Secret Names
From Turtledove
Secret Names is an science fiction short story written by Harry Turtledove. It was originally published in Analog Magazine in January, 1992 and reprinted in the Turtledove collection Departures in 1993.
The story is set in the future, in a post-nuclear holocaust world and concerns the difficulties Madyu, a shaman of a tribe of hunter-gathers, had in making hunting magic work and his attempts to gain the "secret names" of animals to make his magic stronger.
In both "Secret Names" and The Valley-Westside War, the future survivors of a nuclear apocalypse refer to the pre-war era as the "Old Time", hinting that they may be set in the same timeline.
