This news really has to make you wonder about what’s wrong with some people in Kansas:

Many Manhattan High School alumni fondly recall the ceramic mosaic of an Indian head — the school’s symbol — that was formerly in the floor in front of the school gymnasium.

Now they’re hoping to restore the Indian to its former glory and install it in a place of honor at the school.

The history of when the Indian mosaic was taken out of the floor — and eventually relegated to storage — is a little hazy at this point. But alums say they recall the mosaic as a source of pride — and torment.

“The seniors used to make the underclassmen shine it,” said alumna Cam Feltner. She recalled as well that it was understood that no one was to step on the Indian at any cost.

There’s something creepy about their used of the phrase “restore the Indian to its former glory”. This is not a shrine to Indians, it will not refer to the origin of the mascot, or the people who the mascot represents. So what “glory” do they mean, exactly?

At one point in the early 1970s, some students brought teacher and coach Earl Gritton’s Volkswagen in through the gym and pushed it part way onto the Indian. Gritton’s wife Lois said the students chickened out and ran off before they got the car fully on top of the mascot.

By the time MHS alum Larry McCarthy arrived at the school in 1973, the Indian was protected by the aforementioned fence. McCarthy heard tales, though, of seniors throwing sophomores onto the fenced-in Indian and making them spit shine it either with their rear-end or a rag.

It would be one thing if they decided to explore the significance of the mosaic in relation to the fate of the Arapaho, Comanche, Kansa, Kiowa, Osage, or Pawnee tribes (all natives of the area that became Kansas). Maybe they could review how Indians served to protect Kansans, such as Pélathé’s famous ride to the city of Lawrence to warn them of raiders from Missouri.

But no, this group apparently not only thinks it honorable to have an “Indian head” as a plain mascot, but to enshrine it as a symbol of years of maltreatment and disrepect. Needless to say, this is a fine example of how some public school “associations” can be so far out of touch with modern values and progress in diversity that they grasp for comfort in historic symbols of how/when they “ruled” their roost. This reminds me of the colonials who never could adjust or recover from the news that they were misinformed about inequality of race, color, creed…

“We’re pretty sure we’re going to take it on as a project,” said Fiser. “Quite a few of the officers and directors have said, ‘let’s take this on.’ We think it’s a great thing to do to preserve history and tradition for our high school.”

I can think of a hundred other things an alumni association should do to preserve a real history and tradition of their school, instead of futzing around with a controversial mosaic that plays up cluelessness and insensitivity.

Call David Fiser if you would like to give him your opinion about the project and the mascot: 913-537-9123

Ironically, the Indian model of using resources without claiming exclusive rights has become a hot topic again today. Groups around the world, such as IndiCare, are joining together to debate and fight against digital rights legislation that criminalizes sharing, with the French leading the way within the Western legal system. Do they have the strength and courage to stand up to the recording industry?

As far as the history of this sort of conflict goes, we can only hope that the DRM battle does not end with the industry bringing in some big guns. Now that historians are reporting how the West was really won, PBS provides some chilling insight of the method of extermination practiced by soldiers “protecting” their territory:

Big Foot decided to lead his people away from the possibility of further violence at neighboring Standing Rock and headed farther south toward the reservation at Pine Ridge, hoping to find safety there. Increasingly ill with pneumonia, he had no intention of fighting and was flying a white flag when soldiers patrolling for roving bands caught up with him on December 28, 1890. That night Big Foot and his people camped near Wounded Knee Creek, surrounded on all sides by soldiers.

The next morning, the soldiers set up several large Hotchkiss guns on a hill overlooking the camp and began confiscating the Indians’ weapons. When a gun accidentally went off, they opened fire, and within a few minutes, some 370 Lakota lay dead, many of them cut down by the deadly Hotchkiss guns as they sought shelter against a creek bank. The soldiers even pursued fleeing women and children, shooting some as far as two miles from the site of the original confrontation. One Indian witness remembered:

A mother was shot down with her infant; the child not knowing that its mother was dead was still nursing… The women as they were fleeing with their babies were killed together… and after most of them had been killed a cry was made that all those who were not killed or wounded should come forth and they would be safe. Little boys… came out of their places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight a number of soldiers surrounded them and butchered them there.

Right. The question of heritage is not so simple. Is the Indian head mascot a celebration of positive contributions and diverse opinions, or displays of egregious power and disrespect? And aside from that, is the money spent restoring a mosaic from a gym really helping promote a positive heritage and contributing to a richer sense of community for students, let alone the school alumni?