or her name, and henceforth always speak of him or her by the new name, while the old name falls into oblivion, and to utter it in the presence of a kinsman of the deceased is an insult which calls for vengeance. They assume that the dead man will not know his new name, and so will not answer to it when he hears it pronounced.(1341) Ghosts are notoriously dull-witted; nothing is easier than to dupe them. However, according to another and more probable account, the name of a Masai is not changed after his death; it is merely suppressed, and he or she is referred to by a descriptive phrase, such as “my brother,” “my uncle,” “my sister.” To call a dead man by his name is deemed most unlucky, and is never done except with the intention of doing harm to his surviving family, who make great lamentations on such an occasion.(1342) (M213) The same fear of the ghost, which moves people to suppress his old name, naturally leads all persons who bear a similar name to exchange it for another, lest its utterance should attract the attention of the ghost, who cannot reasonably be expected to discriminate between all the different applications of the same name. Thus we are told that in the Adelaide and Encounter Bay tribes of South Australia the repugnance to mentioning the names of those who have died lately is carried so far, that persons who bear the same name as the deceased abandon it, and either adopt temporary names or are known by any others that happen to belong to them.(1343) The same practice was observed by the aborigines of New South Wales,(1344) and is said to be observed by the tribes of the Lower Murray River,(1345) and of King George’s Sound in western Australia.(1346) A similar custom prevails among some of the Queensland tribes; but the prohibition to use the names of the dead is not permanent, though it may last for many years. On the Bloomfield River, when a namesake dies, the survivor is called Tanyu, a word whose meaning is unknown; or else he or she receives a name which refers to the corpse, with the syllable Wau prefixed to it. For example, he may be called Wau-batcha, with reference to the place where the man was buried; or Wau-wotchinyu (“burnt”), with reference to the cremation of the body. And if there should be several people in camp all bearing one of these allusive designations, they are distinguished from each other by the mention of the names of their mothers or other relatives, even though these last have long been dead and gone. Whenever Mr. W. E. Roth, to whom we owe this information, could obtain an explanation of the custom, the reason invariably assigned was a fear that the ghost, hearing himself called by name, might return and cause mischief.(1347) In some Australian tribes the change of name thus brought about is permanent; the old name is laid aside for ever, and the man is known by his new name for the rest of his life, or at least until he is obliged to change it again for a like reason.(1348) Among the North