The woman on the current $1 coin is supposed to be Sacajawea. Are you perhaps thinking of this vintage half dollar?
I know you didn’t mean it to be so, but I think that argument is kind of dehumanizing. It doesn’t seem to accord Indians the same modern, rational thinking that white people accord themselves. Just as Franco-Americans can deal with all the Anglos on coinage, so too can the Crow deal with a Lakota face on their quarter.
It’s not the same thing. Europeans who come to the US do so with the idea of being American citizens-- all part of the same nation. The various Indian Nations were never united in any sense. So yes, I’m sure inter-tribal relations are much better today than they were 150 years ago, but I can see why it would be not just politically prudent, but genuinely culturally sensitive, too, to stay away from designating any one tribe as being represntative of “Native Americans”. That’s not to say that the composite picture is any better, and maybe there isn’t any completely good solution to acknowledging Native Americans on US coins. I just wanted to point out that switching from a composite picture to one which represents a specific individual is not without its own problems.
Seems appropriate to me; I don’t have a problem with it. Looks like a dignified profile. It memorializes the first Americans, and hearkens back to historic U.S. coinage. Crank up the coin presses.
You really think so? How many white people would be up in arms if we decided to put Christopher Columbus or George Armstrong Custer on a coin? I don’t really know if I see any of this “rational thinking” coming from white people who are overly concerned that the image of a generic Indian is offensive. If anything that strikes me as oversensitivity to the point of patronizing.
Marc
I still don’t see how a generic Indian image on a coin is more or less “patronizing” that the association of Indian images with a University and its sports teams.
I don’t understand what you’re saying. All I was speaking to was the idea that Indians would have trouble dealing with a coin featuring a historically rivalling tribe.
I thought I was addressing your point but I obviously failed.
I don’t think we’re dehumanizing Indians nor do I think we’re saying that they aren’t as reasonable as white folks. After all, I can think of few things sillier than an arguement over the use of a generic Indian image for a piece of currency. If you have a coin showing a specific member of a tribe it might piss off members of other tribes. It isn’t just a matter of differences it’s just that some tribes were historically enemies and there are still tribes that don’t get along very well to this day. Ask the Navajo. Point being, someone is always going to be dissastisfied with any solution we come up with.
Marc
Well, you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
Do the members of these tribes still harbor such animosity toward one another?
He’s probably referring to the Silver Eagle, which is a bullion coin. Liberty’s garment is an American flag. Some companies sell colored versions of the coin.
From “What’s in a Name.” Archaeology July/August: 12.
The Navajo Nation’s director of of the office of language and culture says that “Anasazi is a Navajo word…it just means ‘those who came before us.’”
Then there’s the matter of using Pueblo which is not an Indian word but a Spanish word. So why not just use a Puebloan word for ancestor to describe the Anasazi? Because the tribes descended from the Anasazi have different names for ancestor and they were also descended from another tribe other than the Anasazi.
So yes, it does appear as though some of the tribes still have some animosity towards one another.
Marc
Ah, interesting.
Thanks for fighting my ignorance on that, I never would have guessed that people could still harbor such feelings.
(Am I the only one who thinks that that’s just a wee bit childish?)
Being an alumnus of the University of Illinois, I have given this matter a lot of thought. I actually think that it will be a sad day when we eliminate all images of Native Americans (at least, the ones with dignity…I’m certainly not going to say a single word in defense of portrayals such as the Cleveland Indians mascot.) I have no idea if Chief Illiniwek or the portrayal on the gold coin are authentic or not…if they aren’t then work should be done to make them so. But to completely remove these portrayals is to me one more way to erase the existance of the Native American culture, or pretend that it never existed, and it seems wrong to me.
Fellow named George Washington; you may have heard of him? If you’ll turn your coin over, you’ll notice that he’s on the obverse of it.
Great, and the drummer was who?
Marc
(Do you realize the whole middle eastern party between arabs and jews is a family feud? The arabs are considered descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Sarah’s slave - who was the heir until his half-brother was born. That was how long ago? I know other examples but they’re more local. The problem with blood feuds is they make people stupid-er)
I am intimately familier with the feud between the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac (sons of Hagar and Sarah, respectively :))
I also think that to be extraordinarily childish.
No problem, I wasn’t aware of it myself until within the last few years. In addition to tribes who have a long history of disliking one another there is tension among tribes over casinos and other more modern issues. I happen to think that Native Americans are one of the most misunderstood groups of people in the western world.
Marc
I would agree. So little is tought about Native American culture in schools except for a few vague archetypes. I knew that, historically, there was a severe tribal warfare and blood feuds (that happens to all peoples of all backgrounds). I just assumed—wrongly—that perhaps such differences had fell to the wayside due to a common enemy on their land.
It’s more over land and water issues, and competing nationalisms.