i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of these same people, Hans Stade says : " So many enemies as one of 

 them slays, so many names does he give himself; and those are the no- 

 blest among them who have many such names." In North America, too, 

 when a young Creek Indian brings his first scalp he is dubbed a man 

 and a warrior, and receives a " war-name." Among the more advanced 

 people of ancient Nicaragua, this practice had established a general 

 name for such : they called one who had killed another in battle tapa- 

 lique y and cobra was an equivalent title given by the Indians of the 

 Isthmus. 



How descriptive names of honor, thus arising during early mili- 

 tancy, become in some cases official names, we see on comparing evi- 

 dence furnished by two sanguinary and cannibal societies in different 

 stages of advance. In Feejee, " warriors of rank receive proud titles, such 

 as 'the divider of a district, ' the waster of a coast, 'the depopulator 

 of ' an island — the name of the place in question being affixed." And 

 then in ancient Mexico the names of offices filled by the king's brothers 

 or nearest relatives were, one of them, " Cutter of men," and another, 

 " Shedder of blood." 



Where, as among the Feejeeans, the conceived distinction between 

 men and gods is vague, and the formation of new gods by apotheosis 

 of chiefs continues, we find the gods bearing names like those given 

 during their lives to ferocious warriors. " The Woman-stealer," " the 

 Brain-eater," " the Murderer," " Fresh-from-slaughter," are naturally 

 such divine titles as arise from descriptive naming among ancestor- 

 worshiping cannibals. That sundry titles of the gods worshiped by 

 superior races have originated in a kindred manner, is implied by the 

 ascription of conquests to them. Be they the Egyptian deities, the 

 Babylonian deities, or the deities of the Greeks, their power is repre- 

 sented as having been gained by battle ; and with accounts of their 

 achievements are in some cases joined congruous descriptive names, 

 such as that of Mars — " the Blood-stainer," and that of the Hebrew 

 god — "the Violent One ;" which, according to Keunen, is the literal 

 interpretation of Shaddai. 



Very generally among primitive men, instead of the literally de- 

 scriptive name of honor, there is given the metaphorically descriptive 

 name of honor. Of the Tupis, whose ceremony of taking war-names is 

 instanced above, we read that " they selected their appellations from 

 visible objects, pride or ferocit}' influencing their choice." How such 

 names, first spontaneously given by applauding companions, and after- 

 ward accorded in some more deliberate way, are apt to be acquired by 

 men of the greatest prowess, and so to become names of rulers, is sug- 

 gested by what Ximenez tells us respecting the more civilized peoples 

 of Guatemala. Their king's names enumerated by him are — " Laugh- 

 ing Tiger," "Tiger of the Wood," "Oppressing Eagle," "Eagle's 

 Head," " Strong Snake," etc. Throughout savage Africa there is a like 



