 Chapter 22 of The Golden Bough This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Golden Bough by Sir James Fraser Chapter 22. Tabooed Words Part 1 Personal Names Tabooed Unable to discriminate clearly between words and things, the savage, commonly fancies, that the link between a name and the person or thing denominated by it is not a mere arbitrary and ideal association, but a real and substantial bond, which unites the two in such a way that magic may be wrought on a man as easily through his name, as through his hair, his nails, or any other material part of his person. In fact, primitive man regards his name as a vital portion of himself, and takes care of it accordingly. Thus, for example, the North American Indian, quote, regards his name not as a mere label, but as a distinct part of his personality, just as much as are his eyes or his teeth, and believes that injury will result as surely from the malicious handling of his name as from a wound inflicted on any part of his physical organism. This belief was found among the various tribes from the Atlantic to the Pacific and has occasioned a number of curious regulations in regard to the concealment and change of names. End of quotation. Some Eskimo take new names when they are old, hoping thereby to get a new lease of life. The tolampus of Salibis believe that if you write a man's name down, you can carry off his soul along with it. Many savages at the present day regard their names as vital parts of themselves and therefore take great pains to conceal their real names, lest these should give to evil-disposed persons a handle by which to injure their owners. Thus to begin with the savages who rank at the bottom of the social scale we are told that the secrecy with which among the Australian Aborigines personal names are often kept from general knowledge arises in great measure from the belief that an enemy who knows your name has in it something which he can use magically to your detriment. An Australian black, says another writer, is always very unwilling to tell his real name and there is no doubt that this reluctance is due to the fear that through his name he may be injured by sorcerers. Amongst the tribes of Central Australia every man, woman and child has, besides a personal name which is in common use, a secret or sacred name which is bestowed by the older men upon him or her soon after birth and which is known to none but the fully initiated members of the group. This secret name is never mentioned except upon the most solemn occasions to utter it in the hearing of women or of men of another group would be a most serious breach of tribal custom as serious as the most flagrant case of sacrilege among ourselves. When mentioned at all the name is spoken only in a whisper and not until the most elaborate precautions have been taken that it shall be heard by no one but members of the group. Quote, the native thinks that a stranger knowing of his secret name would have a special power to work him ill by means of magic. End of quote. The same fear seems to have led to a custom of the same sort amongst the ancient Egyptians whose comparatively high civilisation was strangely dashed and checkered with relics of the lowest savagery. Every Egyptian received two names which were known respectively as the true name and the good name or the great name and the little name and while the good or little name was made public the true or great name appears to have been carefully concealed. A Brahman child receives two names one for common use the other a secret name which none but his father and mother should know. The latter is only used at ceremonies such as marriage. The custom is intended to protect the person against magic since a charm only becomes effectual in combination with the real name. Similarly the natives of Nias believe that harm may be done to a person by the demons who hear his name pronounced. Hence the names of infants who are especially exposed to the assaults of evil spirits are never spoken and often in haunted spots such as the gloomy depths of the forest the banks of a river or beside a bubbling spring men will abstain from calling each other by their names for a like reason. The Indians of Chiloé keep their names secret and do not like to have them uttered aloud for they say that there are fairies or imps on the mainland or neighbouring islands who, if they knew folks' names would do them an injury but so long as they do not know the names these mischievous sprites are powerless. The Aralcanians will hardly ever tell a stranger their names because they fear that he would thereby acquire some supernatural power over themselves. Asked his name by a stranger who is ignorant of their superstitions an Aralcanian will answer, I have none. When an Ojibwe is asked his name he will look at some bystander and ask him to answer. Quote, this reluctance arises from an impression they receive when young that if they repeat their own names it will prevent their growth and they will be small in stature. On account of this unwillingness to tell their names many strangers have fancied that they either have no names or have forgotten them. End of quote. In this last case no scruple seems to be felt about communicating a man's name to strangers and no ill-effects appear to be dreaded as a consequence of divulging it. Harm is only done when a name is spoken by its owner. Why is this? And why in particular should a man be thought to stunt his growth by uttering his own name? We may conjecture that to savages who act and think thus a person's name only seems to be a part of himself when it is uttered with his own breath. Uttered by the breath of others it has no vital connection with him and no harm can come to him through it. Whereas, so these primitive philosophers may have argued when a man lets his own name pass his lips he is parting with a living piece of himself and if he persists in so reckless a course he must certainly end by dissipating his energy and shattering his constitution. Many a broken-down debauchee, many a feeble frame wasted with disease may have been pointed out by these simple moralists to their awestruck disciples as a fearful example of the fate that must sooner or later overtake the profligate who indulges immoderately in the seductive habit of mentioning his own name. However, we may explain it. The fact is certain that many a savage evinces the strongest reluctance to pronounce his own name while at the same time he makes no objection at all to other people pronouncing it and will even invite them to do so for him in order to satisfy the curiosity of an inquisitive stranger. Thus, in some parts of Madagascar it is taboo for a person to tell his own name but a slave or attendant will answer for him. The same curious inconsistency as it may seem to us is recorded of some tribes of American Indians. Thus we are told that, quote, the name of an American Indian is a sacred thing not to be divulged by the owner himself without due consideration. One may ask a warrior of any tribe to give his name and the question will be met with either a point-blank refusal or the more diplomatic evasion that he cannot understand what is wanted of him. The moment a friend approaches the warrior first interrogated will whisper what is wanted and the friend can tell the name receiving a reciprocation of the courtesy from the other. End of quotation. This general statement applies, for example, to the Indian tribes of British Columbia as to whom it is said that, quote, one of their strangest prejudices which appears to pervade all tribes alike is a dislike to telling their names. Thus you never get a man's right name from himself but they will tell each other's names without hesitation. End of quote. In the whole of the East Indian archipelago the etiquette is the same. As a general rule no one will utter his own name. To inquire what is your name is a very indelicate question in native society. When in the course of administrative or judicial business a native is asked his name instead of replying he will look at his comrade to indicate that he is to answer for him or he will say straight out, ask him. The superstition is current all over the East Indies without exception and it is found also among the Motu and Motu Motu tribes the Papuans of Finchhaven in North New Guinea the Nufours of Dutch New Guinea and the Malineseans of the Bismarck archipelago. Among many tribes of South Africa men and women never mention their names if they can get anyone else to do it for them but they do not absolutely refuse when it cannot be avoided. Sometimes the embargo laid on personal names is imminent. It is conditional on circumstances and when these change it ceases to operate. Thus when the Nandi men are away on foray nobody at home may pronounce the names of the absent warriors they must be referred to as birds. Should a child so far forget itself as to mention one of the distant ones by name the mother would rebuke it saying don't talk of the birds who are in the heavens. Among the Bangala of the Upper Congo he is fishing and when he returns with his catch his proper name is in abeyance and nobody may mention it. Whatever the fisherman's real name may be he is called Mwale without distinction. The reason is that the river is full of spirits who, if they heard the fisherman's real name might so work against him that he would catch little or nothing. Even when he has caught his fish and landed them the buyer must still not address him by his proper name but must only call him Mwale for even then if the spirits were to hear his proper name they would either bear it in mind and serve him out another day or they might so mar the fish he had caught that he would get very little for them. Hence the fisherman can extract heavy damages from anybody who mentions his name or can compel the thoughtless speaker to relieve him of the fish at a good price so as to restore his luck. When the Sulkar of New Britain are near the territory of their enemies the Gactae, they take care not to mention them by their proper name believing that were they to do so their foes would attack and slay them. Hence in these circumstances they speak of the Gactae as Olapsiak that is the rotten tree trunks and they imagine that by calling them that they will make the limbs of their dreaded enemies ponderous and clumsy like logs. This example illustrates the extremely materialistic view which these savages take of the nature of words. They suppose that the mere utterance of an expression signifying clumsiness will homieopathically affect with clumsiness the limbs of their distant foemen. Another illustration of this curious misconception is furnished by a kaffa superstition that the character of a young thief can be reformed by shouting his name over a boiling kettle of medicated water then clapping a lid on the kettle and leaving the name to steep in the water for several days. It is not in the least necessary that the thief should be aware of the use that is being made of his name behind his back. The moral reformation will be affected without his knowledge. When it is deemed necessary that a man's real name should be kept secret it is often customary, as we have seen to call him by a surname or nickname. As distinguished from the real or primary name these secondary names are apparently held to be no part of the man himself so that they may be freely used and divulged to everybody without endangering his safety thereby. Sometimes in order to avoid the use of his own name a man will be called after his child. Thus we are informed that the gypseland blacks objected strongly that anyone outside the tribe know their names lest their enemies, learning them should make them vehicles of incantation and so charm their lives away. As children were not thought to have enemies they used to speak of a man as the father, uncle or cousin of so-and-so naming the child but on all occasions abstained from mentioning the name of a grown-up person. End of quote. The alphoes of Pozo and Salibis do not pronounce their own names. Among them accordingly if you wish to ascertain a person's name you ought not to ask the man himself but should inquire of others. But if this is impossible for example when there is no one else near you should ask him his child's name and then address him as the father of so-and-so. Nay, these alphoes are shy of uttering the names even of children so when a boy or girl has a nephew or niece he or she is addressed as uncle of so-and-so or aunt of so-and-so. In pure Malay society we are told a man is never asked his name and the custom of naming parents after their children is adopted only as a means of avoiding the use of the parent's own names. The writer who makes this statement adds in confirmation of it that childless persons are named after their younger brothers. Among the land dyaks children as they grow up are called, according to their sex the father or mother of a child of their father's or mother's younger brother or sister. That is they are called the father or mother of what we should call their first cousin. The kafers used to think it discourteous to call a bride by her own name so they would call her the mother of so-and-so even when she was only betrothed far less a wife and a mother. Among the kookies and zemis or kachanagas of a Sam parents dropped their names after the birth of a child and are named father and mother of so-and-so. Childless couples go by the name of the childless father, the childless mother, the father of no child, the mother of no child. The widespread custom of naming a father after his child has sometimes been supposed to spring from a desire on the father's part to assert his paternity apparently as a means of obtaining those rights over his children which had previously under a system of motherkin been possessed by the mother. But this explanation does not account for the parallel custom of naming the mother after her child which seems commonly to co-exist with the practice of naming the father after the child. Still less if possible does it apply to the customs of calling childless couples the father and mother of children which do not exist of naming people after their younger brothers and of designating children as the uncles and aunts of so-and-so or as the fathers and mothers of their first cousins. But all these practices are explained in a simple and natural way if we suppose that they originate in a reluctance to utter the real names of persons addressed or directly referred to. That reluctance is probably based partly on a fear of attracting the notice of evil spirits partly on a dread of revealing the name to sorcerers who would thereby obtain a handle for injuring the owner of the name. Part 2 Names of Relations Tabooed It might naturally be expected that the reserve so commonly maintained with regard to personal names would be dropped or at least relaxed among relations and friends. But the reverse of this is often the case. It is precisely the persons most intimately connected by blood and especially by marriage to whom the rule applies with greatest stringency. Such people are often forbidden not only to pronounce each other's names, but even to utter ordinary words which resemble or have a single syllable in common with these names. The persons who are thus mutually debarred from mentioning each other's names are especially husbands and wives, a man and his wife's parents and a woman and her husband's father. For example, among the kafas a woman may not publicly pronounce the birth name of her husband or of any of his brothers, nor may she use the interdicted word in its ordinary sense. If her husband for instance be called Umbaka from Imbaka, a small feline animal, she must speak of that beast by some other name. Further, a kafa wife is forbidden to pronounce even mentally the names of her father-in-law and of all her husband's male relations in the ascending line. And whenever the emphatic syllable of any of their names occurs in another word she must avoid it by substituting either an entirely new word or at least another syllable in its place. Hence this custom has given rise to an almost distinct language among the women which the kafas call women's speech. The interpretation of this women's speech is naturally very difficult, for no definite rules can be given for the formation of these substituted words, nor is it possible to form a dictionary of them, their number being so great. Since there may be many women, even in the same tribe, who would be no more at liberty to use the substitutes employed by some others, than they would to use the original words themselves. A kafaman on his side may not mention the name of his mother-in-law, nor may she pronounce his, but he is free to utter words in which the emphatic syllable of her name occurs. A Kyrgyz woman dares not pronounce the names of the older relations of her husband, nor even use words which resemble them in sound. For example, if one of these relations is called Shepard, she may not speak of sheep, but must call them the Bleating Ones. If his name is Lamb, she must refer to Lamb's as the Young Bleating Ones. In southern India, wives believe that to tell their husband's name or to pronounce it even in a dream would bring him to an untimely end. Among the sea-diacs a man may not pronounce the name of his father-in-law or mother-in-law without incurring the wrath of the spirits. And since he reckons as his father-in-law and mother-in-law, not only the father and mother of his own wife, but also the fathers and mothers of his brother's wives and sister's husbands, and likewise the fathers and mothers of all his cousins, the number of tabooed names may be very considerable, and the opportunities of error correspondingly numerous. To make confusion worse confounded, the names of persons are often the names of common things, such as moon, bridge, barley, cobra, leopard, so that when any of a man's many fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law are called by such names, these common words may not pass his lips. Among the alphoes of Minna Hassa in Salibi's the custom is carried still further so as to forbid the use even of words which merely resemble the personal names in sound. It is especially the name of a father-in-law which is thus laid under an interdict. If he, for example, is called Kalala his son-in-law may not speak of a horse by its common name, Kawalo. He must call it a riding-beast, Sasakayan. So among the alphoes of the island of Buru it is taboo to mention the names of parents and parents-in-law or even to speak of common objects by words which resemble these names in sound. Thus if your mother-in-law is called Dalu which means beetle you may not ask for beetle by its ordinary name, you must ask for red-mouth. If you want beetle-leaf, you may not say beetle-leaf, Dalu-mun you must say Karon-fenna. In the same island it is also taboo to mention the name of an elder brother in his presence. Transgressions of these rules are punished with fines. In Sunda it is thought that a particular crop would be spoiled if a man were to mention the names of his father and mother. Among the new foes of Dutch New Guinea, persons who are related to each other by marriage are forbidden to mention each other's names. Among the connections whose names are thus tabooed are wife, mother-in-law, father-in-law, your wife's uncles and aunts and also her grand-uncles and grand-dance, and the whole of your wife's or your husband's family in the same generation as yourself, except that men may mention the names of their brothers-in-law, though women may not. The taboo comes into operation as soon as the betrothal has taken place and before the marriage has been celebrated. Families thus connected by the betrothal of two of their members are not only forbidden to pronounce each other's names, they may not even look at each other, and the rule gives rise to the most comical scenes when they happen to meet unexpectedly, and not merely the names themselves, but any words that sound like them are scrupulously avoided, in other words, used in their place. If it should chance that a person has inadvertently uttered a forbidden name, he must at once throw himself on the floor and say, I have mentioned a wrong name, I throw it through the chinks of the floor in order that I may eat well. In the western island of Torres Straits, a man never mentioned the personal names of his father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law, and a woman was subject to the same restrictions. A brother-in-law might be spoken of as the husband or brother of someone whose name it was lawful to mention, and similarly a sister-in-law might be called the wife of so-and-so. If a man by chance used the personal name of his brother-in-law, he was ashamed and hung his head. His shame was only relieved when he made a present as compensation to the man whose name he had taken in vain. The same compensation was made to a sister-in-law, a father-in-law, and a mother-in-law for the accidental mention of their names. Among the natives who inhabit the coast of the Gazelle peninsula in New Britain, to mention the name of a brother-in-law is the grossest possible affront you can offer to him. It is a crime punishable with death. In the Banks Islands, Melanesia, the taboos laid on the names of persons connected by marriage are very strict. A man will not mention the name of his father-in-law much less the name of his mother-in-law, nor may he name his wife's brother, but he may name his wife's sister. She is nothing to him. A woman may not name her father-in-law, nor on any account her son-in-law. Two people whose children have intermarried are also debarred for mentioning other's names. And not only are all these persons forbidden to utter each other's names, they may not even pronounce ordinary words which chance to be either identical with the names, or to have any syllables in common with them. Thus we hear of a native of these islands who might not use the common words for pig and to die, because these words occurred in the polysyllabic name of his son-in-law. And we are told of another unfortunate who might not pronounce the everyday words for hand and hot on account of his wife's brother's name, and who was even debarred for mentioning the number one, because the word for one formed part of the name of his wife's cousin. The reluctance to mention the names or even syllables of the names of persons connected with the speaker by marriage can hardly be separated from the reluctance evinced by so many people to utter their own names, or the names of the dead or of chiefs and kings. And if the reluctance as to these latter names springs mainly from superstition, we may infer that the reluctance as to the former has no better foundation. That the savage's unwillingness to mention his own name is based, at least in part, on a superstitious fear of the ill use that might be made of it by his foes, whether human or spiritual, has already been shown. It remains to examine the similar usage in regard to the names of the dead and of royal personages. Part 3. Names of the dead tabooed The custom of abstaining from all mention of the names of the dead was observed in antiquity by the Albanians of the Caucasus, and at the present day it is in full force among many savage tribes. Thus we are told that one of the customs most rigidly observed and enforced amongst the Aborigines is never to mention the name of a deceased person whether male or female. To name a loud one who has departed this life would be a gross violation of their most sacred prejudices and they carefully abstain from it. The chief motive for this abstinence appears to be a fear of evoking the ghost although the natural unwillingness to revive past sorrows undoubtedly operates also to draw the veil of oblivion over the names of the dead. Once Mr Oldfield so terrified a native by shouting out the name of a deceased person that the man fairly took to his heels and did not venture to show himself again for several days. At their next meeting he bitterly reproached the rash white man for his indiscretion. Nor could I, adds Mr Oldfield, induce him by any means to utter the awful sound of a dead man's name, for by so doing he would have placed himself in the power of the maligned spirits. Among the aborigines of Victoria the dead were very rarely spoken of and then never by their names they were referred to in a subdued voice as the lost one or the poor fellow that is no more. To speak of them by name would it was supposed excite the malignity of quick gill the spirit of the departed which hovers on earth for a time before it departs forever towards the setting sun. Of the tribes on the Lower Murray River we are told that when a person dies, quote they carefully avoid mentioning his name but if compelled to do so they pronounce it in a very low whisper so faint that they imagine the spirit cannot hear their voice end of quote. Among the tribes of Central Australia no one may utter the name of the deceased during the period of morning unless it is absolutely necessary to do so and then it is only done in a whisper for fear of disturbing and annoying the man's spirit which is walking about in ghostly form. If the ghost hears his name mentioned he concludes that his kinsfolk are not mourning for him properly. If their grief were genuine they could not bear to bandy his name about. Touched to the quick by their hard-hearted indifference the indignant ghost will come and trouble them in dreams. The same reluctance to utter the names of the dead appears to prevail among the Indian tribes of America from Hudson's Bay Territory to Patagonia. Among the Goachiros of Columbia to mention the dead before his kinsmen is a dreadful offence which is often punished by death for if it happened on the rancher of the deceased in presence of his nephews or uncle the offender on the spot if they can. But if he escapes the penalty resolves itself into a heavy fine usually of two or more oxen. A similar reluctance to mention the names of the dead is reported of people so widely separated from each other as the Samoyeds of Siberia and the Todas of southern India the Mongols of Tartary and the Tuaregs of the Sahara the Anus of Japan and Nandi of eastern Africa the Tingianis of the Philippines and the inhabitants of the Nicobar islands of Borneo of Madagascar and of Tasmania In all cases even where it is not expressly stated the fundamental reason for this avoidance is probably the fear of the ghost that this is the real motive with the Tuaregs we are positively informed they dread the return of the dead man's spirit and do all they can avoid it by shifting their camp after a death, ceasing forever to pronounce the name of the departed and eschewing everything that might be regarded as an evocation or recall of his soul Hence they do not like the Arabs, designate individuals by adding to their personal names the names of their fathers they never speak of so and so son of so and so they give to every man a name which will live and die with him So among some of the Victorian tribes in Australia personal names were rarely perpetuated because the natives believed that anyone who adopted the name of a deceased person would not live long probably his ghostly namesake was supposed to come and fetch him away to the spirit land the same fear of the ghost which moves people to suppress his old name naturally leads all persons who bear a similar name to exchange it for another lest its utterance should attract the attention of the ghost who cannot reasonably be expected to discriminate between all the different applications of the same name Thus we are told that in the Adelaide and in Counter Bay tribes of South Australia the repugnance to mentioning the names of those who have died lately is carried so far that persons who bear the same name as the deceased abandon it and either adopt temporary names or are known by any others that belong to them a similar custom prevails among some of the Queensland tribes but the prohibition to use the names of the dead is not permanent though it may last for some years in some Australian tribes the change of name thus brought about is permanent the old name is laid aside forever and the man is known by his new name for the rest of his life or at least until he is obliged to change it again for a like reason among the North American Indians all persons whether men or women who bore the name of one who had just died were obliged to abandon it and to adopt other names which was formally done at the first ceremony of mourning for the dead in some tribes to the east of the Rocky Mountains this change of name lasted only during the season of mourning but in other tribes on the Pacific coast of North America it seems to have been permanent sometimes by an extension of the same reasoning all the near relations of the deceased change their names whatever they may happen to be doubtless from a fear that the sound of the familiar names might lure back the vagrant spirit to its old home thus in some Victorian tribes the ordinary names of all the next of kin were disused during the period of mourning and certain general terms prescribed by custom were substituted for them to call a mourner by his own name was considered an insult to the departed and often led to fighting and bloodshed among Indian tribes of North Western America near relations of the deceased often change their names quote under an impression that spirits will be attracted back to earth if they hear familiar names often repeated end of quote among the Kiowa Indians the name of the dead is never spoken by the presence of the relatives and on the death of any member of a family all the others take new names this custom was noted by Raleigh's colonists on Roanoke Island more than three centuries ago among the Lengua Indians not only is a dead man's name never mentioned but all the survivors changed their names also they say that death has been among them and has carried off a list of the living and that he will soon come back to him hence in order to defeat his failed purpose they changed their names believing that on his return death though he has got them all on his list will not be able to identify them under their new names and will depart to pursue the search elsewhere Nicobarie's mourners take new names in order to escape the unwelcome attentions of the ghost and for the same purpose they disguise themselves by shaving heads so that the ghost is unable to recognize them further when the name of the deceased happens to be that of some common object such as an animal or plant or fire or water it is sometimes considered necessary to drop that word in ordinary speech and to replace it by another a custom of this sort it is plain may easily be a potent agent of change in language for where it prevails in any considerable extent many words must constantly become obsolete and new ones spring up and this tendency has been remarked by observers who have recorded the custom in Australia America and elsewhere for example with regard to the Australian Aborigines it has been noted that the dialects change with almost every tribe some tribes name their children after natural objects and when the person so named dies the word is never again mentioned another word has therefore to be invented for the object after which the child is called end of quotation the writer gives as an instance the case of a man whose name Carla signified fire when Carla died a new word for fire had to be introduced hence adds the writer the language is always changing again in the encounter bay tribe of South Australia if a man of the name of which means water were to die the whole tribe would be obliged to use some other word to express water for a considerable time after his decease the writer who records this custom surmises that it may explain the presence of a number of synonyms in the language of the tribe this conjecture is confirmed by what we know of some Victorian tribes whose speech comprised a regular set of synonyms to be used instead of the common terms by all members of a tribe in times of mourning for instance if a man called war crow departed this life during the period of mourning for him nobody might call a crow a war everybody had to speak of the bird as a narrow part when a person who rejoiced in the title of ringtail opossum way on the way of all flesh his sorrowing relations and the tribe at large were bound for a time to refer to ringtail opossums by the more sonorous name of man if the community were plunged in grief for the loss of a respected female who bore the honourable name of turkey busted the proper name for turkey busters which was went out and came in and so andy's with the names of black cockatoo grey duck gigantic crane kangaroo eagle dingo and the rest a similar custom used to be constantly transforming the language of the abiponis in Paraguay amongst whom however a word once abolished seems never to have been revived new words says the missionary dobritzhofer sprang up every year like mushrooms in a night because all words that resemble the names of the dead were abolished by proclamation and others coined in their place the mint of words was in the hands of the old women of the tribe and whatever term they stamped with their approval and put into circulation was immediately accepted without a murmur by high and low alike and spread like wildfire through every camp and settlement of the tribe you would be astonished says to see how meekly the whole nation acquiesces in the decision of a withered old hag and how completely the old familiar words fall instantly out of use and are never repeated either through force of habit or forgetfulness in the seven years that dobritzhofer spent among these Indians the native word for jaguar was changed thrice and the words for crocodile thorn and the slaughter of cattle underwent similar though less varied vicissitudes as a result of this habit the vocabularies of the missionaries teamed with erasers old words having constantly to be struck out as obsolete and new words inserted in their place in many tribes of British New Guinea the names of persons are also the names of common things the people believe that if the name of a deceased person is pronounced his spirit will return and as they have no wish to see it back among them the mention of his name is tabooed and a new word is created to take its place whenever the name happens to be a common term of the language consequently many words are permanently lost or revived with modified or new meanings in the nicobar islands a similar practice has similarly affected the speech of the natives a most singular custom says Mr. Darupstorf prevails among them which one would suppose must most effectually hinder the making of history or at any rate the transmission of historical narrative by a strict rule which is all the sanction of nicobar superstition no man's name may be mentioned after his death to such a length is this carried that when as very frequently happens the man rejoiced in the name of fowl hat, fire, road etc in its nicobarese equivalent the use of these words is carefully eschewed for the future not only as being the personal designation of the deceased but even as the names of the common things they represent the words die out of the language and are the new vocables or coin to express the thing intended or a substitute for the disused word is found in other nicobarese dialects or in some foreign tongue this extraordinary custom not only adds an element of instability to the language but destroys the continuity of political life and renders the record of past events precarious and vague if not impossible that a superstition which suppresses the names of the dead must cut at the very root of historical tradition has been remarked by other workers in this field the Klamath people observes Mr. A. S. Gashi possess no historic traditions going further back in time than a century for the simple reason that there was a strict law prohibiting the mention of the person or act of a deceased individual by using his name this law was rigidly observed among the Californians no less than among the Oregonians and on its transgression the death penalty could be inflicted this is certainly enough to suppress all historical knowledge within a people how can history be written without names in many tribes however the power of this superstition to blot out the memory of the past is to some extent weakened and impaired by a natural tendency of the human mind time which wears out the deepest impressions, inevitably dulls if it does not hold your face the print left on the savage mind by the mystery and horror of death sooner or later as the memory of his loved ones fades away he becomes more willing to speak of them and thus their rude names may sometimes be rescued by the philosophic inquirer before they have vanished like autumn leaves or winter snows into the vast undistinguished limbo of the past in some of the Victorian tribes the prohibition to mention the names of the dead remained in force only during the period of mourning in the Port Lincoln tribe of South Australia it lasted many years among the Chinook Indians of North America quote custom forbids the mention of a dead man's name at least till many years have elapsed after the bereavement end of quote among the Puyallup Indians the observance of the taboo is relaxed after several years when the mourners have forgotten their grief and if the deceased was a famous warrior his descendants, for instance a great grandson may be named after him in this tribe the taboo is not much observed at any time except by the relations of the dead similarly the Jesuit missionary Lafito tells us that the name of the departed and similar names of the survivors were so to say buried with the corpse until the poignancy of their grief being abated it pleased the relations to lift up the tree to raise the dead by raising the dead they meant bestowing the name of the departed upon someone else who thus became to all intents and purposes a reincarnation of the deceased since on the principles of savage philosophy the name is a vital part if not the soul of the man among the laps when a woman was with child and near the time of her delivery a deceased ancestor or relation used to appear to her in a dream and inform her what dead person was to be born again in her infant and whose name the child was therefore to bear if the woman had no such dream it fell to the father or the relatives to determine the name by divination or by consulting a wizard among the cons a birth is celebrated on the seventh day after the event by a feast given to the priest and to the whole village to determine the child's name the child's grains of rice into a cup of water naming with each grain a deceased ancestor from the movements of the seed in the water and from observations made on the person of the infant he pronounces which of his progenitors has reappeared in him and the child generally at least among the northern tribes receives the name of that ancestor among the Yorubas soon after a child has been born a priest of Ifa appears on the scene to ascertain what ancestral soul has been reborn in the infant as soon as this has been decided the parents are told that the child must conform in all respects to the manner of life of the ancestor who now animates him or her and if as often happens they profess ignorance the priest supplies the necessary information the child usually receives the name of the ancestor who has been born again in him part four names of kings and other sacred persons tabooed when we see that in primitive society the names of mere commoners whether alive or dead are matters of such anxious care we need not be surprised that great precautions should be taken to guard from harm the names of sacred kings and priests thus the name of the king of Dahomey is always kept secret lest the knowledge of it should enable some evil minded person to do him a mischief the appellations by which the different kings of Dahomey have been known to Europeans are not their true names but mere titles or what the natives call strong names the natives seem to think that no harm comes of such titles being known since they are not like the birth names vitally connected with their owners in the Gala Kingdom of Ghera the birth name of the sovereign may not be pronounced by a subject under pain of death and common words which resemble it in sound are changed for others among the Bahima of Central Africa when the king dies his name is abolished from the language and if his name was that of an animal a new appellation must be found for the creature at once for example the king is often called a lion hence at the death of a king named lion a new name for lions in general has to be coined in Siam it used to be difficult to ascertain the king's real name since it was carefully kept secret from fear of sorcery anyone who mentioned it was clapped into jail the king might only be referred to under certain high sounding titles such as the August the perfect the supreme the great emperor of the angels and so on in Burma it was accounted an impiety of the deepest die to mention the name of the reigning sovereign Burmese subjects even when they were far from their country could not be prevailed upon to do so even after his accession to the throne the king was known by his royal titles only among the Zulus no man will mention the name of the chief of his tribe or the names of the progenitors of the chief so far as he can remember them nor will he utter common words which coincide with or merely resemble in sound tabooed names in the tribe of the Dwandwis there was a chief called Langa which means the son hence the name of the son was changed from Langa to Galla and so remains to this day though Langa died more than a hundred years ago again in the Nomayu tribe the word meaning to herd cattle was changed from Alusa or Ayusa to Kagesa because Umayusi was the name of the chief besides these taboos which were observed by each tribe separately all the Zulu tribes united in tabooing the name of the king who reigned over the whole nation hence for example when Punda was king of Zululand the word for a root of a tree in Punda was changed to Unkabo again the word for lies or slander was altered from Amaccebo to Amakwata because Amaccebo contains a syllable of the name of the famous king Tsechwail these substitutions are not however carried so far by the men as by the women who are met every sound even remotely resembling one that occurs in the tabooed name as Carl indeed it is sometimes difficult to understand the speech of the royal wives as they treat in this fashion the names not only of the king and his forefathers but even of his and their brothers back for generations when to these tribal and national taboos we add those family taboos on the names of connections by marriage which have been already described we can easily understand how it comes about that in Zululand every tribe has words peculiar to itself and that the women have a considerable vocabulary of their own members too of one family may be debarred from using words employed by those of another the women of one Carl for instance may call a hyena by its ordinary name those of the next may use the common substitute while in a third the substitute may also be unlawful and another term may have to be invented to supply its place hence the Zulu language at the present day almost presents the appearance of being a double one indeed for multitude of things it possesses three or four synonyms which through the blending of tribes are known all over Zululand in Madagascar a similar custom everywhere prevails and has resulted as amongst the Zulus in producing certain dialectic differences in the speech of the various tribes there are no family names in Madagascar and almost every personal name is drawn from the language of daily life and signifies some common object or action or quality such as a bird a beast a tree a plant a color and so on now whenever one of these common words forms the name or part of the name of the chief of the tribe it becomes sacred and may no longer be used in its ordinary signification as the name of a tree an insect or what not hence a new name for the object must be invented to replace the one which has been discarded it is easy to conceive what confusion and uncertainty may thus be introduced into a language when it is spoken by many little local tribes each ruled by a petty chief with his own sacred name yet there are tribes and people who submit to this tyranny of words as their fathers did before them from time immemorial the inconvenient results of the custom are especially marked on the western coast of the island where on account of the large number of independent chieftains the names of things, places and rivers have suffered so many changes that confusion often arises for when once common words have been banned by the chiefs the natives will not acknowledge to have ever known them in their old sense but it is not merely the names of living kings and chiefs which are tabooed in Madagascar the names of dead sovereigns are equally under a ban at least in some parts of the island thus among the Saka lovers when a king has died the nobles and people meet in council round the dead body and solemnly choose a new name by which the deceased monarch shall be henceforth known after the new name has been adopted the old name by which the king was known the life becomes sacred and may not be pronounced under pain of death further words in the common language which bear any resemblance to the forbidden name also become sacred and have to be replaced by others persons who uttered these forbidden words were looked on not only as grossly rude but even as felons they had committed a capital crime however these changes of vocabulary are confined to the district over which the deceased king reigned in the neighbouring districts the old words continue to be employed in the old sense the sanctity attributed to the persons of chiefs in Polynesia naturally extended also to their names which on the primitive view are hardly separable from the personality of their owners hence in Polynesia we find the same systematic prohibition to utter the names of chiefs or of common words resembling them which we have already met with in Zululand and Madagascar thus in New Zealand the name of a chief is held so sacred that when it happens to be a common word it may not be used in the language and another has to be found to replace it for example a chief to the south of East Cape bore the name of Maripi which signified a knife hence a new word Nekra for knife was introduced and the old one became obsolete elsewhere the word for water Wai had to be changed because it chanced to be the name of the chief and would have been desecrated by being applied to the vulgar fluid as well as to his sacred person this taboo naturally produced a plentiful crop of synonyms in the Maori language and travellers newly arrived in the country were sometimes puzzled at finding the same things called by quite different names in neighbouring tribes when a king comes to the throne in Taihiti any words in a language that resemble his name in sound must be changed for others in former times if any man were so rash as to disregard this custom and to use the forbidden words not only he but all his relations were immediately put to death but the changes thus introduced were only temporary on the death of the king the new words fell into disuse and the original ones were revived in ancient Greece the names of the priests and other high officials who had to do with the performance of the Eleusinian mysteries might not be uttered in their lifetime to pronounce them was a legal offence the pedant in Lucian tells how he fell in with these august personages hailing along to the police court a rybald fellow who had dared to name them though well he knew that ever since it was unlawful to do so because they had become anonymous having lost their old names and acquired new and sacred titles from two inscriptions found at Eleusis it appears that the names of the priests were committed to the depths of the sea probably they were engraved on tablets of bronze or lead which were then thrown into deep water in the Gulf of Salamis the intention doubtless was to keep the names a profound secret and how could that be done more surely than by sinking them in the sea what human vision could spy them glimmering far down in the dim depths of the green water a clearer illustration of the confusion between the incorporeal and the corporeal between the name and its material embodiment could hardly be found than in this practice of civilized Greece Part 5 Names of Gods Taboud Primitive man creates his gods in his own image Xenophonies remarked long ago that the complexion of Negro gods was black and their noses flat that Thracian gods were ruddy and blue-eyed and that if horses, oxen and lions only believed in gods and had hands were with to portray them they would doubtless fashion their deities in the form of horses and oxen and lions hence, just as the furtive savage conceals his real name because he fears that sorcerers might make an evil use of it so he fancies that his gods must likewise keep their true names secret lest other gods or even men should learn the mystic sounds and thus be able to conjure with them Nowhere was this crude conception of the secrecy and magical virtue of the divine name more firmly held or more fully developed than in ancient Egypt where the superstitions of a date-less past were embalmed in the hearts of the people hardly less effectually than the bodies of cats and crocodiles and the rest of the divine menagerie in their rock-cut tombs The conception is well illustrated by a story which tells how the subtle Isis wormed his secret name from Ra the great Egyptian god of the sun Isis, so runs the tale, was a woman mighty in words and she was weary of the world of men and yearned after the world of the gods and she meditated in her heart saying, cannot I, by virtue of the great name of Ra make myself a goddess and reign like him in heaven and earth for Ra had many names but the great name, which gave him all power over gods and men, was known to none but himself Now the god was by this time grown old he slobbered at the mouth and his spittle fell upon the ground so Isis gathered up the spittle and the earth with it and needed thereof a serpent and laid it in the path where the great god passed every day to his double kingdom after his heart's desire and when he came forth according to his want attended by all his company of gods the sacred serpent stung him and the god opened his mouth and cried and his cry went up to heaven and the company of gods cried what alith thee and the gods shouted, lo and behold but he could not answer his jaws rattled, his limbs shook the poison ran through his flesh as the nile floweth over the land when the great god had stilled his heart he cried to his followers come to me, oh my children, offspring of my body I am a prince, the son of a prince the divine seed of a god my father devised my name my father and my mother gave me my name and it remained hidden in my body since my birth that no magician might have magic power over me I went out to behold that which I have made I walked in the two lands which I have created and lo, something stung me what it was I know not was it fire, was it water my heart is on fire my flesh trembleth, all my limbs do quake bring me the children of the gods with healing words and understanding lips whose power reacheth to heaven then came to him the children of the gods and they were very sorrowful an Isis came with her craft whose mouth is full of the breath of life whose spells chase pain away whose word maketh the dead to live she said, what is it divine father what is it the holy god opened his mouth he spake and said I went upon my way I walked after my heart's desire in the two regions which I have made to behold that which I have created and lo, a serpent that I saw not stung me is it fire, is it water I am colder than water I am hotter than fire all my limbs sweat I tremble my eyes not steadfast I behold not the sky the moisture be due with my face as in summertime then spake Isis tell me thy name divine father for the man shall live who is called by his name then answered Rah I created the heavens and the earth I ordered the mountains I made the great and wide sea I stretched out the two horizons like a curtain I am he who openeth his eyes and it is light and who shutteth them it is dark at his command the nile riseth but the gods know not his name I am hepera in the morning I am Rah at noon I am tum at eve but the poison was not taken away from him it pierced deeper and the great god could no longer walk then said Isis to him that was not thy name that thou spake is done to me oh tell me that the poison may depart for he shall live whose name is named now the poison burnt like fire it was hotter than the flame of fire the god said I consent that Isis shall search into me and that my name shall pass from my breast into hers then the god hid himself from the gods and his place in the ship of eternity was empty thus was the name of the great god taken from him and Isis the witch spake flow away poison depart from Rah it is I even I who overcome the poison and cast it to the earth for the name of the great god hath been taken away from him let Rah live and let the poison die thus spake great Isis the queen of the gods she who knows Rah and his true name from this story it appears that the real name of the god with which his power was inextricably bound up was supposed to be lodged in an almost physical sense somewhere in his breast from which Isis extracted it by a sort of surgical operation and transferred with all its supernatural powers to herself in Egypt attempts like that of Isis to appropriate the power of a high god by possessing herself of his name were not mere legends of the mythical beings of a remote past every Egyptian magician aspired to wield like powers by similar means for it was believed that he who possessed the true name possessed the very being of god or man and could force even a deity to obey him as a slave obeys his master thus the art of the magician consisted in obtaining from the gods a revelation of their sacred names and he left no stone unturned to accomplish his end when once a god in a moment of weakness or forgetfulness had imparted to the wizard the wondrous law the deity had no choice but to submit humbly to the man or pay the penalty of his contumacy the belief in the magic virtue of divine names was shared by the Romans when they sat down before a city the priests addressed the guardian deity of the place in a set form of prayer or incantation inviting him to abandon the beleaguered city and come over to the Romans who would treat him as well as or better he had ever been treated in his old home hence the name of the guardian deity of Rome was kept a profound secret lest the enemies of the Republic might lure him away even as the Romans themselves had induced many gods to desert like rats the falling fortunes of cities that had sheltered them in happier days nay the real name not merely of its guardian deity but of the city itself was wrapped in mystery and might never be uttered not even in the sacred rites a certain Valerius Soranus who dared to divulge the priceless secret was put to death or came to a bad end in like manner it seems the ancient Assyrians were forbidden to mention the mystic names of their cities and down to modern times the Cheremis of the Caucasus keep the names of their communal villages secret from motives of superstition if the reader has had the patience to follow this examination of the superstitions attaching to personal names he will probably agree that the mystery in which the names of royal personages are so often shrouded is no isolated phenomenon no arbitrary expression of courtly civility and adulation but merely the particular application of a general law of primitive thought which includes within its scope common folk and gods as well as kings and priests