Editor's note: The author writes in response to the Chippewa Secondary School renaming controversy. Mukwa says he attended the school during the 1980s and remembers athletes from opposing schools calling him "Chip-a-sq**w." He says he can clearly recall the use of the tomahawk chop during East-West games. "There was no initiative for renaming the school back then, but the thought of it was there for me and others."
Mukwa says Indigenous leader George Couchie is a close family relation and he is friendly with Nipissing First Nation Chief Scott McLeod. "They're good people," he says. "We just disagree on this issue."
To the editor:
I'm Anishinaabe from Nbisiing and I say change the name!
"Chip-a-sq**w."
If I could never hear that word again, then I would say keep the name. If I could wake up tomorrow and never another Anishinaabe youth would have to hear this word, "Chip-a-sq**w," I would say, keep the name.
Why does Settler youth have to be so cruel as to tease us with such ignorance? The ignorance of a bastardized word like "Chippewa" should never remain on the tongues of youth who have never heard the truth about its origin.
Anyone can get 2,000 signatures and a few First Nations that agree with keeping the name. It still doesn't change the truth. No "Chippewa" people live here. No more dehumanization of my Ojibway people.
I am Ojibway, not Chippewa! I wasn't born a Chippewa and was never called a "Chippewa," because I am Ojibway. And I will die an Ojibway.
I don't know why petitions and debates rant about the colonized word, "Chippewa." It's pretty simple to see that we Ojibway were not seen as human beings. This is why the word "Chippewa" still exists, to dehumanize us Anishinaabe. The very Nbisiing Anishinaabe territory that this high school exists on. There are no "Chippewa" in this territory. So changing the name shouldn't really be a problem, and only because of colonial ignorance does it still seem to be a problem of change.
"Nipissing" is the bastardization of "Nbisiing." If Settlers fear that this might change next, then so be it. Change is good. It's part of what the TRC recommendations were for, to change things. Hopefully, to tell a more truthful history than the colonial narrative that's been force-fed into our minds.
There's a lot of talk about what occurred in Ottawa back on June 1, 2015. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was so full of political initiative and hope. Yet, eight years later and my First Peoples of Turtle Island still hope that the Settlers can reconcile with a history that is full of disgusting and inhumane "acts." These "acts" were created, or committed by a Settler-elected colonial government throughout the history of this land.
It's not First Peoples that need to reconcile, that much I know. I know Anishinaabe have been reconciling for the last 150-plus years, and for some Indigenous people, compromising as well just to appease the Settlers who can't handle change or the ignorance of a name of a high school in the territory of the Nbisiing First Nation.
Because of some of the movements by Indigenous people, the narrative has changed in the last decade. We are bringing a truth about Canada that many Settlers feel is erasing history. It's still history if we change the name. The history is still there. And a new history will come out of all this too. A more truthful history, where Indigenous people have a say.
We are no longer called "Indians," "Aboriginals," "heathens," "savages," or "pagans." So change isn't something that Settlers tell us First People what it is we need to heal. Settlers don't get to have a say in how we Anishinaabe should heal. We dictate what it will take to rehumanize us. We are already showing the Settlers and the colonial governments what it will take to heal these post-genocidal acts against us First Peoples...
I will stand on the side of history that tells the truth.
No more "Chippewa" high school, change it to Debwe = truth.
Change The Name!
Your born-again pagan,
Mukwa
Nbisiing
