We’ve invited Ralph Turner, a McMurry alumnus and supporter of our sites, to discuss the McMurry Indians mascot situation. His post appears below.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to explain the McMurry issue of the mascot appeal. Let me summarize many of the points that I have posted in previous discussions about McMurry. These thoughts are mine, and do not necessarily reflect those of the University.
As many of you know, our founding President, Dr. James Winford Hunt, the son of a physician, was born on the Kaw Reservation in what is now the state of Oklahoma. That was his home for 6 years. Out of respect for the people of his childhood, he gave McMurry its nickname, and Dr Hunt inculcated that respect into the culture of the school. The Indian mascot and the educational opportunities provided by that mascot have served as a catalyst for evaluating diversity and inclusion as part of the core values of the institution.
In my opinion, the most significant event in understanding that culture is Tipi Village. (Ed. note, photo at right.) McMurry began the Homecoming tradition of Tipi Village in 1951 and was featured in Life magazine that year. Tipi Village involves the students from campus organizations, members of the freshman class, and the men’s and women’s social clubs erecting authentic replica tipis of the tribes of the Plains Indians and, on occasion, the dwellings of other Native American tribes. Authoritative sources on the tipis are consulted for accuracy, and these tipis are then judged by Native American experts. The value of each tipi may exceed $8,000 to $10,000 for leather ones. Student docents conduct the tours for the 3,000-5,000 elementary school children who come from as far as 85 miles away to see this example of living history.
For Tipi Village, my social club’s adopted tribe is the Oglala Sioux. We use authoritative texts, such as The Indian Tipi by Reginald and Gladys Laupin and Oglala Religion by William K Powers as source material. About twenty years ago, Don Little Bear, an Oglala Chief from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, bequeathed to our social club his Ceremonial Regalia for our use at Tipi Village. The Regalia, including an unborn calf suede vest, wampum and Eagle feather headdress, is as spectacular as it is priceless. We only exhibit it once a year, at Homecoming.
The sole statue on the University commons, entitled Spirit Wind, is a native American as he looks over the campus, an eagle sitting on his shoulder. Courses on Native American history, especially the Plains Indians, are taught by the History Department by a professor with Native American heritage. The McMurry history faculty has contributed to the Native American section in the local museum, Frontier Texas!
A significant percentage of the “Anglos” in this part of the US have fractions of Native American blood from the intermarrying that occurred on the frontier with the Southern agricultural tribes and with those tribes that were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory (Oklahoma). (I am 1/32nd Choctaw from my maternal side when they lived in Mississippi.) McMurry also has approximately 10% of its student body declaring itself Hispanic. The intermarrying between descendants from Spain and Native American tribes was prevalent in the American southwest. Likewise, it was not uncommon for slaves of African descent to escape into the adjacent southern Native American tribes where they could start new lives. The university has chosen to confront this diversity as a learning experience. This exposure to other cultures has brought new friendships and greater understand of the Native American Cultures.
McMurry has complied with the NCAA’s requests for self-examination on the Indian mascot name and has worked to rid itself of hostile and abusive connotations. The recent response by the NCAA to our appeal no longer mentions “hostile and abusive.” It refers to “creat[ing] an environment over which an institution may not have full control.” The closest thing to a hostile environment at a McMurry sporting event is due to poor officiating. In my opinion, the NCAA’s standard of a “controlled environment” relating to endeavors in higher education, whether illegal gambling, hazing, sexual assault, underaged drinking, etc., is daunting in ways too numerous to consider in this blog.
I anticipate that the University will appeal to exhaust all avenues on behalf of the McMurry community. Should McMurry’s appeal fail before the NCAA Executive Committee next month, then the University will need to struggle with the question of a new mascot, a question that may rend the university community asunder.
I want to thank Pat for printing my response in the blog. Officially the tipi that you see above is not Oglala. The Oglala do not paint the outside of their tipis. However, painting tipis was quite an artform in several tribes on the American Plains.
I feel as if the NCAA is intent on making blanket statements about generic references to Native American names and no blanket statement should be permitted. If McMurry were named the Kaw, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
NCAA should worry about things that are more important. .I mean i am Irish.. I could complain that “fighting irish” makes a bad assumption that all irish are fighters.
How can all the Irish people get the NCAA to ban the Notre Dame’s mascot???
Pat, thank you for the comment.
McMurry investigated the Kaw Nation in terms similar to the agreements that were reached in the cases of Florida State and Mississippi College. Those 2 instituions only had to deal with 2 tribes of their respective nations. We discovered more than 30 separate Kaw tribal groups, who may have as many as 30 different opinions on any one topic on any given day.
Secondly, the Kaw (the Kansa, the People of the South Wind) are native to Kansas and Nebraska. They had been moved by the Federal Government to their small reservation in Oklahoma in 1873, just two years before Dr. Hunt’s birth. The native tribes in that part of Texas in the 1841-1881 era (discussed at the ex ellent Abilene museum Frontier Texas) were the various Comanche, Apache and Kiowa tribes. There was not a specific tribal history that was as tightly-linked with McMurry as the Choctaws, the Hurons or the Seminoles. The best known Kaw is Charles Curtis, whose 1924 legislation gave US citizenship to all Native Americans. Curtis later served as Vice President to Herbert Hoover from 1929 to 1933.
When Dr Hunt adopted the nickname of Indians for McMurry in 1923, we did not have this question. Some of the finest universities in the country were nicknamed “Indians”, such as Dartmouth and Stanford. And arguably, the finest collegiate football player in the first 2 decades of the 20th Century, Jim Thorpe, was Native American. It appears that McMurry may be swept up in a blanket generalization, which is unfortunate.
We appreciate this forum to communicate the “McMurry” side of the story.
Ralph:
The NCAA — bless (or otherwise) — its heart, is evidently unable to make distinctions and seems blind to nuances. Thus they did the convenient thing.
The Tribe is neither hostile nor abusive in the case of the College of William and Mary, if they remove the feathers from the logo!
http://www.wm.edu/athletics/index.php
Is this a matter of distinction or nuance? I am not totally sure on this.
Ralph, you write that “when Dr. Hunt adopted the nickname of Indians for McMurry in 1923, we did not have this question. Some of the finest universities in the country were nicknamed “Indians” ,such as Dartmouth and Stanford.”
Isn’t that the point? Dartmouth and Stanford have long since changed their nicknames. McMurry has not. Yes, McMurry has a certain history that those schools may not have had. I will certainly not deny that history but the difference between McMurry and places like Florida State and Mississippi College is huge.
The Seminole people presumably don’t mind the term “Seminole” and Choctaws don’t mind the term “Choctaw”. For the most part, Native Americans do mind the term “Indian”.
It is not a name that Native Americans came up with themselves, it is a name given to them by people that came and took their ancestors lives and land.
As I heard a Native American activist once say, “Thank goodness they weren’t looking for Turkey.”
Carl, Thanks for the response. You bring up several interesting points.
Institutions do change. Please consider the original charter for Dartmouth College. Dartmouth’s founder, the Congregational minister Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, “set on foot an Indian charity school…through the assistance of well-disposed persons in America, clothed, maintained and educated a number of the children of the Indian natives, with a view to their carrying the Gospel, in their own language, and spreading the knowledge of the great Redeemer…”
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~govdocs/case/charter.htm
The current Dartmouth Mission Statement in no way resembles the prime focus of Rev Wheelock’s school.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/home/about/mission.html
I wonder what Rev. Wheelock would tell the current Board of Trustees about their infidelity to his Dartmouth Charter and its mission of Christian education to Native Americans.
As for turkeys, Benjamin Franklin thought that the turkey should be the national bird.
http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/turkey/history.html
As for the Seminoles and Choctaws, FSU and Mississippi College found allies in one of the two respective tribes of Seminoles and of Choctaws.
A large number of the Native Americans who have come to the McMurry campus and experienced the environment have not objected, but they are not the politically connected ones who are driving the national agenda. Change may be imposed upon us.
A name is just a name. “Native American” is no more historically accurate a name for the pre-Columbian inhabitants of this continent than “Indian”, since from both an anthropological and a historical aspect a “Native American” is neither in this context. However, there is something to be said for people having the right to be called whatever they want to be called. That’s a basic courtesy issue, IMO. And if you extend that right, then you enter into the murky area of who gets to control that right, and which particular people are entitled to exercise that right for themselves.
My take on this is that McMurry has been above-board and completely honorable in the manner in which they use the term “Indians”. And the NCAA, an organization that has members with a plethora of problems more pressing than team nicknames, is, as Ralph implies, coming up with a completely bogus accusation with this “creating an enviroment over which an institution may not have full control” business. However, whether you agree with their reasoning or not, McMurry is going to get thrown under the bus on this issue — and there doesn’t seem to be anything that they can do about it aside from changing their nickname.
Actually, I’ve known quite a few “Native Americans” and none of them really have a problem with being called Indian, unless of course they’ve been to some college where they were told its wrong.
Generally, I would say its not the best name, but McMurry has developed quite an honored tradition around it. I think they deserve to keep it.
Incidentally I have a good friend who’s Indian.
And he usually smiles a little when Native Americans are called Indians. 🙂
i still think fighting irish is offensive, being that i am irish and i never fight.
… and I will continue to refer to myself as a Native American, since as a U.S. citizen born within the borders of this country I am entitled to refer to myself as a native. 🙂
Catawba won its appeal with the NCAA and can keep its Indians nickname.
Thanks, Pat.
Catawba has the approval of the Catawba Indian Nation, and so this case is similar to the Choctaws and the Seminoles. Here is the letter from the NCAA.
http://www.catawba.edu/ncaa/
Here is the “Alumni Update” from McMurry’s President Dr. John Russell concerning the NCAA appeal.
McMurry’s Appeal
The statue in the picture is titled “Sacred Wind” and is located in the middle of the university commons.