Save a walleye, spear a pregnant squaw! —Anti-spearfishing protesters in Wisconsin “Squaw” is not an English word. That’s the bottom line. —Marge Bruchac I am a woman, hear me roar. I am not a squaw. —Avis Little Eagle In a recent electronic discussion of the significance of the word squaw, Ted Nawa asked a deceptively simple question: “Who would refer today, in English, to an Indian woman as a squaw, instead of as an Indian lady, or Indian woman?” Although posed rhetorically to underscore the presumed absurdity of the term, it would surely disappoint Nawa and others to learn how many individuals and institutions continue to use the term with little or no reflection. In March 2000, Stu Mackroon, a radio personality on KISS 94.5 in Maine, joked that the then recently introduced golden dollar coin bearing the visage of Sacagawea should be referred to as “the squaw buck,” playing off “sawbuck,” a popular slang term for a dollar bill. Less than six months earlier, after a much debated intervention by the Justice Department, Erwin High School in Buncombe County, North Carolina, chose to drop Squaws as the name of its girls’ sports team. Even after the decision, the gym wall announced “Home of the Warriors and Squaws,” and the sentiments of many community members echoed Bob O’Connor of the Erwin Booster Club, “The name should not be changed after so many years because a certain group is offended.”

Gerald R. Gems deserves praise for his comparative history of race, sport, and identity. Too often scholars neglect the significance of sport for marginalized groups. Gems avoids this, in part, by drawing together histories and cultures frequently segregated to examine the implications of playing football for Native Americans and African Americans. Sport, as he demonstrates, has had profound effects on individual identities, social movements, and cultural values. As useful as Gems’ account is, however, it offers neither an adequate nor a complete interpretation of the significance of playing football for marginalized groups. In contrast with Gems, who nicely recounts the heroic players and great games of old in an effort to unravel the importance of sport for racial identity, we argue in what follows that one cannot understand the significance of Native Americans and African Americans playing football without an understanding of the significance of “playing Indian” in association with it.