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the news of its birth until it had received a name, through fear that an 
evil manido might steal and destroy its soul. A good name, they believed, 
focused the attention of the baby’s shadow on its significance and thereby 
gave it strength and power throughout the duration of its owner’s life. A 
poor name correspondingly weakened it and sometimes caused the child’s 
death. 
“ There was a young man who had been named Anahwanima, ‘ He whom no 
woman likes’; and it was true that women seemed to avoid him. But one day when 
he went to the river for water a girl manido approached him and invited him to 
accompany her. Eagerly he dropped his buckets and followed her. She kept him 
for three days in her manido world, which meant three years according to numan 
reckoning. Meanwhile his parents searched for him everywhere, for he was their 
only son. Even when the Indians moved away, and some of the people said ‘ He 
is not worth looking for,’ the father kept returning to the place where he had dis- 
appeared; for neither he nor his wife would believe that he was gone for ever, or 
would permit themselves to weep for him. 
After three years the youth returned to seek his water-buckets, and when he 
could not find them, visited the old camp. Trees were now springing up where his 
old wigwam had stood. The girl manido said to him ‘ Did you think that you had 
been gone only three days? It is three years since I came for you. Your parents 
are awaiting you at the little waterfalls, for I have made them believe that you will 
return. But if they do not treat you kindly come back to me.’ 
So the youth rejoined his parents. But now he was very different from the lad 
who had left them three years earlier. He became very thin and sickly, and seldom 
spoke to any one, for his thoughts turned constantly towards the girl manido. At 
last his strength failed him completely, and he seemed about to die in his parents’ 
arms. At his bidding they carried him to the river’s edge. There he said to them 
* Throw me into the water. But before you throw me in say Tikanamakins, 
‘Breather of Cold’ (i.e. He who lived in the water), is falling into the water/ They 
threw him into the river, uttering the words that he had commanded and fully believ- 
ing that he would return to them restored to health. Not until then had they thought 
of his old name, or realized that they themselves were to blame for their troubles 
because they had given him an improper name in his childhood. 
Years passed, and he remained missing. Then one day they heard footsteps 
approaching, and a voice commanded them to say ‘ Tikanamakins is coming / They 
repeated the words, and their son entered the lodge, now a tall, powerful man. All 
he had needed was a change of name” (Mary Sugedub). 
The Parry Islanders never gave their children boastful names, but 
such as they conceived would enlist the protection of the Great Spirit or 
his subordinate manidos. Most children received names from sky-phe- 
nomena, suggested sometimes by the weather at the time of birth; such 
were Red Cloud, West Wind, and Dawn. Pegahmagabow, the name of 
one of my informants, means “ it advances and halts, advances and 
halts,” and refers to the passage of a hurricane that seems to halt while 
it uproots the trees and bushes in its path. Other children were named 
after trees or animals, a chief’s son after his totem bird or animal, e.g. 
hawk. The Parry Islanders avoided names derived from the moon or 
water, because these objects were changeable. They avoided, too, names 
from rocks, although the present Indians know no reason for this absten- 
tion. Nicknames were common, and frequently more used than the real 
names. Today the earlier types of names are fast disappearing, and 
many of the Parry Islanders bear only the European names bestowed 
on them at baptism. 
