On an average NFL Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, one is bound to see some tomahawk chops. Maybe some Native American headdresses.
The stadium is the home of the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, one of several American sports teams that copy Native American imagery and traditions. Now that the Chiefs will take the field for Super Bowl LIV, their customs and costumes are on full display.
How did the team, founded in 1959, come to have such a loaded name? And why does the practice of such cultural appropriation still endure?
How the Kansas City Chiefs got their name
What makes all of this so intriguing is that the Chiefs’ are named after a white man who impersonated Native American culture.
Vincent Schilling, a Mohawk journalist who has covered sports and writes on Native American culture, says it started with, of all things, the Boy Scouts.
The Tribe of Mic-O-Say is part of the Boy Scouts of America program, which was created by Harold Roe Bartle in 1925.
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