Another Indian Bites the Dust By Dean Dexter

Another Indian Bites the Dust

By DEAN DEXTER

The national infestation of misplaced guilt and the asininity of what’s called Political Correctness that among other things is eliminating Indian symbols and mascots from schools and sports teams across the country is no stranger to New Hampshire. Laconia recently finished a noisy battle over whether to keep its "Sachem" symbol at the high school. In the end the traditionalists and, by default, the Indians won. The Sachem, which loosely translated means "chief," remains as a symbol of strength and vigorous competition in a region known for its beautiful lakes with such Indian names as Winnipesaukee, Opechee, Paugus Bay, Winnisquam. All bear testimony to a native peoples who once populated the area and were known for their dignity, fearlessness, and respect for nature and its resources.

The Dartmouth Indian, of course, was one of the first to be scuttled years ago at the Ivy League college in Hanover, founded as a Christian missionary school for Indians in the 1700s.

The latest to join in this knee-jerk exercise in Group Think is the Merrimack Valley High School, situated in the Penacook Village section of Concord, which serves the communities of Webster, Salisbury, Boscawen and Penacook. Students and faculty will vote this week on a new name. Among the choices: Ravens, Nor’easters, The Valley, Pride, and Blue Storm.* In April the school board passed a resolution stating the school’s mascot should not be "derogatory or offensive to persons of any race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age or persons with disability." They left out people with common sense.

The vote, scheduled for Wednesday, June 18th, is evidently in response to that edict, although how the word "Indian" on a school banner can be construed as some kind of slur – which is the implication – is absurd.

But such is the arcane mindset of social engineers, many of whom are now telling us that vigorous, aggressive competition among school children is "unhealthy" and detrimental to one’s "self esteem." Look to this as maybe the next popular cause, when they get through with ditching the Indians.

Although there appears to be some grumbling among students and MV alumni, the Indian mascot has become a thing of the past with very little public outcry. Noteworthy, however, are comments in a letter to the editor by a reader in Boscawen, which appear as a mere whisper amid the din and clang of other news stories.

Writes Lorrie Carey in the June 15th (Concord) Sunday Monitor:

"As an individual who is both part native American and an alum of Merrimack Valley High School, I fail to see how this motto is derogatory or offensive. In fact, I see the motto as the opposite. By being politically correct, we have erased all images of the native American from our society the same way we took away his land – by claiming we are doing the right thing for the majority…The native American image used to be on coins, banks, high schools, etc. Now it is nowhere, reducing native Americans to the homogenous nothingness they have become. How can you have pride in a culture that no longer has any visibility in the community? If this campaign to remove Indian mascots from schools and banks was indeed carried forth by the native American community, then we have just scalped ourselves with our own ignorance. We are now invisible."

Indeed, as invisible as the long dead campfires of the great Chief Passaconway whose winter encampment many generations ago was but a mile or two from the high school at Sewalls Falls. As forgotten as the bloody battles once fought between the Penacooks and the Mohawks upon the plains of East Concord down river. As lost as the state historical marker at the Hannah Dustin monument, north of the school, where a brave mother, with two others, killed10 Indian captors in March,1697, escaping by canoe through the ice floes of the Merrimack River in the dead of night.

But let us not talk of blood and fighting and winners and losers, of Indians or white settlers, or of our history, both the good and bad of it, as we instead celebrate the great diversity of our willingness to make modern fools of ourselves.

After all, these days one just can’t be too careful. Sis-Koom-Bah!

*Editor's note: On Thursday, June 19, 2003, the students and faculty of Merrimack Valley High School chose the name "Pride" as the school's new rallying cry. Old school rivals might note at any given intramural contest that it is often what "goeth before a fall..." Nice.

Dean Dexter is a freelance writer and resident of Meredith and Concord. He is a former chairman of the Laconia School Board.

First posted June 15th, 2003

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