(M228) In Madagascar a similar custom everywhere prevails and has resulted, as among the Zulus, in producing certain dialectic differences in the speech of the various tribes. There are no family names in Madagascar, and almost every personal name is drawn from the language of daily life and signifies some common object or action or quality, such as a bird, a beast, a tree, a plant, a colour, and so on. Now, whenever one of these common words forms the name or part of the name of the chief of the tribe, it becomes sacred and may no longer be used in its ordinary signification as the name of a tree, an insect, or what not. Hence a new name for the object must be invented to replace the one which has been discarded. Often the new name consists of a descriptive epithet or a periphrasis. Thus when the princess Rabodo became queen in 1863 she took the name of Rasoherina. Now _soherina_ was the word for the silkworm moth, but having been assumed as the name of the sovereign it could no longer be applied to the insect, which ever since has been called _zany-dandy_, “offspring of silk.” So, again, if a chief had or took the name of an animal, say of the dog (_amboa_), and was known as Ramboa, the animal would henceforth be called by another name, probably a descriptive one, such as “the barker” (_famovo_) or “the driver away” (_fandroaka_), etc. In the western part of Imerina there was a chief called Andria-mamba; but _mamba_ was one of the names of the crocodile, so the chiefs subjects might not call the reptile by that name and were always scrupulous to use another. 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.(1420)