That such connections may travel still farther along the path of
analogy without losing force, is well illustrated in the observances
regarding the use of names. The connection seems to pass from thing
to image, to name, much as picture-writing passes into word-writing.
The use of idols is abundant evidence of the extent of this
mental operation; what is done to or for the idol is analogically
transferred to the god, and the confusion may become so gross that
when the oracles of two gods disagree, their idols are knocked
against each other, and the one that breaks is declared in the wrong.
A drawing or other rough resemblance may do service for the thing,
especially in sacrifices of objects of value. By similar steps the
name becomes an essential portion of the object or person named,
and analogies formed through the name are applied to the thing.
Accordingly, a man may be bewitched through his name; hence there
arise the most elaborate and rigid observances prohibiting the use
of the name, which are grouped together in the complex code of the
Taboo,--that "dread tyrant of savage life, ... the Inquisition of the
lower culture, only more terrible and effective than the infamous
'Holy Office'" (Clodd). For uncomplicated illustrations of name
analogies, however, we must go to other customs than the Taboo. It
is related that in the British war with Nepaul, Goree Sah had sent
orders to "find out the name of the commander of the British army;
write it upon a piece of paper; take it some rice and turmeric;
say the great incantation three times; having said it, send for
some plum-tree wood, and therewith burn it;" thus was the life of
the commander to be destroyed. Similarly it was suspected that the
King of Dahomey refused to sign a letter, written in his name to
the President of the French Republic, for fear that M. Carnot might
bewitch him through it (cited by Clodd). "Barbaric man believes
that his name is a vital part of himself, and therefore that the
names of other men and of superhuman beings are also vital parts
of themselves. He further believes that to know the name is to put
its owner, whether he be deity, ghost, or mortal, in the power of
another, involving risk of harm or destruction to the named. He
therefore takes all kinds of precautions to conceal his name, often
from his friend, and always from his foe" (Clodd). In Borneo the
name of a sickly child is changed to deceive the evil spirits that
torment it. "When the life of a Kwapa Indian is supposed to be in
danger from illness, he at once seeks to get rid of his name, and
sends to another member of the tribe, who goes to the chief and buys
a new name, which is given to the patient. With the abandonment of
the old name it is believed that the sickness is thrown off. 'On the
reception of the new name the patient becomes related to the Kwapa
who purchased it. Any Kwapa can change or abandon his personal name
four times, but it is considered bad luck to attempt such a thing
for the fifth time'" (Clodd). The Mohawk chief can confer no higher
honor on his visitor than by giving him his name, with which goes
the right of regarding the chief's fame and deeds of valor as his
own. A Tahitian chief became so smitten with Stevenson's charms that
he assumed Stevenson's name; in exchange Stevenson took the name
of the chief, and in one of his letters signs himself, "Teritera,
which he was previously known as Robert Louis Stevenson." When totem
and tribal names are assumed to obtain the qualities of the animal
namesake, or the reverence due to the person is transferred to the
name, and when incantations and the utterances of mystic formulæ are
granted like efficacy as the manipulation of the things themselves,
we see the operation of the mental law under discussion; though
it is still more saliently illustrated in the more artificialized
practices of the Chinese physician, who, for lack of a desired drug,
will "write the prescription on a piece of paper and let the sick man
swallow its ashes or an infusion of the writing in water;" or of the
Moslem who expects relief from a decoction in which a verse of the
Koran written on paper has been washed (Tylor).
What is true of names is also regarded as true of other
representatives or embodiments of personality--the footprint, the
drawing, the image, the shadow. "Broken bottle ends or sharp stones
are put, in Russia and in Austria, in the footprints of a foe, for
the purpose of laming him (Lang); or a nail may be driven into a
horse's footprint to make him go lame" (Grimm). The Ojibways practice
magic "by drawing the figure of any person in sand or clay, or by
considering any object as the figure of a person, and then pricking
it with a sharp stick or other weapon; ... the person thus represented
will suffer likewise" (Dorman). The same idea appears in King James's
"Demonology," in which he speaks of "the devil teaching how to make
pictures of wax or clay, that by roasting thereof the persons that
they bear the name of may be continually melted or dried away by
sickness;" and even now Highland crofters perforate the image of
an enemy with pins. The same idea finds a tangible illustration in
the collection of objects in the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford (such
as a pig's heart from Devonshire, with pins stuck into it), which
were used for a like purpose. And Catlin's story of the accusation
brought against him by the Yukons, that he had made buffaloes scarce
by putting so many pictures of them in his book, may be paralleled
by the stories gathered from Scotland to Somerset, of "ill health or
ill luck which followed the camera, of folks who 'took bad and died'
after being 'a-tookt'" (Clodd). "The Basuto avoids the riverbank,
lest, as his shadow falls on the water, a crocodile may seize it
and harm the owner. In Wetar Island, near Celebes, the magicians
profess to make a man ill by spearing or stabbing his shadow; the
Arabs believe that if a hyæna treads on a shadow, it deprives the man
of the power of speech; and in modern Roumania the ancient custom
of burying a victim as sacrifice to the earth-spirit under any new
structure has a survival in the builder enticing some passer-by to
draw near, so that his shadow is thrown on the foundation-stone, the
belief being that he will die within the year" (Clodd).
To the underlying notions thus variously embodied may be applied
Mr. Clodd's characterization: they form "a part of that general
confusion between the objective and the subjective--in other words,
between names and things, or between symbols and realities--which
is a universal feature of barbaric modes of thought. This confusion
attributes the qualities of living things to things not living; it
lies at the root of all fetichism and idolatry; of all witchcraft,
Shamanism, and other instruments which are as keys to the invisible
kingdom of the dreaded." It is in such an atmosphere that the
philosophy of analogy rules with undisputed sway.
"Ideas are universal, incidents are local," says Mr. Clodd, in
speaking of the diffusion of folk-lore tales. The same is true of
thought tendencies. We may realize more intimately the analogical
potency of names by recalling their survivals from the solemn uses of
curses and excommunications, to the charms carried about the person
consisting of magic or cabalistic writing, to the playful or the
serious German usage of saying _unberufen_, and rapping three times
under the table if a word or thought "tempting Providence" has fallen
from the lips. Clearly, if we follow analogy as a guide, there is
much in a name.