Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/32

 24 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

��AMERICAN INDIAN NAMES OF WHITE MEN AND

WOMEN. 1

In connection with an extended study of the interrelations of the white and red races in America, the present writer has noted a con- siderable number of names given by American Indians to white missionaries, soldiers, and others, the record and interpretation of which are of interest to all folk-lorists. In this preliminary paper the Algonkian and Iroquoian Indians alone have been considered. Exact references to authorities cited are given, and where possible more detailed etymologies than those in the original sources of information. As will be seen by glancing through the lists of names, the nomenclature is very varied : adoption-names, names of deceased celebrities, descriptive names, names suggested by accident or inci- dent, are all represented, besides translations of European names. Many of the missionaries, especially, have several names from differ- ent tribes, and sometimes different names from the same tribe, etc. As may readily be understood, some of the names conferred by one tribe are simply translations of a name originally given by some other tribe. Some of the names were conferred by the chiefs with the assent of their fellow-tribesmen, others by the old women, who so often are the name-givers among primitive peoples. Some of the names, also, from being applied originally to individuals (e. g. Onoutiio, Kora), have become terms of general application to officials, governors, sovereigns, etc. Others, like Tabahsega, were given in such beautiful fashion as to be in the highest sense poetical. Taken all together, the names considered in this paper open up a very inter- esting field of folk-thought and folk-speech.

ALGONKIAN.

A. Blackfoot. A far-western tribe of Algonkian stock, whose speech, like that of the Micmacs in the far East, bears traces of for- eign contact in its phonetics and vocabulary.

i. Apawakas, "white antelope," — from ap, "white," and awakas, "antelope." According to Rev. John Maclean ("Canad. Sav. Folk," pp. 63, 361), the Indian name of Mrs. Maclean.

2. Natusiasamin. This name, which Rev. E. F. Wilson (" Our Forest Children," iii. 9) explains as signifying "the sun looks upon him," was given him by the Blackfoot Indians of northwestern Canada. From natosi, "sun," and assamiaaie, "he looks at him."

B. Cheyenne. An outlying branch of the great Algonkian fam-

1 Paper presented before the Tenth Annual Meeting of the American Folk- Lore Society, at Columbia University, New York, December 29, 1898.

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