5/29/15

White people piqued by mountain name change

Only two people showed up in Pierre after an over-capacity crowd in Rapid City testified before hearings of the state Board of Geographic Names but those two voices may be have the loudest.

Geographical features named for racist Annie Tallent have been scrubbed.
We don’t need to change the name of this historic landmark just for the sake of change or political correctness, just because somebody is offended. It would only lead to confusion. If the name Harney is offensive, which name is next, Custer? Where will this end? [Hill City Prevailer-News]
Atrocities were committed by both sides? Maybe, but the numbers are grossly disproportionate. The United States has caused the deaths of tens of millions of aboriginals losing only hundreds of colonializing Europeans. Andrew Jackson ordered the marching of thousands from the Atlantic Seaboard to the interior continent killing many of the Choctaw and Cherokees.
The name of South Dakota’s tallest mountain should be changed from Harney Peak to “Hinhan Kaga,” the state Board of Geographic Names recommended by unanimous vote Thursday in Pierre. The state board, which met in the Becker-Hansen Building Commission Room, needed only 30 minutes to make its recommendation. The relatively quick decision followed the receipt of hundreds of written comments in recent weeks and five public hearings across the state since April 28 at which dozens of people testified. [Rapid City Journal]
English translations include Making of Owls and Place of Owls. Owl's Nest was one suggestion before the board.

The mountain was made taller than South Dakota's highest natural point, Odakota Mountain, by white people with concrete and stone. It is not the highest US point east of the Rocky Mountains, either: Guadalupe Peak in Texas is.

Revisionist history turned the Wounded Knee Massacre into a battle where soldiers were awarded medals of honor then a peak or town in the Black Hills and a national forest were named after a murderer like George Armstrong Custer. Crook City near Whitewood and Crook's Tower, one of the 7000 footers in the Black Hills, were named after a war criminal. It's time for Lawrence County (also named for murderers) and Warren Peak in the Wyoming Black Hills to be changed, too.

The word 'squaw' has been purged even though it was derived from an Algonquin term and Inyan Kara Peak is the bastardization of American Indian words.

This blogger has been arguing for Lakota names on South Dakota's geological features for at least twenty years.

3 comments:

Porter Lansing said...

Hear, hear Mr. Kurtz. Next are High School sports mascot names that exist without tribal permission.
PS ... @Hill City Prevailer-News - The term "political correctness" is a phrase invented and used by bigots to shield their oppressive, insensitive and boorish actions from public scrutiny. That you would publish the phrase discounts anything printed in an article after that point.

larry kurtz said...

As Ernestine Chasing Hawk wrote in Indianz today: "So are our readers suggesting that we too do as city officials have done for years, minimize or flat out deny the fact that systemic racism exists here in Rapid City? The number of wrongs committed against American Indians in this city and state is astronomical and had gone unchecked for over a century because a watchdog organization didn’t exist to protect them from it."

Always nice to have guests, Mr. Lansing: thanks for leaving some thoughts.

larry kurtz said...

Mr. Lansing, it looks like you've become a target for censorship at the Dakota Water Closet: wear it with pride!