Maine to Decide if ‘Squaw’ Is Offensive

In Maine’s rugged hill country lies frozen Squaw Pond. There’s also Big Squaw Mountain, Squaw Bay, and Big and Little Squaw townships.

The names, once known primarily to hunters, fishermen and hikers, are now attracting attention from the Legislature, as a group of lawmakers who say “squaw” denigrates women are pushing to purge it from the state map.

“I can say with 99% certainty, if you are a native woman and live on a reservation, you have heard the word and felt the sting and pain,” said Donna Loring, the Penobscot Nation’s representative to the Legislature.

Lawmakers in Minnesota and Montana have adopted similar laws removing “squaw” from public site names. In Colorado, even the endangered squawfish was targeted by Indian activists and renamed the Colorado pikeminnow.

Maine lawmakers are expected to vote soon on the bill to expunge “squaw” from all public land features and geographic locations on the advice of a nine-member commission on Indian affairs. Private properties, such as the Squaw Mountain Ski Resort, would be exempt.

State Rep. Donald Soctomah, the Passamaquoddy Tribe’s representative and sponsor of the bill, is confident it will pass. It has already won a committee endorsement and could come up for floor debate this week, he said.

But people who live in Big Squaw Township, a scenic area just off Moosehead Lake, are wondering why there is so much fuss over a simple name and why it’s stirring up people in the State House, 100 miles south in Augusta.

At a hearing in Augusta last month, local opponents handed lawmakers petitions signed by 300 people from the Moosehead area who want to keep the squaw names. Some opponents contend that changing names long associated with the region could confuse tourists, whose dollars fuel the local economy.

Loring said the issue is just now being raised because Indians felt in the past that their complaints would be ignored.