The like fear leads people who bear the same name as the dead to change it for another.
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.[1343] The same practice was observed by the aborigines of New South Wales,[1344] and is said to be observed by the tribes of the Lower Murray River,[1345] and of King George's Sound in western Australia.[1346] 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. On the [pg 356] Bloomfield River, when a namesake dies, the survivor is called Tanyu, a word whose meaning is unknown; or else he or she receives a name which refers to the corpse, with the syllable Wau prefixed to it. For example, he may be called Wau-batcha, with reference to the place where the man was buried; or Wau-wotchinyu (“burnt”), with reference to the cremation of the body. And if there should be several people in camp all bearing one of these allusive designations, they are distinguished from each other by the mention of the names of their mothers or other relatives, even though these last have long been dead and gone. Whenever Mr. W. E. Roth, to whom we owe this information, could obtain an explanation of the custom, the reason invariably assigned was a fear that the ghost, hearing himself called by name, might return and cause mischief.[1347] 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.[1348] 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.[1349] In some tribes to the east of the Rocky Mountains this change of name lasted only during the season of mourning,[1350] but in other tribes on the Pacific Coast of North America it seems to have been permanent.[1351] Amongst the Masai also, when two men of the same tribe bear the same name, and one of them dies, the survivor changes his name.[1352]
Sometimes all the near relations of the deceased change their names.
Sometimes by an extension of the same reasoning all the near relations of the deceased change their names, whatever [pg 357] 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.[1353] 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.”[1354] 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.[1355] Among the Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco in South America 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.[1356] So among the Guaycurus of the Gran Chaco, when a death had taken place, the chief used to change the names of every person in the tribe, man and woman, young and old, and it is said to have been wonderful to observe how from that moment everybody remembered his new name just as if he had borne it all his life.[1357] Nicobarese mourners take new names in order to escape the unwelcome attentions of the ghost; and [pg 358] for the same purpose they disguise themselves by shaving their heads so that the ghost is unable to recognise them.[1358] The Chukchees of Bering Strait believe that the souls of the dead turn into malignant spirits who seek to harm the living. Hence when a mother dies the name of her youngest and dearest child is changed, in order that her ghost may not know the child.[1359]
When the name of the deceased is that of a common object, the word is often dropped in ordinary speech and another substituted for it.
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.”[1360] In the Moorunde tribe the name for “teal” used to be torpool; but when a boy called Torpool died, a new name (tilquaitch) was given to the bird, and the old name dropped out altogether from the language of the tribe.[1361] Sometimes, however, such substitutes for common words were only in vogue for a limited time after the death, and were then discarded in favour of the old words. Thus among the Kowraregas of the Prince of Wales' Islands and [pg 359] the Gudangs of Cape York in Queensland, the names of the dead are never mentioned without great reluctance, so that, for example, when a man named Us, or quartz, died, the name of the stone was changed to nattam ure, “the thing which is a namesake,” but the original word would gradually return to common use.[1362] Again, a missionary, who lived among the Victorian aborigines, remarks that “it is customary among these blacks to disuse a word when a person has died whose name was the same, or even of the same sound. I find great difficulty in getting blacks to repeat such words. I believe this custom is common to all the Victorian tribes, though in course of time the word is resumed again. I have seen among the Murray blacks the dead freely spoken of when they have been dead some time.”[1363] 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.[1364] 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 [pg 360] mutatis mutandis with the names of Black Cockatoo, Grey Duck, Gigantic Crane, Kangaroo, Eagle, Dingo, and the rest.[1365]
This custom has transformed some of the languages of the American Indians.
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.[1366] Similarly, a peculiar feature of the Comanche language is that a portion of the vocabulary is continually changing. If, for example, a person called Eagle or Bison dies, a new name is invented for the bird or beast, because it is forbidden to mention the name of any one who is dead.[1367] So amongst the Kiowa Indians all words that suggest the name of a deceased person are dropped for a term of years and other words [pg 361] are substituted for them. The old word may after the lapse of years be restored, but it often happens that the new one keeps its place and the original word is entirely forgotten. Old men sometimes remember as many as three different names which have been successively used for the same thing. The new word is commonly a novel combination of existing roots, or a novel use of a current word, rather than a deliberately invented term.[1368]
A similar custom has modified languages in Africa, Buru, New Guinea, the Caroline Islands, and the Nicobarese.
The Basagala, a cattle-breeding people to the west of Uganda, cease to use a word if it was the name of an influential person who has died. For example, after the death of a chief named Mwenda, which means “nine,” the name for the numeral was changed.[1369] “On the death of a child, or a warrior, or a woman amongst the Masai, the body is thrown away, and the person's name is buried, i.e. it is never again mentioned by the family. Should there be anything which is called by that name, it is given another name which is not like that of the deceased, For instance, if an unimportant person called Ol-onana (he who is soft, or weak, or gentle) were to die, gentleness would not be called enanai in that kraal, but it would be called by another name, such as epolpol (it is smooth).... If an elder dies leaving children, his name is not buried for his descendants are named after him.”[1370] From this statement, which is translated from a native account in the Masai language, we may perhaps infer that among the Masai it is as a rule only the childless dead whose names are avoided. In the island of Buru it is unlawful to mention the names of the dead or any words that resemble them in sound.[1371] 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 [pg 362] is created to take its place, whenever the name happens to be a common term of the language.[1372] Thus at Waga-waga, near the south-eastern extremity of New Guinea, the names of the dead become taboo immediately after death, and if they are, as generally happens, the names of common objects, new words must be adopted for these things and the old words are dropped from the language, so long at least as the memory of the dead survives. For example, when a man died whose name Binama meant “hornbill,” a new name ambadina, literally “the plasterer,” was adopted for the bird. Consequently many words are permanently lost or revived with modified or new meanings. The frequent changes of vocabulary caused by this custom are very inconvenient, and nowadays the practice of using foreign words as substitutes is coming more and more into vogue. English profanity now contributes its share to the language of these savages.[1373] In the Caroline Islands the ordinary name for pig is puik, but in the Paliker district of Ponape the pig is called not puik but man-teitei, or “the animal that grubs in the soil,” for the word puik was there tabooed after the death of a man named Puik. “This is a living instance showing how under our very eyes old words are dropping out of use in these isolated dialects and new ones are taking their place.”[1374] 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 [pg 363] 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.”[1375]