Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/152

142 operated upon, though they may meet and talk, must never mention one another's names, nor must the name of one even be spoken by a third person in the presence of the other.

It is especially in Eastern Asia and Polynesia, that we find the names of kings and chiefs held as sacred, and not to be lightly spoken. In Siam, the king must be spoken of by some epithet; in India and Burmah, the royal name is avoided as something sacred and mysterious; and in Polynesia, the prohibition to mention chiefs' names has even impressed itself deeply in the language of the islands where it prevails.

But it is among the most distant and various races that we find one class of names avoided with mysterious horror, the names of the dead. In North America, the dead is to be alluded to, not mentioned by name, especially in the presence of a relative. In South America, he must be mentioned among the Abipones as "the man who does not now exist," or some such periphrasis; and the Fuegians have a horror of any kind of allusion to their dead friends, and when a child asks for its dead father or mother, they will say, "Silence! don't speak bad words." The Samoied only speaks of the dead by allusion, for it would disquiet them to utter their names. The Australians, like the North Americans, will set up the pictured crest or symbol of the dead man's clan, but his name is not to be spoken. Dr. Lang tried to get from an Australian the name of a native who had been killed. "He told me who the lad's father was, who was his brother, what he was like, how he walked when he was alive, how he held the tomahawk in his left hand instead of his right (for he had been left-handed), and with whom he usually associated; but the dreaded name never escaped his lips; and I believe no promises or threats could have induced him to utter it." The Papuans of the Eastern Archipelago avoid speaking the names of the dead,