1917] Mr. Edward Clodd on Magic in Names 



WEEKLY EYENIXa MEETING, 



Friday, March 2n, 1917. 



Sir William Phipsox Beale, Bart., K.C. M.P. F.C.S., 

 Yics-President, in tbe Chair. 



Edward Clodd, J. P. 



Magic in Names. 



Amoxci all lower races, and among the superstitious in higher races, 

 there is f onnd belief in a vague, impersonal power which acts through 

 both the living and the non-living. It is the stuff through which 

 the sorcerer, whether deceiving or self-deceived, exercises control 

 over persons and their belongiugs to their help or harm, and also 

 control over invisible beings and occult powers. As black magic, it 

 works maleficently ; as white magic, beneficially ; in each case 

 through both the tangible and the intangible. The savage beUeves 

 that the sorcerer can cast a spell upon him through his nail and 

 hair cuttings, his saliva, his blood, portrait, etc., and through the 

 intangible, as his shadow, reflection, and, notablest of all, his name, 

 which to him is an integral part of himself. Hence the world-wide 

 custom of name-avoidance ; the precautions to conceal the name and, 

 vice versa, the dodges to discover it ; hence, also, the taboo on the 

 names of relatives, of the dead, of sacred persons and of spirits, 

 through ascending stages, to the high gods. 



From birth to death the name-taboo works ceaselessly. Sanctity 

 or secrecy attends the ceremony of name-giving. Borneans, Lapps 

 change, and, in ancient times, Jews changed, the names of the sick to 

 deceive demons or to elude death ; but it is in savage initiation rites, 

 which have been called " the lineal ancestors of confirmation," that 

 the giving of a new name is found to be common. 



On arrival at puberty the youth is sent into retreat and is 

 re-named ; as with the Roman Catholic and Buddhist monks, and 

 with the nun who takes the black veil, the old name is effaced and 

 a new name is taken. The name as a part of the person has amusing 

 example among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia. A man 

 in debt can put his name in pawn, remaining anonymous till he pays 

 up. Believing that luck or ill-luck attaches to certain names, Scotch 

 fisher-folk use all sorts of roundabout names for their catches, cor- 

 responding to which are the euphemisms which barbaric huuters 

 apply to their quarry, and Malayan miners to metals in the belief. 



