Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/52

40 of his actions and his valour. Both sons and daughters call their father by that name: so do his wives.

But women have no power to pronounce the name of their father; they too are under the same obligation as the sons. The mothers of the sons are, like them, prohibited from uttering the name of their husband. And the mothers (of the man himself) are also prohibited from using it,, because the name which was bestowed on a man by his father is tabu (uninazala) to women. But women, even when they are speaking to their husband's father, say Baba, just as the husband says Baba; but the name of their husband they are not permitted to mention, because it issued from the mouth of their father-in-law (uninazala) who begot their husband. If they mention it, they depart from the position of daughters-in-law (abalokasana) and become sisters of the man who begot their husband. And thus there is a distinction in women calling a man by the name bestowed on him by his father, if they call him by that name, it seems they are no longer his wives, but they have given birth to him, like his father. The father-in-law (uninazala) is the husband's father, the daughters-in-law address him as Mezala, because he begot their husband (zala=beget, bear: used of either parent); they address their husband's mother as Mamezala, because their husband was generated by both those two. "Mamezala" is not used in addressing the wife alone; it is also said to the husband, but if we wish to distinguish between the husband and wife, to the husband there is said "Mezala" and to the wife "Mamezala." Again, children say to the man who begot their father, "Grandfather" (Baba-mkulu), and their mothers say to him, "Mezala." That man says to the children of his son, "Grandchildren" (Bazukulu, or Bazukulwana)—if there is one (only), he says Muzukulu. Those names, if we interpret them, mean "Child of my child."