EASTON, Pa. (AP) -- Burnt sienna is for coloring houses and trees. Brick red is for fireplaces. Goldenrod is the sun. And indian red?
"To color Indians," 7-year-old Danny Lamorte said recently about the reddish-brown Crayola crayon.Though his mortified mother, Maryalice Lamorte of Yardley, insists the first grader was kidding or showing off, Crayola has decided to end such youthful misunderstandings.
For only the third time in its 96-year history, Crayola will change the name of a crayon.
Crayola says indian red was based on a reddish-brown pigment commonly found near India. But the manufacturer has gotten complaints from teachers who say students think the color has to do with American Indians.
"Little children take words and names very literally," said Louise Cosgrove, an art teacher in Allentown. "To them, they think indian red is the color of a Native American's skin."
Suggestions for the new name will be accepted over the next three months.
Indian red -- with a lower-case "i" -- debuted in the Crayola lineup in 1958, when the 64-crayon box was introduced.
"If it confuses children, it's something that should be re-evaluated," Crayola spokeswoman Tracey Muldoon Moran said. "It's easy enough for us to remedy the situation by renaming the crayon."
The name change is only the third in the 96-year history of Crayola, a division of Binney & Smith.
In 1958, "prussian blue" was renamed "midnight blue," because teachers said students were no longer familiar with Prussian history. In 1962, "flesh" was changed to "peach" to recognize that "everyone's skin tone is not the same," Ms. Moran said.
The most recent name change "underscores the American public's growing sensitivity to images and symbols which have been perceived as offensive to Native Americans and more importantly to native children," said JoAnn K. Chase, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians.
Fourth-grade teacher Gayle Ganser of Allentown agreed the name change was long overdue.
"Children, especially the age levels I'm dealing with, they make literal associations between the words they know and their prior knowledge. So when they hear indian red, two words that they know, they automatically make the association that that is what indians look like," Mrs. Ganser said.
Crayola currently makes 120 crayon colors, plus eight colors that were retired in 1990 and replaced with new shades. In 1993, Crayola introduced 16 new colors for its new 96-count box, with the names selected from nearly 2 million suggestions sent in from kids, parents and colorers nationwide. Another 24 new colors were added in 1998.