(M206) Among the Nufoors, as we have seen,(1293) persons who are related to each other by marriage are forbidden to mention each other’s names. Among the connexions whose names are thus tabooed are wife, mother-in-law, father-in-law, your wife’s uncles and aunts and also her grand-uncles and grand-aunts, and the whole of your wife’s or your husband’s family in the same generation as yourself, except that men may mention the names of their brothers-in-law, though women may not. The taboo comes into operation as soon as the betrothal has taken place and before the marriage has been celebrated. Families thus connected by the betrothal of two of their members are not only forbidden to pronounce each other’s names; they may not even look at each other, and the rule gives rise to the most comical scenes when they happen to meet unexpectedly. And not merely the names themselves, but any words that sound like them are scrupulously avoided and other words used in their place. If it should chance that a person has inadvertently uttered a forbidden name, he must at once throw himself on the floor and say, “I have mentioned a wrong name. I throw it through the chinks of the floor in order that I may eat well.”(1294) In German New Guinea near relations by marriage, particularly father-in-law and daughter-in-law, mother-in-law and son-in-law, as well as brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, must see as little of each other as possible; they may not converse together and they may not mention each other’s names, not even when these names have passed to younger members of the family. Thus if a child is called after its deceased paternal grandfather, the mother may not call her child by its name but must employ another name for the purpose.(1295) Among the Yabim, for example, on the south-east coast of German New Guinea, parents-in-law may neither be touched nor named. Even when their names are borne by other people or are the ordinary names of common objects, they may not pass the lips of their sons-in-law and daughters-in-law.(1296) Among the western tribes of British New Guinea the principal taboo or _sabi_, as it is there called, concerns the names of relatives by marriage. A man may not mention the name of his wife’s father, mother, elder sister, or elder brother, nor the name of any male or female relative of her father or mother, so long as the relative in question is a member of the same tribe as the speaker. The names of his wife’s younger brothers and sisters are not tabooed to him. The same law applies to a woman with reference to the names of her husband’s relatives. As a general rule, this taboo does not extend outside the tribal boundaries. Hence when a man or woman marries out of his or her tribe, the taboo is usually not applied. And when members of one tribe, who may not pronounce each other’s names at home, are away from their own territory, they are no longer strictly bound to observe the prohibition. A