In each western film you hear i native Americans exclaim “Augh!“, However, This expression was not really used. In reality, it is an invention of writers and directors, rather than a historical tradition. To create this false myth (or rather, they spread it) were European and American writers and directors of the 19th and 1900s. The first to use it is probably James Fenimore Cooperauthor of The last of the Mohicani (1826), which characterizes his indigenous characters with a guttural sound“UGH” type, to give a “Exotic” touchoften accompanied by a gesture with the raised hand and the palm facing forward.
Hollywood has amplified everything: in the western of the 1930s -60, i “REMBERSA“(Also now exceeded and not exactly correct) of the most important tribes such as the Haida, the Navajo, the Kwakiutl, the TLINGIT, the Tsimshian and Chinook they communicated to “Ugh” strokes, they spoke little and all seemed the same. A huge simplificationwho helped to create stereotypes Still hard to die, since the real habits of the natives were different: in reality they used the word “hog“To greet, that the British transcribe with” Haug “and the Italians pronounce (and write)” Augh “, wrong. Certainly in some real native languages there are also guttural sounds or short expressions: for example, in the language Lakota (one of the main sioux peoples), there is a greeting “Háu“, traditionally used by adult males to greet other men, and it is probably a linguistic loan. It is therefore not to be excluded that a real greeting (” Háu “) has been transformed, by simplification, into a generic mugugno.
Why is it important to talk about it? It seems a little curiosity, but in reality These stereotypes have done big damage. Reducing complex cultures to a monosyllabic sound gave the idea that the Native American were “simple”, “primitive”, all the same. Instead let’s talk about hundreds of different peopleswith hundreds of languages and traditions. Using an incorrect greeting may seem trivial, but contributes to creating wrong images that drag themselves for centuries.
