I have always wondered why some Indian names are accepted, and others are not.
To me, there seems to a vast inconsistancy in the application of this scrutiny.
 
For instance, last year Eastern Michigan was forced to drop their name, the
Hurons, while Central Michigan maintains the Chippewas.  Though in the case of
Central Michigan, they were forced to drop their Indian-head logo.
 
Worse cases of this inconsistancy are the following:  Both Miami of Ohio and
the NFL team have the name Redskins, despite the pejorative nature of the term.
 To call a native American Indian a "redskin" was the equivalent of calling an
African-American a "nigger".  Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians still
remains, though it was once protested.  The reaction was to upgrade the image,
making it a little more upscale, and to decrease its presence on uniform and
advertisments.
 
the other extreme is the case of the dance of Chief Illini, mascot of U of Ill.
 The student government wanted to be rid of the mascot all together, but were
able only to censor the dance.  That was a shame, for the dance is an authentic
Illini tribal dance, taught to the U of Ill mascot by real Illini Indians.
 
Lastly, some of the inconsistancy is economic.  Last year, when the tomahawk
chop was in full swing (the ultimate degradation of that degradation was
watching Indiana U football fans do it in the stands against the visiting U of
M Gophers), some network news team interviewed the tribal factory that made the
things.  The people loved it, because they were raking in big bucks.
 
I on one hand cannot blame the people for doing this, the tribe needed the
money and such; but at the same time I think that it is shameful that native
Americans are sometimes driven to the "marketing" of their culture to survive.
 
Dave