MALLERY. ] COMPARISON—PROPER NAMES. 365 
often some attribute or position of that animal. Such names readily ad- 
mit of being expressed in sign language, but there may be sometimes a 
confasion 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 ob- 
served as resorted to by a Brulé 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,” 7. e., the name of the per- 
son referred to. This approach to a grammatic division of substantives 
may be correlated with the mode in which many tribes, especially the 
Dakotas, designate names in their pictographs, 7. 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 Shu" ka 
Luta, Red Dog, an Ogal- 
lalla chief, drawn by him- 
self. The shading of the 
dog by vertical lines is de- 
signed to represent red, or 
gules, according to the her- 
aldic scheme of colors, 
which is used in other parts 
of this paper where it 
seemed useful to designate Fic. 150. 
particular colors. The writer possesses in painted robes many examples 
in which lines are drawn from the mouth to a name-totem. 
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 dactylie alphabet. Indians are generally named 
at first according to a clan or totemic system, but later in life often ac- 
quire a new name or perhaps several names in succession from some ex- 
ploit or adventure. Frequently a sobriquet is given by no means com- 
plimentary. 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. Wil- 
liam 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 
