Wah-hoo-wah

The Kelsi Yell
Daniel Rollins, a student in the Dartmouth College class of 1879, collaborated with Greek Professor John C. Proctor to invent a new yell for the school that had what they believed was an appropriately "Indian" sound to it:

"Wah-Hoo-Wah; / Wah-Hoo-Wah; / Da-di-di-Dartmouth, / Wah-Hoo-Wah, / Tige-r-r-r---"

(The conclusion "Tigerrr" was not a reference to a mascot, it was simply a common cry of aggression in collegiate yells, equivalent to "Get 'em.")

The Indian Yell, as it became known, soon spread to the University of Virginia (where it survives and has led to the nickname wahoos) and to the University of Illinois (where it did not last long). Dartmouth students, who had shortened the full yell to simply "Wah-hoo-wah," largely stopped using it during the late 1970s amid new concern over the tastefulness of the school's traditional use of Indian mascots, symbols, and the nickname "Indians."

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