It is well known that the names of Indians are almost always connotive, and particularly that they generally refer to some animal, predicating often some attribute or position of that animal.  Such names readily admit of being expressed in sign language, but there may be sometimes a confusion between the sign expressing the animal which is taken as a name-totem, and the sign used, not to designate that animal, but as a proper name.  A curious device to differentiate proper names was observed as resorted to by a Brule Dakota.  After making the sign of the animal he passed his index forward from the mouth in a direct line, and explained it orally as “that is his name,” i.e., the name of the person referred to.  This approach to a grammatic division of substantives maybe correlated with the mode in which many tribes, especially the Dakotas, designate names in their pictographs, i.e., by a line from the mouth of the figure drawn representing a man to the animal, also drawn with proper color or position.  Fig. 150 thus shows the name of Shun-ka Luta, Red Dog, an Ogallalla chief, drawn by himself.  The shading of the dog by vertical lines is designed to represent red, or gules, according to the heraldic scheme of colors, which is used in other parts of this paper where it seemed useful to designate particular colors.  The writer possesses in painted robes many examples in which lines are drawn from the mouth to a name-totem.

[Illustration:  Fig. 150.]

It would be interesting to dwell more than is now allowed upon the peculiar objectiveness of Indian proper names with the result, if not the intention, that they can all be signified in gesture, whereas the best sign-talker among deaf-mutes is unable to translate the proper names occurring in his speech or narrative and, necessarily ceasing signs, resorts to the dactylic alphabet.  Indians are generally named at first according to a clan or totemic system, but later in life often acquire a new name or perhaps several names in succession from some exploit or adventure.  Frequently a sobriquet is given by no means complimentary.  All of the subsequently acquired, as well as the original names, are connected with material objects or with substantive actions so as to be expressible in a graphic picture, and, therefore, in a pictorial sign.  The determination to use names of this connotive character is shown by the objective translation, whenever possible, of those European names which it became necessary to introduce into their speech.  William Penn was called “Onas,” that being the word for feather-quill in the Mohawk dialect.  The name of the second French governor of Canada was “Montmagny” which was translated by the Iroquois “Onontio”—­“Great Mountain,” and becoming associated with the title, has been applied to all successive Canadian governors, though the origin being generally forgotten, it has been considered as a metaphorical compliment.  It is also said that Governor Fletcher was not named by the Iroquois “Cajenquiragoe,” “the great swift arrow,” because of his speedy arrival at a critical time, but because they had somehow been informed of the etymology of his name—­“arrow maker” (Fr. flechier).