Shalom Berhane
The Ski-U-Mah sign at the Starbucks on Washington Avenue on Friday. Dakota language students fight to be heard about the impacts of the slogan “Ski-U-Mah.”
When thousands of fans fill Huntington Bank Stadium, Williams Arena or 3M Arena at Mariucci, the chant “Ski-U-Mah” echoes throughout the arena.
The odds of the fans knowing what they are saying are low.
According to the Gopher Athletics History page, two Minnesota rugby players in 1884, John W. Adams and Win Sargent, wanted a fitting chant for their team.
Adams claimed he remembered hearing a young Native American boy yelling “Ski-ooh” after winning a canoe race on Lake Pepin, located in southeastern Minnesota, assuming it was the Dakota word for victory.
Adams and Sargent added “Mah” to represent the University and because it rhymes with “Rah,” now the University uses it as a cry of victory.
Deacon DeBoer, a Dakota graduate student at the University, said he is hesitant to accept this origin story.
“That’s really the only story there is, which is kind of telling about the background of the word,” DeBoer said.
In the Dakota language, each word has an oral history and meaning, and – according to DeBoer – there is no oral history of any word associated with “Ski-ooh.”
The Dakota word for victory is “Woohiye,” pronounced “Woo-he-yay.”
Whether that story is true, the effort to “honor” Indigenous culture inadvertently became a harmful stereotype. The pronunciation and interpretation of “Ski-U-Mah,” predominantly spoken by white students and faculty members, became distorted over time.
“I think it needs to be stated publicly that this is not a Dakota word, this is not related to any Dakota people, and that it has caused harm,” DeBoer said.
Several Native groups raised the question about the harm of the saying and Indigenous students and faculty in the linguistics department said they voiced the issue.
“For instance, the University culture reveres its problematic founders and continues to downplay and gloss over the misappropriation of Dakhóta language for a sports slogan,” according to the CLA Institute of Linguistics.
Ava Hartwell, a first-year University student double majoring in Dakota language and journalism, said the phrase is a mockery toward her people.
“It’s mocking what white people think Dakota, or any Indigenous groups, celebrations sound like,” Hartwell said.
Although many do not know the history of the slogan “Ski-U-Mah,” the University athletics department said it stems from the Dakota language, which is false.
Continuing to say it is a word from the Dakota language contributes to the cycle of cultural appropriation of Indigenous people.
“It’s kind of like our version of the Tomahawk chop,” Hartwell said, referring to the expression found at stadiums like the Florida State Seminoles, Atlanta Braves and the Kansas City Chiefs.
Native Americans across the country expressed their frustrations in celebrations like the Tomahawk chop which attribute to harmful stereotypes of Indigenous people.
“It’s not going to go away at all, because it’s so embedded into our identity at our school, but that says a lot about our school too,” Hartwell said.
Destiny Big Crow, a first-year Lakota student in the American Indian Studies program, said it was just another way for the University to benefit from Indigenous people.
“I think it degrades the descriptive language that the Dakota language really is,” Big Crow said.
The TRUTH Report, a research project examining the mistreatment and injustices committed by the University toward Indigenous people, touched on the “Ski-U-Mah” slogan.
“We’ve made great strides in restoring our language, but continue to see mistranslations and misattributed words that supposedly describe who we are. The University has greatly benefited from the sale of merchandise featuring this phrase. Has the University of Minnesota used any of those funds to help Native students?” according to the TRUTH Report.
Indigenous languages all across the country are facing extinction due to colonization, forced assimilation and cultural suppression, Big Crow said. Phrases like “Ski-U-Mah” can overshadow the authenticity of the language and contribute to the loss of Native languages.
“To see ‘Ski-U-Mah’ be used by generations of students unaware of the backstory only continues that idea of representation that dates back to a very colonial time,” Big Crow said.
The funding for this reporting position comes from a grant given to The Minnesota Daily from the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, with money from the Freedom Forum. The Daily retains editorial independence from the University of Minnesota in all forms, including this reporting position.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the name of a linguistics department. It is called the Institute of Linguistics.