What's in a name? The Troth Yeddha' debate at UAF

UAF postcard showing Troth Yeddha'

Lately I've been reminded of the power of place names. Names do more than simply orient us in the landscape. In naming our world we provide a place for ourselves within that world. Names may be trivial in their surface meaning, but they are nonetheless powerful. Alaska is dotted with names like Fish Creek and Gold Creek. Not much meaning there. And yet a Fish Creek or a Gold Creek is so much more reassuring than is an unnamed creek. Unnamed places are cold and forgotten. Unclaimed. Unknown. Through naming we establish a connection.

Sometimes this connection extends into the very heart of a culture. In Lamma, a language of Eastern Indonesia, the landscape is covered with names which refer back to ancient times. The name for a prominent rock translates literally as 'split rock', referring to a legend in which an ancestor split a drum with a sword on that beach. The drum then turned to stone and remains to this day on the beach. Walking past this rock or even just referring to the rock, one cannot help but be reminded of this connection.

Place naming, then, is a political act. Even when we just repeat names which have long been established, we make a statement, asserting and validating the names of our ancestors. Even when names are based on a structured linguistic system, as in Athabaskan, it is the choice to use those names which perpetuates that system. In this way names connect us not only to place but also back in time. It is this connection -- to place and time -- which motivates current efforts to recognize the name Troth Yeddha' for the ridge on which University of Alaska Fairbanks now sits.

On February 7, 2008, the UA Board of Regents officially named a tract of land located between the Reichardt Building and the University of Alaska Museum of the North, Troth Yeddha’ Park. This was a first step toward what Robert Charlie has called recapturing the ancient view. A political act which gives recognition to Athabascan peoples. It doesn't cede control or give the land away. Place naming doesn't work like that. William McKinley has no particular control over the mountain named after him. No, place naming grants recognition and helps us to conjure connections to the land.

So, one must wonder why it is that the proposal to endorse the name Troth Yeddha' as an official name was pulled so suddenly from the Board of Regents' agenda last week. What is it that could trigger such opposition, and on what would the opposition be based? The latter question is actually easier to answer, but it is also much less important. The detractors base their opposition on two points. First, the detractors dispute the etymology of the name, arguing that it does not actually mean 'Indian potato.' Second, the detractors object to the association of the name with Peter John's story about elders holding council at what would later become the site of the University of Alaska. That story is included with the rationale statement on the Board of Regents' agenda. The argument seems to be that the name and the council story are a package: we can't accept one without the other.

To my mind this dispute misses the essential point that place naming is a political act. I don't mean political in the campaign-for-president or democrat-vs-republican sense. I'm mean political in the sense that place naming advocates a position. Place naming isn't based on logic or truth, no matter how logical the linguistic structure of Athabascan place naming systems may be. Ultimately, place naming is about asserting our place in the world and our connections to the land. There is no logical reason to choose either Mt. McKinley or Denali for our state's highest peak. That choice rests ultimately on how we choose to conceptualize our connection to the land. One name conjures up notions of White explorers and a tradition of colonial naming practices. The other conjures up notions of a pre-colonial landscape. Though some may prefer one name over the other, neither is intrinsically good or bad. And neither is more logical or truthful.

Couching the argument against the name Troth Yeddha' in notions of "logic" or "truth" does nothing to obscure the underlying political motivation. The content of the argument can be countered, but to do so misses the point. (Save that for another post.) The real issue boils down to whether or not we want to honor the traditional name for the ridge on which the University of Alaska now sits. Some may wish to oppose the adoption of this name, and they have every right to do so. However, we should be clear that their opposition is based in politics and carries no special providence.