TABOOED OR "FADY" WORDS. 151 



soMrina was the word used for the silkworm moth, but as 

 soon as it was assumed as the name of the sovereign it could 

 no longer be applied to the insect, which since then has been 

 called zdna-ddndy, "offspring of the silk." So also with a 

 chief in the western part of Imerina who was called Andria- 

 mamba ; mdmba is one of the names of the crocodile, but in 

 their chief's territory his dependants could not call the reptile 

 by that name, but were always scrupulous to use the other word, 

 vody. It is just as if in England we were unable to use all 

 words in which the syllables of the names Victoria, William, 

 or George occurred, and were forbidden to say "victory," 

 "victim," "vixen," or "will," "willing," "wilful," or "geology," 

 "geometry," "geography," &c, &c. What an endless annoyance 

 should we not consider it ; yet this is precisely the case in 

 most parts of the Malayo-Polynesian countries and islands. 

 It is easy, therefore, to see how very great an influence such 

 a curious and inconvenient custom must have in altering the 

 speech of different parts of Madagascar, and how changes 

 must be continually going on to further separate one dialect 

 from the other. It is doubtless a very important factor in 

 the dialectic differences which occur in the country. 



In the Journal of Mr. Hastie, formerly British Eesident at 

 the court of Eadama I., it is remarked that "the chieftains 

 of the Sakalavas are averse that any name or term should 

 approach in sound either the name of themselves or any part 

 of their family. For similar causes the names of rivers, 

 places, and things have suffered so many changes on the 

 western coast that frequent confusion occurs ; for, after being 

 prohibited by their chieftains from applying any particular 

 terms to the accustomed signification, the natives will not 

 acknowledge to have ever known them in their former sense. 

 This practice very much resembles the jealous monopoly of 

 names by the kings and great chiefs of the Pacific Islands." "" 

 In glancing over the pages of the Malagasy-English Dic- 

 tionary (printed 1835), one meets with a great number of 

 words which are now obsolete. Many of these were connected 

 with the sikidy or divination, and denoted certain arrange- 

 ments of numbers in that curious superstitious practice, which 



* Tyerman and Bennet's Voyages Round the World, 2nd edit., p. 276. 



