[GRASSLIST:8206] key column for categories

[Olivier Faber]

dear list

I imported a vector shapefile in Grass 6.0. The file contains some 70 
different categories that are not explicitely written in a 'cat' column. 
while importing, grass put me an extra column 'cat' in the .dbf file which is 
used as category (numbers from 1-...). I need to represent the different 
categories in different colors with a legend, but grass uses this cat column 
as key column. how do I change this to get my own categories represented in 
different colors?(do my categories have to be numbers or can they be text?) A 
small hind on how to show the legend would be helpful too.

Thanx for any info

Olivier