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This
extraordinary custom not only adds an element of instability to the
language, but destroys the continuity of political life, and renders
the record of past events precarious and vague, if not impossible."
That a superstition which suppresses the names of the dead must cut
at the very root of historical tradition has been remarked by other
workers in this field. "The Klamath people," observes Mr. A. S.
Gatschet, "possess no historic traditions going further back in time
than a century, for the simple reason that there was a strict law
prohibiting the mention of the person or acts of a deceased
individual by _using his name._ This law was rigidly observed among
the Californians no less than among the Oregonians, and on its
transgression the death penalty could be inflicted. This is
certainly enough to suppress all historical knowledge within a
people. How can history be written without names?"
In many tribes, however, the power of this superstition to blot out
the memory of the past is to some extent weakened and impaired by a
natural tendency of the human mind.


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