Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/300

290 personal names which must not be spoken. In the Fiji Islands prohibition of speech between parents-in-law and children-in-law has been recorded. Among the Dayaks of Borneo, a man must not pronounce the name of his father-in-law, which custom Mr. St. John, who mentions it, interprets as a sign of respect. On the continent of Asia, among the Mongols and Calmucks, the young wife may not speak to her father-in-law nor sit in his presence, but farther north, among the Yakuts, Adolph Erman noticed a much more peculiar custom. As in other northern regions, the custom of wearing but little clothing in the hot, stifling interior of the huts is common there, and the women often go about their domestic work stripped to the waist, nor do they object to do so in the presence of strangers, but there are two persons before whom a Yakut woman must not appear in this guise, her father-in-law and her husband's elder brother. In Africa, among the Beni Amer, the wife "hides herself, as does the husband also, from the mother-in-law;" while among the Barea the wife "hides herself from her father-in-law, according to custom, which herein agrees with that of the aristocratic peoples." The prohibition of look and speech between a man end his mother-in-law is found again in Ashanti, and in the district of the Mpongwe. Farther south, in Zululand, the Australian customs recur with all their quaint absurdity. The Kafir and his mother-in-law will not mention one another's names nor look in one another's faces, and if the two chance to meet in a narrow lane they will pretend not to see each other, she squatting behind a bush, he holding up his shield to hide his face. The native term for these customs is "being ashamed of the mother-in-law." The Basuto custom forbids a wife to look in the face of her father-in-law till the birth of her first child, and among the Banyai a man must sit with his knees bent in presence of his mother-in-law, and must not put out his feet towards her.