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GENDER AND CULTURAL STUDIES IN AFRICA
AND THE DIASPORA

Naming Africans
On the Epistemic Value of Names
Edited by
Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí · Hewan Girma
Gender and Cultural Studies in Africa and the
Diaspora

Series Editor
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí
New York, NY, USA
This book series spotlights the experiences of Africans on the continent
and in its multiple and multilayered diasporas. Its objective is to make
available publications that focus on people of African descent wherever
they are located, ratgeting innovative research that derives questions, con-
cepts, and theories from historical and contemporary experiences. The
broad scope of the series includes gender scholarship as well as studies that
engage with culture in all its complexities. From a variety of disciplinary,
interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary orientations, these studies engage
current debates, address urgent questions, and open up new perspectives
in African knowledge production.
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí • Hewan Girma
Editors

Naming Africans
On the Epistemic Value of Names
Editors
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí Hewan Girma
Department of Sociology African American and African Diaspora
Stony Brook University Studies Program
Stony Brook, NY, USA The University of North Carolina at
Greensboro
Greensboro, NC, USA

Gender and Cultural Studies in Africa and the Diaspora

ISBN 978-3-031-13474-6    ISBN 978-3-031-13475-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13475-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
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Cover illustration: Olayinka Aro-Lambo of Moofa Designs

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 Note on the Cover

In June 2021, I stepped into Moofa Designs, a trendy fashion house in

Lagos, Nigeria, and found garments made from batik fabrics imprinted
with Yorùbá personal oríkì (praise names). Excitedly, I found one bearing
my own oríkì, Anike. I was elated and gratified by the timing of this find,
which made me feel as if things had come full circle. My co-editor and I
were wrapping up the editing of this book on African naming systems, a
project which started with the aims to understand the genealogy of per-
sonal oríkì in Yorùbá culture and to assess their relevance today. Elsewhere,
analyzing the meaning of oríkì names in the culture, I had written: “Oríkì
are designed to flatter and praise, and when coupled with the longer lin-
eage oríkì poetry, their effect is to puff up the person being named. …
Whenever one is called by one’s personal oríkì, it is a sign of affection, a
reference to [alternate language: ‘recalling’] times when one [was] bask-
ing in favorable light. Oríkì, then, are terms of endearment” (Oyěwùmí
(2016) What Gender Is Motherhood? Changing Yorùbá Ideals of Power,
Procreation, and Identity in the Age of Modernity. Palgrave Macmillan.
p. 156). My joy at discovering evidence of the popularity of such a special-
ized name type in the heart of Yorùbá modernity knew no bounds. The
cover of this book is based on the batik fabric so serendipitously discov-
ered that day and we thank the designer Olayinka Aro_Lambo for permis-
sion to use this design.
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí, Co-Editor

v
 Acknowledgments

This project had a long gestation period. Thus we cannot overstate our
gratitude to the contributors for their patience in staying the course and
seeing the project to its logical conclusion. The editors would like to
express their appreciation to you all for bringing this labor of love to com-
pletion. We also express our sincere thanks to Professors N’Dri Therese
Assie-Lumumba and Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga for rising up to
the occasion and providing a ringing endorsement to the book.
“Toward a Genealogy of Gender, Gendered Names, and Naming
Practices” by Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́, which originally appears in What
Gender Is Motherhood? Changing Yorùbá Ideals of Power, Procreation, and
Identity in the Age of Modernity, is republished with permission from
Palgrave Macmillan. We thank them for permission to reprint material.
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí would like to thank the many colleagues and
friends in Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria and the
United States who let themselves be subjected to my incessant questions
about African names and naming systems. I must mention the Uber and
Taxi drivers particularly in Accra and Harare who educated me about their
names and the local cultures of naming. With gratitude, I thank my family
for listening and encouraging my interests.
Hewan (Debritu) Girma would like to thank her colleagues in the
Ethiopian, East African and Indian Ocean Research Network housed at
the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I also thank my family for
their unwavering support and encouragement, always and forever. I am
grateful for my name, the curiosity that you have instilled in me and the
countless opportunities to discuss Ethiopian names and naming systems.

vii
 Praise for Naming Africans

“The book opens up a serious conversation on African cosmologies and episte-

mologies, and the specific place of names and naming within it. It is a must-read
for anyone who wants to understand how Africans document, archive, preserve,
and update their knowledges.”
—Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, Professor of Science, Technology,
and Society (STS) at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and author
of The Mobile Workshop: The Tsetse Fly and African Knowledge
Production (MIT Press, 2018)

“Naming Africans: On the Epistemic Value of Names is a timely and ground-­

breaking collection of cutting-edge perspectives on epistemic affirmation across
Global Africa. Besides the dynamics of temporality and the different disciplinary
insights authoritatively articulated by the contributors, the spatial coverage con-
solidates the significance of this work as a comprehensive source. This book will be
a pleasant read and a powerful scholarly volume for students and scholars across
traditional as well as more recently established academic disciplines, ranging from
philosophy, sociology, education, history, religion, and literature to Africana stud-
ies, gender studies, and indigenous knowledge systems. The interdisciplinary
meeting of the humanities and social sciences provokes an intellectual curiosity
that should take readers to a deeper questioning of the origins and values of the
naming in their evolving social contexts.”
—N’Dri Therese Assie-­Lumumba, Professor of African and African
Diaspora Education, Comparative and International Education, Social
Institutions, African Social History, and the Study of Gender, in the Africana
Studies and Research Center at Cornell University
 Contents

Introduction  1
Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí and Hewan Girma


Toward a Genealogy of Gender, Gendered Names, and
Naming Practices 13
Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí

Amharic Names, Naming Ceremonies and Memory 37

Hewan Girma


Engendering Personal Names in Basaa Culture: From the
Origins to the Epic Tradition and Beyond 61
Bertrade Ngo-Ngijol Banoum


What’s in a Namesake? The Owambo Naming Practice of
Mbushe, Gender, and Community in Namibian Novelist
Neshani Andrea’s The Purple Violet of Oshaantu 85
Martha Ndakalako


Mother-Agency and the Currency of Names105
Besi Brillian Muhonja

xi
xii Contents


Akan “Soul Names” as Archives of Histories and Knowledge:
Some Preliminary Thoughts119
Kwasi Konadu


Names Are Hisses of Divinity from Our Forebears: Exploring
Names Through the Lens of Ntsiki Mazwai143
Zethu Cakata


Decolonial Epistemologies in Indigenous Names of the
Bakiga of Southwest Uganda157
Tushabe wa Tushabe


Tell Me Your Name and I Will Tell You Who You Are: The
Construction of Names in Angola and the Colonial Influence181
Florita Cuhanga António Telo

Epilogue: Diasporic Dis/Connections207

Hewan Girma

Index217
 Notes on Contributors

Bertrade Ngo-Ngijol Banoum is Associate Professor in the Department

of African & African American Studies and the Interdisciplinary Program
in Women’s Studies at Lehman College, City University of New York
(CUNY), USA. Ngo-Ngijol Banoum’s academic interests are in gender
and women’s studies; African cultural studies, with a focus on African oral
traditions, African languages and linguistics; translation studies; and
French and Francophone/Diaspora studies. Her current research focus is
on women’s human rights; gender construction in language and society;
African women’s verbal art and knowledge production; and women’s
movements: from local organizing to global networking for social change.
Zethu Cakata is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of
South Africa (UNISA), South Africa, who specializes in the fields of
African epistemologies, the significance of language in knowledge produc-
tion, colonization and racism. She is interested in the re-Afrikanization of
knowledge, learning psychology from IsiXhosa language and understand-
ing creative work as an important source of knowledge.
Hewan Girma (co-editor) holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and a graduate
certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies from Stony Brook University,
USA. She is Assistant Professor of African American and African Diaspora
Studies at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she co-
founded the “Ethiopian, East African and Indian Ocean Studies Research
Network.” Her research focuses on Ethiopian history, culture and migra-
tion. Her work has thus far been published in Social Problems, Sociology

xiii
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Compass, the Journal of Black Studies and the International Journal of

Ethiopian Studies.
Kwasi Konadu is John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Endowed Chair
and Professor at Colgate University, USA, where he teaches courses in
African history and on worldwide African histories and cultures. He is the
author of Our Own Way in This Part of the World: Biography of an African
Community, Culture, and Nation (2019); (with Clifford Campbell) The
Ghana Reader: History, Culture, Politics (2016); Transatlantic Africa,
1440–1888 (2014) and The Akan Diaspora in the Americas (2010), among
other books.
Besi Brillian Muhonja is Associate Professor of English, Africana Studies,
Women’s and Gender Studies, and African Literatures and Cultures at
James Madison University, USA. Her research, publication and teaching
areas of interest include critical African studies; Africana, transnational and
subaltern feminisms; queer African studies; motherhood studies; indige-
nous and contemporary African literatures and cultures; and decolonial
knowledges. Her scholarship, extensively published in peer-reviewed jour-
nals and books, seeks to define new critical approaches for conceptualizing
and theorizing the lived experiences of Africana women.
Martha Ndakalako is Assistant Professor of English at Gustavus
Adolphus College in Minnesota. Her research engages Namibian litera-
tures within the context of African literary history, global Anglophone and
world literature. Focusing particularly on literary works by and about
women, this research considers the politics of literary production that
these literatures highlight, as well as their relationship to activism as they
afford a perspective of Namibian socio-cultural concerns that have impli-
cations beyond the Namibian national boundaries.
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí (co-editor) is the 2021 recipient of the Distinguished
Africanist Award of the African Studies Association. Author of many
books, she is most well-known for The Invention of Women: Making an
African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (1997), in which she makes the
case that the narrative of gendered corporeality that dominates the Western
interpretation of the social world is a cultural discourse and cannot be
assumed uncritically for other cultures. The Invention of Women won the
1998 Distinguished Book Award in the Gender and Sex Section of the
American Sociological Association and was a ­finalist for the Best Book
Prize of the African Studies Association in the same year. Born in Nigeria
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xv

and educated at the University of Ibadan and the University of California

at Berkeley, Oyěwùmí has been widely recognized for her work. She is
Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University and Professor
Extraordinarius in the Institute of Gender Studies at the University of
South Africa (UNISA).
Florita Cuhanga António Telo is Angolan, born in the province of
Uíge. She holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies on Gender Women
and Feminism from Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), a Master’s
Degree in Human Rights from Federal University of Paraíba and a Degree
in Law from Agostinho Neto University. Telo is a university teacher. She
is also a researcher at the Center for Human Rights and Citizenship,
Catholic University of Angola, and the Research Center at the Instituto
Superior Politécnico Jean Piaget de Benguela. She is a member of the
Group of Feminist Studies in Politics and Education at UFBA. Telo is an
independent consultant on Gender, Women and Human Rights. She is
the Deputy Director of the Public Policy Observatory from a gender per-
spective. Her research areas are post-coloniality, reproductive rights, gen-
der, reproductive autonomy, feminisms, masculinities and epistemologies
of the South.
Tushabe wa Tushabe is Associate Professor in the Department of
Human Sexuality Studies at Widener University in Pennsylvania. She
holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from State University of New York (SUNY),
Binghamton, and her research interests include global sexual identities,
African cultures and philosophy, critical race theory, colonialism and post-
colonial theories.
 List of Tables

Amharic Names, Naming Ceremonies and Memory

Table 1 Examples of common Amharic gendered names (source: Author) 40
Table 2 Examples of common Amharic gender neutral names (source:
Author)41
Table 3 Common baptismal names (source: Author) 45
Table 4 Common bridal names (source: Author) 50
Table 5 Examples of horse names and their meaning (adapted from
‘Nineteenth-century horse names’ in Berhane-Selassie, Ethiopian
Warriorhood: Defense, Land & Society 1800–1941)53

Akan “Soul Names” as Archives of Histories and Knowledge:

Some Preliminary Thoughts
Table 1 Soul Names, Guiding Forces (abosom), and Praise Names 124
Table 2 Akan Ntorɔ/Ntɔn (patrilineal clans) 127
Table 3 Akan “Day Names” from Captive Africans Procured East of the
Gold Coast, 1810–1829 139

xvii
 Introduction
What Is Not in a Name? Valuing Our African
Names

Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí and Hewan Girma

The great South African intellectual and anti-apartheid activist Archie

Mafeje asked: “What forms of accumulated knowledge do Africans have
and how do we get at it?” This question, or a variation of it, has always
animated our research and informs the project Naming Africans: On the
Epistemic Value of African Names. Indeed, one of the issues that bedevil
scholars of Africa is how to identify the sources of knowledge about origi-
nal African institutions, cosmologies and epistemologies against the back-
ground of the oft-repeated but erroneous idea that African communities

O. Oyěwùmí (*)
Department of Sociology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
e-mail: Oyeronke.Oyewumi@stonybrook.edu
H. Girma (*)
African American and African Diaspora Studies Program, The University of
North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, USA
e-mail: h_girma@uncg.edu

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
̌
O. Oyewùmí, H. Girma (eds.), Naming Africans, Gender and
Cultural Studies in Africa and the Diaspora,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13475-3_1
2 O. OYĚWÙMÍ AND H. GIRMA

did not have indigenous writing traditions until “the Europeans came,” as
is often cryptically stated. This error is often compounded by the almost
exclusive use of written sources to access ancient or accumulated knowl-
edge anywhere in the world. Although archeology, paleontology and
ancient art have been recruited to shed light on the human past, everyday
sources of information such as language, names and naming practices have
not been systematically mined enough in the quest to decipher African
realities, either past or present.
Interest in personal names and what they portend is a universal preoc-
cupation captured by Shakespeare in the often-quoted passage where
Juliet asks her lover Romeo, “What’s in a name?” and goes on to conclude
that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” In other words, the
rose, even if it is called something else, would retain its distinguishing
characteristics. The emphasis here is not on the name but rather on the
article itself, implying that the names of people, places, and things do not
affect who or what they really are. This conveys the idea that names in and
of themselves do not hold much worth or meaning beyond their function
as labels to distinguish people, places, or things from one another.
In this book, we argue that names hold much more significance than is
accorded to them by this elementary formulation. A simple Google
Scholar search for the entry “what’s in a name” produces over 5 million
results, demonstrating the significance of naming in varied disciplines
from sociology to the natural sciences. From a sociological perspective,
personal names have been studied through concepts of social capital,
labeling theory, and symbolic interactionism. Onomastics, the field of the
study of proper names, is characterized by methodological and disciplinary
diversity, attracting an interdisciplinary field of scholars from cultural stud-
ies, social sciences and humanities, investigating proper names from theo-
retical, sociocultural, historic, and literary perspectives. There are even
several interdisciplinary journals dedicated exclusively to the study of
names (including Names: A Journal of Onomastics, Journal of Onomastics,
Onoma: Journal of International Council of Onomastic Science, and
Nomina Africana: Journal of African Onomastics, the latter being a jour-
nal dedicated solely to the study of African onomastics). Nonetheless,
despite this methodological and disciplinary plurality (or perhaps because
of it), onomastics is not a well-developed or unified field of study.
African societies have creatively embedded in personal names a wealth
of information. African names are repositories of information, available in
both written and oral form, with deep-rooted meanings, and can serve as
 INTRODUCTION 3

a collective historical record of the traditions and values of a particular

society. As a result, African names tell us something about the develop-
ment of African cultures. For instance, in certain African societies, per-
sonal names can provide information ranging from a commentary on the
experiences of the surrounding society to an evocation of a desired out-
come. The African experience invites a rephrasing of Shakespeare’s ques-
tion, to ask instead, “What is not in a name?”

Names as Archival Sources (Epistemic Values)

It is axiomatic that we all have names. Yet these ubiquitous appellations,
which carry deep sociocultural significance in every part of the world, have
not garnered as much study as might be expected. Names are interwoven
with the languages, cultures, histories and religions from which they ema-
nate. Personal names are a rich source of coded information in society,
reflecting a people’s beliefs, ideology, religion, culture, philosophy and
thought. Names are also a locus for identity, carrying a wealth of historical
information and providing an entry point into a particular society. Names
not only aid in the construction of identity, but also concretize a people’s
collective memory by recording the circumstances of their experiences.
We should also remember that naming systems are not static, but rather
that names mirror social history.
Names are not just creative linguistic expressions; they constitute valu-
able sources of historical and ethnographic documentation. In this regard,
contemporary African names are instructive indicators of Westernization,
Christianization, and Islamization—three entwined processes that in
recent history have had a profound impact on peoples on the continent.
Conversely, names can also conceal. Newly constructed names and recently
adopted ones can hide information, since such names often erase origins
and heighten or blur traditional lines of distinctions amongst diverse social
groups. Names also serve to preserve family and societal history particular
to sociohistorical time periods. In African communities, names are reveal-
ing, disclosing the day of birth, sibling birth order, circumstances sur-
rounding birth, time of birth, gender, and state of the family at birth,
among a variety of other details. As consequential labels that follow people
throughout their life course, personal names serve as anchors of identity
linking people to their culture and history. Names are therefore not just
labels, but symbols and rich sources of oral history. Names are particularly
useful to researchers given that they are short, abundant, easily accessible
4 O. OYĚWÙMÍ AND H. GIRMA

and have strong affective meaning. A person’s life history may be written
in African cultural names, revealing the circumstances of conception and
birth and documenting events in the family’s history. As such, names are
repositories of information with deep-rooted cultural meanings.
We are encouraged by the increasing attention scholars are paying to
the topic of African names from an interdisciplinary perspective. For
instance, Adelakun’s (2020) and Olanisebe’s (2017) articles on Pentecostal
names in Nigeria both provide very interesting insights into how this one
form of Christianity is influencing existing naming systems, highlighting
the intersection between names and religion. Similarly, the edited volume
by Nyambi et al. (2016) expound on the importance of African names.
Although geographically focused on just southern Africa, they offer an
interesting discussion on postcolonial changes and continuities in personal
names (anthroponyms) and place names (toponyms). For instance, the
chapter by Herbert Mushangwe “On the Brink of a New Naming Practice:
Chinese Influences in Zimbabwean Naming Systems” traces the recent
Chinese cultural influences on Zimbabwean students’ names. Furthermore,
the Journal of Sociolinguistic Studies recently published a special issue
guest edited by Eyo Mensah and Kristy Rowan entitled “African
Anthroponyms: Sociolinguistic Currents and Anthropological Reflections”
(Mensah & Rowan, 2019). The articles in this special issue provide a vast
wealth of insights on praise names, death-preventing names, death-related
names, and so much more. We situate our intervention within these recent
scholarships.

What Are Old Names, What Are New Names,

and Why Do We Need New Names?

In her 2013 novel We Need New Names, Zimbabwean author NoViolet

Bulawayo presents a beautifully crafted coming-of-age story of a young
girl named Darling. The author takes the reader on a journey through a
not-so-innocent childhood among the shantytowns of an unnamed African
country to the precarity of life that African immigrants experience in the
midwestern United States. While essentially presenting a story of displace-
ment, Bulawayo plays with the theme of (re)naming throughout the
novel. With unforgettable character names such as Bastard, Bornfree,
Forgiveness, Godknows, Mother of Bones and Prophet Revelations
Bitchington Mborro, the author provides insight into Zimbabwean
 INTRODUCTION 5

naming practices. For instance, a name such as Bornfree can serve as a

historical marker, as only children born after 1980, the year when
Zimbabwe won its independence from Britain, are given this name.
Bulawayo further contrasts the ironic naming of a squalid shanty town,
known as Paradise, located next to Heavenway cemetery, with the naming
of an affluent neighborhood after the European city of Budapest. Through
the naming of these places, Bulawayo presents a scathing criticism of post-
colonial African realities, where migration is posited as the only solution,
despite repeated proof to the contrary.
The novel We Need New Names speaks volumes about Zimbabwean
naming practices. The topic of names is explicitly discussed in various
places throughout the novel, including the harrowing scenes where
Darling and her friends prepare to perform a makeshift abortion, immi-
grant parents name their American-born children, and one of Darling’s
childhood friends names her daughter after her friend in a practice of
namesaking. Thus the novel is both a reflection of and a commentary on
the naming practices in Zimbabwe, highlighting connections and discon-
nections between generations, homeland and diasporic Zimbabweans.
More specifically, the author forces us to reflect on these questions: Who
is named? Who does the naming? What is the meaning of the name? How
do these names translate across borders? Even the name of the author is
interesting to consider. In her analysis of the novel, Polo Belina Moji
(2015) writes about the author NoViolet Bulawayo’s own name change:

Having grown up in Zimbabwe under the name Elisabeth Tshele, the author
of We Need New Names has relocated to America and renamed herself
NoViolet Bulawayo. She symbolically adopts the surname Bulawayo—the
name of Zimbabwe’s second largest city—where she spent part of her child-
hood (Obioha 2014, np). NoViolet, adopted in honour of Violet—her
deceased mother (Obioha 2014, np)—is a name which causes semantic
uncertainty through its Africanized lexical structure. This is particularly true
for English-speaking audiences who think the prefix ‘No’ means ‘without
Violet’, whereas it actually means ‘with Violet’ in the author’s native
Ndebele. (p. 183)

Similarly, Isaac Ndlovu (2016) writes that “Bulawayo’s pen name

denotes loss and nostalgia; on the one hand, the literal loss of her mother,
and on the other hand, the writer’s homesickness for the city of Bulawayo
which she had been away from for 13 years when she publishes “We Need
6 O. OYĚWÙMÍ AND H. GIRMA

New Names.” Clearly, we need to question what are old names, what are
new names, and why do we need new names?

Overview of Upcoming Essays

This volume Naming Africans explores the epistemic value of African
names, and in the process unveils endogenous forms of knowledge. This
project was conceived to document and analyze personal names and asso-
ciated naming practices in a wide range of African societies. It brings
together valuable scholarship on African names and naming practices by
investigating the meanings (symbolic and otherwise) and importance of
names in African societies, including the way names are given, the reasons
for choosing particular names and the rituals involved in naming. The
scholars in this volume analyze names and naming patterns to communi-
cate the value of African names as archival sources worthy of systematic
analysis. The essays in this volume examine the social significance and
meanings of the names in their respective communities. This volume
brings together a collection of essays documenting diverse societies and
naming practices on the geographically vast and ethnically diverse conti-
nent, including contributions from Angola, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana,
Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda (listed here alphabeti-
cally). The contributors are scholars from a multiplicity of countries and
linguistic backgrounds who have an established record of expertise in par-
ticular cultures. In their essays, they investigate names and naming prac-
tices diachronically in different African language communities. This
comparative focus juxtaposing different African cultures and their embed-
ded naming practices is one of the strengths of this collection. This work
is a response to the paucity of empirically and theoretically rigorous studies
of African names by Africa-born scholars. Names often provide insider
information for those who share the same linguistic and sociocultural
background. This is the reason why we explicitly privileged African schol-
ars writing about their own societies in this volume. We also value the
inferences these scholars can make from personal names about the larger
society. All the contributors to the volume except one are Africa-born,
which makes an important statement about self-representation in the gen-
eration of knowledge about the continent. The authors therefore have the
necessary linguistic and cultural competence to decode these names, link-
ing them to history, religious belief systems, indigenous philosophies, lit-
erary texts and beyond.
 INTRODUCTION 7

To animate our discussion, we interrogate the histories and cultural

practices of naming to shed light on the society at large. How are African
names constructed and deployed? What meanings and values do African
societies attach to their names? How can names inform our understanding
of social institutions and identities? What information can we glean from
names that is unavailable to us elsewhere? In order to answer these ques-
tions, we have gathered a variety of essays that engage with names and
naming practices from different African societies, cultures, historical time
periods, and disciplinary perspectives. The contributions in this volume
amply demonstrate that names are not only full of layered meaning but are
dynamic artifacts that are continuously refashioned, reflecting sociohis-
torical realities in a process that affects us all. Additionally, the essays in
this volume provide a critical commentary on the ways in which gender is
central, both positively and negatively, to African naming practices. Most
of the essays are products of original research and have not been published
elsewhere. Valuing our names, defining their meaning and elucidating the
value behind them on our own terms contributes to new insights into
African histories and cultures.
The ubiquity of gender distinctions in many contemporary African
naming systems can usually be traced to one of three multifaceted pro-
cesses: European colonialism, the introduction of Christianity, and the
domestication of Islam, all of which embody gendered notions. But in
spite of these powerful influences, the use of traditional, non-gendered,
indigenous African names persists among some cultural groups. In the first
essay, “Toward a Genealogy of Gender, Gendered Names, and Naming
Practices,” Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí investigates gender dynamics in African
names and naming systems, using Yorùbá names as a case study. There are
at least four different categories of names in Yorùbá culture, and most of
them are not gender-specific—that is, they do not make gender distinc-
tions between males and females. But oríkì, or personal praise names,
appear to be gendered, contradicting the fact that Yorùbá given names,
like terms describing kinship and traditional occupations, do not express
gender differences. Oyěwùmí’s essay offers a fascinating discussion that
unravels the puzzle of why praise names seem to be an exception to the
Yorùbá norm of non-gendered names. What do we learn about, and from,
personal oríkì names, and what do they tell us about our history?
The significance of history and gender is further interwoven in Hewan
Girma’s analysis in “Amharic Names, Naming Ceremonies and Memory.”
She starts by providing a detailed overview of the significant time periods
8 O. OYĚWÙMÍ AND H. GIRMA

in an individual’s life when they receive a name in the traditions of

Northern Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Secular or world
names given at birth, or shortly thereafter, are alternatively supplemented
or supplanted first with baptismal names and later in life with bridal names
bestowed on women upon marriage and horse names acquired during
warfare for men. Each of these different practices and its accompanying
ceremonies provides an occasion to study complex social processes such as
the formation of ethnic, religious and gendered identity. Girma expands
her analysis with an examination of how Ethiopian-American author
Maaza Mengiste deploys personal names as an instrument of memory in
The Shadow King, a historical novel set during the second Ethiopian Italian
war (1935–1941). Throughout the essay, Girma weaves in fascinating dis-
cussions of famous Ethiopian rulers and their complex multilayered names,
including those of Emperor Haile Selassie (also known as Ras Tafari,
among other names).
Gender classifications, their historical significance and their usefulness
as an index of women’s subordination constitute the main theme of
Bertrade Ngo-Ngijol Banoum’s “Engendering Personal Names in Basaa
Culture: From the Origins to the Epic Tradition and Beyond.” The essay
addresses two important questions: “How are Basaa names created?” and
“How is gender embodied in these names?” To answer these questions,
Ngo-Ngijol Banoum explores the genealogies of Basaa ancestors and the
foundational Epic of Hiton (an oral poetic tale from the early nineteenth
century). These Basaa Cameroonian traditions showcase naming practices
and patterns with deep roots in the people’s cultural heritage. Beyond the
ethnographic and linguistic descriptions they provide, the names of Basaa
founding parents and protagonists in the cultural epic consistently under-
score the significance of gender. Ngo-Ngijol Banoum discusses Baasa
naming practices, their deep cultural roots, their gendered significance,
and their resulting implications. This intervention underscores that differ-
ent conceptualizations of gendered identities simultaneously define and
are in turn shaped by personal names and naming practices.
In a further elaboration of the richness and complexities of African
naming systems and their intersections with gender, we turn to Martha
Ndakalako’s “What’s in a Namesake: The Mbushe and Gender in Owambo
Naming Practices in The Purple Violet of Oshaantu.” Ndakalako-Bannikov
expounds on the gendered legacies of colonization and Christianity
amongst the Owambo People of Namibia (e.g., women taking up their
husband’s names). Reclaiming Owambo personal names during the
 INTRODUCTION 9

struggle for independence was a form of resistance to colonialism and an

expression of cultural reawakening. Another common naming practice
among the Owambo was namesaking (known as mbushe relationship).
Grounding her discussion on the novel The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by
Namibian author Neshani Andreas, Ndakalako-Bannikov uncovers the
complexities of namesaking. Namesakes not only create a link in kinship
networks but reflect the belief that when people share a name they inhabit
the same personhood. Therefore, in addition to memorializing significant
people, namesaking imposes social ties with sometimes conflicting
obligations.
In “Mother-Agency and the Currency of Names,” Besi Muhonja exam-
ines the question of power and the privilege of naming and its significance
for identity creation, destiny affirmation, legacy establishment, lineage and
community belonging among the Maragoli of western Kenya. Drawing
from extensive research and her own personal cultural experiences,
Muhonja discusses processes of renaming, de-naming, negative naming
(i.e., challenging death through naming) and the performativity of names
to indicate belonging. Within the patrilineal and patrilocal Maragoli com-
munity, she situates the influence of motherhood and the authority of
women, particularly paternal grandmothers, in naming customs, including
the power to withhold a name, thus denying admission into the family
lineage.
In “Akan ‘Day Names’ as Archives of Indigenous Knowledge,” Kwasi
Konadu provides us with a historical perspective on the ubiquitous use of
the patterned naming system that has spread beyond Ghana to African
diasporic communities across the Black Atlantic. Arguing against the
emphasis of colonial disruptions, Konadu narrates the story of “Adua,”
one of the earliest documented “day names” in the written historical
archives, to highlight historical continuities as evidenced in personal
names. He advances three interrelated perspectives that can be gained
through the study of Akan (and more generally African) names: (1) Paying
attention to names as archives of historicized knowledge, (2) highlighting
historical continuities through the epistemology of names, and (3) offer-
ing new pathways to cultural and historical knowledge.
In “Names are Sighs of Divinity from our Forebears,” Zethu Cakata
uses contemporary South African students’ efforts to decolonize educa-
tion, including a return to their names, as an entry point for discussing
colonial de-naming. She outlines the long-term negative psychological
effects of the de-naming that was carried out through Western schooling,
10 O. OYĚWÙMÍ AND H. GIRMA

linking her discussion to destruction of language, place names and culture.

Drawing from Ntsiki Mazwai’s poem “Risen,” Cakata further explores the
significance of ukuthiya igama, which roughly translates to name giving
but with profound spiritual meaning, as names among Xhosa speakers are
believed to activate the child’s spirit, reveal a child’s life purpose, and con-
nect the child to forebears.
In “Decolonial Epistemologies in Indigenous Names of the Bakiga of
Southwest Uganda,” Tushabe wa Tushabe discusses the erasure of Bakiga
names and epistemologies with the advent of Christianity and the imposi-
tion of a colonial language, in a pattern that we see repeated across the
African continent. As she writes, “Names became one of the ways by which
Christianity penetrated African cultures to impose practices of forgetting
indigenous sense of community, which includes ancestors, one’s culture,
language, self, while remembering instead only Christian ancestors and
practices.” Using her own family names and history as illustration, Tushabe
reveals how names and language more generally serve as a window into a
culture, its philosophies and its value system. For a decolonial conceptual-
ization, Tushabe argues for a reexamination of the repository of Bakiga
knowledge and cosmological connections “that enriches the cultivation of
one’s self in community.”
Florita Cuhanga António Telo, in her essay, “Tell Me Your Name and I
Will Tell You Who You Are: The Construction of Names in Angola and
the Colonial Influence,” discusses the changes in processes of naming over
a broad historical period. Among the Bakongo ethnic group of northern
Angola, naming of children was based on criteria for the maintenance of
family history and/or ethnicity. Prior to the advent of Catholicism and the
introduction of Portuguese as the official colonial language, the practice
of bestowing names inherited from ancestors, which ensured the transmis-
sion of history and lineage, was widespread. Colonialism, however, dis-
rupted this and other traditions by imposing, among other things,
bureaucratic barriers to the use of indigenous (non-Portuguese) names.
This devaluing of traditional naming practices, which is most evident in
the official registries, began in the colonial era, continued almost unchal-
lenged in post-independence Angola, where local names are still deemed
inferior. The interventions of the Catholic church and problematic legal
requirements such as the use of Portuguese names in the official registries
are therefore shown to be detrimental to the national multi-ethnic identity
and culture.
 INTRODUCTION 11

Lastly, in the epilogue, “Diasporic Dis/Connections,” Hewan Girma

opens up the conversation about how African names are employed, erased,
transformed, reclaimed, and valued in the vast historically and geographi-
cally varied African diaspora. She illustrates her discussion of African names
in the diaspora by examining the various name changes of one prominent
African abolitionist, Olaudah Equiano, based on his memoir (1789).
Our efforts in this volume demonstrate the richness and complexity of
African naming traditions and the dynamic ways in which different com-
munities have grappled with and encoded social change. Taken together,
the essays expose the limitless possibilities of names to inform and com-
municate the past in ways that may not be readily accessible through other
methods. The crucial importance of naming traditions in any culture can-
not be overstated. In that vein, we hope this book will inspire others to
pursue research into this time-honored subject, and to explore the many
ways to answer the question, “What, indeed, is not in a name?”

References
Adelakun, A. A. (2020) The Spirit names the child: Pentecostal names and trans-­
ethics. In The Palgrave handbook of African social ethics (pp. 543–567). Palgrave
Macmillan.
Bulawayo, N. (2013). We need new names. Chatto & Windus.
Mensah, E., & Rowan, K. (2019). African anthroponyms: Sociolinguistic currents
and anthropological reflections. Sociolinguistic Studies, 13(2–4), 157–170.
Moji, P. B. (2015). New names, translational subjectivities: (dis) location and (re)
naming in NoViolet Bulawayo’s ‘we need new names’. Journal of African
Cultural Studies, 27(2), 181–190.
Ndlovu, I. (2016). Ambivalence of representation: African crises, migration and
citizenship in NoViolet Bulawayo’s WeNeedNewNames. African Identities,
14(2), 132–146.
Nyambi, O., Mangena, T., & Pfukwa, C. (Eds.). (2016). The postcolonial condition
of names and naming practices in southern Africa. Cambridge Scholars
Publishing.
Olanisebe, S. O. (2017). Elimination by substitution: The travesty of changing
cultural names to biblical names by Pentecostals in southwestern Nigeria. Ilorin
Journal of Religious Studies, 7(2), 107–124.
 Toward a Genealogy of Gender, Gendered
Names, and Naming Practices

Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí

The nineteenth century was a revolutionary period in Yorùbá history, pro-

ducing great social changes that we are still trying to understand. The
historical transformations that were to have this huge impact were docu-
mented by historian B. Agiri among others. They include:

First, the disintegration of the old Ọ̀ yọ́ Empire and the emergence of a new
political order; second, the collapse of the maritime slave trade and the
growth of new exports, … the arrival of Christian missionaries and the
establishment of the British at Lagos, followed by the spread of British influ-
ence inland. For the average Yorùbá citizen, it was a century of confusion
and chaos when the old traditions were questioned. Some customs were
modified, while others were reinforced or discarded. (Agiri, 1981)

What needs to be added to his list is that Islam, which had been present
in some parts of Yorùbá communities before this time, was not only

O. Oyěwùmí (*)
Department of Sociology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
e-mail: Oyeronke.Oyewumi@stonybrook.edu

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 13

Switzerland AG 2023
̌
O. Oyewùmí, H. Girma (eds.), Naming Africans, Gender and
Cultural Studies in Africa and the Diaspora,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13475-3_2
14 O. OYĚWÙMÍ

putting down deeper roots but was also expanding with noticeable impact
on the society. In this chapter, my focus is on new customs, new institu-
tions, new social practices, and most significantly new names that emerged
in this period. Seemingly gendered names, gendered practices, and gen-
dered institutions appeared, particularly in Ibadan and Abeokuta, two new
polities that absorbed the fleeing refugees of internecine wars attending
the fallen Ọ̀ yọ́ empire. The emergence of new names and novel naming
practices was certainly a notable development. It is impossible to exagger-
ate the importance of names to Yorùbá people and therefore it is a useful
window to their thinking, social practices, and social change. Naming sys-
tems are by definition knowledge systems given the epistemic value
of names.
Traditionally, Yorùbá names are not gender-specific in that both males
and females bear the same names. Yorùbá names and naming are no dif-
ferent from their other social institution all of which expose an epistemol-
ogy that does not construct gender. Hence, as I have established in various
writings, there were no gendered moral and social attributes in the cul-
tural ethos, and so notions of masculinity or femininity are alien. However,
in the nineteenth century, oríkì or personal praise names, a particular kind
of name that appear to be gendered, came into use. Such names seem to
be gender-specific in the sense that today in popular understanding a par-
ticular set of oríkì is associated with the anafemale body and another paral-
lel group is anamale identified. Gendered names at any level do not fit in
with the already existing variety of names, neither did they conform to the
logic of Yorùbá naming practices, world sense, and social institutions. The
apparent identification of a set of praise names with one body type, and
another group of oríkì with the other body type, then, becomes a curios-
ity, a puzzle that need to be explained. In my book Invention, I showed
that gender constructs are a recent historical development in the society,
emerging in the nineteenth century. Following from this thesis then, I
hypothesize that personal praise names must be of relatively recent origin
even though they seem deeply rooted in the current social structure, as if
they have been in use from time immemorial.
My objective is to investigate the origin of oríkì and its relationship to
the convulsions that engulfed Ọ̀ yọ́-Yorùbá society following the disinte-
gration of the empire. Second, I will examine the links between the use of
praise names and the newly emerging Christian and Muslim convert com-
munities. Despite the fact that female oríkì and male oríkì are thought of
as a gender field of the same phenomenon, analysis of the meanings of the
 TOWARD A GENEALOGY OF GENDER, GENDERED NAMES, AND NAMING… 15

names suggest the two sets of names developed differently. My investiga-

tion will not take the gendered nature of personal praise names for granted
recognizing that their apparent use today in a gendered fashion may be a
result of change over time. Theoretically, the question of whether a par-
ticular practice or institution is gendered can be apprehended at two lev-
els: first, gender is routinely invoked when the phenomenon under study
is seen to superficially attach to male and female bodies differently, and in
a binary way. The second level of gendering is more fundamental in that it
speaks to the gender division of social and moral attributes that is embed-
ded in the ethos, which is then expressed in social practices throughout. In
Western societies, whose mores and values overly inform academic discus-
sions of gender, the two levels are conflated because of the degree to
which gender “doings” have become the warp and woof of the culture.
However, in Yorùbá society because gender as a construct is not ontologi-
cal to the ethos, and since any articulation of gender is a new development
historically, the multilevel process of understanding gender becomes obvi-
ous. Thus a study of gendering in this society affords scholars the oppor-
tunity to understand the process by which institutions and practices
become gendered. Does the presence of the first level, that is, the superfi-
cial naming of male bodies and female bodies differently automatically
signal the presence in the society of gendered moral and social attributes?
The evidence from Yorùbá society does not support this line of thinking
because social and moral attributes are still not universally understood to
inhere in males and females differently. A second question is whether the
first level of gendering expressed in the naming of social phenomena as
male or female is a sign that a society has embarked on a process of gender
differentiation, classifying males and females differently, if not unequally.
A third level is how to make sense of societies in which gender constructs
were originally absent but have now been imposed through colonial pro-
cesses of incorporation of such societies into the Western cultural gen-
dered ethos. That is my task in this chapter.
My analysis of names here is really a vehicle for raising questions about
where apparent distinctions between female and male character that is
suggested by different sets of names come from. The ultimate question in
any discussion of origins of gender constructs in Yorùbá society really is
not whether Yorùbá thought recognizes differences between male and
female bodies but whether it recognizes social and moral attributes as fem-
inine or masculine and has as a result-organized social facts to express such
a belief. I am also interested in praise names for what they can tell us about
16 O. OYĚWÙMÍ

social change, particularly in relation to gender. One of the most fascinat-

ing things about indigenous names is what one scholar calls their record-
keeping function, a fact that has bearing on how names have come to
encapsulate elements of social change. According to anthropologist Niyi
Akinnaso:

Yorùbá personal names serve as an open diary by providing a system through

which information is symbolically stored and retrieved. The diary is open
because personal names are public, being the primary mode of address
among the Yorùbá. However, the nature and range of information stored in
a given personal name may not be known to every member of the commu-
nity. Since personal names are used several times a day in the normal course
of an individual’s life routine, this diary-keeping function is particularly
effective in serving as a reminder of those dominant social values, important
personal concerns, and other special events that are reflected in personal
names. (Akinnaso, 1980)

Yorùbá names can be literally read for information and it is this archival
function that attracted me to the idea of using such to probe gender issues.
Although a number of scholars1 have demonstrated the value of oríkì
poetry as a source of historical data, and a few linguists have analyzed oríkì
names linguistically, many of the questions I am asking in this chapter have
never been asked before in studies of Yorùbá culture. Consequently, the
task of establishing the origin of praise names, whether they are gendered
or not, is a multifaceted process that will draw in many other institutions
and practices across three centuries. Investigating these questions requires
a detailed examination of social practices and institutions that may at times
appear to be far from the subject of gender, but this is not the case because
in order to establish the genealogy of gender, this comprehensive excur-
sion is necessary.

1
Following historian Bolanle Awe (1974), who showed us how oríkì (praise poetry) can be
used as a source of historical evidence, literary anthropologist Karin Barber (1981), in a
paper documenting the changes in the performance of oríkì (praise poetry), insightfully
shows how the tone, content, and style of performance itself can illuminate the changes that
took place in a particular epoch that led to social transformation.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 "Thirty-two."

"Twenty-five."

"Good heavens," I said, "I've only got seven."

There was a shout of laughter.

"Then you'd better begin," said somebody. "Read them out."

I coughed doubtfully, and began;

"Napoleon."

There was another shout of laughter.

"I am afraid we can't allow that."

"Why ever not?" I asked in amazement.

"Well, you'd hardly find him in a kitchen, would you?"

I took out a handkerchief and wiped my brow. "I don't want to find him
in a kitchen," I said nervously. "Why should I? As a matter of fact, he's
dead. I don't see what the kitchen's got to do with it. Kitchens begin with a
K."

"But the game is called 'Furnishing a Kitchen.' You have to make a list
of things beginning with N which you would find in a kitchen. You
understood that, didn't you?"

"Y-y-yes," I said. "Oh y-y-y-yes. Of course."

"So Napoleon——"

I pulled myself together with a great effort.

"You don't understand," I said with dignity. "The cook's name was
Napoleon."
 "Cooks aren't called Napoleon," said everybody.

"This one was. Carrie Napoleon. Her mistress was just as surprised at
first as you were, but Carrie assured her that——"

"No, I'm afraid we can't allow it."

"I'm sorry," I said; "I'm wrong about that. Her name was Carrie Smith.
But her young man was a soldier, and she had bought a 'Life of Napoleon'
for a birthday present for him. It stood on the dresser—it did, really—
waiting for her next Sunday out."

"Oh! Oh, well, I suppose that is possible. Go on."

"Gnats," I went on nervously and hastily. "Of course I know that——"

"Gnats are spelt with a G," they shrieked.

"These weren't. They had lost the G when they were quite young, and
consequently couldn't bite at all, and cook said that——"

"No, I'm afraid not."

"I'm sorry," I said resignedly. "I had about forty of them—on the
dresser. If you won't allow any of them, it pulls me down a lot. Er—then we
have Nitro-glycerine."

There was another howl of derision.

"Not at all," I said haughtily. "Cook had chapped hands very badly, and
she went to the chemist's one evening for a little glycerine. The chemist was
out, and his assistant—a very nervous young fellow—gave her nitro-
glycerine by mistake. It stood on the dresser, it did, really."

"Well," said everybody very reluctantly, "I suppose——"

I went on hastily:
 "That's two. Then Nobody. Of course, you might easily find nobody in
the kitchen. In fact you would pretty often, I should say. Three. The next is
Noon. It could be noon in the kitchen as well as anywhere else. Don't be
narrow-minded about that."

"All right. Go on."

"Non-sequitur," I said doubtfully.

"What on earth——"

"It's a little difficult to explain, but the idea is this. At most restaurants
you can get a second help of anything for half-price, and that is technically
called a 'follow.' Now, if they didn't give you a follow, that would be a Non-
sequitur.... You do see that, don't you?"

There was a deadly silence.

"Five," I said cheerfully. "The last is Notting Hill. I must confess," I said
magnanimously, "that I am a bit doubtful whether you would actually find
Notting Hill in a kitchen."

"You don't say so!"

"Yes. My feeling is that you would be more likely to find the kitchen in
Notting Hill. On the other hand, it is just possible that, as Calais was found
engraven on Mary's heart, so, supposing the cook died—— Oh, very well.
Then it remains at five."

Of course you think that, as I only had five, I came out last. But you are
wrong. There is a pleasing rule in this game that, if you have any word in
your list which somebody else has, you cannot count it. And as all the
others had the obvious things—such as a nutmeg-grater or a neck of mutton
or a nomelette—my five won easily. And you will note that, if only I had
been allowed to count my gnats, it would have been forty-five.
 II. GETTING THE NEEDLE

He was a pale, enthusiastic young man of the name of Simms; and he

held forth to us at great length about his latest hobby.

"Now I'll just show you a little experiment," he wound up; "one that I
have never known to fail. First of all, I want you to hide a needle
somewhere, while I am out of the room. You must stick it where it can be
seen—on a chair—or on the floor if you like. Then I shall come back and
find it."

"Oh, Mr Simms!" we all said.

"Now, which one of you has the strongest will?"

We pushed Jack forward. Jack is at any rate a big man.

"Very well. I shall want you to take my hand when I come in, and look
steadily at the needle, concentrate all your thoughts on it. I, on the other
hand, shall make my mind a perfect blank. Then your thoughts will
gradually pass into my brain, and I shall feel myself as it were dragged in
the direction of the needle."

"And I shall feel myself, as it were, dragged after you?" said Jack.

"Yes; you mustn't put any strain on my arm at all. Let me go just where
I like, only will me to go in the right direction. Now then."

He took out his handkerchief, put it hastily back, and said: "First, I shall
want to borrow a handkerchief or something."

Well, we blindfolded him, and led him out of the room. Then Muriel got
a needle, which, after some discussion, was stuck into the back of the
Chesterfield. Simms returned, and took Jack's left hand.

They stood there together, Jack frowning earnestly at the needle, and
Simms swaying uncertainly at the knees. Suddenly his knees went in
altogether, and he made a little zig-zag dash across the room, as though he
were taking cover. Jack lumbered after him, instinctively bending his head
too. They were brought up by the piano, which Simms struck with great
force. We all laughed, and Jack apologised.

"You told me to let you go where you liked, you know," he said.

"Yes, yes," said Simms rather peevishly, "but you should have willed
me not to hit the piano."

As he spoke he tripped over a small stool, and, flinging out an arm to

save himself, swept two photograph frames off an occasional table.

"By Jove!" said Jack, "that's jolly good. I saw you were going to do that,
and I willed that the flower vase should be spared. I'm getting on."

"I think you had better start from the door again," I suggested. "Then
you can get a clear run."

They took up their original positions.

"You must think hard, please," said Simms again. "My mind is a perfect
blank, and yet I can feel nothing coming."

Jack made terrible faces at the needle. Then, without warning, Simms
flopped on to the floor at full length, pulling Jack after him.

"You mustn't mind if I do that," he said, getting up slowly.

"No," said Jack, dusting himself.

"I felt irresistibly compelled to go down," said Simms.

"So did I," said Jack.

"The needle is very often hidden in the floor, you see. You are sure you
are looking at it?"

They were in a corner with their backs to it; and Jack, after trying in
vain to get it over his right shoulder or his left, bent down and focussed it
between his legs. This must have connected the current; for Simms turned
right round and marched up to the needle.

"There!" he said triumphantly, taking off the bandage.

We all clapped, while Jack poured himself out a whisky. Simms turned
to him.

"You have a very strong will indeed," he said, "one of the strongest I
have met. Now, would one of the ladies like to try?"

"Oh, I'm sure I couldn't," said all the ladies.

"I should like to do it again," said Simms modestly. "Perhaps you, sir?"

"All right, I'll try," I said.

When Simms was outside I told them my idea.

"I'll hold the needle in my other hand," I said, "and then I can always
look at it easily, and it will always be in a different place, which ought to
muddle him."

We fetched him in, and he took my left hand....

"No, it's no good," he said at last, "I don't seem to get it. Let me try the
other hand...."

I had no time to warn him. He clasped the other hand firmly; and, from
the shriek that followed, it seemed that he got it. There ensued the "perfect
blank" that he had insisted on all the evening. Then he pulled off the
bandage, and showed a very angry face.

Well, we explained how accidental it was, and begged him to try again.
He refused rather sulkily.

Suddenly Jack said: "I believe I could do it blindfold. Miss Muriel, will
you look at the needle and see if you can will me?"
 Simms bucked up a bit, and seemed keen on the idea. So Jack was
blindfolded, the needle hid, and Muriel took his hand.

"Now, is your mind a perfect blank?" said Simms to Jack.

"It always is," said Jack.

"Very well, then. You ought soon to feel in a dreamy state, as though
you were in another world. Miss Muriel, you must think only of the needle."

Jack held her hand tight, and looked most idiotically peaceful. After
three minutes Simms spoke again.

"Well?" he said eagerly.

"I've got the dreamy, other-world state perfectly," said Jack, and then he
gave at the knees just for the look of the thing.

"This is silly," said Muriel, trying to get her hand away.

Jack staggered violently, and gripped her hand again.

"Please, Miss Muriel," implored Simms. "I feel sure he is just going to
do it."

Jack staggered again, sawed the air with his disengaged hand, and then
turned right round and marched for the door, dragging Muriel behind him.
The door slammed after them....

* * * * * * * *

There is a little trick of sitting on a chair and picking a pin out of it with
the teeth. I started Simms—who was all eagerness to follow the pair, and
find out the mysterious force that was drawing them—upon this trick, for
Jack is one of my best friends. When Jack and Muriel came back from the
billiard-room, and announced that they were engaged, Simms was on his
back on the floor with the chair on the top of him—explaining, for the
fourth time, that if the thing had not overbalanced at the critical moment he
would have secured the object. There is much to be said for this view.
 BACHELOR DAYS

THE BUTTER

"You mustn't think I am afraid of my housekeeper. Not at all. I

frequently meet her on the stairs, and give her some such order as "I think
—if you don't mind—I might have breakfast just a little later—er, yes,
about eight o'clock, yes, thank you." Or I ring the bell and say, "I—I—
want-my-boots." We both recognise that it is mine to command and hers to
obey. But in the matter of the butter I have let things slide, until the position
is rapidly becoming an untenable one. Yet I doubt if a man of imagination
and feeling could have acted otherwise, given the initial error. However,
you shall hear.

There are two sorts of butter, salt and fresh. Now, nobody is so fond of
butter as I am; but butter (as I have often told everybody) isn't butter at all
unless it is salt. The other kind is merely an inferior vaseline—the sort of
thing you put on the axles of locomotives. Imagine, then, my disgust, when
I took my first breakfast in these rooms eleven months ago, to find that the
housekeeper had provided me with a large lump of vaseline!

I hate waste in small things. Take care of the little extravagances, I say,
and the big ones will take care of themselves. My first thought on viewing
this pat of butter was, "It is difficult, but I will eat it." My second, "But I
must tell the housekeeper to get salt butter next time."

An ordinary-minded person would have stopped there. I went one

further. My third thought was this: "Housekeepers are forgetful creatures. If
I tell her now, she will never remember. Obviously I had better wait until
this pound is just finished and she is about to get in some more. Then will
be the time to speak." So I waited; and it was here that I made my mistake.
For it turned out that it was I who was the forgetful creature. And on the
fifteenth day I got up to find another large pound of vaseline on my table.
The next fortnight went by slowly. I kept my eye on every day, waiting for
the moment to come when I could say to the housekeeper, "You will be
getting me in some more butter this morning. Would you get salt, as I don't
much like the other?" Wednesday came, and there was just enough left for
two days. I would speak on the morrow.

But, alas! on the morrow there was another new pound waiting. I had
evidently misjudged the amount.

I forget what happened after that. I fancy I must have been very busy, so
that the question of butter escaped me altogether. Sometimes, too, I would
go away for a few days and the old butter would be thrown away and the
new butter bought, at a time when I had no opportunity of defending
myself. However it was, there came a time when I had been three months in
my rooms, and was still eating fresh butter; contentedly, to all appearances
—in the greatest anguish of soul, as it happened. And at the end of another
month I said: "Now, then, I really must do something about this."

But what could I do? After eating fresh butter for four months without
protest I couldn't possibly tell the housekeeper that I didn't like it, and
would she get salt in future. That would be too absurd. Fancy taking four
months to discover a little thing like that! Nor could I pretend that, though I
used to adore fresh butter, I had now grown tired of it. I hate instability of
character, and I could not lend myself to any such fickleness. I put it to you
that either of these courses would have shown deplorable weakness. No, an
explanation with the housekeeper was by that time impossible; and if
anything was to be done I must do it on my own responsibility. What about
buying a pound of salt butter myself, and feeding on it in secret? True, I
should have to get rid of a certain portion of fresh every day, but...

I don't know if you have ever tried to get rid of a certain portion of fresh
butter every day, when you are living in a flat at the very top of chambers in
London. Drop it out of the window once or twice, and it is an accident.
Three times, and it is a coincidence. Four times, and the policeman on duty
begins to think that there is more in it (if I may say so) than meets the eye....
But what about the fire, you will ask. Ah, yes; but I could foresee a day
when there would be no fire. One has to look ahead.

Besides, as I said, I hate waste. As any cook will tell you, the whole art
of housekeeping can be summed up in three words—Watch the butter.

More months passed and more pats of vaseline. Every day made an
explanation more hopeless. I had thoughts at one time of an anonymous
letter. Something in this style:

"MADAM,—One who is your friend says beware of vaseline. All is

discovered. Fly before it is too late. What is it makes the sea so salt? NaCl.
Sodium Chloride. THE BLACK HAND"

That would give her the impression, at any rate, that there were two
kinds of butter. Confound it all, by what right did she assume without
asking that I had a preference for fresh?

I have now been in my rooms nearly a year. Something must be done

soon. My breakfasts are becoming a farce. Meals which I used to enjoy I
now face as an ordeal. Is there to be no hope for me in the future?

Well, there is a chance? I shall have to wait until July; but with
something definite in view I am content to wait.

In July I hope to go to Switzerland for a month. Two days before

returning home I shall write to my housekeeper. Having announced the day
of my return, and given one or two instructions, I shall refer briefly to the
pleasant holiday which I have been enjoying. I shall remark perhaps on the
grandeur of the mountains and the smiling beauty of the valleys, I may
mention the area in square miles of the country....

And I shall dwell upon the habits of the native.

 "... They live (I shall write) in extraordinary simplicity, chiefly upon the
products of their farms. Their butter is the most delightful I have ever tried.
It is a little salt to the taste, but after four weeks of it I begin to feel that I
shall never be able to do without salt butter again! No doubt, as made in
London it would be different from this, but I really think I must give it a
trial. So when you are ordering the things I mentioned for me, will you ask
for salt butter...."

And if that fails there remains only the one consolation. In three years
my lease is up. I shall take a new flat somewhere, and on the very first day I
shall have a word with the new housekeeper.

"By the way," I shall say, "about the butter...."

THE WASHING

Of course, it is quite possible to marry for love, but I suspect that a good
many bachelors marry so that they may not have to bother about the
washing any more. That, anyhow, will be one of the reasons with me. "I
offer you," I shall say, "my hand and heart—and the washing; and, oh, do
see that six tablecloths and my footer shorts don't get sent every week."

We affect Hampstead for some reason. Every week a number of shirts

and things goes all the way out to Hampstead and back. I once sent a
Panama to Paris to be cleaned, and for quite a year afterwards I used to lead
the conversation round to travel, and then come out with, "Ah, I well
remember when my Panama was in Paris...." So now, when I am asked at a
dance, "Do you know Hampstead at all?" I reply, "Well, I only know it
slightly myself; but my collars spend about half the year there. They are in
with all the best people."

I can believe that I am not popular in Hampstead, for I give my

laundress a lot of trouble. Take a little thing like handkerchiefs. My rooms,
as I have mentioned, are at the very top of the building, and there is no lift.
Usually I wait till I am just out into the street before I discover that I have
forgotten my handkerchief. It is quite impossible to climb all the stairs
again, so I go and buy one for the day. This happens about three times a
week. The result is that nearly all my handkerchiefs are single ones—there
are no litters of twelve, no twins even, or triplets. Now when you have a lot
of strangers in a drawer like this, with no family ties (or anything) to keep
them together, what wonder if they gradually drift away from each other?

My laundress does her best for them. She works a sort of birthmark in
red cotton in the corner of each, so that she shall know them again. When I
saw it first I was frightened. It looked like the password of some secret
society.

"Are there many aliens in Hampstead?" I asked the housekeeper.

"I don't know, sir."

"Well, look here, what I found on my handkerchief. That's a secret

signal of some sort, you know, that's what it is. I shall get mixed up in some
kind of anarchist row before I know where I am. Will you arrange about
getting my clothes washed somewhere else, please?"

"That's because you haven't got your name on it. She must mark them
somehow."

"Then, why doesn't she mark them with my name? So much simpler."

"It isn't her business to mark your clothes," said the housekeeper.

That, I suppose, is true; but it seems to me that she is giving us both a

lot of unnecessary trouble. Every week I pick out this decorative design
with a penknife, and every week she works it in again. When you consider
the time and the red cotton wasted it becomes clear that a sixpenny bottle of
marking ink and a quill pen would be cheaper to her in the long run.

But she has a weakness for red cotton. The holes in the handkerchiefs
she works round with it—I never quite understand why. To call my
attention to them, perhaps, and to prevent me from falling through. Or else
to say, "You did this. I only washed up to the red, so it can't be my fault."

If I were married and had a house of my own, there would be no man

below; consequently he wouldn't wear the absurd collars he does. I get
about two of them a week (so even red cotton is not infallible); and if they
were the right size and a decent shape I shouldn't grumble so much. But I
do object to my collars mixing in town with these extraordinary things of
his. At Hampstead, it may be, they have to meet on terms of equality, more
or less; force of circumstances throws them together a good deal. But in
town no collar of mine could be expected to keep up the acquaintance. "You
knew me in the bath," I can imagine one of his monstrosities saying; and,
"When I am in the bath I shall know you again," would be the dignified
reply of my "16-Golf."

Collars trouble me a good deal one way or another. Whenever I buy a

new dozen, all the others seem suddenly to have become old-fashioned in
shape, and of the wrong size. Nothing will induce me to wear one of them
again. They get put away in boxes. Covered with dust, they lie forgotten.

Forgotten, did I say? No. The housekeeper finds them and sends them to
the wash. About a month later she finds them again. She is always finding
clothes which have been discarded for ever, and sending them to the wash.

The mistake is, that we have not yet come to an agreement as to what
really is to go to the wash, and what isn't. There is a tacit understanding that
everything on the floor on Monday morning is intended for Hampstead. The
floor is the linen-basket. It seemed a good idea at the time, but it has its
faults. Things gets on to the floor somehow, which were never meant for the
north-west—blankets, and parts of a tweed suit, and sofa cushions. Things
have a mysterious way of dropping. Half-a-dozen pairs of white flannel
trousers dropped from a shelf one December. A pair of footer shorts used to
go every week—a pair which I would carefully put down to take the bath
water when I had finished with it. I wonder what those shorts thought they
were doing. Probably they quite fancied themselves at football, and boasted
about the goals they shot to companions whom they met at Hampstead.

"You're always here!" a pair of local wanderers would say.

 "My dear man, I play so hard, I don't care how dirty I get."

The irony of it!

But, worst of all, the laundry-book. Every week the housekeeper says to
me, "Would you pay your book now, as it's been owing for a month?" And
every week I pay. That sounds absurd, but I swear it's true. Or else the
weeks go very quickly.

And such amounts! Great ninepences for a counterpane or a tablecloth

or a white tie. Immense numbers of handkerchiefs, counting (apparently)
twelve as thirteen. Quaint hieroglyphics, which don't mean anything but
seem to get added into the price. And always that little postscript, "As this
has been owing for a month, we must request...."

TAKING STOCK

Beatrice has been spring-cleaning me to-day, or rather my clothes. I

said, wasn't it rather early for it, as none of the birds were singing properly
yet, and she had much better wait till next year; but no, she would do it now.
Beatrice is my sister-in-law, and she said—— Well, I forget what she did
say, but she took a whole bundle of things away with her in a cab; and I
know John will be wearing that purple shirt of mine to-morrow. As a matter
of fact, it was a perfectly new one, and I was only waiting till Lent was
over.

Beatrice said the things were all lying about anyhow, and how I ever
found anything to put on she didn't know; but I could have told her that they
were all arranged on a symmetrical plan of my own. Beatrice doesn't
understand the symmetry of a bachelor's mind. I like a collar in each
drawer, and then, whatever drawer you open, there's a collar ready for you.
Beatrice puts them all in one drawer, and then if you're in a hurry, and open
the wrong drawer by mistake, you probably go up to the office in two
waistcoats and no collar at all. That would be very awkward.

Beatrice actually wanted a braces drawer (if she hadn't married John I
should never let her talk to me about braces), but I explained that I had only
one pair, and was wearing those, so that it would be absurd. I expect she
wanted me to think that John had two pairs. All I can say, is, that, if he has,
he ought to be above taking my best shirt....

I don't think the waistcoat drawer will be a success. There are twenty-
three of them, and some of them don't blend at all well. Twenty-three in one
drawer—you know there are bound to be disputes. I see William has got to
the top already. Ah! he was a fine fellow, the first I ever had. I don't quite
know how to describe him, but in colour he was emerald green, with bits of
red silk peeping through. Sort of open-work, you know, only where you
would expect to see me there was more of William. I wore him at Beatrice's
wedding. He would come. Only he wouldn't let me into the vestry. I wanted
to sign my name; all the others were. I have never worn him since that day,
but Beatrice has fished him out, and now he lies on the very top of the
drawer.

Of course it's awfully good of Beatrice to take so much trouble about

my clothes, and I'm extremely grateful, and after all she did marry my
brother John; but I think sometimes she—— Well, here's a case. You know,
when you have twenty-three waistcoats you perhaps run a bit short of—of
other things. So, naturally, the few you have got left, you—— Well,
Beatrice took them all away, and said that as I couldn't possibly wear them
again she'd cut them up for house-cloths. And really—half-way between
winter and summer is a very awkward time for restocking. But I suppose it
is going to be warmer now?

House-cloths! I bet John has a go at them first.

Beatrice found what they call in the profession a "morning-coat and

vest" under the bed, and said that she would take it away and sell it for me.
I like the way she "finds" things which I have been keeping for years under
the bed. It is absurd to talk about "finding" anything in a small flat, because,
of course, it's there all the time: but Beatrice thought that I ought to be
grateful to her for the discovery, so I pretended I was. She said she would
get at least half-a-crown for it; but I said I would rather have the coat.
However, it turned out that I wasn't even to have had the half-crown....

I used to have thirty pairs of old white gloves in a drawer. I would take
them out sometimes, and stroke them affectionately, and say, "Ah, yes,
those were the ones I wore at that absolutely ripping dance when I first met
Cynthia, and we had supper together. You can see where I spilt the ice
pudding." Or—"This was that Hunt Ball, when I knew nobody and danced
with Hildegarde all the time. She wore black; just look at them now." Well,
Beatrice had that drawer out pretty quick. And now they are on their way to
Perth or Paris, or wherever it is; except Hildegarde's pair, which will just do
for the girl when she cleans the grates. I expect she really will get them you
know; because John doesn't dance.

You know, you mustn't make too much fun of Beatrice; she has ripping
ideas sometimes. She filled a "summer-trunk" for me—a trunk full of all the
clothes I am going to want in the summer. She started with a tennis-racquet
(which, strictly speaking, isn't clothes at all), and went on with some of the
jolliest light waistcoats you ever saw; it made me quite hot to look at them.
Well, now, that's really a good idea so far as it goes. But what will happen
when the summer does come? Why, we shall have to go through the whole
business all over again. And who'll arrange the winter-trunk? Beatrice. And
who'll get the pink pyjamas and the green socks that there's really no room
for, dear? Why, John.

Yet I am sorry for John. He was once as I am. What a life is his now.
Beatrice is a dear, and I will allow no one to say a word against her, but she
doesn't understand that trousers must be folded, not hung; that a collar
which has once been a collar can never be opened out and turned into a cuff
(supposing one wore cuffs); and that a school eleven blazer, even if it
happens to be pink, must not be cut down into a dressing-jacket for the little
one. Poor John! Yes, I am glad now that he has that shirt of mine. It is
perhaps a little too bright for his complexion, perhaps he has not quite the
air to carry it off; but I am glad that it is his. Now I think of it I have a tie
and a pair of socks that would go well with it; and even William—can I part
with William?—yes, he shall have William. Oh, I see that I must be kind to
John.

Dear Beatrice! I wonder when I shall have everything straight again.

MEDES AND PERSIANS

I have already said that I am not afraid of my housekeeper, so there is

no need for me to say it again. There are other motives than fear which
prevent a man from arguing with housekeepers; dislike of conversation with
his intellectual inferiors may be one, the sporting instinct is certainly
another. If one is to play "Medes and Persians" properly, one must be a
sportsman about it. Of course, I could say right out to her "Do this," and she
might do it. Or she could say right out to me, "Do that," and I would reply,
"Don't be absurd." But that wouldn't be the game.

As I play it, a "Mede" is a law which she lays down, and to which (after
many a struggle) in the end I submit; a "Persian" is a law which I lay down,
and to which ... after many a struggle ... in the end ... (when it is too late)....
Well, there are many Medes, but so far I have only scored one Persian of
note.

The first Mede was established last winter. For many weeks I had
opened my bedroom door of a morning to find a small jug of cold water on
the mat outside. The thing puzzled me. What do I want with a small jug of
cold water, I asked myself, when I have quite enough in the bath as it is?
Various happy thoughts occurred to me—as that it was lucky, that it
collected the germs, or (who knows?) indicated a wife with five thousand a
year—but it was a month before the real solution flashed across my mind.
"Perhaps," I said, "it was hot once. But," I added, "it must have been a long
time ago."
 The discovery upset me a good deal. In the first place, it is annoying
suddenly to have all one's hopes of a rich wife and protection from disease
dashed to the ground; in the second, I object to anybody but a relation
interfering with my moral character. Here was a comparative stranger trying
to instil the habit of early rising into me by leaving shaving-water outside
the door at three A.M. Was this a thing to be taken lying down?

Decidedly. So I stayed in bed and ignored the water-jug; save that each
morning, as I left my rooms, I gave it a parting sneer. It was gone by the
evening, but turned up again all right next day. After a month I began to get
angry. My housekeeper was defying me; very well, we would see who
could last the longer.

But after two months it was a Mede. Yet I have this triumph over her.
That though I take the water in I ... pour it into the bath and slip back into
bed again. I don't think she knows that.

Since then there have been many Medes. Little ones as to the position of
the chairs; bigger ones as to the number of blankets on the bed. You mustn't
think, though, that I always submit so easily. Sometimes I am firm. In the
matter of "Africa Joe" I have been very firm. Here, I know, I have right on
my side.

A year ago I was presented with a model of an Irish jolting car (with
horse and driver complete), which had been cut out of some sort of black
wood. The thing used to stand over my fireplace. Later on I acquired, at
different times, a grey hippopotamus (in china) and a black elephant. These
I harnessed on in front of the horse; and the whole affair made a very pretty
scene, which was known to my friends as "Sunday in the Forest: Africa Joe
drives his Family to Church." Besides all these I had yet another animal—a
green frog climbing a cardboard ladder. I leant this against the clock. One
had the illusion that the frog was climbing up in order to look at the works
—which was particularly pleasing because the clock didn't go.

Very well. You have the two scenes on the same mantelboard. One, the
frog as Bond Street watchmaker and jeweller, and the other (such is
Empire), Africa Joe in the heart of the forest. And what does the
housekeeper do? If you will believe me, she takes the frog down from the
clock and props him up behind the car, just as though he were getting on to
it in order to go to church with the others!

Now I do put it to you that this is simply spoiling the picture altogether.
Here we have a pleasant domestic episode, such as must occur frequently in
the African forests. Black Joe harnesses his horse, elephant, hippopotamus,
or what not, and drives his family to the eleven o'clock service. And into
this scene of rural simplicity a mere housekeeper elbows her way with
irrevelant frogs and ladders!

It is a mystery to me that she cannot see how absurd her contribution is.
To begin with, the family is in black (save the hippopotamus, who is in a
quiet grey), so is it likely that they would tolerate the presence of a garish
green-and-yellow stranger? (More than likely Joe is a churchwarden, and
has not only himself to think of.) Then, again, consider the title of the
scene: "Africa Joe drives his Family"—not "Africa Joe about to drive." The
horse is trotting, the elephant has one leg uplifted, and even the
hippopotamus is not in a position of rest. How then could the frog put a
ladder up against a moving cart, and climb in? No; here anyhow was a
Mede that must be resisted at all costs. On the question of Africa Joe I
would not be dictated to.

But, after re-emphasising my position daily for three weeks, I saw that
there was only one thing to do. The frog must be sacrificed to the idea of
Empire. So I burnt him.

But it is time I mentioned my one Persian. It was this way. In the winter
I used always to dry myself after the bath in front of my sitting-room fire.
Now, I know all about refraction, and the difficulty of seeing into a room
from outside, and so forth, but this particular room is unusually light,
having six large windows along one of its sides. I thought it proper,
therefore, to draw down the three end blinds by the fireplace; more
especially as the building directly opposite belonged to the Public House
Reform Association. In the fierce light that beats from reform associations
one cannot be too careful.

Little things like blinds easily escape the memory, and it was obvious
that it would be much pleasanter if the housekeeper could be trained always
to leave the end three down. The training followed its usual course.

Every morning I found the blinds up and every morning I drew them
down and left them there. After a month it seemed impossible that I could
ever establish my Persian. But then she forgot somehow; and one day I
woke up to find the three blinds down.

By a real stroke of genius I drew them up as soon as my dressing was

over. Next morning they were down again. I bathed, dried, dressed and
threw them up. She thought it was a Mede, and pulled them down.

But it was a Persian, and, as I pulled them up, I knew that I had scored.

Yet, after all, I am not so sure. For it is now the summer, and I have no
fire, and I do not want the blinds left down. And when I pull them up every
morning I really want to find them up next morning. But I find them down.
So perhaps it really is a Mede. To tell the truth, the distinction between the
two is not so clear as it ought to be. I must try to come to some arrangement
with the housekeeper about it.

THE CUPBOARD

It was the landlord who first called my attention to the cupboard; I

should never have noticed it myself.

"A very useful cupboard you see there," he said, "I should include that
in the fixtures."

"Indeed," said I, not at all surprised; for the idea of his taking away the
cupboard had not occurred to me.

"You won't find many rooms in London with a cupboard like that."