Tribes Gov't Want 'Squaw' Names Changed [View All]

SISTERS, Ore. (AP) -- Olivia Wallulatum finds it hard to even look at the sign, a marker for the Squaw River. It reminds her of all the names she was called as a girl. And she wants something done about it. She wants the name changed.

"I don't care what they change it to. I just want to see it go," said Wallulatum, 50, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs.

Nearly a thousand places across the country - rivers, buttes, meadows, mountains - are named "squaw," and most American Indians want them to be called something else. Changing the names, though, isn't happening with any great speed and certainly not without a struggle.

American Indians' heightened sensitivity to the word came about in 1992 after an activist announced on a television talk show that squaw is derived from a vulgar Mohawk word. Linguists maintain "squaw" means "woman" in the language of the Massachusett tribe, which once lived on the East Coast.

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