I think maybe they could have saved this mascot if they had promoted it properly. The Chief was a pretty regal character. If I understand the objections, it is bad stereotyping. The war chant probably should have been the first thing to go. If I remember correctly, they had an opportunity to have an actual Native American student be the Chief one time and chose a white guy. There should have been relationship built with the local first nations people asking them to direct the image and offering a scholarship available only to Native Americans to the person who would be Chief. Change the dance and music to something honorable and authentic.
Maybe they tried this and the First Nations felt it could never be done with dignity. I don't know but instead of controlling the First Nations Narrative, it is being erased slowly as many things are renamed and narrative focuses so title on the atrocities that we don't know much about the culture, which in some cases was very advanced and noble, that is being lost.
Did you know that the Cahokia Pyramid in Illinois is among the latest in the world?
“The largest of these mounds,
Monk’s Mound covers 16 acres; it rests on a base 1,037 feet long and 790 feet wide, with a total volume of approximately 21,690,000 cubic feet, a base and total volume greater than that of the pyramid of Khufu, the largest in Egypt. In all the world, only the pyramids at Cholula and Teotihuacan in central Mexico surpass the Cahokia pyramid in size and total volume. No other structure in the United States approached the size of the Cahokia pyramid until the building of airplane hangars, the Pentagon, and skyscrapers in the twentieth century.” [1]
