CEREMONIES AT THE NAMING OF A CHIEF’S SON
One day, during my second visit to Borneo, I was sitting in the veranda of a native’s house on the Tinjar River, chatting and gossiping with my host and his household, when I noticed in the group a man whose face was very familiar to me and closely associated with some incident or other in the year before; I looked at him for a minute, and then asked if he were not the man who had so effectively helped us when we were unable to find men to paddle our canoe down the river from the house of deceitful old Laki La. He modestly replied that he was one of the men; whereupon I reiterated my gratitude to him; but, unfortunately, his name, once so familiar to me, had quite escaped my memory, and, apologizing for my forgetfulness, I asked him what it was. His countenance fell; he looked much embarrassed for a moment, and then nudging the man sitting next to him looked from him to me. His neighbor took the hint, and at once told me the name, which was one I had never before heard; I concluded, therefore, that either he or I had mistaken the incident. A little while afterward I happened to meet the man again when he was alone, and being so sure in my recollection of his face, asked him if that were really his name which had been told to me; he assured me that it was, but even then I doubted, and insisted that it was not the name by which I had known him a year ago. ‘You are quite right, Tuan,’ he replied, ‘but since you were here I have been exceedingly sick—so sick that the evil Spirits were trying to make my soul wander away from my body [and here his voice dropped to a whisper]; so I changed my name; now they will not know where to find me.’ He looked furtively on all sides, as if afraid that the trick would be overheard by the Spirits; it was only after much persuasion and repeated assurances that the Spirits could never harm him through a white man that I induced him to tell me his former name, which he did in a timid whisper close to my ear. This incident, trifling in itself, is valuable, I think, in that it adds another to the list of instances recorded in Dr. J. G. Frazer’s valuable The Golden Bough (vol. i., pp. 404-420), where the utterance of a personal name is fraught with an unknown and deadly peril. To speculate on the source of this mysterious dread is tempting enough,—especially since in theorizing about the beliefs prevalent in the youth of the world there is no one who can contradict. As to its antiquity there can be no doubt; and that it is well nigh universal, the records of folk-lore are full of proof. It is sufficient here and now to note its existence among the Kayans and Kenyahs in the interior of Borneo, where, moreover, this unwillingness to utter the name of a person extends to inanimate objects. When they have planned a Tuba fishing, nothing will induce them to utter the word for fish. A Kayan, Kenyah, or Punan never thinks of saying that he is going to search for camphor, but that he is going to look for the ‘thing that smells,’ and even this he says in a whisper, for fear the camphor crystals deep in their secret, native home might hear and elude him after he had all the trouble of chopping down the tree.
TAMA BULAN, THE MOST INTELLIGENT CHIEF IN THE BARAM DISTRICT.
HE IS OF THE KENYAH TRIBE, AND LIVES ON THE PATA RIVER, ABOUT TWO HUNDRED MILES FROM THE COAST. THE NAME TAMA BULAN MEANS ‘FATHER OF MOON,’ AND WAS ASSUMED AFTER THE BIRTH OF HIS FIRST CHILD, A DAUGHTER, NAMED ‘BULAN.’ HIS PREVIOUS NAME WAS WANG.
These superstitions connected with the utterance of a name are deeply rooted among the Borneans, but the interdiction on the speaking of names of relatives is not so extended as it is among some other primitive people, notably the Kaffir women of South Africa, who may not speak a word, or even a word containing a syllable, resembling their husband’s name or the names of any of his male relatives, but must use paraphrases which do not contain the interdicted syllables.[3] Among the Kayans and Kenyahs, as far as I know, the restriction on the utterance of names of relatives extends only to the fathers-in-law of a married couple, whose names must not be mentioned by either the husband or the wife. Again, it is most ill-omened for a son to mention his dead father’s name; and, of course, neither man nor woman dare pronounce their own name; this is a downright courting of all conceivable disasters and diseases. It is quite possible that this unwillingness to mention their own name leads them to adopt a substitution, which for every-day use sufficiently designates them. Thus, when a child is born the parents substitute for their own names the name of the child prefixed by ‘Tama,’—father of,—or ‘Tina,’—mother of,—a highly ingenious device; the combination thus formed is really no name at all; it is merely a designation. On the same principle, when wife or husband dies the survivor is designated as ‘Aban,’—widower,—or ‘Bállo,’—widow,—of such a one. The simple-hearted folk evidently believe the Spirits to be the very strictest of constructionists, and that they pay no attention to anything but the name itself, pure and uncombined; to a substitution they pay no heed.
One might suppose that under such circumstances it would be rather more convenient, certainly far less hazardous, to have no name at all. But without a name there would be no existence,—how could a nameless thing be admitted to ‘Apo Legan,’ or Heaven? The receiving of a name is really the starting-point of life; and the bestowal of a name by the parents is probably the most serious of parental duties, and to be performed with ceremonies proportioned to their rank. So essential is the ceremony of naming that in the enumeration of a family an unnamed child is not counted; and should a child die before the ceremony of naming, a Kayan or Kenyah mother would mourn for it no more deeply than had it been stillborn. This is true even when an unnamed child lives to be nearly a year old.
Children of the labouring classes are named at the completion of what the father considers a successful harvest of rice; and the day is set for the ceremony when the phase of the moon is deemed auspicious; the rest of the household, with the exception of the few friends who assist, is undisturbed. When, however, the son of a Chief is to be named, and thereby admitted into the circle of kindred or into humanity, the occasion is made a holiday, and a feast-day for the whole community, and friendly households far and near for miles around are summoned to attend. It was on such an occasion as this, that we, Dr. Hiller and myself, had the rare fortune to be the visitors of Tama Bulan, the most influential Chief in the Baram District of Sarawak.
We had but recently come to Borneo when we first met Tama Bulan at the Baram Fort, whither he had come to attend a peacemaking and ratification of friendship with certain Ibans who had recently moved into the district, and also to barter at the Bazaar the rattans, raw gutta-percha, and camphor that his people had collected. We were much impressed with the sedate dignity of this inland Chief and the quiet demeanor of his people, and greatly desired to become more thoroughly acquainted with them. As he was sitting cross-legged on the veranda of Dr. Hose’s bungalow and discussing the affairs of the up-river people, he mentioned with pride that as soon as he reached home there were to be great feastings and ceremonies over the naming of his only son. Here was the chance of a life-time could we but induce him to let us be present during these ceremonies. We were totally unacquainted with Tama Bulan’s language,—the Kenyah,—or even with Malay, the Lingua Franca throughout Borneo and the greater part of the adjacent islands,—but what of that? Sign language is all sufficient at a pinch, and, furthermore, a vocabulary of a hundred and fifty to two hundred words is soon acquired, and, in simple Polynesian dialects, will prove adequate for all ordinary purposes. I doubt if any Caucasian has ever witnessed these ceremonies as observed by the Kenyahs; at any rate, as far as I know, they have never been recorded; accordingly, we strenuously urged Dr. Hose to obtain for us an invitation. When he, finally, with much tact, told the Kenyah Chief how anxious we were to return with him and pay him a visit in his home, the proposal was listened to with unusual gravity. Tama Bulan’s keen black eyes studied us very carefully from head to foot; evidently he was weighing the chances of possible accidents either to us or to his people. At last he broke silence, and, having in mind the dangerous rapids in the river, his first question was, ‘Can the Tuans [gentlemen] swim?’ When assured that we were adepts in that art, he deliberated again for a while, and then asked, ‘How can we get along without talking? the Tuans cannot speak my language, nor can I speak theirs.’ This objection was put aside by Dr. Hose, who flatteringly rejoined, ‘Ah, Tama Bulan does not know the power of the white man as well as I thought he did. The Tuans are so clever that in two days they will be able to speak your language as well as you do yourself; everything is easy to a white man.’ Whereat Tama Bulan smiled broadly, and, after another searching gaze, consented to let us return with him,—provided the government would not hold him responsible for any accidents. And so it was agreed, and the matter settled. But for some time my conscience did not acquit me of the conviction that we had forced ourselves unwarrantably on an unwilling host; however, I solaced myself with the cheering reflection that we could amply recompense him at the close of our visit.