SALAMANCA — For the first time in 45 years, the Salamanca “Warrior” logo is going to look a little different.

The traditional school logo of a Seneca male, originally designed by Carson Waterman and introduced in 1978, has received an update from the Seneca artist. The Board of Education adopted the updated design as the district’s official logo Tuesday.

The Seneca Nation granted the Salamanca City Central School District permission to continue using the logo and Warrior nickname in May after the New York State Board of Regents announced in 2022 that public schools with Indigenous nicknames, logos or mascots must change them. The only exception was if a federally recognized tribe residing in New York gave a district permission.

“We went through a rather rigorous process for several months gathering community feedback,” said Dr. Mark Beehler, district superintendent. During one a public feedback session, Waterman presented an updated version of the logo for the school if the district were granted permission to continue using it, Beehler said.

“We then collaborated and worked with the Seneca Nation, and through their efforts they endorsed that, and we continue to use the logo that we have, what we refer to as our Warrior logo, and continue to be the Warriors,” he said.

The updated logo is very similar to the logo the district has used since the 1970s, Beehler said, but there are also several notable changes in the design. He said the district’s Native American Curriculum Team has developed some informational material around the logo to go with it.

“Information that can be used and will be shared not only with community members but everywhere our logo goes so we have a better understanding of the logo itself,” Beehler added.

As with the original logo, the Senecas, or the Onöndowa’ga:’ people, are the “Keepers of the Western Door,” which is why the male in the logo faces west. The man in the logo also continues to wear his hair in a long braid. It is common in indigenous communities to see both men and women wear long hair in resistance to the boarding school experience of the 19th and 20th centuries when children were forced to have short haircuts.

Among the changes are to the gasto:wä’, or feathered headdress, worn only by Hodinöhsö:ni’ (Iroquois) men to identify their nation. The logo’s headdress shows one feather sticking up to indicate the Onöndowa’ga:’.

Additionally, the skin tone for the man in the logo was at Waterman’s discretion, noting that it’s an inaccurate stereotype to assume all indigenous people have the same skin tone and look alike. Waterman’s signature is also incorporated into the logo itself.

“Historically, Native American art has had the artist’s name taken away, and we wanted to do our best to try to undo that,” Beehler said. “Since this is (Waterman’s) design, we want to make sure that he was associated with it.”

Before Waterman’s original design in the mid-1970s, the district used a caricatured “American Indian” logo featuring the profile of a stereotyped indigenous person. The headdress style depicted most closely resembled that of Plains tribes in the central United States, whose homelands are more than 1,000 miles east of New York.

Most of the Salamanca school district lies within the Allegany Territory of the Seneca Nation. At least 30% of Salamanca students identify as Native American, with one recent poll at 38%. Additionally, many athletics teams in Salamanca have a large number of Seneca students on their rosters, with some teams, such as boys and girls lacrosse, consisting mostly of Seneca players.

The Regents board voted unanimously on the decision without discussion. The proposal was announced by the state Education Department in November 2022, and education officials began urging school boards to begin the process to change mascot images and names ever since.

The “Warriors” name has been used by Salamanca High School since at least the 1930s, with the name used several times in a 1937 yearbook. The district’s logo and identity was reaffirmed in 2001 when a similar statement made by the state Education Department required districts to decide whether to change when an initial ban on utilizing Native American name and imagery was implemented.