Wasichu
From Fresh Dictionary
English
Noun
Wasichu
The people who lived west of the Missouri River on the Northern Plains of what today is the United States in the late 1700s and 1800s called themselves "Lakota," meaning "allies" or "friends", a word which provides the semantic basis for Dakota. Lakota is a dialect of the Siouan language as is Nakota/Nakoda and Dakota. The first European people to meet the Lakota called them "Sioux," a contraction of Nadowessioux, a now-archaic French-Canadian word meaning "snake" or enemy. This was based upon the Ojibwa's derogatory term for the Siouan people, which did in fact mean "enemy".
The Lakota also used the metaphor to describe the newcomers. It was Wasi'chu, which is variously identified with various meanings. Some state the word means "takes the fat," or "greedy person." Others claim a more droll meaning, "runty wizard," referring to the short stature and mechanical ability of early fur traders and mountain men whom the Lakota encountered, and perhaps referring to the firearms which the Wasi'chu provided to the Ojibwe and which were used to drive the Lakota and their fellows of the Seven Council Fires out of Wisconsin and Minnesota in the 1700s.
Within the modern Indian movement, Wasi'chu has come to mean those corporations and individuals, with their governmental accomplices, which continue to covet Indian lives, land, and resources for private profit. It is also used, in general, to refer to non-AmerInd people, predominantly Anglos.
To some people, Wasi'chu does not describe a race; it describes a state of mind. Wasi'chu is also a human condition based on inhumanity, racism, and exploitation. To others, it is simply a word to describe all non-AmerInd.