140 IMAGES AND NAMES. 



The intense aversion wliicli savages have from uttering their 

 own nameSj has often been noticed by travellers. Thus Captain 

 Mayne says of the Indians of British Columbia, that " one of 

 their strangest prejudices, which appears to pervade all tribes 

 alike, is a dislike to telling their names — thus you never get a 

 man's rig-ht name from himself; but they will tell each other's 

 names without hesitation." ^ So Dobrizhofier says that the 

 Abipones of South America think it a sin to utter their own 

 names, and when a man was asked his name, he would nudge 

 his neighbour to answer for him,^ and in like manner, the Fijians 

 and the Sumatrans are described as looking to a friend to help 

 them out of the difficulty, when this indiscreet question is put 

 to them.'^ 



Nor does the dislike to mentioning ordinary personal names 

 always stop at this limit. Among the Algonquin tribes, 

 children are generally named by the old woman of the family, 

 usually with reference to some dream, but this real name is 

 kept mysteriously secret, and what usually passes for the name 

 is a mere nickname, such as " Little Fox," or " Red-Head." 

 The real name is hardly ever revealed even by the grave-post, 

 but the totem or symbol of the clan is held sufficient. The 

 true name of La Belle Sauvage was not Pocahontas, " her true 

 name was Matokes, which they concealed from the English, in 

 a superstitious fear of hurt by the English, if her name was 

 known."* ''It is next to impossible to induce an Indian to 

 utter personal names ; the utmost he will do, if a person im- 

 plicated is present, is to move his lips, without speaking, in 

 the direction of the person." Schoolcraft saw an Indian in a 

 court of justice, pressed to identify a man who was there, but 

 all they could get him to do was to push his lips towards him.^ 

 So Mr. Backhouse describes how a native woman of Van Die- 

 men's Land threw sticks at a friendly Englishman, who in 

 his ignorance of native manners, mentioned her son, who was 

 at school at Newtown.^ 



' Mayue, ' British Columbia,' etc. ; London, 1862, p. 278. 

 ^ Dobrizhoffer, vol. ii. p. 444. 



^ Seemann, ' Viti ; ' London, 1862, p. 190. Marsden, Hist, of Sumatra ; London, 

 1811, p. 286. ■• Schoolcraft, part ii. p. 65. 



5 Id. p. 433. See also Burton, ' City of the Saints,' p. 141. 

 * Backhouse, 'AustraUa,' p. 93. 



