CHANGING OFFENSIVE NAMES
On October 10, 2005, an article about the effort to rename the Rum River was
published on the AAA Native Arts Web site.
CHANGING OFFENSIVE NAMES
My international movement to rename Minnesota's Rum River is steadily gaining
more and more support. Recently, several Minnesota legislators sent me letters
wherein they thanked me for the work that I am doing to change this river's
derogatory name.
One of these legislators has given his support and some of the other legislators
who I have received letters from are interested in possibly sponsoring a purposed
Minnesota bill that I wrote and have displayed on my website
(www.towahkon.org/StateBill.html ). If a legislator or legislators would decide
to sponsor this purposed bill and Minnesota's legislators passed this bill
several of Minnesota's geographic place names that are offensive and derogatory
to Native Americans would be replaced. Including, the Rum River, West Branch Rum
River, Redskin Lake, Cut foot Sioux Lake, Sioux River, Sioux Lake, Little Sioux
Lake, Savage Lake, Devil Track Lake and Devil Track River.
According to information found on the Minnesota Historical Society's website:
"The name of Rum River, which Carver in 1766 and Pike in 1805 found in use by
English-speaking fur traders, was indirectly derived from the Dakota. Their name
of Mille Lacs, Mde Wakan, translated Spirit Lake, was given to its river but was
changed by the white men to the most common spirituous liquor brought into the
Northwest, rum, which brought misery and ruin, as Du Luth observed of brandy,
to many of the Indians. The map of Maj. Stephen H. Long's expedition in 1823
has these names, Spirit Lake and Rum River. Nicollet's map, published in 1843,
has "Iskode Wabo or Rum R.," this name given by the Ojibwe but derived by them
from the white men's perversion of the ancient Dakota name Wakan, being in more
exact translation "Spirit Water."
Because rum "brought misery and ruin to many of the Indians" as well as the fact
that the common belief is that the name "Rum" is a mistranslation of the
(slightly, edited correction) sacred Mdewakanton Dakota name for the river [Wakan],
which translated means Spirit or Great Spirit, I therefore believe that this
river's name (Rum) is offensive and derogatory to Native Americans and should
therefore be changed back to its sacred Dakota name, as do also a growing number
of both Dakota Indians as well as Indians of many other tribes. Note:
Concerning the above mentioned correction, an author of a book about MN's place names mistakenly
wrote that the full Dakota name for the "Rum River" is Mdo-te-mini-wakan, wherefore, before I
was informed by a Dakota Indian historian that the name Mdo-te-mini-wakan is the name for the
land surrounding the mouth of the river I mistakenly believed that the Dakota name for the river was
Mde-te-mini-wakan. I also was informed that although the word wakan usually means sacred
or spirit, it, in the name Mdo-te-mini-wakan means Spirit or Great Spirit and that the
full Dakota name for the "Rum River" is Wakan, which translated means Spirit or Great Spirit.
Now-a-days, all across our county, Redskin, and Savage are considered offensive
and derogatory names for Native Americans. And the name Sioux for the Dakota
people is an offensive and derogatory name. On the Minnesota Historical Society's
website there are the words: "The Little and Big Sioux Rivers, the latter forming
the northwest boundary of Iowa, were named for the Dakota or Sioux, who inhabited
this region. The name Sioux is the terminal part of Nadouesioux, a term of hatred,
meaning "snakes, enemies", which was applied by the Ojibwe and other Algonquians
to this people."
And on the Minnesota Historical Society's website there are also the words:
"Devil Track River, wrote Gilfillan, "is Manido bimadagakowini zibi, meaning
the spirits (or God) walking-place-on-the-ice river". The Ojibwe applied this
name primarily to Devil Track Lake, and thence, according to their custom, to
the out-flowing river. The name implies mystery or something supernatural about
the lake and its winter covering of ice, but without the supremely evil idea that
is given in the white men's translation."
In respect to my effort to change the Rum River's name, I have received two
letters from U.S. Senator Mark Dayton. Senator Dayton has been giving and
offering me assistance.
On September 27, I met with Christopher Leifeld, the executive director of the
Minnesota Catholic Conference. The MCC is the public policy voice of Minnesota's
Catholic bishops. The MCC sometimes helps legislators author bills, plus it
also gives its support for some bills. I recently had received a letter from
Archbishop Harry Flynn wherein he thanked me for my update letter on my "Catholic
social activist ministry to rename the Rum River and related visionary ministry".
Therefore , during our meeting, we talked about my "related visionary ministry"
for about a half hour. At the time, I mentioned that a secretary Bishop of the
Vatican's Pontifical Council on Peace and Justice had sent me a letter wherein
he let me know that the council had take "note" of my letter about my "campaign"
to rename the Rum River and "related material". The "related material" was about
my "related visionary ministry".
And after South Dakota's 2003 Hall of Fame winner (Rev. Stanislaus Maudlin) read
my - published in the Mille Lacs Messenger - letter about my Catholic social
activist ministry to rename the Rum River and related visionary ministry, he
sent me an e-mail asking that I add his name to my list of people who support
the effort to change the Rum River's name. Rev. Maudlin is the abbot of Blue
Cloud Abbey and founder and executive director of Blue Cloud Abbey's American
Indian Research Center. And Rev. Maudlin is also a prominent leader of the
Tekakwitha Conference, an international Catholic American Indian organization
representing hundreds of tribes. And he is in constant correspondence with the
Vatican Commission on Traditional Religions. During the 1983 Tekakwitha Conference,
Rev. Maudlin addressed a large group of conference participants and said "there
is a whole world view behind the word wakan".
The Dakota are used to portray all American Indian tribes in Hollywood, anyone
wanting to see a "real Indian" wants to see a war bonnet and a tipi. Therefore,
I believe that the world psychic views all American Indians as Dakota; and that
when people watch the traditional Hollywood movies about American Indians they
often hear the Dakota using the word wakan (sacred), or the combined words
Wakan-Tonka (Spirit-Great). Hence, a lot of people around the world believe
that the word wakan and the name Wakan-Tonka are used by all American Indians.
Stephen Gaskin, an internationally renowned youth of the 1960s countercultural
leader and Green Party candidate for President in the year 2000 once wrote: "The
word wakan has a strong and universal concept and people all around the world
know something about it."
And after two nationally renowned American Indian activists, Christine Rose and
Mike Graham, read my - published in the Mille Lacs Messenger - letter about my
Catholic social activist ministry to rename the Rum River and related visionary
ministry, they sent me e-mails wherein they both thanked me for sending them the
"press release" as well as asked me to "keep up the good work". This letter can be
found at: http://www.towahkon.org/artvisionary.html.
And the National Catholic Reported published a peace of mine about my effort to
rename the Rum River. NCR is a news weekly that reports news about global peace
and justice issues. It has over 120,000 loyal readers in 96 countries. The NCR
describes me as a "Catholic social activist". And I am also being described as
a Catholic visionary prophet with a world view behind the word "wahkon". The
word wahkon translates as sacred and it is sometimes spelled wakan. And in some
circles that promote a single global culture, a culture made up of the best of
the past of all the different people's cultures and traditions, a culture wherein
humanity will hopefully be united, it represents the culture(s) of the aboriginal
people of the Americas.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer
PO Box 24
Wahkon, Minnesota U.S.A. 56386