Regarding the Mascot issue letter I sent to Turners Falls School Committee: I am unable to attend either of the hearings scheduled but want to express my opinion. I am white and as far as I know have no Native heritage, but I have only recently started to research my genealogy.
I am aware of the privilege I enjoy as a white person in this culture and am not comfortable with white people misappropriating symbols and practices from other cultures and pretending to know what those symbols and practices mean to members of that culture or to feel that it is OK to use them.
Just because Turners Falls has used the symbol of a warrior in a plains headdress for many years (which is not even connected to the Native peoples who lived in this area, as has been mentioned), does not make it acceptable.
I know that there have been people of Native descent who have stated they are OK with this as well as many who have said they want to see this mascot changed. As far as I am concerned, if this is offensive to any Native person for whatever reason, that is enough to warrant it to be discontinued.
The Native people who inhabited this region when the colonists arrived from various countries welcomed them initially and had that trust violated as more and more people arrived and started claiming land that the tribes once shared. Ownership of land was unheard of.
The original people of this area were wiped out systematically by the introduction of small pox and exposure to other diseases their bodies had no resistance to. They were attacked and some forced to abandon their own spiritual practices only to be betrayed later when they were residents of so-called praying villages.
Their land was taken illegally, their allegiances claimed by the Dutch, English and French who forced tribes to take sides against those they had peaceful relations with.
This area on the Connecticut River was a gathering place where many tribes came together to fish, renew connections, solidify marriages etc. King Philip’s War meant the dispersion of many of the local tribes to New York, Canada and other areas.
Unlike other areas where many tribes ended up together on reservations and managed to salvage some of their culture, many who remained here intermarried and eventually lost touch with their roots, as it was considered necessary to pass as white to survive. Also, the census takers systematically made Native people invisible by labeling them as black.
I know that appropriation of traditions by white people is a sore point for many Native people today, who are reclaiming their traditions and languages, especially in areas where their culture has not been completely obliterated despite children being forced to attend boarding schools, forbidden to speak their language, wear their tribal clothing, etc.
Many are living in extreme poverty today, and it is heart-breaking to see that their feelings on this issue are disregarded. If a school on a reservation chooses to use a warrior as a mascot that is fine — they are honoring their own traditions — but for Turners Falls to continue this practice when so many Native people around the country have said it is not honoring them is shameful. It is an issue many other schools have addressed, and it needs to happen here as well.
I commend you for taking this on and creating forums for folks to express their feelings, but you ultimately have the opportunity to do the right thing and retire the current mascot. Somewhere I read a suggestion that it become the Turners Falls Eagles, which I love as the eagle population has made such a comeback here.
I know at one time there was a fund started to help schools cover the cost of changing all the logos on uniforms, flags, etc., possibly by Bill Gates.
Please do not let this become a binding referendum as what you decide has a much greater impact than just on the community of Turners Falls.
I also hope that you will start to incorporate more of the real history of this area in your schools’ curriculum.
Let’s continue the healing begun on the banks of the Connecticut River in 2004 at the reconciliation ceremony. I think it is also time for Turners Falls to stop honoring Capt. Turner, who was responsible for the massacre that took place on May 19, 1676, when he and his men attacked defenseless women, children and elderly, killing more than 300 unarmed refugees. I would love to see the town renamed Great Falls.
Ultimately, I hope to see Columbus Day changed to Indigenous People’s Day as well.
It is time to make amends.
Dorothy McIver lives in Greenfield.