In this tribe the
taboo is not much observed at any time except by the relations of
the dead. Similarly the Jesuit missionary Lafitau tells us that the
name of the departed and the similar names of the survivors were, so
to say, buried with the corpse until, the poignancy of their grief
being abated, it pleased the relations "to lift up the tree and
raise the dead." By raising the dead they meant bestowing the name
of the departed upon some one else, who thus became to all intents
and purposes a reincarnation of the deceased, since on the
principles of savage philosophy the name is a vital part, if not the
soul, of the man.
Among the Lapps, when a woman was with child and near the time of
her delivery, a deceased ancestor or relation used to appear to her
in a dream and inform her what dead person was to be born again in
her infant, and whose name the child was therefore to bear. If the
woman had no such dream, it fell to the father or the relatives to
determine the name by divination or by consulting a wizard. Among
the Khonds a birth is celebrated on the seventh day after the event
by a feast given to the priest and to the whole village.
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