MHS Mohigan: Keep the name, lose the feathers

Not that anyone has asked, but since everyone else seems to have an opinion on the Morgantown High School Mohigan, we’d thought we’d give our two cents.

Here’s the short of it: Keep the name if you’d like, but lose the feathers.

As many people have pointed out — including some our readers — the name “Mohigan” came from shortening the yearbook’s name — Morgantown High Annual — which has nothing to do with Native Americans or Indigenous cultures. But somewhere along the way, someone decided to play a word-association game and decided “Mohigan” sounded enough like “Mohican” to warrant adding a feathered headdress to the school’s logo and dressing the majorettes in Native-American-inspired garb. While Morgantown High has never had an official mascot in the way that WVU has the Mountaineer, the Red and Blue Marching Band’s head majorette — called the Mohiganette — wears a gold dress with white fringe and a full feathered headdress. The rest of the majorettes wear blue or red dresses with white fringe and feathered headbands. It is this appropriation of Native American culture to which people object.

Bob Pirner, who grew up on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, explained it best when he posted the following on Facebook: “That headdress comes from the northern plains tribes like the Lakota and the Cheyenne. It is a sign of great honor to be gifted one to wear. It is earned through a lifetime of service, good character, leadership and exemplifying the Lakota virtues of generosity, courage, fortitude and wisdom. … To see it worn in a parade by a teenager is an affront to those individuals who have earned that right. To see it on a school’s logo weakens and diminishes the accomplishments of those individuals who spent a lifetime earning that.”

We can understand the resistance to change. We understand it can be painful to let go of the image of the “Mohigan” we have in our heads. For graduates, it’s a matter of legacy and identity: If we aren’t the Morgantown High Mohigans, then who are we?

No matter how the logo or name changes, past Morgantown High graduates will always be able to say we were Mohigans — because, at the time we graduated, we were. Every generation has its traditions, and those traditions change through the years. There’s a new band director in town, a new year gearing up and the opportunity for a clean slate. If the next generation of Morgantown High School students wants to create a new tradition — whether it be as simple as a logo change or as extensive as a name change — that is their prerogative. (The “Morgantown High Mothmen” has been suggested, which, while geographically inaccurate, does have nice alliteration. But we’d also like to point out that hawks’ natural predators include eagles and great-horned owls. Just saying.)

It’s the next generation’s turn to make the Morgantown High experience what they want it to be. And alumni shouldn’t stand in their way.