trol for the purpose; this procedure must have caused trouble very soon had the ceremony been wholly unknown to the natives.[1]
BAPTISM
Before a child is a year old it is named by friends of the parents in the following manner: The friends, or godparents, accompanied by other visitors, come for four successive mornings and seat themselves just before sunrise on the ground before the house in which the child lives. First one and then another of the company holds the child for a moment, but if it is a boy the kŏmpalt, godfather, repeats a ceremonial speech, passes his hands across the limbs of the infant and holds it aloft to receive the first rays of the rising sun; then he bestows upon the boy the name by which he shall be known throughout life—though nicknames are common and often supplant the baptismal name to some extent. If it is a girl, the kâmûlt, godmother, delivers the speech and gives the name. Beads were formerly held up to receive the first rays of sunlight, and were then placed about the child's neck. Gifts of clothing, food, baskets, and the like were also made by the godparents, who "think as much of the child afterwards as its own father and mother," said one of our informants. The parents in their turn reciprocate by naming the children of the couple that acts as godparents to their own.[2]
The names assumed by the men during later life are very frequently derived from the sexual organs, particularly those of the female, but such names are never bestowed at the time of baptism. Any unusual event or physical peculiarity may impose a name upon an individual. For example, a man who worked several weeks for the missionary was so well fed that he began to lay on flesh. Ever afterwards he was known as Preacher's Fat. One is known as Uvaatuka, Spread Leg, from his peculiar gait.
From the age of 10 until about the time of marriage neither boys nor girls are allowed to speak their own names. The penalty is bad luck in losing arrows in the case of the boys, in losing the rsa’lĭka, or kiâhâ stick in the case of the girls. The name of a deceased person is not used; he is alluded to as the brother of So-and-so. The word or words in the name, however, are not dropped from the language.
- ↑ Whipple, Ewbank, and Turner in the Pacific Railroad Reports, III, 35 , mention the occurrence of the custom of baptism among the Cherokees when the infants are 3 days old. "They believe that without this rite the child can not live. They have a custom of sacrifices and burnt offerings."
- ↑ Cada niño tiene un peri, que es una especie de padrino, que convidan sus padres. Este, despues de haberle hecho un largo discurso al recien nacido sobre las obligaciones propias de su sexo, le va tentandd por todo el cuerpo, estirándole los brazos y piernas, y luego le impone un apellido ó nombre de su lengua, no significativo. Despues de la ceremonia, el peri y el niño se reputan en lo civil como una misma persona, y tienen con sua respectivos parientes la misma relacion. Lo mismo hacen las mugeres en su proporcion con las niñas." Alegre, Historia de la Compañía de Jesus en Nueva-España, II, 217.
