Mahatenatenarivou, ’the prince who has conquered a thousand foes,’ and a Malagasy who should utter his old name would be regarded as the murderer of the prince, and would therefore be liable to the confiscation of his property, or even to the penalty of death. It is easy accordingly to understand how the Malagasy language, one in its origin, has been corrupted, and how it comes about that at the present day there are discrepancies between the various dialects. In Menabe, since the death of King Vinany, the word _vilany_, meaning a pot, has been replaced by _fiketrehane_, ‘cooking vessel,’ whereas the old word continues in use in the rest of Madagascar. These changes, it is true, hardly take place except for kings and great chiefs.”(1423) (M230) The sanctity attributed to the persons of chiefs in Polynesia naturally extended also to their names, which on the primitive view are hardly separable from the personality of their owners. Hence in Polynesia we find the same systematic prohibition to utter the names of chiefs or of common words resembling them which we have already met with in Zululand and Madagascar. Thus in New Zealand the name of a chief is held so sacred that, when it happens to be a common word, it may not be used in the language, and another has to be found to replace it. For example, a chief to the southward of East Cape bore the name of Maripi, which signified a knife, hence a new word (_nekra_) for knife was introduced, and the old one became obsolete. Elsewhere the word for water (_wai_) had to be changed, because it chanced to be the name of the chief, and would have been desecrated by being applied to the vulgar fluid as well as to his sacred person. This taboo naturally produced a plentiful crop of synonyms in the Maori language, and travellers newly arrived in the country were sometimes puzzled at finding the same things called by quite different names in neighbouring tribes.(1424) When a king comes to the throne in Tahiti, any words in the language that resemble his name in sound must be changed for others. In former times, if any man were so rash as to disregard this custom and to use the forbidden words, not only he but all his relations were immediately put to death.(1425) On the accession of King Otoo, which happened before Vancouver’s visit to Tahiti, the proper names of all the chiefs were changed, as well as forty or fifty of the commonest words in the language, and every native was obliged to adopt the new terms, for any neglect to do so was punished with the greatest severity.(1426) When a certain king named Tu came to the throne of Tahiti the word _tu_, which means “to stand,” was changed to _tia_; _fetu_, “a star,” became _fetia_; _tui_, “to strike,” was turned into _tiai_, and so on. Sometimes, as in these instances, the new names were formed by merely changing or dropping some letter or letters of the original words; in other cases the substituted terms were entirely different words, whether