Talk:squaw

An incorrect etymology

It is my understanding from speaking to tribes people in Wahington state that "squaw" was misinterpreted by white men. Native women would scream "no squaw" (when they and their villages were attacked/raped/ pillaged) to the soldiers who chased after them. "No squaw" meant "no penis". The misrepresentation still exists today. I am currently designing a dictionary and will not be including this word into it.

That is not correct. Squaw, the word, and -skwa, the suffix, are Algonquin, from the Eastern US. There has been much confusion in Western Plains Indians in the 1990s (possibly as early as the 1970s) misinterpreting our word.

It appears in the Oxford English Dictionary as early as 1638, and simply means "woman of marriageable age".

--UnicornTapestry 12:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Indian

I added additional categories (French, for example) and the word "Indian", which is what we usually call ourselves (and sometimes First Nation).

--UnicornTapestry 12:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Respectfully, I submit that the word, "no" as in "no squaw" could not mean "no penis" - the woman "screaming" "no" would be saying it in HER language (in Washing State, that would be Looshootseed, Twelshootseed,or Nu-Chah-Nulth) not in the invaders' language.

And, I cannot understand why the 1st Nations of Washinton State would know about "squaw" as UnicornTapestry is correct, the word is from the Athabascan language. It was used in England long before Lewis & Clark returned from their journeys. (See note above re: Oxford English Dictionary, 1638.) There were over a thousand tribes in North America, prior to the time Columbus blundered onto our shores, with a dozen or more different language bases (such as Athabascan) and hundreds of derivative dialects.

The tribes of Washington State speak Looshootseed and/or Twelshootseed (Inland and Coast Salish - The Suquamish, N'Sklallam [Port Gamble, Jamestown, and Lower Elwha] Lummi, Swinomish, Snohomish, Steilacoom, Muckleshoot, Tulalip, Nisqually, Squaxin Island, Skokomish, Snoqualmie, Chehalis, the Yakama Confederated Tribes,the Colville Confederated Tribes and others whose names I cannot remember right now and for which I humbly apologize)and the tribes on the Pacific Coast and the mouth of the Straits of Juan Defuca speak Nu-Chah-Nulth (Quinault, Quileute, Hoh, and Makah,) There are also the Shoalwaters on the coast but I do not know if they are speakers of Looshootseed or Twelshootseed or Nu-Chah-Nuth(often bastardized into the word, Nootka.)

The word, "Squaw," as I was told by my elders, is Athabascan in origin and meant a woman's secret places (her genetalia) which was corrupted by French Voyageurs when "exploring" the lands that would become Eastern Canada and the Eastern United States. When soliciting sexual favors from women of the tribes they met, they would rub their genitals and use "squaw" to indicate their desire for sex. Eventually, the word squaw became commonly used by the European invaders to mean woman while our men were referred to as "bucks" and our children were referred to as "papooses." The end result of this mistaken usage of the words, squaw, buck, and papoose, served to dehumanize us as PEOPLE and thus made it far easier to kill us, to rape our women,to murder our children, take our lands and, often, enslave us until we died of broken hearts.

And, as it happens with oppressed peoples, eventually we took on the identity assigned to us by the European and Euro-American for over two centuries, we began to call ourselves by these hateful names. But, with the coming of Civil Rights, AIM, college educations as the result of the G. I Bill [resultant from our young men and women serving and dying for the United States in World War II and WWI]and our resultant legal victories in the United States courts to enforce our treaty rights (treaties signed as sovereign nations between another sovereign nation, the United States), we are taking back our culture, our languages, our traditions, our spiritual beliefs; we are refuting the shame perpetrated upon us by the history of the United States.

History is written by the victor and in this case, so was the definition of "squaw" written in the dictionary by - an ENGLISHMAN.

Humbly submitted by: Ohoyo (meaning woman - and nothing more - in my Muskeegan-based language of Choctaw)

Ohoyo, "Squaw" is an Algonquian word meaning "Female." You can add prefixes or suffixes to it to mean many things, including "young girl," "old woman," "queen," and yes, "female organs." It does not, however, simply mean genitals. I've been fighting this for years, and it always seems to come from people who speak a different native language. You may have a similar word that is offensive, but you do not speak Algonquian. Now thanks to Oprah, that mother-of-all linguists, the language that was once spoken across much of Canada and the Great Lakes is now considered "offensive." Imagine if someone who spoke not a word of Choctaw started ripping entire words out of your vocabulary, leaving you with a language you cannot truly speak. That is what has happened to the Algonquian languages.

Pejorative?

Why is this word marked as pejorative? Before I got here, it had no such connotation. Do we have usage examples either way? -- Ke4roh (talk) 19:48, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I've changed it to "sometimes pejorative". Some people consider it pejorative, and that should be noted; on the other hand, there's ample evidence to suggest that usage was originally (and may still be) used neutrally, hence "sometimes". Usage examples are still desirable. - -sche (discuss) 21:56, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

This is not the result of any research, mind you, but I get the impression that there is a greater tendency in Canada than in the US to consider the word offensive. Kelisi (talk) 21:15, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Why now is the word squaw “offensive”? It a “pronoun”, right? History should be revered, not destroyed. — This unsigned comment was added by 2600:1700:EE10:57F0:ED35:EDA5:FA5B:8F07 (talk) at 23:26, 23 February 2022 (UTC).

No, it's not. It's a noun, like doe or mare. What makes it offensive is that it treats human beings of a particular race as if they were some kind of animal, with specialized terms for the different genders and ages of the "species". What's the equivalent term for a white woman? Chuck Entz (talk) 05:30, 24 February 2022 (UTC)