Mary was adopted in place of two brothers who had fallen in battle, and
for whom the lamentations had not died away. The ceremony of adoption is
very solemn, requiring the deliberations of a council and the formal
bestowing of a name, as a sort of baptism, from which time the captive is
not allowed to speak any other language but the Indian, and must in all
things conform to Indian habits and tastes.

It is customary among them to give children a name which corresponds with
the sports and dependence of childhood, and when they arrive at maturity
to change it for one that corresponds with the duties and employments of
manhood and womanhood. The first name is given by the relatives and
afterwards publicly announced in council. The second is bestowed in the
same way; and by this they are ever afterward called, except on becoming
a Sachem, and, sometimes, on becoming a Chief or warrior another name is
taken, and each denotes definitely the new position. Each clan, too, had
its peculiar names, so that when a person's name was mentioned it was
immediately known to what clan he belonged.

A curious feature in the Indian code of etiquette is that it is
exceedingly impolite to ask a person's name, or to speak it in his
presence. In the social circle and all private conversation the person
spoken of is described if it is necessary to allude to him, as the person
who sits there, or who lives in that house, or wears such a dress. If I
ask a woman, whose husband is present if that is Mr. B-- she blushes, and
stammers, and replies, "He is my child's father," in order to avoid
speaking his name in his presence, which would offend him. On asking a
man his name he remained silent, not understanding the reason the
question was repeated, when he indignantly replied, "Do you think that I
am an owl to go about hooting my name everywhere?" The name of the owl in