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.
Handbook of American Indians, Frederick W. Hodge,1906
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/history/indiannaming.htm
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