Chapter 22. Tabooed Words.
Section 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 just 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 "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." Some Esquimaux take new
names when they are old, hoping thereby to get a new lease of life.
The Tolampoos of Celebes 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. 1
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. "The native
thinks that a stranger knowing his secret name would have special
power to work him ill by means of magic." 2
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 chequered 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 sprits, 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. 3
The Indians of Chiloe 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 folk's
names, would do them an injury; but so long as they do not know
the names, these mischievous sprites are powerless. The
Araucanians 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 Araucanian will answer, "I have none." When
an Ojebway is asked his name, he will look at some bystander and
ask him to answer. "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." 4
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 connexion
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 awe-struck 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. 5
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 "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." This general statement applies, for
example, to the Indian tribes of British Columbia, as to whom it is
said that "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." 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 enquire, "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 Motumotu tribes, the
Papuans of Finsch Haven in North New Guinea, the Nufoors of
Dutch New Guinea, and the Melanesians of the Bismarck
Archipelago. Among many tribes of South Africa men and women
never mention their names if they can get any one else to do it for
them, but they do not absolutely refuse when it cannot be
avoided. 6
Sometimes the embargo laid on personal names is not permanent;
it is conditional on circumstances, and when these change it
ceases to operate. Thus when the Nandi men are away on a 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, while a man 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 mwele 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 with them,
the buyer must still not address him by his proper name, but must
only call him mwele; 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 Sulka of New Britain are
near the territory of their enemies the Gaktei, 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 Gaktei as o lapsiek, that is, "the
rotten tree-trunks," and they imagine that by calling them that they
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
homoeopathically affect with clumsiness the limbs of their distant
foemen. Another illustration of this curious misconception is
furnished by a Caffre 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
effected without his knowledge. 7
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
names, 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 Gippsland blacks objected
strongly to let any one 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 a child; but on all occasions
abstained from mentioning the name of a grown-up person." The
Alfoors of Poso in Celebes will 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 enquire 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 Alfoors 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 parents' 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 Caffres 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 Kukis and Zemis
or Kacha Nagas of Assam parents drop 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 mother-kin, 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. 8
Section 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
the 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 Caffres 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 u-Mpaka, from
impaka, a small feline animal, she must speak of that beast by some
other name. Further, a Caffre 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 Caffres
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
are to use the original words themselves." A Caffre man, 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 Kirghiz 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 Shepherd, she may not speak of sheep, but must
call them "the bleating ones"; if his name is Lamb, she must refer to
lambs 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 Dyaks
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 brothers' wives and sisters' 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
Alfoors of Minahassa, in Celebes, 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"
(sasakajan). So among the Alfoors 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
"betel," you may not ask for betel by its ordinary name, you must
ask for "red mouth"; if you want betel-leaf, you may not say
betel-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 spoilt if a man
were to mention the names of his father and mother. 1
Among the Nufoors of Dutch New Guinea persons who are related
to each other by marriage are forbidden to mention each other's
names. Among the connexions 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-aunts, 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 and 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." 2
In the western islands 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 some one 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 had 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 from
mentioning each 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
these 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 from mentioning the number "one," because the
word for "one" formed part of the name of his wife's cousin. 3
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 the
dead or of chiefs and kings; and if the reticence as to these latter
names springs mainly from superstition, we may infer that the
reticence 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. 4
Section 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 Australian aborigines is never to mention the
name of a deceased person, whether male or female; to name
aloud 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 malign 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 Couit-gil, the spirit of the
departed, which hovers on earth for a time before it departs for ever
towards the setting sun. Of the tribes on the Lower Murray River we
are told that when a person dies "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." Amongst the tribes of Central Australia no one may utter the
name of the deceased during the period of mourning, 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. 1
The same reluctance to utter the names of the dead appears to
prevail among all the Indian tribes of America from Hudson's Bay
Territory to Patagonia. Among the Goajiros of Colombia to mention
the dead before his kinsmen is a dreadful offence, which is often
punished with death; for if it happens on the rancho of the
deceased, in presence of his nephew or uncle, they will assuredly
kill 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. 2
A similar reluctance to mention the names of the dead is reported
of peoples 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 Ainos of Japan and the Akamba
and Nandi of Eastern Africa; the Tinguianes 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 to avoid it by shifting their camp after a
death, ceasing for ever 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 any
one 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. 3
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 Encounter 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 happen to
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 many years. In some
Australian tribes the change of name thus brought about is
permanent; the old name is laid aside for ever, 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. 4
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 "under an impression that spirits will be
attracted back to earth if they hear familiar names often repeated."
Among the Kiowa Indians the name of the dead is never spoken in
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 change 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 for more victims;
hence in order to defeat his fell purpose they change 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. Nicobarese mourners
take new names in order to escape the unwelcome attentions of the
ghost; and for the same purpose they disguise themselves by
shaving their heads so that the ghost is unable to recognise
them. 5
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 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 to 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 was called." The writer gives as an
instance the case of a man whose name Karla signified "fire"; when
Karla 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
Ngnke, 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 Waa ( "crow") departed this life, during the period of
mourning for him nobody might call a crow a waa; everybody had
to speak of the bird as a narrapart. When a person who rejoiced in
the title of Ringtail Opossum (weearn) had gone 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
manuungkuurt. If the community were plunged in grief for the loss of
a respected female who bore the honourable name of Turkey
Bustard, the proper name for turkey bustards, which was barrim
barrim, went out, and tillit tilliitsh came in. And so mutatis mutandis
with the names of Black Cockatoo, Grey Duck, Gigantic Crane,
Kangaroo, Eagle, Dingo, and the rest. 6
A similar custom used to be constantly transforming the language
of the Abipones of Paraguay, amongst whom, however, a word
once abolished seems never to have been revived. New words,
says the missionary Dobrizhoffer, sprang up every year like
mushrooms in a night, because all words that resembled 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 in 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 the
same missionary, 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
Dobrizhoffer 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 teemed with erasures, old words having constantly to
be struck out as obsolete and new ones 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. de Roepstorff, "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 has
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 either new vocables are coined 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." 7
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. Gatschet, "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 acts 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?" 8
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 wholly efface,
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
slowly away, he becomes more willing to speak of them, and thus
their rude names may sometimes be rescued by the philosophic
enquirer 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 "custom forbids the mention of a
dead man's name, at least till many years have elapsed after the
bereavement." 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, one
of 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
Lafitau tells us that the name of the departed and the 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 and raise the dead." By raising the dead they meant
bestowing the name of the departed upon some one 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. 9
Among the Lapps, 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 Khonds 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 priest drops 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, the god of divination, 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. 10
Section 4. 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 Galla 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; any
one who mentioned it was clapped into gaol. The king might only
be referred to under certain high-sounding titles, such as "the
august," "the perfect," "the supreme," "the great emperor,"
"descendant of the angels," and so on. In Burma it was accounted
an impiety of the deepest dye 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; after his accession
to the throne the king was known by his royal titles only. 1
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
Dwandwes there was a chief called Langa, which means the sun;
hence the name of the sun was changed from langa to gala, and so
remains to this day, though Langa died more than a hundred years
ago. Again, in the Xnumayo tribe the word meaning "to herd cattle"
was changed from alusa or ayusa to kagesa, because u-Mayusi
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 Panda was king of Zululand, the word
for "a root of a tree," which is impando, was changed to nxabo.
Again, the word for "lies" or "slander" was altered from amacebo to
amakwata, because amacebo contains a syllable of the name of
the famous King Cetchwayo. These substitutions are not, however,
carried so far by the men as by the women, who omit every sound
even remotely resembling one that occurs in a tabooed name. At
the king's kraal, 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 connexions 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 kraal, for instance, may call a hyaena 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 multitudes of things it possesses three or
four synonyms, which through the blending of tribes are known all
over Zululand. 2
In Madagascar a similar custom everywhere prevails and has
resulted, as among 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 colour,
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. 3
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
Sakalavas, 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 during his 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. 4
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 of
the southward 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 Tahiti, any words in the 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. 5
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 haling along to the police court a ribald fellow who had
dared to name them, though well he knew that ever since their
consecration 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 civilised Greece. 6
Section 5. Names of Gods tabooed.
PRIMITIVE man creates his gods in his own image. Xenophanes
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 wherewith 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 name 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
dateless 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 kneaded 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 wont, 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 aileth 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, O 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. And 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, mine eye is not steadfast, I behold not the sky, the
moisture bedeweth my face as in summer-time." Then spake Isis,
"Tell me thy name, divine Father, for the man shall live who is
called by his name." Then answered Ra, "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 and it is
dark. At his command the Nile riseth, but the gods know not his
name. I am Khepera in the morning, I am Ra 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 spakest unto me. Oh tell it
me, that the poison may depart; for he shall live whose name is
named." Now the poison burned 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 Ra. 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 Ra live
and let the poison die." Thus spake great Isis, the queen of the
gods, she who knows Ra and his true name. 1
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 it 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 told 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
lore, the deity had no choice but to submit humbly to the man or
pay the penalty of his contumacy. 2
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 than
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
wrapt 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
Cheremiss of the Caucasus keep the names of their communal
villages secret from motives of superstition. 3
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 servility 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. 4