Jayhawkers and Border Ruffians
Don Coldsmith, Syndicated Columnist
Monday, March 16, 2009
WITH COLLEGE basketball coming on, we’ll probably be hearing a lot about the Kansas Jayhawks of KU. We’ll see the mascot, resplendent in blue and red plumage, the “Jayhawk.”
My maternal grandmother, to her dying day, was embarrassed about that situation. It was scandalous to her that a state university of her beloved Kansas would select as their mascot such a dastardly creature as a “Jayhawker.” She knew about them — she’d “been there and done that,” as the saying goes, as a small girl during the border war that led to the War Between the States.
I encountered this again as I was researching for my “South Wind” historical novel. I was using a considerable amount of material published in the 1880s, covering the previous 30 years or so. There was a lot of conflict about whether Kansas Territory and its subsequent statehood would be oriented to North or South, politically. There was a lot of raiding and looting and killing across the Kansas-Missouri border, by both sides.
Oddly, the Jayhawker term was apparently applied first to Missourians who crossed the border to raid. Let’s get the term straight: “Jayhawk” was a bird or even a person. It was a VERB, meaning much the same as “bushwhack,” only worse. One who bushwhacks, or attacks from ambush, is, of course, a bushwhacker. Similarly, one who jayhawks, with dastardly raids across the border, is a jayhawker. The term was applied to raiders of either political view.
Gradually, this changed. In the late 1850s, a politician with Northern sympathies referred to the Missouri raiders as “border ruffians.” With great good humor, they proudly adopted the name, along with assorted others. It isn’t clear exactly when Kansas raiders began to do the same with the jayhawking term, becoming “jayhawkers.”
If this sounds like good-humored fun, keep in mind that these ruffians and jayhawkers killed several hundred people. These were the first casualties of the so-called Civil War, well before the events at Fort Sumter.
But how did a very serious crime evolve into a silly-looking bird? The criminal and murderous act of jayhawking was all but forgotten, (except by people of my grandmother’s generation, who lived through it). This may be one of the most remarkable examples in history of political correctness out of control — sanitize it by denying that it happened. Pretend that there was a legend about a gigantic bird called a “jayhawk,” and the criminal act, jayhawking, is forgotten. Jayhawk becomes a noun instead of the verb, “to jayhawk.” The bird story is more palatable and more fun than the real, murderous facts of the case.
The first cartoons of the jayhawk seem to have a beak somewhat like that of an eagle or a buzzard. In fact, one version I’ve seen looked pretty much like a buzzard all the way. Possibly this was in recognition of his origins. But, by shortly after 1900, the stylized jayhawk (the bird, not the ambush) looked a little friendlier, with an oversized beak that had begun to resemble that of a toucan. The claws had morphed into appendages more like feet. For some odd reason, most of the old cartoon jayhawks wear shoes. (No other clothes, just shoes. I don’t even want to know — ). Some versions now have restored a little hook to the beak, maybe to make the sports logo look a little more threatening.
Interesting, how such things evolve. A couple of centuries ago, American Indians on the East Coast had trouble pronouncing “English.” It came out something like “yen-gleesh,” or yen-gee — YANKEES. British troops arrogantly used the term for British colonists, later American citizens. In fact, they wrote a derisive song about it, which Americans took for their own, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”
See you down the road.
Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.