For this space, this will probably seem a little too personal at first but there are some basic values and common assumptions here. Maybe I can get at them.
Let's start at the beginning and see if it's too much. My Grandparents owned a farm about 6 miles north of Zelienople, Pennsylvania. While we lived there my Father died. I was 2 1/2 and I stayed on at the farm for a good while. Zelienople was our town and the farm, to one so young, was my world. Eventually, Mom remarried and we bought a tract house in Cranberry, about 12 miles away and I became a Fernway kid.
I have always thought of that combination of farm and town and the people as the orderly backhand of an indifferent God. It was as if, having set such a salubrious place in motion He said, " That'll do." and turned His attention to where it was needed. We usually gave our God attention out of gratitude rather than need or fear.
Our differences, though momentarily vexing are trivialities. That, sometimes, makes us careless with facts and vulnerable to embarrassment. It's not like the larger world that demands the fuller attention of our God.
In that little 15 mile or so, orderly circle were several elementary schools and two high schools. It was decided this needed expansion and consolidation and the whole, kind of organic system was folded into a single school district with a single high school. Common sense. LOL, in some aspects that's where common sense ended.
I was the kinda kid that if you handed me a book, I read the thing. Textbooks included. I never waited to be assigned certain sections. I would read them all at the beginning of the year. That's why I knew something of the history of our native American predecessors in the area. I must have been an annoying little shit.
They named the new High School, Seneca Valley. I thought it was odd because the Seneca Tribe never had influence within 80 miles of our little corner of the world. The controlling tribe in our area had been the Delaware and the local clan were the Lenni Lenape. None of these people were what you'd call, 'murdering savages', no matter what Washington said. They were mostly interested in commerce. You'd have to think they just weren't very good at hunting. 200 years later, a walk thru a freshly turned field anywhere in the area would yield arrowheads leftover from apparently, thousands of errant shots. By the mid-twentieth century they had either wandered off or been completely assimilated. The closest thing to a major watercourse and valley was the Connoquenessing Creek. Nothing named Seneca or named by the Seneca. So, no Seneca, no Valley.
Just odd but kinda par for the local course. You have to remember, television was two things in those days. Sitcoms and some dramas honoring post-war, baby boomer America and Westerns. Indians were major supporting characters and any sort of accuracy was lost in the fog. I assumed they selected Seneca because Delaware would have been confusing. Members of the Seneca Tribe were even involved in the dedication of the new school. I can't imagine what they must have thought of that collection of bohunks, shit kickers and earnest burghers. I imagine they were compensated and mildly amused.
That was all fine for 50 years or so. The sports teams were called the Raiders. That didn't really make any sense either. The Seneca had been hunters and fishermen, subsistence farmers and traders. Not a whole lot of ferocity. They certainly never raided anyone. The school team colors of black and blue were kind of appropriate.
This crop of kids is different. They pretty much insist that when we know something is wrong we should quit doing it. To some people, that's not as refreshing as you might think. Obviously, it's insulting to reduce our Native American friends to caricatures. The students went to the school board and convinced them to quit mindlessly insulting strangers. The board decided to remove depictions of our Native American friends and (in this case, distant) neighbors but keep the name of the school. They went so far as to contact the actual Seneca Tribal Elders who resisted the urge to say, "What?" and agreed.
Somehow this got conflated into the current cultural wars. The very straight-faced criticisms run the gamut from the socialist (Puhleess!) plot known as Cancel Culture to an almost reasonable-sounding appeal to continue to honor history so that it might not be lost and we all suffer. (From what?)
I say we should honor history accurately. Within a few hundred yards of the present-day high school was a settlement of the Delaware-speaking Lenni Lenape clan called Murdering Town. How's that for ferocity? I wanna see that mascot. The Murderette Majorettes? Although, I can't imagine the Senecas wanna be drawn into that discussion.
The Murdering Town solution has the virtue of echoing the inaccuracy of the Seneca naming. It's doubtful if the Lenni Lenape called the place Murdering Town. The real name was Sakonk. Just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? The story goes that George Washington and Christopher Gist stumbled across a little Lenni Lenape settlement where the Breakneck Creek (that's pretty ferocious) joins the Connoquenessing. When they left, a fellow volunteered to guide them but instead took a shot at them. Gist didn't say it in so many words but his account indicates Washington and Gist could run faster scared than the Delaware could run mad. As a result of that incident, Gist changed the name, in his journal, from Sakonk to Murdering Town. I can't think of another place that was named in a fit of pique. I, personally, think the Harmonists got it right when they gave the area the almost dreamlike name of Eidenau. Now, we just call it Harmony Junction.
If you liked that there's a lot more.
Thank you for your scholarship and edification. Knowledge is power.
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