Big Bad Bart

Yeah, you heard right -- Big Bad Bart. Triple B for short. Since you're my homeys, you can call me Bart. I decided on the name change after returning from the western range. On the plane ride home, I read stories of bad guys, desperadoes, soiled doves (prostitutes), cigar smoking ladies, gunslingers, and lawmen. I also read Native American stories -- tales from the First People. All those stories got me to reminiscing. For several weeks in my last year of medical school I lived on an Indian Reservation and worked in an Indian hospital. The generous spirit of the people was obvious, and I was fortunate they invited me into their lives.

I tried to learn some of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre language. Many Indians didn't know their native language, but I found an elderly Gros Ventre woman who did. She agreed to talk to me. She was in her eighties and shared some of her early childhood experiences. When very young, she was taken from her parents and forced to stay at a missionary boarding school to learn English; she wasn't allowed to speak her native tongue. She also had to wear hook and button shoes, adopt the White way of life, and take a "Christian" name. Normally, an Indian child was given a single, descriptive name, but not a first and last name.

Names like Lame Bull and Cut the Rope I still remember. George Lame Bull and Donna Cut the Rope would have been the Anglicized versions (I made up the first names). This elderly woman was proud, but probably unrecognized, for her golden stories from a time gone past. I don't know what came of her, or if she mattered to anyone else, or if she had surviving family, but I do remember some of the Indian words she taught me -- so her story lives on. Sadly, many of the young people didn't know their native language, or show interest in Indian ways. Hopefully, they've since rediscovered their roots.

Years ago I looked into my own roots, trampling around cemeteries to find old gravestone inscriptions, and checking out census records. I discovered my surname is Celtic in origin, likely Irish or Scot. Three hundred years ago my ancestors probably changed their last name to an English sounding one so they wouldn't be persecuted. Name picking took some serious thinking. Did you know Doc Holliday was a dentist? I guess that explains the Doc part. Anyhow, back to my new name. I've decided to pick a mean and ornery one like Big Bad Bart so I won't be persecuted. Wonder what will happen at work when I show up wearing my chaps and spurs?