TRANSFORMATION 213 



Wait till I pronounce your name. 

 What is your name ? 

 Listen to your name, 

 This is your name 



Then followed strings of ancestral names, until the 

 babe sneezed. The name being uttered at the moment 

 of the sneeze was the one chosen. 1 We are not ex- 

 pressly told that the object of this rite was to identify 

 the child with one of his forefathers ; but it can hardly 

 be doubted. It was difficult, if, indeed, we may not 

 use a stronger expression, to distinguish between ances- 

 tors and gods among the Maori. The worship of the 

 kindred inhabitants of Samoa was, there can be little 

 doubt, of a similar character. During the mother's 

 labour, first the household god of the father's family 

 and then that of the mother's family was invoked. 

 The god being invoked at the instant of birth was 

 looked upon as the child's special aitu (Maori, atua) 

 or god; and its incarnation was "duly acknowledged 

 throughout the future life of the child." During 

 infancy the child was called and actually named 

 " merda of Tongo," or " of Satia," or whatever other 

 divinity it might be, though later in life a special name 

 was given. " Occasionally a chief bore the name of 

 one of the gods superior." 2 In the island of Aurora, 

 New Hebrides, where the people are Melanesians, 

 women often speak of a child as the nunu, or echo, of 

 some dead person. Dr. Codrington says : " It is not 

 a notion of metempsychosis, as if the soul of the dead 

 person returned in the new-born child ; but it is 

 thought that there is so close a connection that the 

 infant takes the place of the deceased." 3 



1 Taylor, 184. 



2 Turner, Samoa, 17, 78, 81. 3 /. A. I. xviii. 311. 



