When Dad took over things in Tibet his legal name was Smegma (he tried to keep his japanese name but it was explained to him that if he kept a slave name he would have to take a Tibetan slave name instead, and no one beleived him at first about his father being a yeti and him having a real father given name that could be used). As he became more powerful and things became calm enough that for a while outsiders didn't avoid the area in terror people didn't want to tell anyone what his name meant or why they followed him. They made up a bunch of stuff that they thought seemed more reasonable and tasteful to the outsiders' pallets but as usual doing this kind of thing confused the kids.
Over time people learned how to keep the truth among themselves, though it was also a common topic of discussion in neighboring regions, though it was discovered that if you tell the right outsiders your cover story outsiders who know too much of the truth will become less confident.
Im in that camp that has seriously doubted the benefit of telling people flowery bullshit about who we are. Especially since every time I've tried that someone quickly came on hand to say what I was really talking about, and sometimes I didn't know that.
I suspect a lot of people go through a transition period, when they realize what the rituals really symbolize, and if you've built things on the bullshit it can be kinda traumatic to the ego. I guess its worse when you try to think about what you did to the people who tried to tell you this already.
But for as long as this stuff will continue to have meaning in this form, people will continue to kneel in that spot and you will have to pull white scarves out of a tube in response. But that is what made us different, having all come through slavery, and learning what had real meaning and what did not. And though sometimes we have to say things that mean nothing for whatever reason, doing things that have meaning is good for just us.
*while my name is normally politely translated as "high born" when it is first translated into another dialect, thats only what it indicates, or how you should react to me, it isn't what it really means. What it really means has more power than the polite association, especially because a man named dick cheese could name his kids semen and his name would be understood and so would theirs but people would react to him as boss and them as legitimate children of the boss. These kinds of names just plainly say who we really are, and dont confuse people because what if a child's name was blood clot or leech? wouldn't that mean that the man who named them didn't meet them until after their mother came to them already pregnant? and if you give people flowery names doesn't that confuse people so they think there is some other way to have certain relationships and it causes them to waste effort when they can be successful in other pursuits?*
