672 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



However, the number of war names, and indeed nicknames, might 

 be considerable. This appears from Timberlake's account of Chero- 

 kee naming, but it was general : 



There common names are given them by their parents; but this they can 

 either change, or take another when they think proper; so that some of them 

 have near half a dozen, which the English generally increase, by giving an 

 English one, from some circumstance in their lives or disposition, as the Little 

 Carpenter to Attakulla, from his excelling in building houses; Judd's friend, 

 or corruptly the Judge, to Ostenaco, for saving a man of that name from the 

 fury of his countrymen; or sometimes a translation of his Cherokee name, as 

 pigeon to Woey that being the signification of the word. (Timberlake, Williams 

 ed., 1927, p. 95.) 



Olbrechts says, however, that in modern times a child is named 

 by one of the prominent old women of the settlement, but thinks 

 that in former days it may have been by the chief woman of the clan. 

 It is sometimes bestowed before birth so as to establish a kind of 

 material hold upon it if parturition is difficult, but formerly it was 

 given either 4 or 7 days after birth in a special ceremony. Later, 

 names were bestowed descriptive of physical or moral qualities or 

 commemorative of some feat in war. The ending "killer" was common 

 in these last as was the case with war names among the Chickasaw 

 and Choctaw (Mooney and Olbrechts, 1932, pp. 127-128). 



Creek children received their first names from those previously 

 used in the famil}^, or else names were made up on the spot and were 

 frequently connected with some warlike exploit, often one that oc- 

 curred when the child was born. Again, the name of the clan totem 

 might be bestowed upon a male child, or he was familiarly known as 

 tciba'ni, "Little Boy." The greater number of war names among 

 the Creeks were formed of two words, of which the second was had jo, 

 "mad," "desperately brave"; fiksiko, "no heart"; yaholo, "cryer," 

 referring to the cry uttered by bearers of the black drink when the}^ 

 were serving it. The first word might be that of a town or clan in 

 its regular or its diminutive form, i. e., with the diminutive suffix. 

 Common names of ancestors or names of events were also used. A 

 few names, such as Katcili, "Panther Foot," Kotcugani, "Short," and 

 Taskona, had no second element. The words Tmathla, tastanagi, 

 heniha, and miko, which take the place of the second word in the com- 

 binations given above, very frequently, are really titles carrying a 

 certain status with them. In later life many parents adopted the 

 names of their children, sometimes in succession as the older children 

 died (Swanton, 1928, pp. 97-106). 



The stratification of Timucua society indicates that there must have 

 been graduation in names, and as elements entering into Creek war 

 names were borrowed from the Timucua, the customs of the latter in 

 conferring war titles ma}^ be assumed to have been similar, but definite 

 data are lacking. 



