Honoring the Medicine The Essential Guide to Native American Healing

NATIVE AMERICAN OR AMERICAN INDIAN Can You Be Politically Correct? Although Shakespeare said, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," you are less likely to want to see, smell, or buy a rose if a florist offers to show you "a blood-colored outgrowth of a thorny shrub." Names do make a difference. Minorities and oppressed people are especially sensitive to the terminology used to describe them or their culture. The same words may mean different things to Native Americans or to white people, or they may be insulting in one language and either meaningless or used inappropriately in another. For example, no Native American woman wants to be referred to as a squaw, an Algonquian-based insult. A Native American physician does not expect to be called "chief." Some tribes are designated by strange foreign terms like Gros Ventre ("Big Bellies"), Nez Perce ("Pierced Noses"), or Apache (a Zuni Indian word meaning "enemy"). Native cultural and religious terms are sometimes appropriated by Western businesses for their commercial value. Would you feel comfortable riding in a Jeep Jew or drinking Communion Beer? I have also seen people go to the other extreme: they try so hard to make every word polite and politically correct that they become tongue-tied, like a centipede that is asked, "How do you move all those legs?" I once met a young white man who had learned Indian sign language from a book and planned to use it when he visited an Indian reservation. He believed that this would demonstrate his respect for tradition. I was sorry to disappoint him: "When Indian people don't speak one another's languages, they communicate in English. People are likely to think that you are 'signing' because you're deaf." I don't wish to scare you from talking with or about people who are unfamiliar. If you speak with a Native American and are unsure about appropriate terminology, simply ask. Your question communicates respect. AMERICAN INDIAN OR NATIVE AMERICAN? There are problems inherent in any of the terms commonly used by both indigenous and nonindigenous people to designate the original inhabitants of Turtle Island (an ancient indigenous name for North America). In precolonial times, a general term for aboriginal Americans was unnecessary and did not always exist. Today, as in the past, Native Americans identify themselves by family, community (or band), clan, and nation. A Native American clan is a group of people who recognize kinship because of a special relationship to or descent from a common ancestor or ancestral group. Clans may be named after a deed, characteristic, or totem (Algonquian for "helping spirit") of the ancestorfor example, the Bad War Deeds Clan, Long Hair Clan, Bear Clan, Wolf Clan, Caribou Clan, Wind Clan, Salt Clan, or Yucca Fruit Clan. The words nation and tribe are often used interchangeably, though the term nation is generally more appropriate. The word tribe means a social group of numerous families and generations that share a common history, language, and culture. A nation is a tribe that is also a politically distinct entity and has the right to self-determination. How would an ancient indigenous American identify himself or herself? ACherokee woman living five hundred years ago would not call herself an American Indian. She might say, "I am Saloli [a common personal name, meaning "Squirrel"], an Ani Wahya [Wolf Clan member] Ani Yunwiya [Cherokee], from Kituwah [an ancient town site, near present Bryson City, North Carolina]." Saloli's people call themselves Ani Yunwiya, the Principal People, in their own language.Cohen, Kenneth is the author of 'Honoring the Medicine The Essential Guide to Native American Healing', published 2006 under ISBN 9780345435132 and ISBN 0345435133.