by
Obododimma Oha
Anyone who has ever critically watched some Western movies featuring Native
Americans would notice an attempt at delivering the personal names of the
latter in English translations. That is a clever (or not-too-clever) means of
doing something to the other, using the other's personal name as the avenue.
The so-called translation of the personal names is actually a literal rendering
of what the names could be in English, the language of self. Further, this
literalisation in the narrative is in the context of Western perspective that
there is "nothing in a name"(that uninformed Shakespeare!) and that it is just a label. Western
names now hardly mean anything or their bearers and givers hardly focus on
their meanings. They just identify people or groups and pursuits; that's all!
The names that Native Americans give people may be reflections of their
perceptions of reality and that perception is not static; it changes. It is thus
sad and wrong to render the names as stable representations of a naive Native
American naming. (Imagine that assumption that the ridiculous non-sophistication is observable in its naming practice!) There is a sound reason for the giving of the descriptive or other type of name in a
particular context. So, uprooting the names and presenting them through the lens
of English is even a laughable practice of laughing at the other. Furthermore, is it really stylistically necessary to translate the Native American name? Why can't it be left untranslated in the narrative? And being let "untranslated" is that an identity is not relocated and seen through the eyes of the other!
I am sure some have come across the literal translations of names of Native
Americans such as "Standing Bear" and "Dances with the
Wolves." These are just some common examples. Indeed, Native Americans,
like many non-Western people attach meanings, values, philosophies,
experiences, etc to personal names that they give or bear. That is NOT
laughable. It does not mean that they are retarded in thinking that the sign and its meaning are natural and so are terribly behind time! It is just one way they define roles of people through what they are
called or try to direct them on some paths in the great narrative of culture.
Personal names may even be changed, re-invented, re-structured, etc as a way of
signifying preferences in their meanings and chosen directions. That is NOT
laughable.
But motion pictures sometimes also try to get us to laugh in the process
of entertaining us. It seems "appropriate" to select the Native Americans and their names
for this act of laughing at the other. It is better we laugh at the other and may find the cause to
do this by looking at the ways of the other which differ from our own. Native
American naming or reality does not have to comply with Western naming and so is not a justifiable context for laughing at the other.
Perhaps comparable to this laughing at the other through names is the false
narrative in the social media which says that the Chinese name their young by just taking
them to the kitchen, pulling down utensils, and any sound they hear from the
falling items is what they give the young one! In other words, the name is the
sound of the falling object! Is that not an indication that the evocation of
humour through our human creative imagination could be pernicious after all? It
could be seen as a missile (launched through laughter, what the Igbo prefer to call "njakiri")
against the other. And the other could hit back in another way!
What we prefer to call ourselves may be different from what others prefer
to call us. The difference is politics. Crouching beneath the laughter are sentiments bothering on denigration, anger, bitterness, funny perception of difference, etc.
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