Wasi'chu
File:Stand with Standing Rock SF Nov 2016 13.jpg in 2016-17 were often framed as a fight against wasi'chu interests. In modern usage, the word implies colonialist greed and corporate power.see for instance {{cite web |url=https://indianz.com/News/2017/01/16/james-giago-davies-the-real-power-to-def.asp |title=James Giago Davies: The real power to defeat the Wasicu pipeline|website=Indianz.com |last=Giago Davies |first=James}}]]
{{Short description|Word used in English derived from Lakota and Dakota word for non-Indigenous people}}
Wasi'chu is a loanword from the Sioux language (wašíču or waṡicu using different Lakota and Dakota language orthographies) which means a non-Indigenous person, particularly a white person, often with a disparaging meaning.{{cite book | title=Lakota dictionary : Lakota-English/English-Lakota New Comprehensive Edition | date=2002 | last1=Buechel |last2=Manhart |url=https://archive.org/details/lakotadictionary0000buec/mode/2up}}
The word has been widely adopted in English since the 1970s{{cite web |url=https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wasi%27chu&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3 |title=Google Ngram: Wasi'chu |website=Google Books Ngram Viewer}} based on the belief that it literally means "fat taker" or greedy person and therefore carries an implied critique of white people and colonialism. Academic linguistic studies of the etymology of wašíču propose other origins for the word.
That the word's underlying meaning is "fat-taker" or "greedy" is today affirmed by many Sioux people themselves, either as the word's origin{{cite web |website=Al Jazeera |quote=A direct translation of the word [wašíču] means, “fat taker”. My ancestors used it to describe the greedy, covetous, selfish behaviour they witnessed in European settlers who invaded our homelands. To them, fat was the most nutrient-rich, energy-dense part of the buffalo... |title=Indigenous people are paying the price for vaccine thieves |last=Hopkins |first=Ruth H. |date=30 January 2021 |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/1/30/indigenous-people-are-paying-the-price-for-vaccine-thieves}} or as a modern evolution of the meaning.{{Cite tweet |author=Nick Estes |author-link= |user=nickwestes |number=1344484382535389186 |title=The Lakota word wašíču evolved over the years. It wasn't initially derogatory, describing "fat-taking" behavior. Today, it means hoarding social wealth and stealing land, describing capitalists and settlers. Example phrase: "Mitch McConnell is a piece of shit wasicu." }} For example, academic and campaigner Nick Estes writes "the highest insult in Lakota is to be greedy, to be wasicu".Estes is Assistant Professor in American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota {{cite web | title=Lakota Giving and Justice | website=owašíču owe waste sni | date=November 26, 2015 | url=https://nickestes.blog/2015/11/26/lakota-giving-and-justice/ | access-date=September 19, 2023}}
Etymology
An often-cited etymology claims that the term wašíču derives from "he who takes the fat", from Lakota wašiƞ ("cooking fat") + cu ("to take"). This etymology/meaning is not present in online Dakota and Lakota dictionaries and is not present or is rejected in discussions of wašíču by academic linguists.
Though many Sioux people themselves now report "he who takes the fat" as the original meaning of wašíču, this explanation of the word may be a relatively recent phenomenon. Linguist David R. Roth, writing in 1975 about the etymology of wašíču, reports that at that time Sioux people mostly believed the term wašíču came from iwašičuƞ meaning talkative or mouthy.{{ cite journal | title = Lakota Sioux terms for white and negro| url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/25667253 |last=Roth |first=David D.
| journal =Plains Anthropologist | volume =20| issue=68 |date=1975| pages = 117–120 | doi = 10.1080/2052546.1975.11908737 | jstor = 25667253 | access-date = 18 September 2023
}}
Allan R Taylor, responding to Roth in 1976 rejects "mouthy" as the origin of wašíču and further considers and rejects "he who takes the fat", stating that, "It is implausible as a source.. ..since it ignores the necessarily nasalized vowel in wasį 'bacon' [fat]". Taylor analyses the word as wa + šíču where wa is a particle meaning "something coming from doing an action." He suggests that the original meaning of wašíču can be more readily explained as simply "doer" referring to the colonialists' access to technology unavailable to the Sioux. This closely parallels the etymology of words in other Native American languages meaning "white man."{{ cite journal | title =Note concerning Lakota Sioux terms for white and negro| url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/25667299
| journal =Plains Anthropologist |last=Taylor |first=Allan R. | volume =25| issue=71| pages=63–65|date=1976| doi = 10.1080/2052546.1976.11908783
| jstor = 25667299
| access-date = 18 September 2023
}}
Wasi'chu in contemporary English language sources
Based on the understanding of the term as meaning "he who takes the fat," wasi'chu has been widely discussed as a reflection of how Sioux people perceive non-Indigenous people's relationship with the land and Indigenous Americans. As such, wasi'chu has been often used in English language materials since around 1970, with English language usage of the term rising sharply in the 2010s. This has included works of popular history{{cite journal | title = Review of "Wasi'chu: The Continuing Indian Wars"| url = https://escholarship.org/content/qt86k8860w/qt86k8860w.pdf|last=Dunbar Ortiz |first=Roxanne| journal = American Indian Culture and Research Journal|issn=0161-6463 | volume = 5| issue = 4| pages = 77|date=1981| access-date = 18 September 2023}} in art,{{cite book |title=Uneasy Humanity Perpetual Wrestling with Evils |chapter=And What’s on the Menu Today? Greed and Gluttony in Sato’s Naked Blood |last=Balmain |first=Colette |editor-last1=Balmain |editor-last2=Norris |url=https://www.academia.edu/406188 |publication-date=2009 |publication-place=Oxford, England |publisher= Inter-Disciplinary Press |pages=121–130 |via=Academia.edu}} and in popular media; for example, as the title of an episode of the TV show Law and Order: Criminal Intent (2006),Season 5, Episode 14, see List of episodes and in dialogue heard in Dances with Wolves (1990),{{cite web | title=The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Wa | website=The Rumpus.net | date=December 24, 2016 | url=https://therumpus.net/2016/12/24/the-saturday-rumpus-essay-wa/ | access-date=September 25, 2023}} Thunderheart (1992), White People documentary (2015),{{cite web | last=Horan | first=Molly | title=MTV White People Episode Recap Jose Antonio Vargas | website=Refinery29 | date=July 23, 2015 | url=https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2015/07/91208/mtv-white-people-documentary-episode-recap | access-date=September 25, 2023}} The Stand (2020),{{cite web | last=Wilcox | first=Carolynne | title=The Stand – Episode Six: Trashcan Man & The Vigil | website=Post Apocalyptic Media | date=January 26, 2021 | url=https://www.postapocalypticmedia.com/the-stand-episode-six-trashcan-man-the-vigil/ | access-date=September 25, 2023}} Yellowstone (2021),{{Citation|title=Yellowstone, Half the Money (S4, E1)}} and Tulsa King (2022).{{Citation |title=Tulsa King, Dwight Meets Bad Face (S1, E2) Paramount+ |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aIZDAyG1n0 |access-date=2023-09-25 |language=en}}
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
- LaFontaine, Harlan and Neil McKay. [https://books.google.com/books?id=_J6hgmOD2AUC&pg=PA145&dq=wašíču 550 Dakota Verbs.] Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2005. {{ISBN|978-0-87351-524-5}}.
- Simcikova, Karla. [https://books.google.com/books?id=4euzFCzvH7AC&pg=PA18&dq=To%20live%20fully%2C%20here%20and%20now%3A%20the%20healing%20vision%20in%20the%20works%20of%20Alice%20Walker To live fully, here and now: the healing vision in the works of Alice Walker.] Lexington Books, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-7391-1160-4}}.
- Staub, Michael E. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Fl6U_hFEZpMC&pg=PA62&dq=wasichu Voices of Persuasion: Politics of Representation in 1930s America.] Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge Press, 1994. {{ISBN|0-521-45390-9}}.
External links
{{Wiktionary}}
{{wikiquote}}{{White people terms}}
Category:Pejorative terms for white people
Category:Native American slang