AMAN SIUM

10. MY NAME IS MOHAMED, BUT PLEASE CALL ME

JOHN: CANADIAN RACISM, SPIRIT INJURY AND
THE RENAMING OF THE INDIGENOUS BODY AS A
RIGHT OF PASSAGE

The black man has two dimensions. One with his fellows, the other with the white
man. A Negro behaves differently with a white man and with another Negro. That
this self division is a direct result of colonialist subjugation is beyond question.
(Fanon, 1967, p. 17)
INTRODUCTION

Today, just as yesterday, we are forced to alter or abandon our Indigenous names.
We are told that they are residuals of the old country and it is now time to
embrace the Eurocentric cultural capital that accompanies Canadian life.
Why do we change our names upon arrival to Canada? How can we consider
renaming to be a process of de-spiritualization? If names are given to us through
ceremony and denote a distinctive spiritual character, then what is lost when we
change them? In answering these questions I will draw links between the pressures
on Indigenous peoples to assume Anglicized names today, and similar historical
accounts as experienced under residential schooling and African enslavement.
More broadly, this chapter will use both Anti-Racist and Indigenous Knowledges
frameworks to critically explore the naming crisis amongst Indigenous peoples in
Canadian classrooms and society; with the term Indigenous denoting not just
First Nations peoples, but other racialized bodies as well. In an effort to value the
knowledge gained through lived experience, I will make use of my own
experiences as an Indigenous body to shed light on the intersections of racism,
cultural assimilation, renaming, and spirit injury.
The next section will provide readers with my personal location, objectives, and
key questions in relation to the topic. The sections that follow will begin by
outlining the various pressures we encounter to change our names, and the spiritual
implications on the individual and community levels. To close the chapter I will
use the Tigrinya naming ceremony to exemplify the importance of naming
traditions in the African context.

N. Wane et al. (eds.), Spirituality, Education & Society, 139156.

2011 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

AMAN SIUM

PERSONAL LOCATION AND MOTIVATION FOR WORK

Growing up in Toronto is a tough task for any black youth, in spite of class, faith,
sex or gender. We are all faced with the long walk of trying to make sense of our
place in Canadian society. My childhood was no different. I was raised on the
fringes of two opposing realities, being encouraged by my parents to both embrace
my Eritrean identity at home and fighting for my stake in the national identity
outside of it. Looking back, even as a child, I noticed the tensions between the two.
I felt it in the way white kids laughed at me for packing injera for lunch: a stewbased dish indigenous to the Horn of Africa that is meant to be eaten by hand. Just
as I felt it when my mom dropped me off on the first day of my short-lived hockey
career, where I was called a nigger within half an hour of arriving. These
experiences made me feel small and devalued. They made me question my
heritage. They introduced me to feelings of embarrassment so sharp that my
stomach would turn with nausea.
In order to better cope with not fitting in, I allowed parts of my Eritreaness to
slip away piece by piece. Often times, teachers and other students would ridicule
and bastardize my name until it morphed into Armond. I would not correct them
because I thought it sounded slightly more Anglo than my actual name. Instead I
felt complimented at the sound of it, relieved by their ease in pronouncing it. More
of these contradictions would follow until I developed two distinct Selves, one for
home and another for school. The two even had different aspirations, pleasures and
characteristics. One was expected to be funnier and more entertaining. The other
was more compassionate and generous. Over time my two Selves were perfected,
and I had the ability to transition in and out of characters when necessary.
By the time I reached junior high my double-life was starting to weigh heavily
on my notions of wholeness, integrity and truth. To the point where if I ran into
someone I did not remember, I would first figure out whether they knew me as
Aman or Armond before performing for them. W.E.B. Dubois (1994) was one
of the first people to speak of this duality of performance in his essay Of Our
Spiritual Strivings. In the essay, Dubois makes reference to his theory of double
consciousness, or the idea that blacks who live in the white world (in his case
America) are constantly negotiating two distinct selves. The first Self is informed
by a black experience that views blackness as a source of pride, history, and
ontological validity. Within this understanding, the black soul is able to view itself
for what it is. The point of conflict comes from a second more contradictory view
of the black Self. It is the curse of second sight that allows blacks the ability to
view themselves in and through the white worlds racist construction of them,
resulting in trauma and self loathing. Within this understanding, blacks take on the
racist stereotypes that position them as primitive objects in relation to white
modernity, rationality and subjecthood. This idea would later be expanded upon by
Fanon and, to some degree, Carl Jungs concept of the shadow spirit.
In recent years, Dubois has provided me a language to make sense of my
previous experiences. When I transitioned in and out of my performative roles (as
represented by my two names), I lost touch with my authentic Self. I became
frightened of the pressures to perform these roles to perfection. Those feelings of
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fright eventually evolved into more dangerous feelings of anxiety. As Dubois

(1994) explains it, for blacks who experience this, their quest becomes to settle
their spirit, and to merge [their] double self into a better and truer self (p.5).
Dubois analogized the process of settling our spirit as seeing beyond the veil; with
the veil representing the totalizing nature of European cultural hegemony, and the
historical attempt by whites to prevent us from seeing beyond it.
It would only be during my high school years that I cultivated a sense of pride in
my Eritreaness. Ironically enough, it was through the continued brunt of racism
that I found the strength to fight back, finally being able to see through the mirage
of Canadian integration that I had been chasing for so long. Today, I no longer
desire to take part in celebrating an identity that, on one hand, asks me to shed my
color for a Canadianess that professes to see beyond race and, on the other hand,
uses my color as a marker to detect and oppress me. Coming to this realization, I
now view my previous double consciousness as a sort of cultural schizophrenia, no
doubt caused by the pains of Canadian racism and colonial subjugation as Fanon
(1967) put it.
In recalling such painful memories, I also wonder how spirituality and
indigeneity fits into all of this. What kinds of spirit injuries were inflicted as a
result of my renamed and divided Self? How did my spirit recover from the
constant denials of my indigeneity? Or is it even possible to fully heal these
wounds?
More than anything I now realize the significance of naming in regards to
spiritual identity. The ways in which we choose to name and identify ourselves
often require incredible courage, spiritual strength, and recognition of how these
identifications are politicized. Some may think that our authentic Self is something
that is guarded and personal but I have come to believe that it is not. As African
people, our spiritual core is under question and attack by imposing cultures that
seek to deny, omit and disfigure it, those who want us to believe in its ugliness.
Over the years I have met other racialized peoples who share in my experience,
who were also forced to shed their Indigenous names in the name of integration.
Although I have a particular interest in understanding the effects of renaming on
the African spirit, it is important to acknowledge the similar ways in which
racialized Canadians are told we do not belong.
UNDERSTANDING THE PRESSURES OFASSIMILATION AND RENAMING

For many Indigenous people like myself, whose families immigrated to Canada
within recent generations, the adoption of an Anglo-friendly name is the first step
in their submission to European cultural hegemony. Sometimes it is a matter of
simply translating ones Biblical name to its Anglicized pronunciation. Other times
one selects an Anglo name with no relation or historical resonance with their own
culture. I have personally witnessed the abrupt transformation. Within months of
arriving Davindra becomes David, Mengistu becomes Mike, Shilpy
becomes Sheila and Jien Shen becomes Jimmy. In attempts to distance
ourselves from our Indigenous histories and cultures, we seek out names that hide
the obviousness of our Otherness.
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The act of renaming should be regarded as a negation of our heritage, a decisive

denial of who we were up to that point of departure. In the words of Arnold Itwaru,
a Toronto-based critic of Canadian racism and national consciousness, when
Indigenous peoples immigrate to Canada they face extreme pressures to negate
their core values, moral codes, and cultural knowledges. As the foremost marker of
their indigeneity, it then becomes necessary to drop their names for new ones.
Ksonzek and Itwaru conclude that the Indigenous bodys renaming of itself is
symptomatic of:
hostility to yourself, a negation which works to negate you The negation
of you is the destruction of you. It is where you disappear. The assimilated
immigrant. In the history of my experience this action of negation, the
making of the subordinate subject, was my being torn between love of self
and hatred of self, in which disliking me, disrespecting who I thought I was,
tended to be stronger. (Ksonzek & Itwaru, 1994, p. 15)
Itwarus reflections are heavily influenced by Fred Cases groundbreaking work
around racism and national consciousness. Case studied the relationship between
Canadian assimilation practices and the de-indigenization of the immigrant or as
Case prefers to term it, racialized body. Upon his own move to Canada in the
1960s the Afro-Guyanese scholar found that prevailing attitudes force the
immigrant to seek acceptance at any price Individuals change their names, give
themselves new origins and cultivate, in a caricatural manner, traits that they
associate with Canada (Case, 1977, p. 57). Simply put, the racialized immigrant
transforms their being: mind, body and spirit.
At its core, our adoption of European names is an admission of our inferiority in
the face of New World whiteness, an embarrassed dismissal of our Indigenous
heritage as being backward in its difference. For many African newcomers in
particular, who are beaten down by the double oppression of anti-Black racism and
anti-immigrant sentiments, it is too hard to withstand the pressures to take a
Canadian name. In other cases, our embrace of European monikers may have
occurred in our former countries where we were born (or theologically reborn)
with titles of universal familiarity, thanks to centuries of European colonialism,
Christian civilizing missions and the imperial nature of North American popular
culture.
Needless to say, ones renaming is symbolic of the broader assimilation process
at work. It is a rite of passage that seeks to alienate the Indigenous body from itself,
at the same time redressing it with Eurocentric thinking and aesthetic and setting
the course of assimilation towards the valorization of whiteness as the optimum
national identity. Whiteness becomes the focal point of national culture and
identity, serving as both its innovator and arbiter. Everyone else exists in a cultural
periphery. Meanwhile, government and much of white society tell us to be content
with our half-caste status; and so I remain not fully African and not quite Canadian,
but African-Canadian. As a result, we are prevented from laying claim to any
sense of wholeness (Case, 1977, p. 18). Frances Henry and Carol Tator elaborate

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that in the struggle over national identity, the dominant culture is reluctant to
include identities of others that it has constructed, perpetuated, and used to its
advantage (Henry & Tator, 2006, p. 29).
In many cases, the political and cultural reality facing Indigenous peoples once
they arrive contradicts the multicultural ideals that initially lured them to Canada. I
often witnessed this working in a Toronto not-for-profit organization as an
employment counselor. I can recount numerous instances where Indigenous clients
changed or Anglicized their name appeared on their resume. When I would ask
them why they changed it, they explained that appearing white on a resume is the
most effective way of securing employment. If they did not hide who they were
they would be discriminated against for having an ethnic name. When I
continued to ask if it was worth changing who they were for the sake of securing
employment, they would usually respond along the lines of, It hurts to deny who I
am, but it hurts more to not have a job.
It seems fitting to share a particularly memorable experience. Few years back I
was approached by a middle-aged client named Mohammad. Mohammad, who was
a foreign-trained engineer from Libya, was applying for survival jobs outside his
profession. As a newcomer from Africa, he had long been experiencing extreme
occupational racism and was having trouble finding work in his field. He took to
cleaning floors in libraries and other cash jobs to make ends meet. Remarkably,
just prior to our conversation, Mohammad had interviewed with a successful
company to work as an engineer. It was his first opportunity to do so in years. The
job paid well and desperately needed the services of a man of his qualification.
There was, however, a catch he was not prepared for. The company had cautioned
Mohammad that they wanted to avoid clashes in the workplace at all costs. It was
made obvious to him that by clashes they meant obvious cultural differences. In
order to make himself appear more willing to assimilate into the companys
WASPy environment, Mohammed was preparing to legally change his name to
John. The problem, as he explained it to me, was that although he was likely to
land the job his spirit was becoming increasingly disjointed from his environment.
As a dedicated Muslim, Mohammad prided himself on the sanctity of his
naming. His name was a proud declaration of his faith. The name Mohammad is
a transliteration of an Arabic name from the root H-M-D (praise). It is likely the
most widely adopted name in the world and a means of connecting Muslims across
different geographies, languages and cultural practices. For Mohammad, it
provided a historical rootedness that coupled his spirit to those before him. On the
other hand, as an African newcomer struggling to succeed in a hostile environment,
he believed renaming to be a logical way to send the right message to employers: I
am prepared to hide my faith for work. In the end, Mohammad was not chosen for
the position, and although he never changed it legally, he continues to use the name
John on resumes.
Similar to Mohammad, many Indigenous clients have shared with me their fears
of being seen as a source of clash. Many of them specifically mention their
names as reasons for discrimination. Changing their names becomes appealing
because it can bring them that much closer to whiteness. The benefit of whiteness,
as we often see it, is that it is accustomed to feeling omnipotent through its
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invisibility, to feeling entitled to choose who encircles it, and is privileged to move
in and out of those circles as it pleases. There is a noticeability of the arrival of
some bodies more than others, where by non-white bodies are seen as remarkably
more alien than white ones, who even when alone in the room full of Others
may still feel entitled to claim space (Ahmed, 2007, p.150). Just as whiteness
remains invisible through the normality of its naming (i.e. Jack, Jill, Mark,
Mary) we are constantly reminded that our names are awkward and hard to
pronounce. They are foreign. They are too long. They sound as dirty as we look.
They make us spit when we speak them. They make us too visible.
According to many committed multiculturalists those nave individuals who
stand by the failed policy even as it withers on its theoretical death bed
Mohammads story is not reflective of the popular immigrant experience. They
religiously quote the Canadian Multiculturalism Act (1988) to prove their point,
claiming that in all its universal tolerance and progression, the historic act makes
ample room for inter-cultural differences in the Canadian mosaic. Let us take some
time to briefly explore and debunk the myth of multiculturalism. We can start by
outlining a clearer understanding of the policy.
Henry and Tator define multiculturalism as an ideology that holds that racial,
cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity is an integral, beneficial, and necessary
part of Canadian society and identity (Henry & Tator, 2006, p. 351). This
definition sums up how the policy is paraded by government. Ella Shohat provides
us with a more on-the-ground understanding. She explains that the ideology
designates official, largely cosmetic government programs designed to placate
the Quebecois, Native Canadians, Blacks, and Asians(Shohat & Stam, 1994, p.
47). Consequently, multiculturalism becomes a cloak, abused by both government
and dominant society to hide the nations racist and exclusionary traditions.
Mackey points out that such liberal principles are the very language and
conceptual framework through which intolerance and exclusion are enabled,
reinforced, defined and defended (qtd. in Henry & Tator, 2006, p. 30). Canadian
neo-liberalism then seeks refuge from such criticisms in its rather utopian language
of equity, tolerance and diversity. It tells us that it is okay to keep the names,
languages and other cultural reminders of our former homelands. The obvious
problem here is that such positivist language focuses on the end rather than means
of racial and cultural cooperation. In an ironic cooptation of the language of
resistance, equity-focused policies become used to decorate the hallways of
institutions that are still racist. Meanwhile, no real structural changes are made to
Canadian institutions or social systems. Critical interrogations of white privilege,
Euro-Canadian cultural hegemony and other power imbalances are not pursued.
While multiculturalist rhetoric floats in an idealistic and largely uncontested
theoretical space, there remain very real political pressures on-the-ground for
Indigenous peoples to assimilate. Not the least of which being, the changing of our
names.

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THE CANADIAN CLASSROOM AS A HISTORICAL SITE OF

DE-SPIRITUALIZATION

Most of the literature on spirituality and schooling has been focused on creative
ways of integrating spiritual practices with curriculum (Shahjahan, 2006, p.3). It
also becomes important to recognize the Canadian school system as a primary site
and tool of de-spiritualization. Within our elementary, middle, and high schools,
Indigenous youth with non-Anglo names are targeted in humiliation rituals.
I can still remember mornings in my grade ten classroom as my teacher read the
attendance. Almost every day for the first few weeks of class my name was read
with a stutter, raised eyebrow, chuckle or wisecrack about how exotic it was. In
hindsight, these were clear instances of spirit injury. I was indeed made to feel dehumanized, reduced to an object of curious observation. Of course, how can one be
recognized as having a human spirit if they are not first recognized as human?
I distinctly recall how my teacher would follow my name with a pause, silently
inviting the class to become spectators in my humiliation, isolating my name as the
one oddity on a list of Jacks and Jills. My isolation further worked to undermine
my citizenship of that space, since my exotic name made me a perpetual visitor
to the classroom instead of its rightful occupant. No matter how many times I
reminded people that I was born in Canada, they still asked, Wheres that name
from?! Where do you really come from? My name was only indicative of the
broader problem. It marked my difference. In this case, difference was seen as a
deficiency. Even in the eyes of my teacher I was perceived as coming from a
devalued language, culture and worldview. In turn, I was less capable of grasping
the gift of Western knowledge. If our names are rooted in particular languages
and language itself is a host to distinct worldviews, then we must consider attacks
on our names as attacks on those same worldviews. As Phillipson (1997) puts it:
Education is a vital site for social and linguistic reproduction, the inculcation
of relevant knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and therefore particularly central
in processes of linguistic hierarchisation. (p. 238)
It was my placement at the bottom of the classroom hierarchy that paralysed my
sense of self, and detracted from my ability to perform in school. This problem
was, fundamentally, a question of spiritual well being. If a healthy spirit is
characterized by ones confidence in their abilities then my spiritual health was
under duress. My sense of confidence was being displaced by feelings of anxiety,
embarrassment, helplessness and a general resentment toward the process of
learning. All of which caused me great stress. My stress was then compounded
each day by the fact that teachers did not seem to notice or care. Instead I suffered
in silence, trying hard to hide my wounded spirit from others. Not wanting to be a
burden. Not wanting to show my classmates that I too realized that I was different.
It is clear to me now that racism and spirit injury were interlocking with one
another. Black students and educators were grossly underrepresented in my school.
So when I was pushed to the margins of classroom learning, I found myself alone.
During these encounters of racism and spirit injury, when we cannot see ourselves
reflected in those around us, we become self aware of our being. The former
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ultimately effects the latter. If racism was the cause of my problem then spirit
injury was its consequence.
And yet, the creative power of black spirituality is that it finds ways to prevent,
resist and overcome spiritual discomfort. We become trained through years of
growing up behind enemy lines to cope with our discomfort, to smile and laugh
in the face of it, and to work and raise families within it. We make a friend out of
discomfort. It is a friendship that allows us to sit in a room full of whites and come
to terms with our isolation. It is not that we no longer feel its pain or resist it but,
rather, we have learned how to navigate it.
By high school I found the confidence to navigate my surroundings. I also found
the confidence to reaffirm the pronunciation of my name in the face of its
mutilation. I did, however, have to deal with a different problem. The constant
defending of my name made others view me as a resister. I became troped as the
angry black man who did not like to have his name mistaken. In the classroom in
particular, I faced accusations of being an ungrateful immigrant who stubbornly
resisted assimilation. The ways in which Indigenous students resist mutilations of
their name should not go unnoticed. The frustrated exhaustion of constantly
correcting the pronunciation of our names is captured in Katalin Szepesis poem,
Hello My Name Is
Longing for it
not to happen
ONE MORE TIME.
And whats your name?
Wrinkled nose, puzzled eyes.
I must repeat.
Spelling not helpful.
Nationality then requested
to excuse the unintended butchery.
Comparing my identity
to objects and places
for the sake of memory
Next, considered interesting, different
and sometimes pretty.
Last name not attempted.
Too difficult, not necessary. (Szepesi, 2001, p. 35)
The classroom is a location of hazing and trauma for many minoritized bodies.
Punjabi feminist Anurita Baines recalls her elementary school environment as the
site of her forced assimilation. As a child travelling to Canada from India, her
parents adapted her name to prepare her for school. Anurita recalls:
I am enrolled in school and registered as Anne, an anglicized version of my
name. This, I am told, will save me from embarrassment in the classroom
when my name is called during attendance-taking. (Baines, 1997, p. 28)

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Again in Anuritas case, we see attendance-taking as a ritualized, communal

humiliation tactic. One used by predominantly white educators to remind students
of who does and does not belong in public spaces of learning. It was only when she
adopted a normal-sounding name that Anurita made friends to play with and
became more tolerated in the classroom. She reflects on her renaming as a
necessary baptism conducted by the Canadian school system. Her experience is not
dissimilar from what I experienced in my balancing act between Aman and
Armond, during which time I experienced a severe spiritual stress, one that
prevented me from comfortably interacting with others for fear that they would
discover my secret. Luis M. Aguiar (2001) calls this the imposter syndrome, a
feeling of deep psychological anxiety often felt by African students when they are
made to feel disconnected from their communities in and outside of school (p.
189).
According to Mambo Ama Mazama (2002), the comfort of feeling connected or
the fundamental unity of all that exists is the most important philosophical
principle of African spiritualities (p.219). It is necessary for the African spirit to
recognize and nurture its interconnectedness to the life forms around it; moving as
one cog in a universal whole. The question should then be asked, what happens
when the racism of our Canadian classrooms sever the African spirit from its
surroundings? Or as Dona Richards (1990) frames the question, What happens
when a people are forced to live (survive) within a culture based on a world view
which is oppressive to their ethos? (p. 209). In such cases we see that the African
spirit much like the African body becomes isolated. It becomes removed from
the common spirit of the school community. At the same time we are taught to feel
shame and judgment towards our Indigenous community leading to the imposter
syndrome that Aguiar speaks of.
It may be easier for us to understand the relationship between renaming and
spiritual disconnection through Jungs concept of the shadow spirit. When we
assume different names and personas in different spaces our wholeness becomes
threatened. He believed our spirits shadow side to embody everything that the
subject refuses to acknowledge about himself and yet (which) is always thrusting
itself upon him directly or indirectly (Earl, 2001, p. 285). In cases of renaming we
are refusing to acknowledge our indigeneity as represented by our names. We are
chasing the mirage of Canadian integration through the becoming of Armonds
and Jimmys, trying hard to segregate or suppress our double-existence as
Aman and Jien Shen in other spaces.
What is the cost of splitting our spirit in two? The inevitable cost is that the
journey to the self involves us in being crucified on the poles of the opposites
(Earl, 2001, p. 285). In other words, there is a necessary moment in which we need
to confront our contradictions en route to understanding our authentic Self. It
becomes necessary for us to deal with our shadow side or second sight, to confront
the divergence between whom we actually are and who we fantasize being.
Some say the shadow side of our spirit is a natural and inevitable existence in
oneself. I disagree. The shadow represents our tendency to live our lives
dishonestly. As a result, there is a need to constantly interrogate our fears, hatreds
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and insecurities in our pursuit of living a whole, connected and honest life. As Jung
puts it, one does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by
making the darkness conscious (qtd. In Earl, 2001, p. 285). Although notions of
the shadow are steeped in Christian notions of bright/good and dark/evil binaries,
the concept is still useful in exploring questions of spiritual dualism.
It should also be asked, how do white students experience these classroom
humiliation rituals? Do they gain or lose anything in becoming witnesses to the
teasing and Othering of our names? Fanonnian analysis becomes useful here: the
feeling of inferiority of the colonized is the correlative to the Europeans feeling of
superiority (Fanon, 1967, p. 93). In other words, as we grasp to find ourselves in
the spiritual tug-of-war between our shadow and authentic Selves, the white bodies
around us are reified as being whole. If our identities and spirits are indeed
understood as relational entities, then it can be argued that, through the spiritual
confusion of the dominated, the dominant spirit is reaffirmed as being both central
and whole. Looking back, I see this relationship in my own experiences. While
baring injurious humiliation during attendance-taking, the white bodies around me
were reaffirmed as the cultural-spiritual norm. They were made to feel comfortable
and connected to the classroom space. In essence, they experienced the same
unity of being that Mazama speaks of at my expense.
It is necessary to consider such issues of school-based assimilation, renaming
and spirit injury in historical terms. Cultural pressures on Indigenous students to
rename themselves today are no different than those experienced by First Nations
people during residential schooling.
Residential schools operated with government backing between the mid 1800s
and 1988, reaching a peak in 1931 with over eighty schools across Canada (Crey &
Fournier, 1997; Grant, 1996). In more than one hundred years of existence, the
schools were assimilation centers to over one third of the countrys First Nations
population. White school administrators realized the most effective way to do this
was through the de-spiritualization of the Indigenous body, or as Fournier and Crey
phrase it, killing the Indian in the child (Crey & Fournier, 1997, p. 47).
Government and Church united in a common vision for the schools. They were to
become factories of cultural transplantation. Resistant, godless savages were to
go in, and along the conveyer belt of European civilization they would emerge
obedient, Christian subjects. It was common practice that as soon as children
entered school, their traditional long hair was shorn or shaved off; they were
assigned a number and an English name and warned not to let a word of their
language pass their lips (Crey & Fournier, 1997, p. 57). The prohibiting of
Indigenous languages was especially painful for students, since it is through ones
native language that they come to know, represent, name, and act upon the world
(Wane, 2009, p. 164). To take away ones name, which has considerable meaning
associated with time, space and ancestorship in First Nations cultures, worked to
further injure the students spirit. Along with arbitrarily selected European names,
students were referred to as six, nine, forty two and so forth. The numbering
of students only accentuated their sub-human status, while also robbing them of
their distinctiveness.

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Baptizing First Nations children with new Biblical names intended to create a
spiritual disorientation of sorts, to erase the foremost reminder of the childs life
prior to residential schooling. However, receiving a Christian name did not exempt
children from continued tortures. In the eyes of school masters, to rename the
Indigenous body was to transform it from subject to object. As objects they were
deemed less than human, spiritless vessels that deserved the abuse they received.
For example, a clear correlation can be drawn between the renamings and rampant
sexual abuse that occurred in residential schools. Former Co-Chair of the B.C. First
Nations Summit, Danny Watts, recalls the sadistic combination of sexual
exploitation and religious evangelism that was shoved down his throat as a child:
Of course he began by praying to the Lord. Then he proceeded to take my
pants off, and then his own pants, and he would have an erection, and hed
lay behind me. And simulate sex, and have a climax. It was bad enough that
this man was doing this to an eleven-year-old boy. What made it even worse
was he used to make me kneel and ask for forgiveness. Wed do this bullshit
about, oh Lord weve sinned, and please forgive us. What did I do? I was just
a young boy being manipulated by this old man. (qtd, in Fournier & Crey,
1997, p. 120)
More than anything Watts describes the blend of spiritual and sexual abuse as
violence to your soul, to have this Christianity shit pushed down your throat, to
have to pray before you eat and pray before you go to bed. And pray after some
guy is trying to shove his prick up your ass (Fournier & Crey, 1997, p. 120).
Although deeply disturbing, stories like Watts should not go unmentioned. Some
researchers estimate that roughly 85 percent of the victims, resisters and survivors
of residential schools experienced similar torture (Fournier & Crey, 1997). That
being said, the culture of spiritual and sexual abuse in residential schools was
widely known and resisted by the First Nations. This led many to break free from
or dodge school recruitment. As late as 1951, eight out of every twenty First
Nations people over the age of five possessed no formal schooling as a result
(Graveline, 1998).
Of importance here is the fact that it was first necessary to de-humanize and despiritualize the Indigenous body before it could be recreated in the image of its
colonial creator. As mentioned before, the childrens renaming was central to this
de-spiritualization. They needed to first be distanced from the meaningful
associations of their Cree, Cayuga, Onondaga, Mohawk, Oneida, Algonquin,
Mikmaq, Iroquois, Wyandot etc. names. Names gave them life and spiritual
meaning. They were chosen from ancestral places, stories, life forms or spiritual
principles representative of the newborns character. Amongst the Mikmaq in
particular who originate from Canadas Atlantic Provinces and Gaspe Peninsula
of Quebec an individuals name holds a sacred knowledge within it that is passed
down from the Creator. It is a peaceful knowledge that should not be desecrated or
replaced. The Mikmaq language as a whole is not to be used for cursing or
belligerence. Instead, English is used as the language of aggression and negativity
(Joe & Choyce, 1997). We see the same treatment of naming amongst the Tlingit
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people of the Alaskan Pacific coast. The Tlingit naming ceremony is considered a
process of ancestral embodiment. Tlingit people choose names that indicate clan
affiliation but, more importantly, the chosen name must represent the inalienable
spirit of an ancestor believed to be reincarnate in the current owner of the name
(Bunten, 2008, p. 391). In a ceremony that celebrates ancestral revitalization and
cultural continuity, the new owner takes on the spiritual personality of their
namesake. Much of the new owners social formation is developed around this
association. When a person abandons their birth name they likewise become
stripped of their point of reference. Their knowledge of self becomes blurred.
Perhaps most troubling, they are emptied of the distinct historical trajectory and
spiritual character that secures their place in relation to the rest of the community.
DIGGING UP OUR ROOTS: TRACING THE RENAMING OF THE OTHER

Outside of the classroom the historical roots of renaming the Other go back much
further than residential schooling. It was during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade that
African naming systems came under universal attack. It is worth taking some time
to briefly discuss the unprecedented nature of this attack.
For many African brothers and sisters, family names do not resonate with
ancestral traditions but are residuals of colonialism, or worse, brandings forced
upon them during enslavement. During the Slave Trade white owners would rarely
assign enslaved Africans their own family name, often naming them instead after
criteria as arbitrary as skin complexion. This is evidenced by a court document
recovered from the Salem Witch Trials in which three Africans stood trial as
Tshituba Tony, John Indian, and Mary Black (Mphande, 2006, p. 107). Each of
these names was meant to correlate to the persons race colour. It should be
noted here that naming someone based on their aesthetic alone runs counter to most
Indigenous naming systems, in which the internal (spirit) character is believed to
be more revealing than the external (body).
In other instances, white owners used slave names to pay homage to the
political leaders of the day. This is why so many African-Americans are still
walking around with the markings of Jefferson, Washington, Jackson or
Lincoln, often oblivious to the fact that they are living tributes to the racist
forefathers who proposed, encouraged and legislated their enslavement. It was men
like Thomas Jefferson, for example, the so-called deliverer of American
independence who maintained that the blacks are inferior to the whites
endowments of both body and mind (Asante, 1990, p. 119).
In yet other instances there were Africans who secretly resisted renaming
through the remembrance and transgenerational passing down of Indigenous
names. However, they too were frequently forced to adopt Anglo-friendly
monikers. Many of whom feared being labeled rebellious because of their
resistance to European nomenclature and continued identification with Africa,
which was a place deeply feared in the racist white imaginary (Mphande, 2006, p.
108).

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Molefi Asante (2003) maintains that the renaming of the African body during
enslavement was an act of spiritual violence and disfiguration. No different than
the renamings that occurred in residential schools and, although remarkably less
violent, the pressures to rename ourselves in classrooms today.
The inhumane buying, selling and trading of African objects was justified
through American claims to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. For
many whites, owning, raping and torturing slaves were indeed moments of
happiness, moments of sadistic ecstasy that sought to consume the African body in
different ways. From the perspective of slave owners these things were not
happening to living, feeling people but mere objects void of human spirit. Thus, we
again see the relationship between renaming, racism and de-humanization.
We cannot simply engage the topic of African enslavement as a removed
history as many white scholars have tried. The fact of the matter is that history is
never as removed or static as some would have it, but continues to survive, mutate
and influence the present moment. For this reason we need to consider the
implications of slave names and how they continue to injure African spirits in the
present. Asante makes the necessary connection between the historical and present
moments. He argues that slave named Africans walking the streets today may be
physically free but remain in ontological and spiritual enslavement; they remain
complicit in the Hegelian myth that Africans had no history prior to enslavement
(Asante, 2003, p. 40). He prescribes formerly enslaved Africans of North America
to shed their slave name in order to reclaim their spirit:
Defined collectively by whites as Negroes and identified individually by
white names, [the enslaved] were bodies without spirits I see the choosing
of an African name as participatory, inasmuch as it contributes to the total
rise to consciousness, which, ultimately, is what real cultural naming and the
rise of the African spirit is all about. (Asante, 2003, pp. 38, 40; emphasis
added)
I disagree with Asante in his claim that the spirit can be taken away. I prefer to
believe the spirit could never be completely transplanted or seized from its body,
and thus, we Africans were never bodies without spirits. For Africans in North
America that hold European names, the adoption of Indigenous names will not help
to reclaim something that was lost, but instead decolonize something that was
always there.
Many authors have taken seriously the notion that spaces have feelings (Kanneh,
1998). It is now time to extend this notion to include the geographies of cultural
memory; or those spiritual practices and symbols that can reconnect displaced
bodies to the spaces they were forcefully removed from. No symbol is more crucial
to cultural memory than ones name. It is our names that connect us to physical
places, both real and imagined.

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WHAT IS IN A NAME?: EXPLORING THE TIGRINYA NAMING CEREMONY TO

UNDERSTAND WHAT WE LOSE BY RENAMING OURSELVES

To properly understand the damage inflicted on the spirit upon its renaming, let us
briefly explore the nature of indigenous African naming practices. This way we can
make an informed consideration as to what is lost when we disfigure or reject our
indigenous names.
In traditional African worldviews to rename someone is to negate their
existence. It is to disconnect them from the very act of their creation. This tradition
is poetically captured in the ancient Kemetic creation story from the city of
Memphis, where the creator god Ptah is said to have khepered (created) the worlds
many creatures by speaking their names to life. The ancients applied the
philosophy of spoken truth to personal names as well. They believed that to speak
someones name in a respectful manner was to affirm the meaning behind it, and
with each affirmation that meaning was brought to life (Shafer, 1991).
The tradition of divine utterance and prophetic naming can be found throughout
the continent today. From Yoruba Land to Oromia, the Nuers of Sudan to the Zulu
Nation, a persons name holds a spiritual significance often lost in the shallow
naming practices of the West (Shafer, 1991). Let me use the example of my own
name.
Aman is a Tigrinya name with historical prevalence in contemporary Eritrea
and Ethiopia. It best translates to English as meaning peace. The name was given
to me to commemorate the unique timing of my birth. My parents brought me into
the world in the midst of a revolutionary struggle, during which Eritrean
nationalists were fighting to secede from Ethiopia. In the midst of such prolonged
violence my parents chose my name as a testament of hope; hope for both a
peaceful resolution to the war and the realization of an independent Eritrea.
Eritrean people as a whole use naming as a way to prophesize the future. This can
be seen in the number of children named Awet (victory) during the thirty year
revolutionary struggle.
According to Tigrinya tradition, when I allowed my name to be disfigured I
likewise disfigured the meaning alive within it. It is no wonder then that I was left
feeling torn, imbalanced and rather unsettled when people interacted with me as
Armond. I may have felt the name helped me blend in, but I also felt a certain
blankness and meaninglessness, as if my renaming made me devoid of history.
It was either coincidence or spiritual prophecy that when I defended the true
pronunciation and integrity of my name I once again found myself at peace. In this
way, African spiritual worldviews tend to see ones name as a self-fulfilling
prophecy or core truth that needs to be nurtured and awoken. This is why so many
Indigenous societies place great emphasis on a childs naming ceremony. The very
moment a child is named will reinvoke the past, commemorate the present, and
help define the future. Whether that child grows up to celebrate or deface that name
can also have profound implications on their lives.
The Tigrinya naming ceremony can span up to twelve days. It is known to
Tigrinya people as the Msigar, meaning transition or renewal. When a child is
conceived they are temporarily referred to as Endu for a boy and Hintit for a
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girl. These are vague names that are used as equivalents for baby. For the first
twelve days after giving birth both mother and child do not leave the house. It is
believed that our names protect us from malicious spirits. If the newborn leaves the
house without a name s/he is vulnerable to attack by evil eyes and could die
prematurely. Thus, extra precautions are taken by family, friends and community
members to protect the newborn until they can collectively decide a name. Part of
the babys protection includes their continuous bathing and wrapping in blankets.
The emphasis on cleanliness is again related to ideas of purity and divine
protection.
Following days of all-women meetings on the subject and long discussions over
boon (coffee ceremony), a name is selected. It is crucial to point out the prominent
role that women play in the institution of naming. Prior to the Christianizing of the
Tigrinya highlands and the associated spread of patriarchy, women played an
exclusive role in the selection of names and mediation between the physical and
metaphysical worlds. More contemporarily, the childs father will select a name
that is representative of the ancestor the child most clearly resembles or embodies.
Other times a name is chosen based on lands, totems, religious symbols, or in
relation to an event that marks the unique timing of their birth. For example, my
fathers brother is named Asmalash, meaning the one who returned a member to
the family. The name was chosen for him because, just prior to his birth, my
grandfather had arrived home alive after being conscripted by the colonial regime
to fight in Libya during WWII. Until his arrival his family feared he may have
perished in the war. Another example would be my friend Mereb, who was named
in tribute to the river that historically separated Tigrinya highlanders from their
neighbors to the west. At one point in history the river symbolized cross-cultural
transformation for those who crossed it. Regardless of which name is chosen, a
celebration is sure to follow. The newborns mother will be elegantly dressed in
her finest nitsella (traditional shawl) and gold crown to match. For the first time in
twelve days she will be ushered out of the house to jovial songs of renewal and
family continuity, as harmonized by community members. Our names, whatever
they may be, are believed to be co-produced by community members who are
bounded by principles of collective participation and collective good. During the
reemergence of the newborns mother after twelve days of rest, her friends and
enemies alike attend to celebrate the cycle of life.
Many components of the Tigrinya naming ceremonycan be found in the naming
practices of other African societies. Asantes description of the Yoruba naming
ceremony is especially haunting in its similarity:
Upon birth, a newborn is sprinkled with water so that he will cry Girls
receive their names six days after they are born and boys are named eight
days after birth. During the naming ceremony, the baby is bathed in water,
which is then set outside. When family and friends arrive, they offer
suggestions for the infants new name. Babies are frequently named
according to the circumstances surrounding their birth, or else after a
particular deity the villagers worship. (Asante & Nwadiora, 2007, p. 32)

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The common thread in many African naming ceremonies is the importance of

patience in selecting a thoughtful and sacred name. In some cases it is one week,
two weeks, or even one month before the child is named.
Over the years this common thread has been captured in popular fiction. In the
opening scene of Alex Haleys epic novel, Roots, the birth of Kunta Kente is
described at length: By ancient custom, for the next seven days, there was but a
single task with which Omoro would seriously occupy himself: the selection of a
name for his firstborn son (Haley, 1974, p. 12). Haley elaborates that in Kuntas
Mauritanian village it was a priority that his name was rich with history. It
needed to position him in a historical Mandinka narrative that linked his spirit with
those of his ancestors in the same Great Story.
When we rename ourselves in new environments today, we dislodge ourselves
from the Great Story of our ancestors; we lose the titles of familiarity and meaning
that connect us to the living, living dead, and the unborn. It is also through our
Indigenous names whether given to us or assumed later in life that our spirit
survives our physical existence. The ritual recital of an ancestors name in order to
ensure their wellbeing in the afterlife is found in many Indigenous communities
today. J.S. Mbiti has noted that, amongst many African peoples, ones recognition
by name is extremely important. The appearance of the departed, and his being
recognized by name, may continue for up to four or five generations, so long as
someone is alive who once knew the departed personally by name (Mbiti, 1989,
p.25). When we rename ourselves, we leave this world only to be unrecognizable
in the next. We remain out of touch to the descendents that wish to speak our
names back to life. We die having turned our back on our authentic Self. Perhaps
worst of all, we empty ourselves of the rich philosophical meanings, geographies,
symbols, ancestors, and divine principles we were named after.
CONCLUSION

I chose to open this paper with a passage from Black Skin, White Masks because I
feel it speaks to my story. It is a passage that I keep on my wall to this day. It
serves as an artifact, a reminder of the former Selves who existed before me today,
a painful but necessary remembrance of those who were taught to be strangers to
themselves.
As I mentioned before, my story is not unique. There are countless Indigenous
bodies sitting in our classrooms in silent disguise, walking the streets disconnected
from their surroundings, and performing their alter egos for the white world on cue.
The time has come for us to ask more critical questions, not only about how we
choose to name ourselves, but also how we resist assimilation in a Great White
North that refuses to make peace with our differences. Seeing that I opened with
the words of Frantz Fanon, one of the greatest scholars to delve into identity
politics, I thought it would be equally fitting to conclude with the guidance of
another giant in my life, my grandmother. Although I never had the opportunity to
develop a relationship with my mothers mother, her teachings are gathered in my
mothers memory. Over the years my mothers stories of Mamma Biserat have

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painted a picture that is starting to clear. It is a picture of a remarkable woman full

of wisdom and spiritual guidance, of a woman who had great pride in her heritage
and humbly accepted her place within the ancestral line. In discussing this chapter
with my mother, she was reminded of a proverb used by Mamma Biserat. She
shared it with me in the hopes that it would illuminate the importance of naming in
Tigrinya tradition, and now I am sharing it with the disguised bodies I speak of:
When you name a child, you are filling their cup with the water of life.
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