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
