Alum Contribution

Thanks for your new blog! I hadn't realized that the pipe ceremony had also been smashed. What a shame. To this day I still vividly recall surrounding the stump of the Lone Pine with my best friends and breaking our pipes.

As to the specific question of terminology -- I had a private tour of the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of the American Indian with the Museum's Director. He said that at the time they were naming the museum they confronted this question. They surveyed all of the tribes in the land and the overwhelming response was "American Indian" rather than "Native American." If that moniker is good enough for the Smithsonian, it is good enough for me.

Here's another one for the files--"Freshman Trips" are now known as "First-Year Trips," "freshman" being a sexist term, of course.

An[other] interesting story about the death of traditions -- they neutered the words of "Men of Dartmouth" when I was a student there. One of my friends was a member of the Aires. He swore that the Aires, being an all-male a capella group with a storied history, would continue to sing the traditional lyrics to honor this history. I bought their most recent CD a year or two ago and, naturally, they have adopted the new lyrics. Like the end of the pipe ceremony, the passage of student generations tends to erode traditions.

Good luck with the project! I'm glad you are collecting all of these stories.

An Anonymous Alum