March is Women's History Month in much of the English-speaking world. This means the patriarchy is currently keeping the eleven other months for itself but hey, baby steps. Ken Jennings, like many Jeopardy! contestants, would be the first to admit he knows nothing about women. But he'll be with us all month correcting some misconceptions about history—or is it herstory?!?—that even the most ardent Women's Studies majors might miss on the final.
The Debunker: Does the Word "Squaw" Mean Something Vulgar?
In 1992, Native American spokesperson Suzen Shown Harjo appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and dropped some jaw-dropping knowledge on The Queen of Talk. The word "squaw," she told Oprah, was derived from an Algonquin word meaning "female sexual parts." She went on to say that, as a result, some Indians refer to "squaw" as the "s-word," a rough equivalent of the verboten "c-word" in English.
This claim didn't originate with Harjo—in fact, it dates back at least as far as 1976, when authors Thomas Sanders and Walter Peek, in their book Literature of the American Indian, traced "squaw" back to otsiskwa, the Mohawk word for vagina. But the Oprah appearance brought a broad audience to this story, and led to initiatives by several U.S. states to remove the word "Squaw" from geographic names. Squaw's Bosom, a mountain in Maine, became Moose Bosom. Some Minnesotans, annoyed at these possible changes to their maps, tried to rechristen their nearby Squaw Creek as "Politically Correct Creek."
Activists like Harjo are no doubt convinced of the legitimacy of the "s-word" story, but history doesn't bear it out. It's certain that "squaw" derives instead from the Massachusett squa, meaning "young woman." We know this because "squaw" was already in use by English settlers before they ever met a Mohawk who would have known the word otsiskwa. But please note: that doesn't mean there's nothing offensive about the word "squaw." The practice of assigning separate words to men and women of other races is a custom left over from a time when those races were considered less than fully human. (Recall that we do the same thing with animals like "bulls" and "sows," but not with European nationalities like "Britons" or "Spaniards.") There's a reason we don't say "Negress" and "Jewess" anymore. It shouldn't surprise anyone that "squaw" is on its way out as well.
Quick Quiz: Squaw Valley, California was the second American resort ever to host a Winter Olympics. What New York town was first, in 1932?
Ken Jennings is the author of six books, most recently his Junior Genius Guides, Because I Said So!, and Maphead. He's also the proud owner of an underwhelming Bag o' Crap. Follow him at ken-jennings.com or on Twitter as @KenJennings.