While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Among the Indians personal
names were given and changed at the critical epochs of life, such as
birth, puberty, the first war expedition, some notable feat, elevation
to chieftainship, and, finally, retirement from active life was marked
by the adoption of the name of one's son. In general, names may be
divided into two classes: (1) True names, corresponding to our
personal names, and (2) names which answer rather to our titles and
honorary appellations. The former define or indicate the social group
into which a man is
born, whatever honor they entail being due to the accomplishments of
ancestors, while the latter mark what the individual has done himself.
There are characteristic tribal differences in names,
and where a clan system existed each clan had its own set of navies,
distinct froth those of all other clans, and, in the majority of
cases, referring to the totem animal, plant, or object. At the same
time there were tribes in which names apparently had nothing to do
with totems, and some such names were apt to occur in clans having
totemic navies. Most Siouan clans and bands had names that were
applied in a definite order to the boys and girls born into them. A
Mohave child born out of wedlock received some ancient name, not
commonly employed in the tribe. Among the interior Salish, where there
were no clans, names were usually inherited in both the male and
female lines for several generations, though new names were
continually introduced that were taken from dreams or noteworthy
events. Loskiel records that a Delaware child was often named in
accordance with some dream that had come to its father. According to
Ross, a father among some of the northern Athapascan tribes lost his
name as soon as a male child was born and was henceforth called after
the name of his son; a Thlingchadinne changed his name after the birth
of each successive child, while an unmarried man was known as the
child of his favorite dog. Among the Maidu infants might be named with
reference to some incident occurring at the time of birth, but many
received no names other than such general appellations as 'child,'
'baby,' or 'boy,' until they were old enough to exhibit some
characteristic which suggested something appropriate. The father and
mother addressed a boy all his life by his boyhood name. A girl,
however, received different successive names at puberty, childbirth,
and in old age. The Kiowa, being without clans, received names
suggested by some passing incident or to commemorate a warlike exploit
of some ancestor. Sometimes, however, they were hereditary, and in any
case they were bestowed by the grandparents to the exclusion of the
parents. Young men as they grew up usually assumed dream names, in
obedience to visions.
The naming of a rich man's child among the coast Salish
was accompanied by a great feast and distribution of property, and an
invited chief publicly announced the name given. Names even originally
belonging to the higher class were bestowed upon young people among
the Haida and Tlingit when their relatives bad potlatches, and it thus
resulted that names individually acquired became in time hereditary
and were added to the list of common manes owned by the clan.
The second name, or title, was sometimes, as has been
said, bestowed on account of some brave or meritorious action. Thus a
Pawnee "was permitted to take a new name only after the performance of
an act indicative of great ability or strength of character," and it
was done during a public ceremonial. Among the Siouan tribes a similar
custom seems to have prevailed, but among the Haidu of California
entrance into the secret society took its place as a reason for the
bestowal of new titles. On the northwest coast a man adopted one of
the potlatch, or sacred, names of his predecessor when he gave the
mortuary feast and erected the grave post. At every subsequent
potlatch he was at liberty to adopt an additional title, either one
used by his predecessor or a new one commemorative of an encounter
with a supernatural being or of some success in war or feast giving.
Along with his place in a secret society a Kwakiutl obtained the right
to certain sacred names which had been received by the first holder of
his position from the spirit patron of the society and were used only
during the season of the ceremonial, like the titles employed in the
fraternal and other societies of civilized life. The second name among
this people also marks individual excellence rather than the
attainment of an hereditary position, for the person did not succeed
to the office, but had to pass through a long period of training and
labor to be accepted. After a man died his name was held in abeyance
for a longer or shorter period, and if it were taken from the name of
some familiar object, the name of that object often had to be altered,
but the taboo period was not longer than would allow the person's
successor to collect his property and give the death feast, and a
simple phonetic change often satisfied all scruples. Changes of this
kind seem to have been carried to greater extremes by some tribes,
notably the Kiowa, where, on the death of any member of a family all
the others take new names, while all the terms suggesting the name of
the dead person are dropped from the language for a period of years.
Among the coast Salish a single name was often used by successive
chiefs for four or five generations. Among the Iroquois and cognate
tribes, according to Hewitt, the official name of a chieftaincy is
also the official name of the officer who may for the time being
become installed in it, and the name of this chieftaincy is never
changed, no matter how many persons may successively become incumbents
of it. Unlike the Indians of most tribes, a Pueblo, although bearing
several names, usually retained one name throughout life. In many
tribes a curious custom prohibited a man from directly addressing his
wife, his mother-in-law, and sometimes his father-in-law, and vice
versa.
Names of men and women were usually, though not always,
different. When not taken from the totem animal, they were often
grandiloquent terms referring to the greatness and wealth of the
bearer, or they might commemorate some special triumph of the family,
while, as among the Navaho, nicknames referring to a personal
characteristic were often used. The first name frequently refers to
something which especially impressed the child's mother at the time of
its birth. Often names were ironical and had to be interpreted in a
manner directly opposite to the apparent sense. A failure to
understand this, along with faulty interpretation, has brought about
strange, sometimes ludicrous, misconceptions. Thus the name of a
Dakota chief, translated 'Youngman-afraid-of-his-horses,' really
signifies 'Young man whose very horses are feared." Where the clan
system did not flourish, as among the Salish, the name often indicated
the object in nature in which a person's guardian spirit was supposed
to dwell. Names for houses and canoes went by families and clans like
personal names and property in general.
Names could often be loaned, pawned, or even given or
thrown away outright; on the other hand, they might be adopted out of
revenge without the consent of the owner. The possession of a name was
everywhere jealously guarded, and it was considered discourteous or
even insulting to address one directly by it. This reticence, on the
part of some Indians at least, appears to have been due to the fact
that every man, and every thing as well, was supposed to have a real
name which so perfectly expressed his inmost nature as to be
practically identical with him. This name might long remain unknown to
all, even to its owner, but at some critical period in life it was
confidentially revealed to him. It was largely on account of this
sacred character that an Indian commonly refused to give his proper
designation, or, when pressed for an answer, asked someone else to
speak it. Among the Maidu it was not customary, in addressing a
person, to use the name descriptive of his personal characteristics.
In modern times the problem of satisfactorily naming
Indians for purposes of permanent record has been very puzzling owing
to their custom of changing names and to the ignorance on the part of
persons in authority of native customs and methods of reckoning
descent. According to Mooney, Setimkia, 'Bear bearing down (an
antagonist),' the honorable war name of a noted Kiowa chief, is
mistranslated `Stumbling Bear.' Tenepiabi, 'Bird coining into sight',
has been popularly known as 'Hummingbird' since he was a prisoner in
Florida in 1875, probably a mistake for 'Coming bird.' Hajo, a Creek
war title signifying 'recklessly brave,' is popularly rendered
'crazy,' as in the case of Chito Hajo, leader of the Creek opposition
to allotment, whose name is popularly and officially rendered 'Crazy
Snake.' Even when translated correctly an Indian name often conveys an
impression to a white man quite the reverse of the Indian connotation.
Thus 'Stinking Saddle Blanket' (Takaibodal) might be considered an
opprobious epithet, whereas it is an honorary designation, meaning
that the bearer of it, a Kiowa, was on the warpath so continuously
that he did not have time to take off his saddle blanket.
'Unable-to-buy,' the name of a Haida chief, instead of indicating his
poverty, commemorates an occasion when a rival chief did not have
enough property to purchase a copper plate he offered for sale.
In recent years the Office of Indian Affairs has
made an effort to systematize the names of some of the Indians for the
purpose of facilitating land allotments, etc. By circular issued Dec.
1, 1902, the office set forth the following principles governing the
recording of Indian names on agency rolls, etc:
(1) The father's name should be the family surname;
(2) the Indian name, unless too long and clumsy, should be preferred
to a translation;
(3) a clumsy name may be arbitrarily shortened (by one familiar with
the language) without losing its identity;
(4) if the use of a translation seems necessary, or if a translation
has come into such general and accepted use that it ought to be
retained, that name should be written as one word.
