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
