Re: "Indians"
Posted by ESC on April 03, 2002 In Reply to: Re:
"Indians" posted by R. Berg on April 03, 2002
: : : : : :
I think it is the political correct answer, did you notice "genocidal practice".
If you look up scalping, you will see several sites trying to make the argument
it was Europe that originated the practice and the tribes just innocently got
caught up into the action. Here is a good site that dispels that, http://thecowshed.tripod.com/native/cutting.htm
"Finally, the words that are used to describe "scalp" and "scalping" had no set
vocabulary and no universal translation in European languages, but Indians of
different backgrounds and languages had nouns and verbs to refer to the specific
use of the terminology."
: : : : : : I can't help but think red=blood and because
it is a negative English word for American Indians, I think it might have something
to do with Indians taking scalps, because it would be a bloody mess, leaving them
with redskinds.
: : : : : But did you come to this forum to get information
about the origin of "redskin" or to promote a hypothesis about it? The reference
books that the regulars here rely on say the word came from a supposed reddish
hue to Indians' skin. They say nothing about blood or scalping. The origin of
a word isn't established just by finding that one or another idea is intuitively
appealing. You need historical support, too; and we presume that the compilers
of the reference books have researched the phrases they explain. As an example,
look at "the Whole nine yards" as tossed around in the archives on this site.
Many people have "decided" what the "true" origin of that phrase is--but they
have proposed DIFFERENT origins.
: : : RED INDIAN - "An offensive name for Native
Americans, but a historical term applied by the British to North American Indians,
apparently because of 'their copper-colored skin' and to distinguish them semantically
from the Indians of India. From 'Red Indian' came the derogatory word redskin."
From "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on
File, New York, 1997).
: : : LOS INDIOS, INDIAN, SAVAGE, NOBLE SAVAGE -- "Since
the original inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere neither called themselves by
a single term nor understood themselves as a collectivity, the idea and image
of the Indian must be a White concept..The term 'Indian' as a general designation
for the inhabitants of North and South America in addition to some Asians stems
from the erroneous geography of Christopher Columbus. Under the impression he
had landed among the islands off Asia, he called the peoples he met 'los Indios.'
Although he quite self-consciously gave new names to islands upon his first voyage,
his application of the term 'Indios' seems to have been almost casual."
: :
: I skimmed this book and didn't see a reference to "redskin," the subject of
the original inquiry.
: : : But Mr. Berkhofter does include an early description
contained in Amerigo Vespucci's "Mundus Novus," published around 1504-1505: "They
have indeed large square-built bodies, well formed and proportioned, and in color
verging on reddish. This I think has come to them, because, going around naked,
they are colored by the sun."
: : : "Seventeenth-century Frenchmen, Italians,
and Englishmen generally employed a variant of the Latin 'silvaticus,' meaning
a forest inhabitant or man of the woods, for the Indian as the earlier spellings
of 'saulvage,' 'salvaticho,' and 'salvage' show so well in each of the respective
languages. English usage switched from 'savage' to 'Indian' as the general term
for Native Americans in the seventeenth century, but the French continued to use
'sauvage' as the preferred word into the nineteenth century. The original image
behind this terminology probably derives from the ancient one associated with
the 'wild man,' or 'wilder Mann' in Germany."
: : : ".What Englishmen called
Native Americans and how they understood them after a few decades of settlement
was summarized by Roger Williams in a brief analysis of nomenclature in 'A Key
Into the Language of America; Or, An Help to the Language of the Natives in That
Part of America Called New England' (1643). Under the heading: 'By what names
are they distinguished,' he divided terminology into two sorts: 'First, those
of the English giving: as Natives, Salvages, Indians, Wild-men, (so the Dutch
call them 'Wilden'), Abergeny Men, Pagans, Barbarians, Heathen. Second, their
Names, which they give themselves.'"
: : : From "The Idea of the Indian: Invention
and Perpetuation," from "The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian
from Columbus to the Present" by Robert F. Berkhofer Jr. (First Vintage Books
Edition, 1979; originally published by Alfred A. Knoft Inc., 1978).
: : : "As
information about the inhabitants of the New World became better known in the
Old, Native Americans entered the literary and imaginative works of European writers,
particularly the French. In this way the American Indian became part of the 'bon
sauvage' or Noble Savage tradition so long an accompaniment of the Golden Age
or paradisaical mythology of Western civilization.Only after French and English
explorations and settlement proceeded in the seventeenth century, however, could
the European imagination be stimulated by accounts other than Spanish in origin,
and the noble Huron and Iroquois and other tribesmen north of Mexico join their
literary colleagues, the wise princes of the Inca and Aztec realms and the good
Indians of Brazil and the Antilles."
: : : From "European Primitivism, the
Noble Savage, and the American Indian," also a chapter in "The White Man's Indian:
Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present."
: : : REDSKIN
-- "redskin, 1699; red man, 1725; red devil, 1834." From "I Hear America Talking"
by Stuart Berg Flexner (Von Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, 1976).
: : : RED
MEN - "The Improved Order of Red Men was originally organized by those who admired
Indian character and who adopted as their 'patron' Chief Tammany. It is now an
organization that does charitable and benevolent acts. The first idea was started
in Philadelphia around 1772 when a society met called 'The Sons of Tammany.' They
met at the home of Mr. James Byran." This reference does not include an entry
for "redskin." From the "Dictionary of the American Indian: An A-to-Z Guide to
Indian History, Legend and Lore" by John Stoutenburgh Jr. (Wing Books, Avenel,
New Jersey, 1960)
: : : NATIVE AMERICAN -- "adj, n (1956) (a member) of the
indigenous peoples of North America. A term not in wide use until the 1970s, when
the political incorrectness of referring to such people as 'Indians' began to
be more keenly felt. Before long, it too succumbed, the offending component being
'native.' 1956 Aldous Huxley: Thank you for your most interesting letter about
the Native American churchmen." From "20th Century Words: The Story of New Words
in English Over the Last 100 Years" by John Ayto (Oxford University Press, New
York, 1999)
: : A number of years ago my husband and kids and I visited Salt
Lake City. A young white woman smilingly took our little tour group through some
hallowed grounds belonging to the Church of Latter-Day Saints while she related
key background information about the Mormon faith. Her story about Jesus appearing
after his death to Indians in South America caught my husband's attention. "Which
tribe?" he asked her. She stopped smiling and looked puzzled for a moment, then
brightened. "I think all of them," she said.
: George Carlin is a comedian,
not a philologist, and I haven't checked his facts, but he does have a great sensitivity
to language, and this is what he says about "Indian":
: "There's nothing wrong
with the word Indian. First of all, it's important to know that the word Indian
does not derive from Columbus mistakenly believing he had reached 'India.' India
was not even called by that name in 1492; it was known as Hindustan. More likely,
the word 'Indian' comes from Columbus's description of the people he found here.
He was an Italian, and did not speak or write very good Spanish, so in his written
accounts he called the Indians, 'Una gente in Dios.' A people in God. In God.
In Dios. Indians." [George Carlin, "Brain Dropppings," Hyperion Press, 1997, p.
165]
I think George was an English major. It would be interesting to know the
source of his information.
- Re: "Indians" TheFallen
04/03/02 (2)
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