The system under which the Indians have their personal names is intricate, and difficult to explain. In the first place, a name, which may be called the proper name, is always given to a young child soon after birth. It is said to be proper that the peaiman, or medicine-man, should choose and give this name; but, at any rate now, the naming seems more often left to the parents. The word selected is generally the name of some plant, bird, or other natural object. Among Arawak proper names may be mentioned Yambenassi (night-monkey) and Yuri-tokoro (tobacco-flower), and among Macusi names Ti-ti (owl), Cheripung (star?), and Simiri (locust-tree). But these names seem of little use, in that owners have a very strong objection to telling or using them, apparently on the ground that the name is part of the man, and that he who knows the name has part of the owner of that name in his power.
To avoid any danger of spreading knowledge of their names, one Indian, therefore, generally addresses another only according to the relationship of the caller and the called, as brother, sister, father, mother, and so on; or, when there is no relationship, as boy, girl, companion, and so on. These terms, therefore, practically form the names actually used by Indians amongst themselves. But an Indian is just as unwilling to tell his proper name to a white man as to an Indian; and, of course, between the Indian and the white man there is no relationship the term for which can serve as a proper name. An Indian, therefore, when he has to do with a European, asks the latter to give him a name, and if one is given to him, always afterwards uses this. The names given in this way are generally simple enough—John, Peter, Thomas, and so on. But sometimes they are not sufficiently simple to be comprehended and remembered by their Indian owners, who therefore, having induced the donor to write the name on a piece of paper, preserve this ever after most carefully, and whenever asked for their name by another European, exhibit the document as the only way of answering. Sometimes, however, an Indian, though he cannot pronounce his English names, makes it possible by corruption. For instance, a certain Macusi Indian was known to me for a long time as Shassapoon, which I thought was his proper name, until it accidentally appeared that it was his ‘English name,’ he having been named by and after one Charles Appun, a German traveler.
The original of Figure 76 was made by Lean-Wolf, second chief of the Hidatsa, for Dr. W. J. Hoffman in 1881, and represents the method which this Indian has employed to designate himself for many years past. During his boyhood he had another name. This is a current, or perhaps it may be called cursive, form of the name, which is given more elaborately in Figure 74.
Fig. 76.—Lean-wolf.
Figure 77 is taken from the winter count of Battiste Good for the year 1841-’42. He calls the year “Pointer-made-a-commemoration-of-the-dead winter.” Also “Deep-snow winter.”
Fig. 77.—Pointer.
The extended index denotes the man’s name, “Pointer,” the ring and spots, deep snow.
The spots denoting snow occur also in other portions of this count, and the circle, denoting quantity, is also attached in Figure 141, p. [219], to a forked stick and incloses a buffalo head to signify much meat. That the circle is intended to signify quantity is probable, as the gesture for “much” or “quantity” is made by passing the hands upward from both sides and together before the body, describing the upper half of a circle, i. e., showing a heap.