Written by Lindsey Bacigal, Communications Director, Indigenous Climate Action

Origins

Squ*w is a term many of us have heard - in media, racist Halloween costumes, or place names. For many Indigenous women, this is also a term that has been used to degrade us. It’s a word meant to instill shame and self-loathing - describing us as “dirty savages” in comparison to “pure” white women. It strips us of our power to define ourselves, instead defining us as we are viewed by white men. 

The history of the word is difficult to determine. There are similar words present in some Indigenous languages as a word for vagina or female genitalia, but meanings of the word vary and it’s not present in all Indigenous languages of North America. Its usage in its current form is attributed to the appropriation of the words “squá” or “ussqua (esqua)” from the Algonquin language family by the English and French during the beginning stages of colonialism in early seventeenth century America. Though this hijacked version of the word may have originally had a positive or neutral meaning, as is often the case, settlers took it, and began to use it as a slur.

Squ*w came to be used as a term by settlers to reference any woman who worked to support her family. This association with poverty eventually led to squ*w being used to refer to indentured servants, slaves, and poor rural white women, as well as a slur to refer to Indigenous women or in reference to Indigenous women’s genitalia. 

This association with female genitalia and the stereotype that Indian women were “loose,” led to the association of squ*w with a prostitute. Due to its association with femininity and the prevailing idea that women were lesser than men, squ*w also came into use as an insult against men. Effeminate men, gay men, men considered “cowardly,” men willing to marry women outside of their race, and non-Native men who married Indigenous women were all referred to as squ*ws. 

Continued Usage

Squ*w continues to be used in place names in many areas of the so-called United States. Adding insult to injury, these place names often use squ*w in conjunction with a part of the female body. In a 2003 article, King found that 938 features across 37 states included the word squ*w in their name (though some have since been changed due to leadership from Indigenous Peoples). Examples remaining include: 

• Squ*w Teat (Montana and Wyoming);

• Squ*w Tit (California, New Mexico, Nevada); and 

• Squ*w Tits (Arizona). 

With Halloween upon us, we also observe squ*w frequently used in titles of offensive costumes “depicting” Indigenous women. 

• Ladies Indian squ*w;

• Sassy squ*w (a girls’ costume);

• Squ*w Red Skin; and

• Indian Squ*w Western R*d Skin (a childrens’ costume). 

Beyond the name, these costumes are offensive because they appropriate the image of Indigenous women, sexualize Indigenous women, and commodify traditional attire for non-Indigenous consumption. Through this transformation and commodification, markets take something which is meaningful to us - our traditional wear - dishonor it and take away its history and significance. 

Further, detaching Indigenous cultures from Indigenous attire, takes away from our histories and contributes to a limited understanding of Indigenous Peoples - as caricatures and relics of the past. Instead, non-Natives are encouraged to “play” as us. Though some may consider these costumes to be nothing but a harmless joke, they subsume Native identities and allow non-Indigenous Peoples to continue to believe that they can do and say whatever they want in terms of Native culture and Native women. It makes us into passive symbols, rather than the strong and resilient women that we are. 

So what?

This “thingification” (a term coined by Aime Cesaire, 1972) also sanctions violence against Indigenous women. Today, this looks like continued violations against our bodies - through forced sterilization, experimentation, sexual assault and rape, and an epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit peoples. It’s in the man camps around extraction sites where non-Native men come into our communities and cause immense harm, leave, and then come back and do it again. It’s in police brutality and experiences of racism and misogyny in public spaces. The colonial disregard of Indigenous Peoples, our lands and waters, and the patriarchal disregard of women and genderqueer folks are intimately connected. Through the dismantling of one, we dismantle the others. 

Though once a neutral or positive term, squ*w became, and continues to be, a slur that degrades Indigenous women. Its continued usage in place names and costumes perpetuates the continued appropriation and dehumanization of Native women; it is then not the place of the Indigenous woman to define herself, but the place of white society to define the Native woman and her place within the past, the present, and the future. Through the sexualisation of Native women’s bodies through costumes and their labelling as squ*ws, the bodies of Native women continue to be appropriated and the values of racism and colonialism continue to be preserved.

Language is powerful because it shapes what and how we think; it has social, political, and emotional effects. Recognizing the word squ*w for what it is - a racial slur - is a necessary step in decolonization and pushes us towards the reclamation of our bodies from the colonial project. 

Sources

Merskin, D. (2010) ‘The s-word: discourse, stereotypes, and the American Indian woman’, Howard Journal of Communication, 21 (4), pp. 345-366.

Parezo, N.J. & Jones, A.R. (2009) ‘What’s in a name? The 1940s-1950s “Squaw dress”’, American Indian Quarterly, 33 (3), pp. 373-404.

King, R.C. (2003) ‘De/scribing squ*w: indigenous women and imperial idioms in the United States’, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 27 (2), pp. 1-16.