Campaign Puts Respect For Indians On The Map Forest Service, Legislators Join Crusade To Rename Sites With ‘Squaw’ In Their Names

The Squaw Bay Resort sells sweat shirts and ball caps decorated with tepees and braves. Its customers on the east shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene often ask eagerly about local Indian lore.

Yet the very names of the bay and campground are offensive to many Native Americans, which surprises and puzzles resort owners Eric and Cathy Kacalek.

“I was told it was interpreted as `the wife of an Indian chief,”’ Eric Kacalek said.

Though there’s disagreement about the origin of the term, many Indians consider squaw to mean “pretty much the equivalent of slut or white man’s whore,” said Jeanne Givens, a Coeur d’Alene tribal member. So the U.S. Forest Service has begun a campaign that could result in new names for Idaho’s 98 creeks, valleys, buttes and other landscape features identified with the word.

Some people see the effort as silly. Political correctness run amok. Why change a word that, to them, has never meant more than “female Indian”?

“It’s ridiculous,” said Jack Finney, whose family has owned property at Squaw Bay for nearly 60 years. “I can’t believe that people are upset by that. If so, that’s their problem.”

Told that Givens is among those supporting the idea, Finney said: “I can hear that coming from her. She’s very liberal. She’s an Indian.”

Last year, legislators in the decidedly conservative state of Montana - only four of them Indian - voted overwhelmingly to rename 74 “squaw” sites there.

The proposal was made by a Native American, Rep. Carol Juneau, D-Browning.

University of Montana professor Henrietta Mann testified in favor of the bill and serves on an advisory council overseeing the name change process. She recalled last week how someone once called her Cheyenne mother a squaw. Her father was so upset that a fight ensued.

The name-change movement be gan with two Ojibwe high school girls in Minnesota, Mann said.

Though most squaw sites are in the Midwest or West, the word was brought by fur trappers from the Eastern United States. Some say it originated with the Iroquois or Narragansett tribes; others say it’s a corruption of a Mohawk word.

“It means the very private parts of an Indian woman, the vagina specifically,” Mann said. “It has come to mean a very disrespectful label.”

So far, Minnesota is the only state to change all of its squaw place names. There were 18 of them, and the process took two years. On Friday, a Maine legislative panel gave strong backing to a bill that would remove the word from two dozen place names around that state.

The first time Montana’s “anti-squaw” bill was introduced, it didn’t get out of legislative committee, Mann said. But the political climate changed. That’s what Ruby LeClair, leader of the Idaho effort, is counting on.

The time wasn’t right back when LeClair was in high school, and Shoshone-Bannock Indian girls like her were taunted with the word squaw. Now, she’s deputy supervisor of the Boise National Forest. When she brought up the name change idea last year to members of the agency’s civil rights action team, forest supervisor Jack Williams applauded the idea.

It would be easy to change the name of a spring, Williams said last week. It’s different with Squaw Creek, a major stream north of Emmett, Idaho, that starts in the Boise forest but flows onto private land.

“This is a big stream with lots of ranches and a long history,” Williams said. “We realized that if we wanted to be sensitive to this American Indian issue, we needed to go on a little bit of an educational campaign to go about changing the minds of the people of Idaho.”

LeClair met in November with staffers from other forests in Idaho who deal with Native American issues. They included archaeologist Tom Sandberg of the Idaho Panhandle National Forests, which has eight squaw place names. Among them are Squaw Bay on Lake Coeur d’Alene; Squaw Creek, which flows into the North Fork of the St. Joe River; and Squaw Valley, near Priest Lake.

LeClair estimates it will be four years before names begin to change statewide.

The process is well under way on the Clearwater National Forest, where not only squaw but a variety of names are being evaluated, including Papoose Creek.

“`Papoose’ is slang. Nez Perce people didn’t call their kids papooses. They have names for babies, children, little girls and boys,” said forest archaeologist Sandi McFarland, a Nez Perce Indian.

“A faction of the population started using those terms in a derogatory sense. Terms like papoose conjure up images similar to the `Tomahawk Chop’ - cartoon images of American Indians. They’re real people. They have feelings. They have a heritage.”

The Nez Perce Tribe language department and its circle of elders are reviewing names in the U.S. Highway 12 and Lolo Motorway corridors.

“This group agreed on name changes they’d like to see. They’re meeting on the 15th of this month, fine-tuning a few things,” McFarland said.

“It’s very easy for us to order a new sign and put that up,” McFarland said. “Where it becomes more complicated is changing our maps.”

Unfortunately, the forest just ordered new maps, which only come out every five or 10 years. The Forest Service would put up double signs at first to reduce confusion. “We don’t want people to get lost,” McFarland said.

The final decision on changing a name is up to Clearwater Forest supervisor Jim Caswell. Ultimately, each change must be approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

It’s not unusual for offensive names to be changed. North Idaho’s Dago Peak, for example, became Italian Peak. Last September, the name of a hill near Yakima was changed from Squaw Tit to Pushtay, a Yakama Indian word meaning “red peak.” It was one of 33 squaw place names in Washington state.

Squaw is problematic because of sheer numbers - there are an estimated 1,000 such place names nationwide. Some are quite prominent: Squaw Valley ski resort near Lake Tahoe, for example. There’s Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Missouri and Squaw Creek Wild and Scenic River in Oregon.

Some people say place names shouldn’t be changed because they’re historic. The biggest objection that LeClair hears is that the process is costly.

At Squaw Bay Resort, Eric Kacalek worries about changing signs and reprinting brochures. “We would be facing a large expense. This is just a small seasonal business.”

Still, he doesn’t reject the idea of change.

“If the Coeur d’Alene Tribe made it a big issue, I’d like to work with them rather than against them.”

The Coeur d’Alenes are pleased by the Forest Service effort, said tribal council member Valerie Fast Horse.

“The council is always supportive of anything that supports human rights and human dignity,” Fast Horse said. “It’s not just about gender, it’s not just about race.”