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mother, who are incefTantly recommending it to 

 the genii, and above all to him who is to be his 

 guardian, for each perfon has one but not from 

 the time of birth ; they never invent new names, 

 each family preferves a certain number of them, 

 which they make ufe of by turns ; they even 

 fometimes change them as they grow older, and 

 there are fome which cannot be ufed after a certain 

 age, but I do not believe this practice to be uni- 

 verfal ; and as it is the cuftom amongft fome 

 nations on affuming a name, to put themfelves in 

 the place of the perfon who laft bore it, it fome* 

 times happens that a child is called grand -father by 

 a perfon, who might well enough be his own. 



They never call a man by his own name when 

 they fpeak to him in a familiar manner this would 

 be a piece of great unpolitenefs, they always name 

 him by the relation he bears to the perfon that 

 fpeaks to him ; but when there is neither affinity 

 nor confanguinity between them ; they call one a- 

 nother brother, uncle, nephew or coufin, accord- 

 ing to the age of either, or in proportion to the 

 efteem in which they hold the perfon to whom 

 they addrefs themfelves. 



Farther, it is not fo much with a view of per- 

 petuating names that they renew them, as with a 

 view to incite the perfon on whom they are be- 

 llowed, either to imitate the great actions of the 

 perfons that bore them, or to revenge them ia 

 cafe they have been either killed or burned ; or 

 laftly to comfort their families : thus a woman 

 who has loft her hufband or her fon, and finds her 

 herfelf thus void of all fupport makes all the 

 hafte in her power, to give the name of the per- 

 fon Ihe mourns for, to fome one who may ftand 

 3 her 



