Hence a new name for the object must be
invented to replace the one which has been discarded. It is easy to
conceive what confusion and uncertainty may thus be introduced into
a language when it is spoken by many little local tribes each ruled
by a petty chief with his own sacred name. Yet there are tribes and
people who submit to this tyranny of words as their fathers did
before them from time immemorial. The inconvenient results of the
custom are especially marked on the western coast of the island,
where, on account of the large number of independent chieftains, the
names of things, places, and rivers have suffered so many changes
that confusion often arises, for when once common words have been
banned by the chiefs the natives will not acknowledge to have ever
known them in their old sense.
But it is not merely the names of living kings and chiefs which are
tabooed in Madagascar; the names of dead sovereigns are equally
under a ban, at least in some parts of the island. Thus among the
Sakalavas, when a king has died, the nobles and people meet in
council round the dead body and solemnly choose a new name by which
the deceased monarch shall be henceforth known.
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