(M229) 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. The new name always begins with _andrian_, “lord,” and ends with _arrivou_, “thousand,” to signify that the late king ruled over a numerous nation. The body of the name is composed of an epithet or phrase descriptive of the deceased or of his reign. After the new name has been adopted, the old name by which the king was known during his life becomes sacred and may not be pronounced under pain of death. Further, words in the common language which bear any resemblance to the forbidden name also become sacred and have to be replaced by others. For example, after the death of King Makka the word _laka_, which meant a canoe, was abandoned and the word _fiounrâma_ substituted for it. When Taoussi died, the word _taoussi_, signifying “beautiful,” was replaced by _senga_. For similar reasons the word _ântétsi_, “old,” was changed for _matoué_, which properly means “ripe”; the word _voûssi_, “castrated,” was dropped and _manapaka_, “cut,” adopted in its place; and the word for island (_nossi_) was changed into _varioû_, which signifies strictly “a place where there is rice.” Again, when a Sakalava king named Marentoetsa died, two words fell into disuse, namely, the word _màry_ or _màre_ meaning “true,” and the word _toetsa_ meaning “condition.” Persons who uttered these forbidden words were looked on not only as grossly rude, but even as felons; they had committed a capital crime. However, these changes of vocabulary are confined to the district over which the deceased king reigned; in the neighbouring districts the old words continue to be employed in the old sense.(1421) Again, among the Bara, another tribe of Madagascar, “the memory of their deceased kings is held in the very highest respect; the name of such kings is considered sacred—too sacred indeed for utterance, and no one is allowed to pronounce it. To such a length is this absurdity carried that the name of any person or thing whatsoever, if it bear a resemblance to the name of the deceased king, is no longer used, but some other designation is given. For instance, there was a king named Andriamasoandro. After his decease the word _masoandro_ was no longer employed as the name of the sun, but _mahenika_ was substituted for it.”(1422) An eminent authority on Madagascar has observed: “A curious fact, which has had a very marked influence on the Malagasy language, is the custom of no longer pronouncing the name of a dead person nor even the words which resemble it in their conclusions. The name is replaced by another. King Ramitra, since his decease, has been called