Calendar history of the Kiowa Indians. (1898 N 17 / 1895-1896 (pages 129-444))Mooney, James
History
Calendar history of the Kiowa Indians. (1898 N 17 / 1895-1896 (pages 129-444))
Mooney, James
Kiowa Indians; Kiowa language -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
Their system of personal names is also interesting. All the names have
meaning and are as much a part of the owner as his hand or his foot.
Children are usually named soon after birth by one of the grandparents
or other relative not the parent; the name is commonly suggested by some
passing incident, but may be hereditary, or intended to commemorate the
warlike deed of some ancestor. In this way a girl may bear a war name
bestowed by her grandfather to preserve the recollection of his own
achievement. There are no ordinal names as among the eastern Sioux, no
clan names as among the Shawnee, and no names which indicate the band of
the individual. Young men as they grow up usually assume dream names, in
obedience to visions, and these are sometimes superseded in later life
by names acquired on the warpath, the hunt, or in council. Frequently an
aged warrior, who feels that his day is near its close, formally gives
his name to some young man who seems to him to merit the honor; the
older man then assumes a new name, or more frequently lives out his
remaining years without a name, being referred to and addressed simply
as "old man." Sometimes the old warrior, having outlived the need of a
name and not regarding any younger man as worthy to bear it,
deliberately "throws it away" and is henceforth nameless. Should he die
without having bestowed his name upon a successor, the name dies with
him and can not be revived. The name of the dead is never spoken in the
presence of the relatives, and upon the death of any member of a family
all the others take new names--a custom noted by Raleigh's colonists on
Roanoke island more than three centuries ago. Moreover, all words
suggesting the name of the dead person are dropped from the language for
a term of years, and other words, conveying the same idea, are
substituted. The same custom exists among the Comanche and perhaps among
other tribes.
MARRIAGE
[Illustration: FIG. 56--Mäñyi-tén or Woman-heart, a typical Kiowa]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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