Unbridled shaming of past naming can lead to self-righteousness

Art Gallery of Ontario was totally off base in renaming Emily Carr’s iconic painting

If ever there was a much-quoted yet outright falsehood, then that adage about sticks and stones breaking bones, but names not hurting anyone is the ultimate wrong-headed example.

Because the sting of words lingers long after bones repair, wounds heal and scars fade. They follow us to our graves: Some careless, long-ago slight by a distracted parent, a cruel comment by a once-upon-atime childhood bully.

They stick mercilessly to our souls, no matter what reason and logic we wish upon ourselves.

That’s why the word Indian — that six-letter equal mix of vowels and consonants — contains and ignites so much angst, anger and anxiety across this country.

So the announced renaming of the Indian Village for next year’s Calgary Stampede festivities is a welcome change. Yet a similar recent abandonment of that same word in the title of a famous Emily Carr painting is not.

There’s a huge difference in play here, and one that, if left unchecked, risks running amok — perhaps those of Malayan heritage might want to eradicate that word as well, given its roots — in an orgy of high-minded self-righteousness.

With the Stampede’s Indian Village, we have an ongoing cultural event whose name is now judged old-fashioned and offensive to a fair number of the people both taking part and visiting.

The Stampede, which has been as culturally sensitive as any Canadian organization stretching back more than a century, handled the situation perfectly. They surveyed those who set up teepees on the site, and while some wanted to retain the old name for historical reasons, the majority wanted it changed, choosing instead Elbow River Camp.

So if the Stampede got it spot on, then the Art Gallery of Ontario was totally off base in deciding to rename one of Emily Carr’s most iconic paintings, which she titled Indian Church back in 1929.

The title of the artwork hanging in the Toronto gallery is now changed to Church At Yuquot Village, as a nod to the B.C. community where Carr long ago painted the piece.

Carr herself was as far from a racist colonial as was possible for a woman of that time, capturing in her bold, brooding canvases much of what’s now lost from cultures along the West Coast.

So, if she was paying her own homage to “Indian” society of that time, who are the busybodies of the AGO to change an individual’s chosen title 90 years later?

If this continues, then nothing is safe: Shall we change Tolstoy’s War and Peace to Resolution Following Conflict because the original stresses too much the militaristic nature of Russia’s struggle against Napoleon, or Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew to The Triumph of Feminism, as the word shrew is degrading?

Perhaps the theme of Orwell’s 1984 is so typically maledominated that a more inclusive name change is required: How does Big Trans Gender Is Watching You sound?

Artists, writers, explorers and leaders of the past were citizens of that very society.

Their works and deeds reflected the norms of that day and, as such, they were not intrinsically bad people.

And even if they were, no one still gets the right to change their actual words today — even banishment is preferable to such alteration.

If the AGO or any Indigenous people they surveyed were concerned about Indian Church, they could have placed a plaque beside it explaining that the offending word was in common usage at the time and Carr was simply reflecting this.

But no, instead, they wanted to get their fingers on something they themselves weren’t capable of, a true work of art, and by dabbling in name change, grab for themselves some fleeting, cheap and pale reflected glory. And then feeling morally superior into the bargain.

Nelson is a Calgary writer