RULES NOT OBEYED.
One can contemplate only with pain the extent to which these
reasonable requirements of the Indian Office have been disregarded
by trusted servants in the field. While some have made earnest
efforts to carry out the wishes of the Department in this
particular, others have treated the matter as one of little or no
concern. In many cases no attempt seems ever to have been made to
systematize the names of the Indians, and in many others where such
attempt was made the correct names for want of attention on the
part of officers in charge, have been forgotten or permitted to
fall into disuse. I direct attention to the records of allotments
of lands among the members of the several Indian tribes as proofs
that officials intrusted by the Indian Department with the carrying
out of its instructions on this subject have been so derelict in
this duty that the Indian people, even those who have made the best
advances in civilization, are to-day a very poorly named race. In
many cases long, unpronounceable Indian names have been retained,
in others Indian names have been translated into English with the
most unsatisfactory results, "vulgar or otherwise offensive
sobriquets" have been countenanced, and a list is produced which
should have no place upon record, local or national.
Such Indian agents and superintendents of Indian schools have
not sought to impress the Indian people with the importance of
having their names fashioned after the whites, consequently they
have had in this direction the opposition instead of the co-operation of the Indians. In this thing, as in nearly all others,
the Indians do not know what is best for them. They can't see that
our system has any advantages over their own, and they have fought
stubbornly against the innovation. Furthermore, these officials
have not exercised due care to discover or select the correct
family names, or when selected have not made sufficient effort to
fix those names upon the members of the respective families.
The rough-and-ready frontiersmen who first came in contact
with the Indians and had much to do with the naming of the older
generations took no pains to discover and systematize the Indian
names. They preferred to rename the whole race with the vulgar
translations of the Indian phrases, or with familiar names of the
English sort. Nor did they
choose to give this uncouth
people such genteel names as Samuel, Robert, James, Peter, Richard,
etc., the sobriquets Sam, Bob, Jim, Pete, Dick, etc., suiting their
purpose better. Indian Bob, Siwash Jake, Mud Bay Sam, Packsaddle
Jack, and Crackerbox Jim were considered good. It therefore
clearly became the duty of the agents, in taking charge of the
Indians, to correct all such abuses and to search out and assign to
the Indians true and respectable
names. Instead, however, to this day in many places and by duly
constituted authorities the practice of giving to the children for
surnames these diminutives of English Christian names is allowed.
Hence, we find everywhere such names as Harry Sam, Silas Bob,
Lissie Pete, Hannah Ned, Maggie Bill, Tommy Jim, Cora Jake, etc.
When, in the fall of '94, I took charge of the Chehalis school in
the state of Washington, I found there an Indian youth who had been
retained by my predecessor as an "apprentice." I should explain
that the word
apprentice, as here used, is the name of a
position in the school. By consent of the Honorable Commissioner
of Indian Affairs one of the larger boys, or girls, as a reward of
good conduct, or as an incentive to assist in the discipline of the
school and to take a leading part in the work, is paid a nominal
salary, generally about five dollars per month, and is carried as
an "apprentice." He is part pupil, part employee. When I met this
boy I asked him his name. He hesitated, said he didn't know, but
most people called him George Jim. I asked what his father's name
was. He said he thought it was Sanders. Upon further inquiry I
found the following to be the facts: The father of the boy is a
Nisqually Indian by the name of Jim; hence, commonly known as
"'Squally Jim." Therefore, the children were known as George Jim,
Tom Jim, etc. But my predecessor had very properly discountenanced
the name Jim as a surname, and had entered the children on the
school roll by the more stately name of James—George Q. James,
Thomas P. James, Benjamin S. James, and Mary James. I further
found that "'Squally Jim" had signed a contract with the Post
Office Department to carry the mail from Rochester to Lincoln
Creek. I concluded at once that the name he signed to that
document was the one he regarded as his correct name. I wrote the
postmaster at Rochester. He replied that Jim had signed the
contract as Jim Sanders. Immediately George Q. James became George
Q. Sanders, a fact with which "'Squally Jim" was much pleased.
There was also an apprentice girl by the name of Julia Jake. She
had some sisters, Cora Jake, Jettie Jake, and Rebecca Jake; and
their mother, who was employed as washerwoman at the school, was
Linda Jake. I found that the girls were the daughters of Jake
Benn, and that Jake had some brothers, to wit: George Benn, John
Benn, and Dave Benn. It became quite clear to my mind that the
family name was
Benn Julia Jake at once became Julia Benn.
But I experienced some difficulty in convincing certain of my
subordinates (white people) that it was best to make these changes.
And so throughout the whole Indian service one finds an immense
amount of indifference to this question of names. A former
attache of this school once wrote me in regard to "Peter
Clams, the father of Joe Pete." Joe Pete (alias Joseph G. Peters)
was formerly a pupil of Chehalis. As sure as he's born he would
have been Joseph G. Clams had he re-entered the school during my
administration.
