You
know that story about a guy in a village who fucked a goat, and he went
on to become a national war-hero, but in the village they only ever
remembered him as the guy who fucked a goat? There's something important
about that. In indigenous communities you'll get a joke medicine name
that refers to something comical that you once did, and they'll never
let you forget it. It's probably mainly a bloke thing, it is how we keep
each other from getting too inflated.
So if you come to me with your fancy medicine name, I will immediately
want to invent a joke one. I mean, you walk into the pub and announce
you are now Dave Standing Elk, what are they going to do? They will
laugh, they will tease you mercilessly, and quite right too. It is
pretentious, it is a claim to spiritual status.
If you do have a
medicine name, it is precious, it is between you and the spirits, it is
not a proclamation to the world of who you are. You will disempower that
connection. Stick to Dave. If others want to put you on a pedestal,
that is their lookout. But you don't want the kind of loser around you
who's going to take your pretensions seriously. My favourite joke
medicine name is probably Two Dogs At-It.
Generally correct but also depends where you are & who you are with.
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