1971: “The danger in these shows and mascots is this: They keep alive false myths about the American Indian... you know, being bloodthirsty and a warmonger and, always, the aggressor. Young people, like the white, middle‐class, suburban kid who may never meet an Indian in his entire life, are particularly vulnerable to them."

".. I'm starting to get an idea of how bad the Indian has been treated in this country, in the past and also today. I've also been going through some changes myself about what it means to be a Cherokee. Like, people are always making a big thing about me being an Indian, like maybe I'm some kind of freak or something. I mean, they keep asking me about my family background and what my father does for a living, like they expect me to say he sits cross-legged all day in front of a tepee weaving baskets." Sonny Sixkiller, Quarterback , University of Washington 

1971 Sep 20, The El Dorado Times 

Braves, Redskins, Chiefs, Scalpers -

Are We Exploiting The Indians Again?

by Marty Ralbovsky

1971 Sep 28. The Daily Herald 

      Three years ago, a group of students at Dartmouth College, assembled by Howard Bad Hand, Dwayne Birdbear, Travis Kingsley and Rick Buckanaga, demanded that the athletic department stop entertaining fans at home football games by employing undergraduates, dressed as Indians, to do imitations of war dances along the sidelines and at midfield during half‐time.

      The students said the practice was demeaning to the American Indian and that they were insulted because the tribal customs of their ancestors “were being used to feed the fantasies of the insensitive.” They also suggested that Dartmouth consider changing its nickname to something other than “The Indians.” School officials, after several meetings on the subject, decided to retain the nickname, but to abolish the Indian mascots.

      “The mascots had been jeered and laughed at for years and we just decided to put an end to that kind of nonsense,” said Bill Yellowtail, a student in the American Indian studies program at Dartmouth and a member of the group.

      “The old grads, especially, used to get a big kick out of them every time they'd come back to see a game; they'd point them out to their kids or to their grandchildren, just like they'd point out a monkey at a zoo, Look, look, there it is, the Indian.” To this day, a lot of the old grads jump on us for what we did; they say we destroyed one of the school's oldest and most enjoyable sports traditions.

      “But we feel we did our part in eliminating another false illusion. Too many people in this country still think of Indians as savages doing war dances and wearing feathered headdresses and having two‐word vocabularies: ‘How and Ugh.’ People in sports are as responsible as anybody for perpetuating these illusions, with their Indian mascots and their Indian half‐time shows and their Indian nicknames. I've often wondered to myself if the people who owned these teams ever stopped to think what goes through the mind of a 10‐year‐old Indian kid on a reservation in North Dakota when he picks up a sports page and reads a headline, ‘Redskins Scalp Chiefs’?”

Marquette Mascot Goes

      Last year at Marquette University, a similar incident occurred: Indian students petitioned the governing student organization, the Associated Students of Marquette, asking that the school's Indian mascot, nicknamed “Willie Wampum,” be abolished because it was portraying the American Indian in a demeaning manner.

      The student senate subsequently passed a resolution calling for the mascot's abolition and, last April, the school announced that the mascot, like Dean Meminger's basketball jersey, would be permanently retired.

      The Association for American Indian Affairs here is hardly ecstatic over the number of sports teams in the country bearing nicknames alluding to the American Indian. Six professional teams and 97 colleges, according to the Blue Book of College Athletics, have Indian nicknames, ranging from Redskins (Washington, National Football League) to Choctaws (Mississippi College) to Scalpers (Huron, S.D., College). Jeffrey Newman, assistant director of the association, said:

      “If we had the money, we would file suits against every college and professional team in the country with an Indian nickname we found offensive. I think the first team we would go after would be the Atlanta Braves; if any team in the country is exploiting the American Indian for its own purposes it is this one. It is outrageous, I feel, to have a man dressed as an Indian, sitting in an alleged tepee outside the outfield. fence, doing a silly dance every time some player hits a home run. Even the name they gave him, Chief something or other, is discriminatory. Would they hire a black man to sit in a tar‐paper shack out there and come out picking cotton every time a player hit a home run? No, they wouldn't dare.”

                                                            ‘No Criticism of Act’

      The man portraying the Indian in Atlanta, Levi Walker, said he was an American Indian by birth and a showman by profession. He said he had never been criticized for his act, but that he was aware of a faction among Indians “that was trying to do away with the feather-leather‐skin‐and‐beads image.” Walker also said he did not feel he was exploiting the American Indian; that his war dances were authentic “in a sense,” and that his most fervent followers were young people—“I get more fan mail from kids than most of the players on the team.”

      “The danger in these shows and mascots,” said Newman, “is this: They keep alive false myths about the American Indian... you know, being bloodthirsty and a warmonger and, always, the aggressor. Young people, like the white, middle‐class, suburban kid who may never meet an Indian in his entire life, are particularly vulnerable to them. Subconsciously he's developing an inaccurate image of what Indian people are, and were. The same kid wouldn't think of calling a team the ‘Blackskins’ or the ‘Yellowskins,’ but he has Redskins' pennants on his bedroom walls.

      “Somebody once asked me if Indian children look up to and identify with athletes in America? I said I didn't think so for two reasons: First, there are very few of their own kind in sports, a Sonny Sixkiller, a Jim Plunkett, a Johnny Bench, maybe, and that's about it, and, second, how can you expect an Indian kid to identify with sports people when he can't identify with his own?”

            “I have also found that, while the sports Establishment exploits Indian nicknames and mascots, it gives nothing back to the Indian. I lived in a small reservation, Menominee County in northern Wisconsin, for several years and the Indian kids there would have loved to play baseball and football and basketball. But their parents had enough trouble buying food and clothes for them; there were no baseballs or gloves or spiked shoes around at all. I tried to form a Little League for them and I contacted the Little League people in Williamsport, Pa, for some help. Well, I was astonished because the people there just don’t give a damn; they weren’t interested in helping us at all. So we formed our own league and we scrounged up old bats and hand-me-down baseballs and the kids had a helluva time; they even beat the local Little League team at the end of the season.

1971 Sep 28. The Daily Herald