UM official calls Indian mascot insult

TRENTON – Standing in front of a backdrop of Indians in headdress riding horses and spearing buffalo, the director of the University of Maine’s Native American Studies program Tuesday told an audience of 50 people about the stereotypes perpetuated by Indian mascots used in schools across the country.

The school’s civil rights team asked Maureen Smith to speak at the Trenton Elementary School about the mascots. Over the course of the last year, the team has studied the appropriateness of the school’s warrior mascot. School officials have agreed to study the mascot issue as well, and pending public comment through public hearings, the school committee may also review the use of the warrior mascot.

Smith told the crowd gathered in the school’s gymnasium that while many people say the use of Indian mascots in their schools is a means of honoring Indians, the actual use of mascots really doesn’t honor anyone.

“We oftentimes talk about [mascots] in terms of fighting,” Smith said. “It’s kind of a contradiction in a way.”

Watching people pound on drums or dance in traditional Indian clothing, Smith said, is degrading and insulting to Indians. Such practices, she said, would be considered reprehensible if they were directed at other cultures. “It would be like I want to dress up like a Japanese person at Halloween,” Smith said.

Pointing to the Trenton school’s walls, Smith highlighted the fact that other school mascots painted there were of animals, not races of humans. Other schools, she said, use inanimate objects as mascots, while the use of Indians implies that they are “things” and not people.

“It’s almost as if Indians are things,” Smith said, “that’s part of the danger … part of the problem.”

And she added that the mascots are often crude interpretations of Indians, and don’t accurately reflect how modern Indians appear or act. “I don’t often see any modern-day Indians as mascots,” Smith said. “Our modern-day warriors are dressed in suits going to court to reaffirm our treaty rights.”

Maulian Dana, a member of the Penobscot Nation and a junior at John Bapst Memorial High School, told the crowd of the emotions she felt when she entered their community’s gymnasium.

“It overwhelms me. I get a feeling in my stomach,” Dana said, her voice often wavering. “It really, really gets to me.”

Dana, who hopes to be a lawyer and is making plans to attend college, has traveled the state talking to fellow high school students about their mascots and the impact they have on Indians in Maine.

She also studies Indian dances and songs, and has developed a deep connection to the items her culture holds sacred. Looking downward at an Indian head painted on the floor of the gymnasium,

Dana said she was saddened to see a depiction of her race as something to be walked on. “The Indian on the floor that everybody walks all over,” Dana said. “That gets to me. I’d like to share that raw sadness.”

Only a handful of residents spoke at the meeting. One man asked the speakers how any school could ever choose a mascot that couldn’t possibly offend anyone, whether it be an animal or otherwise.

Peter Rees said he supported the mascot change, and likened opposition to it as similar to the first bits of resistance to the introduction of sexual harassment laws a decade or more ago.

“I don’t think we have to be perfect in order to be a bit better than we are,” Rees said. “And you’re only asking us to take the first step. And this is a step I hope we can take now.”

The school will continue to study the issue, and another public forum is likely to be scheduled in March. The earliest the school board can act on the issue is likely to be sometime next year.