154 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



everywhere arc reluctant to disclose names. Whether this 

 is the sole cause, or whether, apart from this, utterance of 

 a man s name is felt to be a liberty taken with him, the fact 

 is that among rude peoples names acquire a kind of sacred- 

 ness, and taking a name in vain is interdicted: especially 

 to inferiors when speaking to superiors. Hence a curious 

 incidental result. As in early stages personal names are 

 derived from objects, the names of objects have to be dis 

 used and replaced by others. Among the Kaffirs &quot; a wife 

 may not publicly pronounce the i-gama [the name given 

 at birth] of her husband or any of his brothers; nor may 

 she use the interdicted word in its ordinary sense. . . . 

 The chief s i-gama is withdrawn from the language of his 

 people.&quot; Again, &quot; the hereditary appellation of the chief 

 of Pango-Paiigo [in Samoa] being now Maunga, or Moun 

 tain, that word must never be used for a hill in his pres 

 ence, but a courtly term . . . substituted.&quot; And then 

 where there exist proper names of a developed kind, there 

 are still kindred restrictions on the general use of them; 

 as in Siani, where &quot; the name of the king must not be 

 uttered by a subject: he is always referred to by a peri 

 phrasis, such as { the master of life, the lord of the land/ 

 6 the supreme head; &quot; and as in China, where &quot; the i old 

 man of the house, excellent honourable one, and ven 

 erable great prince, are terms used by a visitor to desig 

 nate the father of his host.&quot; 



Similarly, there is avoidance of personal pronouns; 

 which also establish Avith the individual addressed a rela 

 tion too immediate to be allowed where distance is to be 

 maintained. In Siam, when asking the king s commands, 

 the pronominal form is, as much as possible, evaded; and 

 that this usage is general among the Siamese is implied by 

 the remark of Pere Bruguiere, that tk they have personal 

 pronouns, but rarely use them.&quot; In China, also, this style 

 descends into ordinary intercourse. kt If they arc not inti 

 mate friends, they never say I and You, which would be a 



