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Show 424 REPORT ON SUPERINTENDENT OF INDIAN SGBOOL8. translations have not been in vogue, and the names of philanthropic patrons or of persons of wide fame have been only sparingly introduced. I still remember how we used to speak of Mrs. Wah b6n a quod, wife of the stalwart and shrewd chief of the tribe, Mra. Moh clij e wbnce, Mrs. Mesha k6 ghe-shig, and others who were leading lighhta in the sewing society. I suppose those names-had meaninga, but we never knew them. Why should we? I can set? now short-statured Kish khn i kht (his name meant "Stumps"), who used to kick the dogs out of church; or old wrinkled I Ah by, whose name always seemed to me par- i ticularly musical; and I find on the allotment rolls to-day such attractive names as Ain dhs o gw6n, John Sang why way, Wah sbh yah, Min o k6 shig, Mah je k6 shig, E quAy mince. They strike me as quite as desirable cognomens and quite as ewy to remember as Lemenager, Magruder, Rosenberger, Westermeyer, or Von Daehen-hausen, which I find in the Washington directory: T? be sure a teacher would he at a disadv?ntage in trying to be either affectionate or disciplinary w~ t han eight-s llahled girl hke 8Ah gah ge way gih Mw e quay; but the e quay, which is only a Yeminine terminal meaning woman might be dropped and a competent interpreter could cut out more s llables and skill leave enough of the "gist" of the name to make it recognizable {y her parents. Or, better yet, the father's name might chance to be the euphonious one of 'Mon dB min, and Katherine Mon d& min, for instance, would he a dignified name heritage. Not so with poor Mary Swollen Face, whose painful appellation appears on a pretty bit of sewing over in the Government building. Why should Nancy Kills a Hun-dred he doomed to go through life with such a bloodthirsty patronymic, or Eunice Shoot at hail with such an idi@ one? Louie Firetail is quite justified in writing as follows to the Indian Office: My Indian name of Fintail as a family name is most unpleasant to me, especially the thought that my children must hear the name and hand it down in their turn. I therefore request you to assist me, through the proper channels, to change my name to Louie F. Finley, Finley being my wife's name." If it is now too late for Peter Poor Elk or Sam Slow Fly or John Bad Gun or Ada Part? His Hair or Lizsie Looks Twice to escape their name inflictions, at least the misfortune can be lessened by havin their names written as one word with no hyphenating or capitalizing of sylla%les. But how much less handicap ed for entrance into white civilization are Richard Sitahpetah, a Kiowa; and ~ u t gCh es-ehesbega, a Navaho, whose names I ran acrw recently with great satisfaction. The names given by Indian parents to their children anoften as suitable (even from our standpoint) for given names as farsurnames. Why should Imogen be pre-ferred to the Kioa-a name Imguna, or Jack to Z&pko? Why not have a few less Marys and Johns in the world and enrich our nomenclature by picking out gems from aboriginal matrices? To saddle upon e child a name uncouth or silly or unknown to his relatives is bad enough, hut to give to brothers and sisters varying surnames is a blunder hardly short of criminal. It has not been inhquent-more's the pity-for children of the same father and mother to be named, say Jane Moore, Harry Selden, and Christo-pher Columbus; wholly unnexemary embarrassment and confusion are likely to result in the future from such a short-sighted, lazy practice. Of come reform should always have begun in the previous generation when it was much easier and there was much less of it needed. If thirt years wo schools and agencies had exercised the forethought and taken the troubg to enroll and add- Indians by their own names much of the present and mare of future complica-tions as to land titles and he&hip ri hts would have been forestalled. But there is another enoration on the threshol8, and it was to give them a "fair show" that the cjrcu?ar of December 1, 1902, was xssued by the Indian OtEce. The purpose of the circular was misunderstood and also, for the sake of smart paragraphing, was mis-represented in the newspapers. Nevertheless, it remains trne that if its principles are followed, particularly in the schools-if women and children are recorded with the names of their husbands and fathere as surnames-much loss, litiption, and fraud will be prevented in the days to come. Since we can not begin this work a generation behind us, let us begin it to-day, a generation before. Let theIndian keep both his personal and his race identity. Individuality is as highly prized by him as by us. .For the sake of his property it is necessary that he adopt our system of family names, hut that is no reason why we should ruthleasly thrust on him our English names when his own will answer just as well, even better. We want to educate the Indian-lead him on, not stam him out. Indian names.-Miss Alice C. Fletcher ex-president o?the Anthropological Society of Washington, D. C.-A few days agA in one of our leading news apers' my eye caught the following: "They have strange names, these Omahas. ~i?e name of the father was Stomach Fat, while his boy's name was Walking Forked Lightning." |