Boy. the way freepers got on top of all the "racist" senators that voted against condaleeza rice, you sure are easy going with negative stereotypical slurs against the american indians. i'm not sure natives give their kids "indian names" anymore. i know my mom didn't. one name for me and one name for each of my 4 siblings. no weird descrptives... just good old white names like john dennis carl dotsi and stephanie. maybe it's only racist when the other side is keeping powerful republican black women down. or supporting racist ideals like affirmative action.
Yes Native Americans are still given names. It is done by a Medicine Man and only after he has met the individual and received a vision.
The local medicine man in my part of Northern Michigan is Chippewa but the locals prefer the Lakota man who travels through here several times a year.
Interesting to me is that there are no longer any "Man afraid of his horse" or " Little Big Man" Every one now seems to be Bear, Eagle, or Wolf something or other.
I found out a few years ago that my Dad's Mom was 1/2 Cherokee.I'm not familiar with all the customs and all, so thanks for the info,
Mustard Plaster.
The joke is that Ward Churchill is not really an American Indian. He's a white man pretending to be one. That's what AIM (the American Indian Movement) says. He doesn't have any proof that he or any of his relatives are Native Americans (his in-laws are, but that's not the same thing).
If he really was a Native American and/or he really had the support of Native American communities in America, I think we would be more careful about offending people. But as it is, he's just a white jerk who wants to pretend he's got non-white blood because it's politically correct. He is trying to usurp the identity of genuine Native Americans, and he's harming Native Americans by associating them with his hateful remarks, which they don't agree with.