Members of the Name Change Committee are very pleased to announce that
the US Board of Geographic Names has approved the name change of "Squaw
Point" on the Eld Inlet beach of The Evergreen State College to the
ancestral indigenous name. The place name "Bushoowah-ahlee Point" was
requested in a joint application by The Evergreen State College and the
Squaxin Island Tribe to identify the northernmost point of our campus.
The beach sits on a cape which is on the property of the college (by the
Geoduck House), but also a part of the territory ceded by tribal leaders
in the 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek. The land has long been recognized
as a meeting point for the Coast Salish people living on the southern
inlets of the Salish Sea.
The effort to rename the point began during fall 2010 when a group of
staff were reviewing maps of the campus for hazard mitigation purposes.
Members of the Evergreen staff were surprised to see that a portion of
the college's property on Eld Inlet was designated as "Squaw Point."
While the roots of the term "squaw" lie in the Algonquin language on the
East Coast, it has evolved to take on a more derogatory meaning that is
not an appropriate reference for indigenous women, and certainly not the
indigenous women of the Coast Salish region, thousands of miles removed
from Algonquin territory.
With the support of the college, a group of faculty, staff and students
has been meeting to initiate a change in the name. The group includes
Longhouse personnel, student members from the Native Student Alliance
and First Peoples' Advising Services along with other staff and faculty.
I extend special thanks to my fellow name change committee members Tina
Kuckkahn-Miller, Laura Grabhorn, Frances Rains, Zoltan Grossman, Raquel
Salinas, Rich Davis, Derek Jones and Shonri Begay.
Our group consulted with the Squaxin Island Tribe, upon whose land The
Evergreen State College sits and with whom it has a long-standing
positive relationship. The State of Washington encourages state agencies
to work directly with tribes (on issues such as this name change) as
part of the 1989 Centennial Accord and the 1999 New Millennium
Agreement, which encourages government-to-government collaborative
actions which benefit both entities.
Squaxin Island appointed Lushootseed language scholar Zalmai Zahir to
research the ancestral name of the area. Mr. Zahir had worked for many
years with the late Vi Hilbert (Upper Skagit) who was the region's
primary Lushootseed language expert and scholar on indigenous place
names of the region around the Salish Sea.
Mr. Zahir documented the original place name in Thomas Talbot Waterman's
1922 book Puget Sound Geography. Waterman was an anthropologist who was
most interested in recording Native languages and cultures and depicting
how those languages appeared phonetically. He traveled widely in the
area and among the many things he collected, he also collected
geographic names. A recent reproduction (by Vi Hilbert, Jay Miller, and
Zalmai Zahir) contains Waterman's original manuscript. T.T. Waterman
lists the name of the point as B1cuwa'3ali, (1= uh, c=sh, and 3= glottal
stop in his orthography).
The name Bushoowah-ahlee is very old and there isn't a comparable
English translation. The Squaxin Island Tribe has requested that the
phonetic spelling of the name in the Roman alphabet be officially
adopted, rather than the Lushootseed alphabet, which uses diacritical
marks. By using the ancestral name, Bushoowah-ahlee Point, we are
reminded of the history of this place that goes much further back in
time than the mid-nineteenth century and offers us the chance to
appreciate the area as it was originally known.
As of September 15, 2011, the US Board on Geographic Names recognized
the beach officially by its original name. Bushoowah-ahlee Point is now
in the USBGN's Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). At the
Washington State level, Caleb Maki of the Washington Board on Geographic
Names has directed the Washington DNR cartography office to change Squaw
Point to Bushoowah-ahlee Point on any new state maps. The change is
automatic on all federal maps, according to faculty member Zoltan
Grossman.
The name change enjoyed tremendous support from the Evergreen community
and students working with First People's Advising gathered about 300
letters of support from students, staff and faculty for the name change.
The Board of Trustees also offered its support for the change, and a
Geoduck Student Union initiative was backed by 87 percent of students in
the Spring 2010 election.
Next spring, there will be a celebration, to mark the official name
change, to coincide with Day of Absence/Day of Presence and the official
start of the Salish new year.
For more information:
Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)
http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic
Reindigenizing Place Names powerpoint
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/ReindigenizingPlaceNames.ppt
