Pressure is mounting for Super Bowl-bound Kansas City bosses to abandon a popular tradition in which fans engage in a “war song” as they make a sharp hand movement designed to mimic the tomahawk of Native Americans.
Local groups have long argued that the team’s chop tradition and even its name itself are derogatory to American Indians, yet national attention has focused for years on the use of the Washington football team named Redskins and the Wahoo chief logo with cartoon, emblem for the Cleveland Indians Baseball Team. But in the last year, those teams have decided to give up their Native American names, and the defending champion’s heads are generating more attention due to a second consecutive appearance on the biggest stage of the sport.
A coalition of Native American groups put up billboards in the Kansas City area to protest the tomahawk cutlet and the names of the bosses. A protest is planned in front of Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, the site of Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the coalition has hired a plane to fly around the area. Several thousand people signed two online petitions, one of which was initiated by a fourth grader.
The bosses made some changes in the fall, except for the war hairstyles and paint, and made a subtle cut of the chop, the cheerleaders using a clenched fist instead of an open palm to signal the beating of a drum.
But Gaylene Crouser, executive director of the Indian Center in Kansas City, found the changes ridiculous.
“They think that helps somehow and they keep singing that ridiculous Indian song from Hollywood, which is such a stereotypical Indian song, like old cowboy movies or something. I don’t know how I feel that made any difference, “she said.” And their fans don’t do it differently either. “
Chief President Mark Donovan said blocking the face paint and hairstyles at his stadium was an “important step”.
“You will have opinions from all sides on what we should and should not do,” he added. “We will continue to have these discussions. We will continue to make changes in the future and, hopefully, changes that do what we hope is the respect and honor of Native American heritage as we celebrate the fan experience.”
But the changes are not enough for Florida’s St. Petersburg-based Indigenous Rights and Environmental Equality, who plan to protest near the stadium on Sunday before the launch, singing and holding signs.
The group’s co-founder, Alicia Norris, described the chop as “extremely disrespectful”, saying it “evokes images of Native Americans, natives as savages.”
“Now the team wants to step back and say that we are culturally appropriate and respectful of the natives, saying they don’t have hairstyles,” she said. “And this is a good start, but the fans still work as if it’s an indigenous atmosphere, because you’re still called bosses. And you can continue this movement that looks like a tomahawk cutlet, but we’ll call it instead , a battery. It’s kind of stupid. Just change it. “
Fans of chefs long ago adopted the chanting and movement of arms that symbolized the brandishing of a tomahawk that began at Florida State University in the 1980s.
“When we’re down, it’s a rally call,” said Kile Chaney, a 42-year-old stone mason from Harrisonville, Missouri. “Just to hear all the fans make the tomahawk chop and hear it echo through the hallways is a nice noise we make here.”
Aaron Bien, a 61-year-old body repair shop owner in Hillsdale, Kansas, described it as different from any cheer.
“It’s the soul. It’s the blood of life,” said Bien, who had been a Chiefs season ticket holder for 15 years before the pandemic with limited seating capacity at the stadium this season.
He said the chop had “nothing to do with Native Americans,” noting that the team’s nickname may have more to do with the mayor who helped attract the Dallas franchise in 1963.
Mayor H. Roe Bartle has been known as the “Chief” for many years of leadership in Boy Scouts. The team’s owner, Lamar Hunt, reportedly named the Chiefs’ team in honor of Bartle.
Vincent Schilling, associate editor at Indian Country Today, said it doesn’t make it any better. He noted that although Bartle was white, he started a society of scouts called the “Little-O-Say Tribe,” which remains active and continues to use the attire and language of Native Americans. The young participants are “brave” and the top leader is the “boss”.
“He was named boss because he played Indian and falsely taught the Boy Scouts how to dress as Native Americans,” said Schilling, a member of the Mohawk tribe in St. Louis. Regis. “Everyone dressed like Indians who go to those games, perpetuating a horrible cultural stereotype for decades.”
He called the changes the team made to the chop “insulting” and “an absurd gesture with a lack of cultural responsibility.”