A bunch of us spent a week on an Indian reservatio
Post# of 3036
A bunch of us spent a week on an Indian reservation, doing volunteer work: everything from food service, to teaching, clerical help for access to government programs, to working in the fields in clearing, planting, and irrigation. A celebratory dinner and activities were scheduled for the last night, and all the tribal members and volunteers were together, when a "naming ceremony" was announced. The elders would give us each an "Indian" name, based on their experience with each of us during the preceding week.
I won't bore you with the other names, but when I was called up, it was announced that I would be known in this tribe as "Walking Eagle." We traded stories and experiences until I felt close enough to one elder to ask him if there was a special meaning to my new name. He hemmed and hawed a bit, but finally, quietly, he shared with me: "a 'Walking Eagle'...was a bird too full of shit to fly