TRANSFORMATION 217 



American Indian peoples. Their culture in various 

 ways shows traces of this contact. It is possible (but 

 this is no more than a conjecture) that among them 

 the representation of the dead at the festival by a 

 living person is derived from analogous customs of 

 some of their neighbours. Such customs are at all 

 events practised by many of the North American 

 tribes. That the union of the deceased with his 

 representative is permanent is clear. The name is 

 retained until old age, when it is sometimes changed 

 in the hope of obtaining an extension of life. In such 

 a case the new name is not that of another person, but 

 one usually indicative of some personal peculiarity ; 

 and after the change is made it is considered improper 

 to mention the former name. 1 The object is of course 

 to conceal the identity and so escape the fate allotted 

 to the bearer of the old name. On the other hand, 

 belief in a merely temporary occupation of an infant by 

 the spirit of the dead is probably due to a developing 

 psychology. In an earlier stage it would seem that 

 the deceased was reincarnate in the child, and not 

 simply a kind of guardian spirit. To this the tra- 

 ditional tales and the obligation in Greenland to 

 submit to the same dangers which had caused the 

 death of the previous owner of the name indubitably 

 witness. The probability is confirmed by what is 

 related of the Eskimo of Angmagsalik on the eastern 

 coast of Greenland. They say that man consists of 

 three parts, the body, the soul and the name (atekata). 

 The last enters the child when after its birth a sort of 

 baptism is performed by rubbing water on its mouth 

 and naming the name of the dead after whom the 

 1 Nelson, op. cit. 289. 



