object:1.22 - Tabooed Words
book class:The Golden Bough
author class:James George Frazer
subject class:Occultism
class:chapter
XXII. Tabooed Words
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.
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."
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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?"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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