The Indian and The Rock

Peter Morgan, a member of the class of 1960, thinks Nelson Rockefeller is great. Peter Morgan in fact thinks Nelson Rockefeller is so great, he told a crowd gathered last week to discuss Dartmouth's ongoing mascot problems, that Nelson Rockefeller should be trans-formed into a new mascot for Dartmouth. “I would love to see Dartmouth known as The Rock,” he said. Stanford, he reasoned, already has a tree, so a rock wouldn't be so bad, if a little less than sufficiently animate. (Would they just dump a hunk of granite next to the cheerleaders at football games? Or would someone put on a suit and a mask and pretend to be Nelson Rockefeller?)

So you get the idea that there's some difficulty coming up with a good new mascot.

Dartmouth, once upon a time, had a perfectly fine mascot — the Indian. It was banned in 1971 in favor of `The Big Green.' A lot of fairly batty ideas got pumped into policy around 1971, and this one was ours.

This particular bit of institutional battiness has been sustained for these twenty-seven years by arguments from people like Suzan Harjo, the Indian activist who addressed a forum in Nelson Rockefeller (!) Hall last week. Ms. Harjo and folks like her have pulled off a nice rhetorical trick. They link Dartmouth's mascot with all other Indian mascots and then attack the lot, and assume the points have struck home in Hanover.

It's a bad argument.

There certainly are objectionable portrayals of Indians — the Cleveland Indians, for example, had for years a smiling and possibly manic stereotype as their team symbol.

There are also certainly respectful portrayals of Indians. There was an Indian on the old buffalo nickel, for example. We put Presidents on nickels.

The Dartmouth Indian belongs in the second category. Our Indian representations have not been cartoonish slurs but serious, noble portraits of serious, noble warriors. Our connection with the Indian has not been arbitrary stereotype but a reference to an important historical fact — Dartmouth, of course, was originally conceived as a school for educating American Indians.

People like Ms. Harjo also say that mascots of a different ethnic stripe would be popularly objectionable if portrayed in similar tones. Nobody thinks that having `The Dartmouth Jews' as a mascot would be a terribly good idea.

Again, the argument misses the historical point. `The Dartmouth Jews' would be arbitrary and maybe offensive. `The Dartmouth Indians' is not, because there is an appropriate historical reference. `The Brandeis Maccabees,' however, would not be offensive but would be an expression of real pride, because of the conscious link to the school's history and mission. The same goes for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

These are far more apt comparisons than `The Dartmouth Jews.'

In 1984 The Dartmouth Review asked more than 200 chiefs of Indian tribes across the country whether or not they thought the Indian symbol offensive. By a margin of more than 10-to-1, these chiefs said that Dartmouth's Indian symbol did not offend them; many said it was a symbol of Indian pride.

But Ms. Harjo's argument manages to sustain itself, despite having no real constituency, because of a sympathetic political climate and because of Ms. Harjo's own rhetorical vigor.

The Cleveland Indian might well be offensive, but The Dartmouth Indian is not. Until we acknowledge the difference, we are doomed to a succession of increasingly bizarre and increasingly uninspiring temporary symbols.

Look out, Harvard football: here come the Big Green Rocks.

-- Benjamin Wallace-Wells
Editor-in-Chief