Amy's Blog

A couple of weeks ago, Grandma called and said that she had a “serious” talk with her younger sister, my great aunt, Sister Ginger Pearl, CSJ. Grandma is 87 and the oldest of six kids…Marj, Jim (deceased), Bob, Maureen, Ginger, and Jerry. I was a bit nervous when I heard this.  As it turns out, Sister Ginger called to tell Grandma that she booked a flight to Cleveland to visit their brother, my Uncle Bob and his family. She told my grandma that she should also make the trip.

Grandma is a well traveled person. She has been to 49 of the 50 states, Europe, the Middle East, Mexico, Cuba, and probably other places I’ve missed. However, she has been forced to slow down quite a bit due to her age. So, the possibility of flying to Cleveland is a pretty big thing for her to consider.

When she called me earlier this month, she had made the decision to make the trip and said that I should go ahead and plan to come too. At the time it seemed like a stretch. I wasn’t sure that I had the time or money to go. But, I checked out flights and figured it was doable to leave after work on Friday and return home late Sunday evening.

I’ve posted in other blogs (https://amymariekc.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/26/) about our family’s Potawatomi heritage and how important it has been to Grandma and her siblings to pass that on to the younger generations in our family. I’ve also mentioned how close I have been to my grandma my entire life and how special her siblings, my great aunts and uncles and their families are to me.

The purpose of the trip was to attend a traditional Potawatomi Indian Naming ceremony. According to Sister Ginger, receiving an Indian name in Potawatomi culture is akin to our baptism as Catholics. Uncle Bob’s daughters decided they would like to hold a Naming ceremony in their dad’s back yard in Parma Heights, OH.

Uncle Bob has five daughters  four of which (Janet, Ellen, Maureen, and Erin) all live in the Cleveland and surrounding areas. His wife, my Aunt Joyce, passed away this Spring. Janet is the oldest in the family. Ellen has two children, Lakota and Elan. Lakota will start her 2nd year at Columbia this fall and Elan will begin his junior year in high school in Kent. Maureen has two children, Matt and Laura. Matt is my age and lives in Toledo and Laura lives in California. Erin is married to Rich and they have two of the cutest little boys in the world-Max and Maor ages 10 and 7.

The girls and Rich worked hard for several days researching the ceremony procedure, consulting with family and tribal elders, cooking, cleaning, and preparing Uncle Bob’s back yard for the ceremony. Ellen, Lakota, Elan, Maureen, Matthew, Erin, Max, and Maor prepared to get their Potawatomi names.

Sister Ginger suggested that Grandma and I make the trip and receive our Potawatomi names together with our Ohio relatives. I had no idea what a naming ceremony was or what it consisted of, but I decided to go ahead and make the trip- at that time for peace of mind so that I wasn’t here worrying while Grandma traveled, and because I was dying to see my Ohio relatives.

After I made my travel arrangements, I found out that the Chairman, or chief of the Citizen Band Potawatomi Nation (www.potwatomi.org) and the Vice Chairman, Rocky Barrett and Linda Capps, would be making the trip all the way from the tribal headquarters in Shawnee, OK to give us our Indian names.  Roy Slavin, a cousin of ours and a member of the CPN legislature would also be making the trip with his wife Julia.  Every day leading up to the trip I learned how important this ceremony is in the CPN culture. I was told to fill out a questionaire…a pyshological profile of sorts, that would assist Rocky and Linda in  coming up with a name for me. Looking back, I realize that I didn’t really do my best on the questionnaire and didn’t give them much to go on. 

In addition to filling out the forms, I had to secure one female and one male sponsor to stand up for me at the ceremony, much like parents choose godparents for their children at baptisim.  I decided that I would choose my Grandma because we would be getting named together, and she is the primary reason I have learned so much about CPN culture. She took us to the annual festival every year as kids and made sure that we got to spend time with my great aunts and uncles who also helped pass down their knowledge of the culture.  For my male sponsor, I wanted to choose Grandma’s brother, my Uncle Jim, but he passed away August 21st,  2008. It just so happened that we would be receiving our names on the second anniversary of his death. I felt like Uncle Jim  was the male with the most influence in terms of passing down the CPN heritage. He and Aunt Eileen were on all of the trips that we went on to festivals, dedications, etc.  Since I couldn’t choose Uncle Jim, I decided to choose Uncle Bob  since we would be receiving our names in his back yard.  Once I chose my sponsors and emailed Linda the forms, I was pretty much ready to make the trip, without knowing what to expect.