Queries on 'wan nem'

[EvaLindström]

Interesting name stuff coming up!

In central New Ireland, the wan-nem relation (more often _wanain_) seems
similar to what Martha McIntyre describes from Lihir: both people keep
their names and are not allowed to refuse each other anything. The term
in the (Papuan) Kuot language is bekula. Avoidance kin relations entail
name taboos, which apply to the name rather than the person, so when e.g.
a woman cannot say the name of her brother John, she cannot say the name
of anyone else named John. In recent times some unfortunate naming has
taken place so that mothers cannot say the names of their daughters as
they were named after husband's sister -- i think this was avoided in the
past. Names seem to be given by anyone who wants to give them, and some-
times someone living away from a village will send word that the next baby
born should be named by particular names. Most people have a tok ples name
as well as a christian name, and namesakes tend to get both (but taboos
apply more strongly to the tok ples name). Names appear not to be clan
owned, but for each of the higher-level matrilineal clans, a minimum of
one girl/woman is to bear the name of the clan. Sometimes she is called
by this name, sometimes by another.

As to villages: I don't know of the significance, but Konos on NI east
coast was in former times a bush village by the same name (while e.g.
nearby Konobin changed to Sominim etc).

Eva



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Eva Lindström
Linguistics, Stockholm University
http://www.ling.su.se/staff/evali
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