“Our wild apple is wild only like myself, perchance, who belong not to the aboriginal race here,
but have strayed into the woods from the cultivated stock”
– Henry David Thoreau
Anglo-Saxon initiatives seem to have adopted a policy to further segregate Indians with the ploy that any display of culture predating the European invasion is considered racist, and therefore politically incorrect. The media buzz with words like “Cultural Competence” and “Social Justice”.
Exposure to smallpox, firearms, reservations, alcohol and gambling could not completely eradicate the original peoples of the Americas. An ambivalent theory threatens to eliminate cultures: The “appropriation” of cultural symbols by others than the surviving minorities is considered offensive. But how can remaining survivors salvage a heritage while we hug the remnant to death?
We are taught that Columbus ‘discovered’ America. Sure, he mistook it for India – and named the welcoming inhabitants “Indians”, and the US government coined the name “Native Americans”, a term has met with only partial acceptance by tribal confederacies.
Prior to the arrival of European colonists and the naming of Billerica, the culture and language in this region was Algonquian. Countless generations of indigenous tribal communities made a living in harmony with their environment, but Puritan invaders saw them as savages, and introduced Christian culture to the Pawtucket, Pennacook, Wamesit, and other tribes.
So-called Praying Indians were a lesser threat to Governor Winthrop and Deputy Governor Dudley when they divided thousands of acres granted them by the British King in 1638. Regardless of existing sacred burial sites, hunting grounds and harvests frontiersmen arrived. After years of skirmishes, Punjoe was the last of the Wamesit Indians living in the Billerica area. He was murdered by white settlers near the end of the eighteenth century.
Like predators suffering from generational guilt for having dominated vulnerable victims, we seem to absolve our shame by squashing souvenirs: Honor amnesia, not ancestors. On the pretext of equity and equality we decry and scrap certain names of sports teams and schools. “Go, Indians” takes on new meaning: “Vanish!” What’s next? Changing the name and flag of our State?
For decades BMHS has debated the perceived controversy of its logo. Three years ago a squarish “B” captured the academics stationery flag, while sports continue to sport the profile of a chief; a sachem disassociated with intellect; how is that not wrong and racist?
Thank goodness a reverse trend occurred when President Obama visited Alaska this year; Mount McKinley is henceforth officially Mount Denali again. There is hope.
billericalog 