Spirituality
White Feather
What my name means to me
One of the truly sad things about being human on this wonderful planet is that we do not get to pick our own names. But is this really true and is it really a sad thing?
In old Lakota society everyone was given three names; one for their childhood, one for their adult years, and one for their elderly years. And no one was allowed to pick their names. They were given to them.
For instance, the famous warrior Crazy Horse went by the name, Curly, during his childhood. It was all because of his hair. While everyone else in his tribe had very straight jet-black hair, he had brown, wavy hair. Then in his late teens as he entered adulthood Crazy Horse’s father renamed him Crazy Horse because of a dream he had. Being assassinated in his early thirties, Crazy Horse never got an elderly name.
In modern Western society one is given a name at birth and is stuck with it for life — unless you are female and then you are expected to change your name when you get married. Any other change of name requires a lot of money, a monumental amount of paperwork, and societal rebuff.
And your name had bloody well be Christian!
When most people first hear or read my name — White Feather — they automatically think it is a Native…
