Struggle to endorse Native place names not limited to Alaska

The struggle to restore Native place names is a difficult one, plagued by legal, logistical, and practical barriers. Dennis Wagner describes some of these hurdles in an article in last Sunday's Arizona Republic. He notes that even though the Navajo tried to change the name of Tuba City to To' Nanees' Dizi', the English name still appears in parentheses in official tribal publications. Some habits can be hard to break. Here in Alaska we are much more accustomed to Native names. No one thinks twice about (still unofficial) Native names like Denali, or names which clearly derive from Native words, such as Chena (from Cheno') or Tlikakila (from Łiq'a Qilanhtnu). Even the name Alaska itself derives from a Native word, though it's not actually a Native place name. (And don't believe all that nonsense you read about it meaning "the great land.")  We're a far cry from Hawai'i, where non-Natives have grown accustomed to Native names, but we're certainly not surprised when we run across a Native place name in Alaska.

Nonetheless, granting official recognition to Alaska Native place names stills sparks controversy just as it does in the lower 48. The controversy over Troth Yeddha' at the University of Alaska is but the latest installment in the long-standing hostility toward official Native names in Alaska. This being Alaska the name already has some currency amongst both Native and non-Natives alike. It's appeared in the UAF catalog for at least a decade. And unlike the Navajo name Tó Naneesdizí, the corresponding English name ("College Hill") is not an official name. Still, as with Navajo, Lower Tanana Athabascan is no longer widely spoken. Indeed, the language is remembered by only a handful of speakers now. But this needn't condemn the name. Troth Yeddha' has important symbolic value well beyond the Athabascan language from which it comes. Troth Yeddha' attests to a connection between the Athabascan people and the land. Troth Yeddha' recognizes a Native presence at the university -- a presence which for too long has been marginalized.

As with most of the name proposals described in Wagner's article, Troth Yeddha' will probably end up getting shot down as well. Bureaucracy does not like controversy, whether real or imagined. And as with negative political ads, controversy is easily invented even in the absence of facts. Still, that some people would choose to rally against name proposals such as Troth Yeddha' is a testament to the power of those names. We can at least take some comfort in the fact that even those who oppose Native names do agree that the names are important. Moreover, there is nothing to prevent the growing use of unofficial names. Wagner describes the case of a Navajo hospital which was unofficially renamed Tséhootsooí. Making an official change was just too much of a hassle. Instead, the hospital's website has been re-branded with the Tséhootsooí name, though the web address remains fdihb.org, for Fort Defiance Indian Hospital Board. We must be careful not to get so caught up in the struggle to make Native names official that we lose sight of the sheer power of place names -- a power which remains whether or not those names are made official.