How would you get your name if you were a Pawnee?

Answer 1

Historically Pawnee names were (as in many other native groups) extremely complex and variable. A child might be given a name at birth that might be changed (or added to) some years later; as a warrior a man might change his name again after some important event or brave deed. There was an elaborate religious ritual for use when a Pawnee man changed his name.

So it was quite usual for each Pawnee person to have several names; in addition, the Pawnee never addressed each other directly by name but by a kinship term (and these were far more complex than simply "father", "brother", "aunt", "daughter" and so on).

The inspiration for many names used by Pawnee warriors is fairly obvious. Some of these (in translation) are:

• He Comes Carrying Sitting Down From Time To Time Coming
• He Comes Carrying His Trophies Today
• Careless Of The Enemy
• Victory Call
• Kills The Enemy
• He Kills A Person
• Many Trophies
• Horse Finder

War leaders, band chiefs and council members often (but not always) took names that indicated their position:

• Black Chief
• Man Chief
• Brave Chief
• Eagle Chief
• Dog Chief
• Fox Chief

There were also shortened or "pet" names; Victory Call was Riwahut for short, but his full name was Siti-riwahut(they are making the high trilling sound for victory celebrations).

Certain names were the result of a vision quest or sacred dream, such as Pia-tiwitit (hawk he sits down).

Women usually had more mundane names, like Ts-taka (white woman) because of her pale complexion and a suspicion she had some European blood in her veins.