'They are mocking our traditional songs': Oneida official speaks out against Kansas City fans' chant

There might be a distraction in Sunday night’s Green Bay-Kansas City game at Lambeau Field other than possible appearances from superstars Simone Biles and Taylor Swift.

Since the Chiefs last came to Green Bay, in 2015, calls for the team to change their nickname have grown louder from tribal leaders and advocates locally and nationally.

This especially after other major pro sports teams, such as the former Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins, recently changed their race-based Native American names.

The Chiefs organization has banned headdresses and face paint from fans at home games, but some fans still wear the costumes to away games.

The Packers don't have an official policy that bans headdresses, so there might be Chiefs fans wearing them Sunday night.

Lambeau Field is only a few miles from the Oneida Reservation and the Oneida Nation is a major sponsor of the Packers.

“There is an issue with that representation and imagery and how the country sees tribes and Indian people,” said Oneida Nation Vice Chairman Brandon Yellowbird-Stevens.

He said fans wearing war paint and headdresses don't necessarily convey respect for Native Americans. Instead, they harken to a time when Indigenous peoples were caricatured in U.S. media.

Yellowbird-Stevens also pointed out that only some of the hundreds of tribes in North America actually wore full headdresses and said the imagery depicted by some Kansas City fans stereotypes Indigenous peoples to a time in the past when their land was being stolen.

Yellowbird-Stevens said the way Kansas City fans chant alongside the beating of a large drum while doing a "tomahawk chop" at their home field, Arrowhead Stadium, is offensive.

“To us, they are mocking our traditional songs, our ceremonial songs,” he said.

More: Normalcy of tomahawk chop, Chiefs 'war chant' remains wrong and sickening | Opinion

During Washington’s final visit to Green Bay under the Redskins name in 2019, the Oneida Nation created and aired a commercial on the video board at the game.

There were also large protests outside Lambeau by Indigenous peoples and their supporters who opposed the name.

The Oneida Nation didn't create a commercial for this Sunday’s game and Yellowbird-Stevens said any rallies would be organic and organized at the last minute.

In Wisconsin, tribal leaders from each of the 11 federally recognized tribes in the state have called for the use of race-based Native mascots, logos and names by non-tribal teams to be stopped.

The issue is brought up every year during the State of the Tribes Address by tribal leaders to legislators in Madison.

And the Wisconsin Indian Education Association Mascot Task Force has been advocating for school districts in Wisconsin to discontinue the names for sports teams.

There are still more than two dozen school districts in Wisconsin that use such names, including four that use “Chiefs” — Wisconsin Dells, Shiocton, Cornell and Big Foot.

Frank Vaisvilas is a former Report for America corps member who covers Native American issues in Wisconsin based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact him at fvaisvilas@gannett.com or 815-260-2262. Follow him on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Kansas City Chiefs fans' customs anger Oneida Nation official