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Show EEPOILT OF SUPERINTENDENT OF INDIAN SCHOOLS. 425 This sentence was in a fragmentary aeeount of an old Omaha ceremony in which the child was consecrated to the Great Spirit or Mystery, its feet symboliwlly clothed and set in the path of life, the sign of his kinship group put upon him, and he was enrolled as a member of the tribe. The ceremony was one of deep significance to the Indian, and it is equally so to the student who is seeking to trace the develop-ment of religious thought and expmion. Its acts were accompanied by rituals replete with reverent feeling, andemphasized the dependence of man upon theGreat 6 irit and man's obli tion to serve that power which gave him life. Yet thc writer orthe sentence quotsailed tocatch the meaning of the ceremony, and by his flippant use of strange-sounding name turned a serious and interesting rite into burlesque. The carelees treatment of such rites and the misrepresentation of native ideas in the translation of Indian names deserves the attention of those interested in the welfare of the race. If we are to lift the Indian to our highest civilization, in which he is to take his lace and set his part, we must not strike a blow at his self-respect by ignoring, on t i e one hand, the attainments of his ancestors or, on the other by giving him a name which conveys a repulsive or vulgar suggedtion under the noiion that it is the equivalent of his native name. We have become secustomed to treat Indian names in an unfortunate manner. This treatment has several aspects. Some have a moral significance, others an his-torical bearing. Let us look at the latter a. moment. In tracing the history of our own ersonsl names we are led backward toward the time when our ancestors lived and tEought along lines not unlike those which obtain among the aborigines of this country. As we work our way backward in our search we catch glimpses of days when the menlbersof the Alfred or elk council were desig-nated by this society; when the ower of the spear in the warrior's hand gave the name Gerald; or, as in the term I~ughter ,w hen not relationship but the avocation of the girls as milkers of the cows was indicated; or, as in latter times, when the office or avocation became the surname, as Abbot, Marshal, Smith, Carpenter, Fletcher (arrow maker), and the like. While we ean thus cateh glim ses of the history of our names, we are not ahle to trace the connection between tge clan and the family name or the kinship name and the individual name. To find these com~ectionsw e need a knowledge of lines of thinking that have long since been o~.erlaid and lost. It is just at this pomt that aid is found h astudy of peoples whoare still living and thinking along more primi-tive lines of tlought. It is a well-known fact that if we would understand the growth and development of law, of government, of social relations, and of religious thought, we must follow the stream of human progress back toward its sources-to the laws, overnment, social relations, and religious thought of peoples whose for-ward mar& has been at a slower pace than our own. Among such peoples we are able to observe conditions that lie back of recorded hiatory and to investigate some cnf rhr f<,ltnrlstiond inponl which rmt the social strucrtlrc 01 our t.nvin,llrtwr.i. TIII. nstive trilrs of onr count afford a rirh tirld for rt~arnwlt oi tllir i~1turncft.r. for owinc to awl i a r eonditionsgfauna and flora the .\rnrrican race h1U1 I I I ( J P ~ ~fIu r-ward l& ra'idly than our own more favored race; therefore the past history of the human L i l y has been here conaemed, so that social and other cnstoms, long since outgrown by us, are found here in livin fom This valuable ethnological research can be judiciously carried on without Setrimint to the Indians themselres by keeping it strictly confined to recoding the past; a past that had its use, hut its function is forever gone, as far as theIndian youth of to-day are concerned, for it can not survive under the conditions whlch now obtain save in cruel travesty. Every iutellieent Indian will aeree with me that while the ancient customs and laneuaees of hiskce should be carefull preserved in writing as a part of a human recod, Che sooner they are inclosed witiln hooks the sooner will the race become one in lan-guage, and he united in custom and religion and brought into close and friendly relations with their white neighbors, and so he best for all. Turning to the specific subject, Indian names, we find that the tribes of our coun-try a n divided into kinship groups similar to the clan or sept or the Latin geos. Each one of these groups had its name, which usually referred to some natural phe-nomena or obieets. as the sun. the earth. the water. the thunder and liehtnine. the animals, ete. .Fro& these nakes arose a system of hkraldry: the sign or Totem 3 the ul,ject ln,n, wltich the p u l l tnok i t3 nimr bwanlr 1 l ~ r ~ * ~ n ~ b rohlt', 6,gir bilp am1 I,rl<,l,grd tc, it rxcluaivt.ly. The individual. of the vlan hxl n cnlounon ngljr rn llle Ilal8.e. h 11 eo8,lJ not it ma wreonal dciirnarion. For iustlmcr. orrr of tllo mr, of the Omaha tribe was called ~ a wh,u t no iian or woman could &T that nam; or arid it a8 R J ~ I ~ B I I I Ct ~ l b i i~n dividnal name. Pach perion of this gems, howerrr, w;ie ciren one of a wries oi naurr*, 811 of wl~icllr ~ f ~ r rtno lt he deer, thr sipn or tort.nr ol the wnn, so r h r n an O~nal~lau.a rrl a ~,t.munh lu,krn of 18" one ui this F C I ~ ~ 0L1 names he khew at once that the man or wonian was'a member 6f the Tapa gens. |