell. (1987). American Indian holocaust and survival:
A population history since 1492, Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma
Press.This essay is published here with the permission of the author.
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