Another interesting fact about the Indian is that when he gives a name to a child or an adult, it generally means something. Among ourselves names are often-times either quite meaningless or senseless. For instance, my parents gave to me the name George. When I was old enough to begin to care about such things, I asked and found out that “George” means “a husbandman.” And all through my life I have borne that name--a husbandman--when my ignorance of agricultural pursuits, I am sorry to say, is simply dense and unspeakable. What is the sense of giving such names to children? And when we come to the Algernons, and Reginas, and Sigourneys, and Fitzmaurices, and all the high-sounding but altogether meaningless names with which we burden our children, I long for the simplicity of the Indian’s habit, the poetry, the prayer, that so often are connected with the names they give. The old Hebrews knew something of this, for we read of many of their names having a definite and decided significance. One day I found a Chemehuevi Indian with the name Tow-um-bow-i-si-co-rum. After a little working of it out, I found the name signified: “The reddish golden pathway of glory made by the setting sun from the zenith to the horizon.” I asked the man’s mother how he came to have such a name, and here is her reply! “As I gave birth to my son, I looked up in the heavens and there I saw the golden reddish glory reaching from above where I lay to the faraway west, where the sun was just setting. So I said, ‘It is an omen, and may it also be a prophecy,’ and my heart went out in prayer to Those Above, that the pathway of life of my newly-born son might be one of golden glory until he, too, passed out of sight in the west; so I called him Towumbowisicorum, which signifies what I have said.” CHAPTER XIV THE INDIAN AND SOME LUXURIES Most city men regard a shampoo as a city luxury of modern times, except, of course, for the rich, who could always have what they desire. Yet the shampoo is more common with some Indians than with us, and they enjoy it oftener than we do. The Indian’s wife takes the root of the _amole_, macerates it, and then beats it up and down in a bowl of water until a most delicious and soft lather results, and then her liege lord stoops over the bowl and she shampoos his long hair and scalp with vigor, neatness, skill, and dispatch. I have been operated upon by the best adepts in London, Paris, and New York, and I truthfully affirm that a white man has much to learn in the way of skillful manipulation, effective rubbing of the scalp, and delicious silkiness of the hair, if he knows no other than such shampooing as I received.