286 SOME REMARKABLE CUSTOMS. 



Prescott remarks on the fear of uttering certain names. The 

 father- or mother-in-law must not call their son-in-law by 

 name, and vice versa, and there are other relationships to 

 which the prohibition applies. He has known an infringement 

 of it punished by cutting the offender's clothes off his back 

 and throwing them away.^ Harmon says that among the In- 

 dians east of the Rocky Mountains, it is indecent for the father- 

 or mother-in-law to look at, or speak to, the son- or daughter- 

 in-law.^ Among the Crees, it is observed by Richardson that 

 while an Indian lives with his wife's family his mother-in-law 

 must not speak to or look at him, and it is also an old custom 

 for a man not to eat or to sit down in the presence of his 

 father-in-law.^ 



In some parts of Australia, the names of a father- or mother- 

 in-law and of a son-in-law are set down among the personal 

 names which must not be spoken,* and in the Fiji Islands pro- 

 hibition of speech between parents-in-law and children-in-law 

 has been recorded.^ Among the Dayaks of Borneo, a man 

 must not pronounce the name of his father-in-law, which cus- 

 tom Mr. St. John, who mentions it, interprets as a sign of re- 

 spect.^ On the continent of Asia, among the Mongols and 

 Calmucks, the young wife may not speak to her father-in-law 

 nor sit in his presence,'' but farther north, among the Yakuts, 

 Adolph Erman noticed a much more peculiar custom. As in 

 other northern regions, the custom of wearing but little cloth- 

 ing in the hot, stifling interior of the huts is common there, 

 and the women often go about their domestic work stripped to 

 the waist, nor do they object to do so in the presence of stran- 

 gers, but there are two persons before whom a Yakut woman 

 must not appear in this guise, her father-in-law, and her hus- 

 band's elder brother.^ In Africa, among the Beni Amer, the 

 wife " hides herself, as does the husband also, from the mother- 

 in-law ;" while among the Barea the wife " hides herself from 



* Schoolcraft, part ii. p. 196. ^ Harmon, p. 341. 



^ Franklin, ' Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea ;' London, 1823, pp. 70-1. 



* Eyre, vol. ii. p. 339. « Williams, vol. i. p. 136. 



6 St. John, vol. i. p. 51. ? Klemm, C. G., vol. iii. p. 169. 



8 Erman, E. Tr. vol. ii. p. 420. 



