Demons are especially feared by persons who have just entered a new

house. Hence at a house-warming among the Alfoors of Minahassa in

Celebes the priest performs a ceremony for the purpose of restoring

their souls to the inmates. He hangs up a bag at the place of

sacrifice and then goes through a list of the gods. There are so

many of them that this takes him the whole night through without

stopping. In the morning he offers the gods an egg and some rice. By

this time the souls of the household are supposed to be gathered in

the bag. So the priest takes the bag, and holding it on the head of

the master of the house, says, "Here you have your soul; go (soul)

to-morrow away again." He then does the same, saying the same words,

to the housewife and all the other members of the family. Amongst

the same Alfoors one way of recovering a sick man's soul is to let

down a bowl by a belt out of a window and fish for the soul till it

is caught in the bowl and hauled up. And among the same people, when

a priest is bringing back a sick man's soul which he has caught in a

cloth, he is preceded by a girl holding the large leaf of a certain

palm over his head as an umbrella to keep him and the soul from

getting wet, in case it should rain; and he is followed by a man

brandishing a sword to deter other souls from any attempt at

rescuing the captured spirit.

Sometimes the lost soul is brought back in a visible shape. The

Salish or Flathead Indians of Oregon believe that a man's soul may

be separated for a time from his body without causing death and

without the man being aware of his loss. It is necessary, however,

that the lost soul should be soon found and restored to its owner or

he will die. The name of the man who has lost his soul is revealed

in a dream to the medicine-man, who hastens to inform the sufferer

of his loss. Generally a number of men have sustained a like loss at

the same time; all their names are revealed to the medicine-man, and

all employ him to recover their souls. The whole night long these

soulless men go about the village from lodge to lodge, dancing and

singing. Towards daybreak they go into a separate lodge, which is

closed up so as to be totally dark. A small hole is then made in the

roof, through which the medicine-man, with a bunch of feathers,

brushes in the souls, in the shape of bits of bone and the like,

which he receives on a piece of matting. A fire is next kindled, by

the light of which the medicine-man sorts out the souls. First he

puts aside the souls of dead people, of which there are usually

several; for if he were to give the soul of a dead person to a

living man, the man would die instantly. Next he picks out the souls

of all the persons present, and making them all to sit down before

him, he takes the soul of each, in the shape of a splinter of bone,

wood, or shell, and placing it on the owner's head, pats it with

many prayers and contortions till it descends into the heart and so

resumes its proper place.

Again, souls may be extracted from their bodies or detained on their

wanderings not only by ghosts and demons but also by men, especially

by sorcerers. In Fiji, if a criminal refused to confess, the chief

sent for a scarf with which "to catch away the soul of the rogue."

At the sight or even at the mention of the scarf the culprit

generally made a clean breast. For if he did not, the scarf would be

waved over his head till his soul was caught in it, when it would be

carefully folded up and nailed to the end of a chief's canoe; and

for want of his soul the criminal would pine and die. The sorcerers

of Danger Island used to set snares for souls. The snares were made

of stout cinet, about fifteen to thirty feet long, with loops on

either side of different sizes, to suit the different sizes of

souls; for fat souls there were large loops, for thin souls there

were small ones. When a man was sick against whom the sorcerers had

a grudge, they set up these soul-snares near his house and watched

for the flight of his soul. If in the shape of a bird or an insect

it was caught in the snare, the man would infallibly die. In some

parts of West Africa, indeed, wizards are continually setting traps

to catch souls that wander from their bodies in sleep; and when they

have caught one, they tie it up over the fire, and as it shrivels in

the heat the owner sickens. This is done, not out of any grudge

towards the sufferer, but purely as a matter of business. The wizard

does not care whose soul he has captured, and will readily restore

it to its owner, if only he is paid for doing so. Some sorcerers

keep regular asylums for strayed souls, and anybody who has lost or

mislaid his own soul can always have another one from the asylum on

payment of the usual fee. No blame whatever attaches to men who keep

these private asylums or set traps for passing souls; it is their

profession, and in the exercise of it they are actuated by no harsh

or unkindly feelings. But there are also wretches who from pure

spite or for the sake of lucre set and bait traps with the

deliberate purpose of catching the soul of a particular man; and in

the bottom of the pot, hidden by the bait, are knives and sharp

hooks which tear and rend the poor soul, either killing it outright

or mauling it so as to impair the health of its owner when it

succeeds in escaping and returning to him. Miss Kingsley knew a

Kruman who became very anxious about his soul, because for several

nights he had smelt in his dreams the savoury smell of smoked

crawfish seasoned with red pepper. Clearly some ill-wisher had set a

trap baited with this dainty for his dream-soul, intending to do him

grievous bodily, or rather spiritual, harm; and for the next few

nights great pains were taken to keep his soul from straying abroad

in his sleep. In the sweltering heat of the tropical night he lay

sweating and snorting under a blanket, his nose and mouth tied up

with a handkerchief to prevent the escape of his precious soul. In

Hawaii there were sorcerers who caught souls of living people, shut

them up in calabashes, and gave them to people to eat. By squeezing

a captured soul in their hands they discovered the place where

people had been secretly buried.

Nowhere perhaps is the art of abducting human souls more carefully

cultivated or carried to higher perfection than in the Malay

Peninsula. Here the methods by which the wizard works his will are

various, and so too are his motives. Sometimes he desires to destroy

an enemy, sometimes to win the love of a cold or bashful beauty.

Thus, to take an instance of the latter sort of charm, the following

are the directions given for securing the soul of one whom you wish

to render distraught. When the moon, just risen, looks red above the

eastern horizon, go out, and standing in the moonlight, with the big

toe of your right foot on the big toe of your left, make a

speaking-trumpet of your right hand and recite through it the

following words:

"OM. I loose my shaft, I loose it and the moon clouds over,

I loose it, and the sun is extinguished.

I loose it, and the stars burn dim.

But it is not the sun, moon, and stars that I shoot at,

It is the stalk of the heart of that child of the congregation,

So-and-so.

Cluck! cluck! soul of So-and-so, come and walk with me,

Come and sit with me,

Come and sleep and share my pillow.

Cluck! cluck! soul."

Repeat this thrice and after every repetition blow through your

hollow fist. Or you may catch the soul in your turban, thus. Go out

on the night of the full moon and the two succeeding nights; sit

down on an ant-hill facing the moon, burn incense, and recite the

following incantation:

"I bring you a betel leaf to chew,

Dab the lime on to it, Prince Ferocious,

For Somebody, Prince Distraction's daughter, to chew.

Somebody at sunrise be distraught for love of me

Somebody at sunset be distraught for love of me.

As you remember your parents, remember me;

As you remember your house and houseladder, remember me;

When thunder rumbles, remember me;

When wind whistles, remember me;

When the heavens rain, remember me;

When cocks crow, remember me;

When the dial-bird tells its tales, remember me;

When you look up at the sun, remember me;

When you look up at the moon, remember me,

For in that self-same moon I am there.

Cluck! cluck! soul of Somebody come hither to me.

I do not mean to let you have my soul,

Let your soul come hither to mine."

Now wave the end of your turban towards the moon seven times each

night. Go home and put it under your pillow, and if you want to wear

it in the daytime, burn incense and say, "It is not a turban that I

carry in my girdle, but the soul of Somebody."

The Indians of the Nass River, in British Columbia, are impressed

with a belief that a physician may swallow his patient's soul by

mistake. A doctor who is believed to have done so is made by the

other members of the faculty to stand over the patient, while one of

them thrusts his fingers down the doctor's throat, another kneads

him in the stomach with his knuckles, and a third slaps him on the

back. If the soul is not in him after all, and if the same process

has been repeated upon all the medical men without success, it is

concluded that the soul must be in the head-doctor's box. A party of

doctors, therefore, waits upon him at his house and requests him to

produce his box. When he has done so and arranged its contents on a

new mat, they take the votary of Aesculapius and hold him up by the

heels with his head in a hole in the floor. In this position they

wash his head, and "any water remaining from the ablution is taken

and poured upon the sick man's head." No doubt the lost soul is in

the water.

3. The Soul as a Shadow and a Reflection

BUT the spiritual dangers I have enumerated are not the only ones

which beset the savage. Often he regards his shadow or reflection as

his soul, or at all events as a vital part of himself, and as such

it is necessarily a source of danger to him. For if it is trampled

upon, struck, or stabbed, he will feel the injury as if it were done

to his person; and if it is detached from him entirely (as he

believes that it may be) he will die. In the island of Wetar there

are magicians who can make a man ill by stabbing his shadow with a

pike or hacking it with a sword. After Sankara had destroyed the

Buddhists in India, it is said that he journeyed to Nepaul, where he

had some difference of opinion with the Grand Lama. To prove his

supernatural powers, he soared into the air. But as he mounted up

the Grand Lama, perceiving his shadow swaying and wavering on the

ground, struck his knife into it and down fell Sankara and broke his

neck.

In the Banks Islands there are some stones of a remarkably long

shape which go by the name of "eating ghosts," because certain

powerful and dangerous ghosts are believed to lodge in them. If a

man's shadow falls on one of these stones, the ghost will draw his

soul out from him, so that he will die. Such stones, therefore, are

set in a house to guard it; and a messenger sent to a house by the

absent owner will call out the name of the sender, lest the watchful

ghost in the stone should fancy that he came with evil intent and

should do him a mischief. At a funeral in China, when the lid is

about to be placed on the coffin, most of the bystanders, with the

exception of the nearest kin, retire a few steps or even retreat to

another room, for a person's health is believed to be endangered by

allowing his shadow to be enclosed in a coffin. And when the coffin

is about to be lowered into the grave most of the spectators recoil

to a little distance lest their shadows should fall into the grave

and harm should thus be done to their persons. The geomancer and his

assistants stand on the side of the grave which is turned away from

the sun; and the grave-diggers and coffin-bearers attach their

shadows firmly to their persons by tying a strip of cloth tightly

round their waists. Nor is it human beings alone who are thus liable

to be injured by means of their shadows. Animals are to some extent

in the same predicament. A small snail, which frequents the

neighbourhood of the limestone hills in Perak, is believed to suck

the blood of cattle through their shadows; hence the beasts grow

lean and sometimes die from loss of blood. The ancients supposed

that in Arabia, if a hyaena trod on a man's shadow, it deprived him

of the power of speech and motion; and that if a dog, standing on a

roof in the moonlight, cast a shadow on the ground and a hyaena trod

on it, the dog would fall down as if dragged with a rope. Clearly in

these cases the shadow, if not equivalent to the soul, is at least

regarded as a living part of the man or the animal, so that injury

done to the shadow is felt by the person or animal as if it were

done to his body.

Conversely, if the shadow is a vital part of a man or an animal, it

may under certain circumstances be as hazardous to be touched by it

as it would be to come into contact with the person or animal. Hence

the savage makes it a rule to shun the shadow of certain persons

whom for various reasons he regards as sources of dangerous

influence. Amongst the dangerous classes he commonly ranks mourners

and women in general, but especially his mother-in-law. The Shuswap

Indians think that the shadow of a mourner falling upon a person

would make him sick. Amongst the Kurnai of Victoria novices at

initiation were cautioned not to let a woman's shadow fall across

them, as this would make them thin, lazy, and stupid. An Australian

native is said to have once nearly died of fright because the shadow

of his mother-in-law fell on his legs as he lay asleep under a tree.

The awe and dread with which the untutored savage contemplates his

mother-in-law are amongst the most familiar facts of anthropology.

In the Yuin tribes of New South Wales the rule which forbade a man

to hold any communication with his wife's mother was very strict. He

might not look at her or even in her direction. It was a ground of

divorce if his shadow happened to fall on his mother-in-law: in that

case he had to leave his wife, and she returned to her parents. In

New Britain the native imagination fails to conceive the extent and

nature of the calamities which would result from a man's

accidentally speaking to his wife's mother; suicide of one or both

would probably be the only course open to them. The most solemn form

of oath a New Briton can take is, "Sir, if I am not telling the

truth, I hope I may shake hands with my mother-in-law."

Where the shadow is regarded as so intimately bound up with the life

of the man that its loss entails debility or death, it is natural to

expect that its diminution should be regarded with solicitude and

apprehension, as betokening a corresponding decrease in the vital

energy of its owner. In Amboyna and Uliase, two islands near the

equator, where necessarily there is little or no shadow cast at

noon, the people make it a rule not to go out of the house at

mid-day, because they fancy that by doing so a man may lose the

shadow of his soul. The Mangaians tell of a mighty warrior,

Tukaitawa, whose strength waxed and waned with the length of his

shadow. In the morning, when his shadow fell longest, his strength

was greatest; but as the shadow shortened towards noon his strength

ebbed with it, till exactly at noon it reached its lowest point;

then, as the shadow stretched out in the afternoon, his strength

returned. A certain hero discovered the secret of Tukaitawa's

strength and slew him at noon. The savage Besisis of the Malay

Peninsula fear to bury their dead at noon, because they fancy that

the shortness of their shadows at that hour would sympathetically

shorten their own lives.

Nowhere, perhaps, does the equivalence of the shadow to the life or

soul come out more clearly than in some customs practised to this

day in South-eastern Europe. In modern Greece, when the foundation

of a new building is being laid, it is the custom to kill a cock, a

ram, or a lamb, and to let its blood flow on the foundation-stone,

under which the animal is afterwards buried. The object of the

sacrifice is to give strength and stability to the building. But

sometimes, instead of killing an animal, the builder entices a man

to the foundation-stone, secretly measures his body, or a part of

it, or his shadow, and buries the measure under the

foundation-stone; or he lays the foundation-stone upon the man's

shadow. It is believed that the man will die within the year. The

Roumanians of Transylvania think that he whose shadow is thus

immured will die within forty days; so persons passing by a building

which is in course of erection may hear a warning cry, "Beware lest

they take thy shadow!" Not long ago there were still shadow-traders

whose business it was to provide architects with the shadows

necessary for securing their walls. In these cases the measure of

the shadow is looked on as equivalent to the shadow itself, and to

bury it is to bury the life or soul of the man, who, deprived of it,

must die. Thus the custom is a substitute for the old practice of

immuring a living person in the walls, or crushing him under the

foundation-stone of a new building, in order to give strength and

durability to the structure, or more definitely in order that the

angry ghost may haunt the place and guard it against the intrusion

of enemies.

As some peoples believe a man's soul to be in his shadow, so other

(or the same) peoples believe it to be in his reflection in water or

a mirror. Thus "the Andamanese do not regard their shadows but their

reflections (in any mirror) as their souls." When the Motumotu of

New Guinea first saw their likenesses in a looking-glass, they

thought that their reflections were their souls. In New Caledonia

the old men are of opinion that a person's reflection in water or a

mirror is his soul; but the younger men, taught by the Catholic

priests, maintain that it is a reflection and nothing more, just

like the reflection of palm-trees in the water. The reflection-soul,

being external to the man, is exposed to much the same dangers as

the shadow-soul. The Zulus will not look into a dark pool because

they think there is a beast in it which will take away their

reflections, so that they die. The Basutos say that crocodiles have

the power of thus killing a man by dragging his reflection under

water. When one of them dies suddenly and from no apparent cause,

his relatives will allege that a crocodile must have taken his

shadow some time when he crossed a stream. In Saddle Island,

Melanesia, there is a pool "into which if any one looks he dies; the

malignant spirit takes hold upon his life by means of his reflection

on the water."

We can now understand why it was a maxim both in ancient India and

ancient Greece not to look at one's reflection in water, and why the

Greeks regarded it as an omen of death if a man dreamed of seeing

himself so reflected. They feared that the water-spirits would drag

the person's reflection or soul under water, leaving him soulless to

perish. This was probably the origin of the classical story of the

beautiful Narcissus, who languished and died through seeing his

reflection in the water.

Further, we can now explain the widespread custom of covering up

mirrors or turning them to the wall after a death has taken place in

the house. It is feared that the soul, projected out of the person

in the shape of his reflection in the mirror, may be carried off by

the ghost of the departed, which is commonly supposed to linger

about the house till the burial. The custom is thus exactly parallel

to the Aru custom of not sleeping in a house after a death for fear

that the soul, projected out of the body in a dream, may meet the

ghost and be carried off by it. The reason why sick people should

not see themselves in a mirror, and why the mirror in a sick-room is

therefore covered up, is also plain; in time of sickness, when the

soul might take flight so easily, it is particularly dangerous to

project it out of the body by means of the reflection in a mirror.

The rule is therefore precisely parallel to the rule observed by

some peoples of not allowing sick people to sleep; for in sleep the

soul is projected out of the body, and there is always a risk that

it may not return.

As with shadows and reflections, so with portraits; they are often

believed to contain the soul of the person portrayed. People who

hold this belief are naturally loth to have their likenesses taken;

for if the portrait is the soul, or at least a vital part of the

person portrayed, whoever possesses the portrait will be able to

exercise a fatal influence over the original of it. Thus the

Esquimaux of Bering Strait believe that persons dealing in

witchcraft have the power of stealing a person's shade, so that

without it he will pine away and die. Once at a village on the lower

Yukon River an explorer had set up his camera to get a picture of

the people as they were moving about among their houses. While he

was focusing the instrument, the headman of the village came up and

insisted on peeping under the cloth. Being allowed to do so, he

gazed intently for a minute at the moving figures on the ground

glass, then suddenly withdrew his head and bawled at the top of his

voice to the people, "He has all of your shades in this box." A

panic ensued among the group, and in an instant they disappeared

helterskelter into their houses. The Tepehuanes of Mexico stood in

mortal terror of the camera, and five days' persuasion was necessary

to induce them to pose for it. When at last they consented, they

looked like criminals about to be executed. They believed that by

photographing people the artist could carry off their souls and

devour them at his leisure moments. They said that, when the

pictures reached his country, they would die or some other evil

would befall them. When Dr. Catat and some companions were exploring

the Bara country on the west coast of Madagascar, the people

suddenly became hostile. The day before the travellers, not without

difficulty, had photographed the royal family, and now found

themselves accused of taking the souls of the natives for the

purpose of selling them when they returned to France. Denial was

vain; in compliance with the custom of the country they were obliged

to catch the souls, which were then put into a basket and ordered by

Dr. Catat to return to their respective owners.

Some villagers in Sikhim betrayed a lively horror and hid away

whenever the lens of a camera, or "the evil eye of the box" as they

called it, was turned on them. They thought it took away their souls

with their pictures, and so put it in the power of the owner of the

pictures to cast spells on them, and they alleged that a photograph

of the scenery blighted the landscape. Until the reign of the late

King of Siam no Siamese coins were ever stamped with the image of

the king, "for at that time there was a strong prejudice against the

making of portraits in any medium. Europeans who travel into the

jungle have, even at the present time, only to point a camera at a

crowd to procure its instant dispersion. When a copy of the face of

a person is made and taken away from him, a portion of his life goes

with the picture. Unless the sovereign had been blessed with the

years of a Methusaleh he could scarcely have permitted his life to

be distributed in small pieces together with the coins of the

realm."

Beliefs of the same sort still linger in various parts of Europe.

Not very many years ago some old women in the Greek island of

Carpathus were very angry at having their likenesses drawn, thinking

that in consequence they would pine and die. There are persons in

the West of Scotland "who refuse to have their likenesses taken lest

it prove unlucky; and give as instances the cases of several of

their friends who never had a day's health after being

photographed."

XIX. Tabooed Acts

1. Taboos on Intercourse with Strangers

SO much for the primitive conceptions of the soul and the dangers to

which it is exposed. These conceptions are not limited to one people

or country; with variations of detail they are found all over the

world, and survive, as we have seen, in modern Europe. Beliefs so

deep-seated and so widespread must necessarily have contributed to

shape the mould in which the early kingship was cast. For if every

person was at such pains to save his own soul from the perils which

threatened it on so many sides, how much more carefully must _he_

have been guarded upon whose life hung the welfare and even the

existence of the whole people, and whom therefore it was the common

interest of all to preserve? Therefore we should expect to find the

king's life protected by a system of precautions or safeguards still

more numerous and minute than those which in primitive society every

man adopts for the safety of his own soul. Now in point of fact the

life of the early kings is regulated, as we have seen and shall see

more fully presently, by a very exact code of rules. May we not then

conjecture that these rules are in fact the very safeguards which we

should expect to find adopted for the protection of the king's life?

An examination of the rules themselves confirms this conjecture. For

from this it appears that some of the rules observed by the kings

are identical with those observed by private persons out of regard

for the safety of their souls; and even of those which seem peculiar

to the king, many, if not all, are most readily explained on the

hypothesis that they are nothing but safeguards or lifeguards of the

king. I will now enumerate some of these royal rules or taboos,

offering on each of them such comments and explanations as may serve

to set the original intention of the rule in its proper light.

As the object of the royal taboos is to isolate the king from all

sources of danger, their general effect is to compel him to live in

a state of seclusion, more or less complete, according to the number

and stringency of the rules he observes. Now of all sources of

danger none are more dreaded by the savage than magic and

witchcraft, and he suspects all strangers of practising these black

arts. To guard against the baneful influence exerted voluntarily or

involuntarily by strangers is therefore an elementary dictate of

savage prudence. Hence before strangers are allowed to enter a

district, or at least before they are permitted to mingle freely

with the inhabitants, certain ceremonies are often performed by the

natives of the country for the purpose of disarming the strangers of

their magical powers, of counteracting the baneful influence which

is believed to emanate from them, or of disinfecting, so to speak,

the tainted atmosphere by which they are supposed to be surrounded.

Thus, when the ambassadors sent by Justin II., Emperor of the East,

to conclude a peace with the Turks had reached their destination,

they were received by shamans, who subjected them to a ceremonial

purification for the purpose of exorcising all harmful influence.

Having deposited the goods brought by the ambassadors in an open

place, these wizards carried burning branches of incense round them,

while they rang a bell and beat on a tambourine, snorting and

falling into a state of frenzy in their efforts to dispel the powers

of evil. Afterwards they purified the ambassadors themselves by

leading them through the flames. In the island of Nanumea (South

Pacific) strangers from ships or from other islands were not allowed

to communicate with the people until they all, or a few as

representatives of the rest, had been taken to each of the four

temples in the island, and prayers offered that the god would avert

any disease or treachery which these strangers might have brought

with them. Meat offerings were also laid upon the altars,

accompanied by songs and dances in honour of the god. While these

ceremonies were going on, all the people except the priests and

their attendants kept out of sight. Amongst the Ot Danoms of Borneo

it is the custom that strangers entering the territory should pay to

the natives a certain sum, which is spent in the sacrifice of

buffaloes or pigs to the spirits of the land and water, in order to

reconcile them to the presence of the strangers, and to induce them

not to withdraw their favour from the people of the country, but to

bless the rice-harvest, and so forth. The men of a certain district

in Borneo, fearing to look upon a European traveller lest he should

make them ill, warned their wives and children not to go near him.

Those who could not restrain their curiosity killed fowls to appease

the evil spirits and smeared themselves with the blood. "More

dreaded," says a traveller in Central Borneo, "than the evil spirits

of the neighbourhood are the evil spirits from a distance which

accompany travellers. When a company from the middle Mahakam River

visited me among the Blu-u Kayans in the year 1897, no woman showed

herself outside her house without a burning bundle of _plehiding_

bark, the stinking smoke of which drives away evil spirits."

When Crevaux was travelling in South America he entered a village of

the Apalai Indians. A few moments after his arrival some of the

Indians brought him a number of large black ants, of a species whose

bite is painful, fastened on palm leaves. Then all the people of the

village, without distinction of age or sex, presented themselves to

him, and he had to sting them all with the ants on their faces,

thighs, and other parts of their bodies. Sometimes, when he applied

the ants too tenderly, they called out "More! more!" and were not

satisfied till their skin was thickly studded with tiny swellings

like what might have been produced by whipping them with nettles.

The object of this ceremony is made plain by the custom observed in

Amboyna and Uliase of sprinkling sick people with pungent spices,

such as ginger and cloves, chewed fine, in order by the prickling

sensation to drive away the demon of disease which may be clinging

to their persons. In Java a popular cure for gout or rheumatism is

to rub Spanish pepper into the nails of the fingers and toes of the

sufferer; the pungency of the pepper is supposed to be too much for

the gout or rheumatism, who accordingly departs in haste. So on the

Slave Coast the mother of a sick child sometimes believes that an

evil spirit has taken possession of the child's body, and in order

to drive him out, she makes small cuts in the body of the little

sufferer and inserts green peppers or spices in the wounds,

believing that she will thereby hurt the evil spirit and force him

to be gone. The poor child naturally screams with pain, but the

mother hardens her heart in the belief that the demon is suffering

equally.

It is probable that the same dread of strangers, rather than any

desire to do them honour, is the motive of certain ceremonies which

are sometimes observed at their reception, but of which the

intention is not directly stated. In the Ongtong Java Islands, which

are inhabited by Polynesians, the priests or sorcerers seem to wield

great influence. Their main business is to summon or exorcise

spirits for the purpose of averting or dispelling sickness, and of

procuring favourable winds, a good catch of fish, and so on. When

strangers land on the islands, they are first of all received by the

sorcerers, sprinkled with water, anointed with oil, and girt with

dried pandanus leaves. At the same time sand and water are freely

thrown about in all directions, and the newcomer and his boat are

wiped with green leaves. After this ceremony the strangers are

introduced by the sorcerers to the chief. In Afghanistan and in some

parts of Persia the traveller, before he enters a village, is

frequently received with a sacrifice of animal life or food, or of

fire and incense. The Afghan Boundary Mission, in passing by

villages in Afghanistan, was often met with fire and incense.

Sometimes a tray of lighted embers is thrown under the hoofs of the

traveller's horse, with the words, "You are welcome." On entering a

village in Central Africa Emin Pasha was received with the sacrifice

of two goats; their blood was sprinkled on the path and the chief

stepped over the blood to greet Emin. Sometimes the dread of

strangers and their magic is too great to allow of their reception

on any terms. Thus when Speke arrived at a certain village, the

natives shut their doors against him, "because they had never before

seen a white man nor the tin boxes that the men were carrying: 'Who

knows,' they said, 'but that these very boxes are the plundering

Watuta transformed and come to kill us? You cannot be admitted.' No

persuasion could avail with them, and the party had to proceed to

the next village."

The fear thus entertained of alien visitors is often mutual.

Entering a strange land the savage feels that he is treading

enchanted ground, and he takes steps to guard against the demons

that haunt it and the magical arts of its inhabitants. Thus on going

to a strange land the Maoris performed certain ceremonies to make it

"common," lest it might have been previously "sacred." When Baron

Miklucho-Maclay was approaching a village on the Maclay Coast of New

Guinea, one of the natives who accompanied him broke a branch from a

tree and going aside whispered to it for a while; then stepping up

to each member of the party, one after another, he spat something

upon his back and gave him some blows with the branch. Lastly, he

went into the forest and buried the branch under withered leaves in

the thickest part of the jungle. This ceremony was believed to

protect the party against all treachery and danger in the village

they were approaching. The idea probably was that the malignant

influences were drawn off from the persons into the branch and

buried with it in the depths of the forest. In Australia, when a

strange tribe has been invited into a district and is approaching

the encampment of the tribe which owns the land, "the strangers

carry lighted bark or burning sticks in their hands, for the

purpose, they say, of clearing and purifying the air." When the

Toradjas are on a head-hunting expedition and have entered the

enemy's country, they may not eat any fruits which the foe has

planted nor any animal which he has reared until they have first

committed an act of hostility, as by burning a house or killing a

man. They think that if they broke this rule they would receive

something of the soul or spiritual essence of the enemy into

themselves, which would destroy the mystic virtue of their

talismans.

Again, it is believed that a man who has been on a journey may have

contracted some magic evil from the strangers with whom he has

associated. Hence, on returning home, before he is readmitted to the

society of his tribe and friends, he has to undergo certain

purificatory ceremonies. Thus the Bechuanas "cleanse or purify

themselves after journeys by shaving their heads, etc., lest they

should have contracted from strangers some evil by witchcraft or

sorcery." In some parts of Western Africa, when a man returns home

after a long absence, before he is allowed to visit his wife, he

must wash his person with a particular fluid, and receive from the

sorcerer a certain mark on his forehead, in order to counteract any

magic spell which a stranger woman may have cast on him in his

absence, and which might be communicated through him to the women of

his village. Two Hindoo ambassadors, who had been sent to England by

a native prince and had returned to India, were considered to have

so polluted themselves by contact with strangers that nothing but

being born again could restore them to purity. "For the purpose of

regeneration it is directed to make an image of pure gold of the

female power of nature, in the shape either of a woman or of a cow.

In this statue the person to be regenerated is enclosed, and dragged

through the usual channel. As a statue of pure gold and of proper

dimensions would be too expensive, it is sufficient to make an image

of the sacred _Yoni,_ through which the person to be regenerated is

to pass." Such an image of pure gold was made at the prince's

command, and his ambassadors were born again by being dragged

through it.

When precautions like these are taken on behalf of the people in

general against the malignant influence supposed to be exercised by

strangers, it is no wonder that special measures are adopted to

protect the king from the same insidious danger. In the middle ages

the envoys who visited a Tartar Khan were obliged to pass between

two fires before they were admitted to his presence, and the gifts

they brought were also carried between the fires. The reason

assigned for the custom was that the fire purged away any magic

influence which the strangers might mean to exercise over the Khan.

When subject chiefs come with their retinues to visit Kalamba (the

most powerful chief of the Bashilange in the Congo Basin) for the

first time or after being rebellious, they have to bathe, men and

women together, in two brooks on two successive days, passing the

nights under the open sky in the market-place. After the second bath

they proceed, entirely naked, to the house of Kalamba, who makes a

long white mark on the breast and forehead of each of them. Then

they return to the market-place and dress, after which they undergo

the pepper ordeal. Pepper is dropped into the eyes of each of them,

and while this is being done the sufferer has to make a confession

of all his sins, to answer all questions that may be put to him, and

to take certain vows. This ends the ceremony, and the strangers are

now free to take up their quarters in the town for as long as they

choose to remain.

2. Taboos on Eating and Drinking

IN THE OPINION of savages the acts of eating and drinking are

attended with special danger; for at these times the soul may escape

from the mouth, or be extracted by the magic arts of an enemy

present. Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast "the

common belief seems to be that the indwelling spirit leaves the body

and returns to it through the mouth; hence, should it have gone out,

it behoves a man to be careful about opening his mouth, lest a

homeless spirit should take advantage of the opportunity and enter

his body. This, it appears, is considered most likely to take place

while the man is eating." Precautions are therefore adopted to guard

against these dangers. Thus of the Bataks it is said that "since the

soul can leave the body, they always take care to prevent their soul

from straying on occasions when they have most need of it. But it is

only possible to prevent the soul from straying when one is in the

house. At feasts one may find the whole house shut up, in order that

the soul may stay and enjoy the good things set before it." The

Zafimanelo in Madagascar lock their doors when they eat, and hardly

any one ever sees them eating. The Warua will not allow any one to

see them eating and drinking, being doubly particular that no person

of the opposite sex shall see them doing so. "I had to pay a man to

let me see him drink; I could not make a man let a woman see him

drink." When offered a drink they often ask that a cloth may be held

up to hide them whilst drinking.

If these are the ordinary precautions taken by common people, the

precautions taken by kings are extraordinary. The king of Loango may

not be seen eating or drinking by man or beast under pain of death.

A favourite dog having broken into the room where the king was

dining, the king ordered it to be killed on the spot. Once the

king's own son, a boy of twelve years old, inadvertently saw the

king drink. Immediately the king ordered him to be finely apparelled

and feasted, after which he commanded him to be cut in quarters, and

carried about the city with a proclamation that he had seen the king

drink. "When the king has a mind to drink, he has a cup of wine

brought; he that brings it has a bell in his hand, and as soon as he

has delivered the cup to the king, he turns his face from him and

rings the bell, on which all present fall down with their faces to

the ground, and continue so till the king has drank. . . . His

eating is much in the same style, for which he has a house on

purpose, where his victuals are set upon a bensa or table: which he

goes to, and shuts the door: when he has done, he knocks and comes

out. So that none ever see the king eat or drink. For it is believed

that if any one should, the king shall immediately die." The

remnants of his food are buried, doubtless to prevent them from

falling into the hands of sorcerers, who by means of these fragments

might cast a fatal spell over the monarch. The rules observed by the

neighbouring king of Cacongo were similar; it was thought that the

king would die if any of his subjects were to see him drink. It is a

capital offence to see the king of Dahomey at his meals. When he

drinks in public, as he does on extraordinary occasions, he hides

himself behind a curtain, or handkerchiefs are held up round his

head, and all the people throw themselves with their faces to the

earth. When the king of Bunyoro in Central Africa went to drink milk

in the dairy, every man must leave the royal enclosure and all the

women had to cover their heads till the king returned. No one might

see him drink. One wife accompanied him to the dairy and handed him

the milk-pot, but she turned away her face while he drained it.

3. Taboos on Showing the Face

IN SOME of the preceding cases the intention of eating and drinking

in strict seclusion may perhaps be to hinder evil influences from

entering the body rather than to prevent the escape of the soul.

This certainly is the motive of some drinking customs observed by

natives of the Congo region. Thus we are told of these people that

"there is hardly a native who would dare to swallow a liquid without

first conjuring the spirits. One of them rings a bell all the time

he is drinking; another crouches down and places his left hand on

the earth; another veils his head; another puts a stalk of grass or

a leaf in his hair, or marks his forehead with a line of clay. This

fetish custom assumes very varied forms. To explain them, the black

is satisfied to say that they are an energetic mode of conjuring

spirits." In this part of the world a chief will commonly ring a

bell at each draught of beer which he swallows, and at the same

moment a lad stationed in front of him brandishes a spear "to keep

at bay the spirits which might try to sneak into the old chief's

body by the same road as the beer." The same motive of warding off

evil spirits probably explains the custom observed by some African

sultans of veiling their faces. The Sultan of Darfur wraps up his

face with a piece of white muslin, which goes round his head several

times, covering his mouth and nose first, and then his forehead, so

that only his eyes are visible. The same custom of veiling the face

as a mark of sovereignty is said to be observed in other parts of

Central Africa. The Sultan of Wadai always speaks from behind a

curtain; no one sees his face except his intimates and a few

favoured persons.

4. Taboos on Quitting the House

BY AN EXTENSION of the like precaution kings are sometimes forbidden

ever to leave their palaces; or, if they are allowed to do so, their

subjects are forbidden to see them abroad. The fetish king of Benin,

who was worshipped as a deity by his subjects, might not quit his

palace. After his coronation the king of Loango is confined to his

palace, which he may not leave. The king of Onitsha "does not step

out of his house into the town unless a human sacrifice is made to

propitiate the gods: on this account he never goes out beyond the

precincts of his premises." Indeed we are told that he may not quit

his palace under pain of death or of giving up one or more slaves to

be executed in his presence. As the wealth of the country is

measured in slaves, the king takes good care not to infringe the

law. Yet once a year at the Feast of Yams the king is allowed, and

even required by custom, to dance before his people outside the high

mud wall of the palace. In dancing he carries a great weight,

generally a sack of earth, on his back to prove that he is still

able to support the burden and cares of state. Were he unable to

discharge this duty, he would be immediately deposed and perhaps

stoned. The kings of Ethiopia were worshipped as gods, but were

mostly kept shut up in their palaces. On the mountainous coast of

Pontus there dwelt in antiquity a rude and warlike people named the

Mosyni or Mosynoeci, through whose rugged country the Ten Thousand

marched on their famous retreat from Asia to Europe. These

barbarians kept their king in close custody at the top of a high

tower, from which after his election he was never more allowed to

descend. Here he dispensed justice to his people; but if he offended

them, they punished him by stopping his rations for a whole day, or

even starving him to death. The kings of Sabaea or Sheba, the spice

country of Arabia, were not allowed to go out of their palaces; if

they did so, the mob stoned them to death. But at the top of the

palace there was a window with a chain attached to it. If any man

deemed he had suffered wrong, he pulled the chain, and the king

perceived him and called him in and gave judgment.

5. Taboos on Leaving Food over

AGAIN, magic mischief may be wrought upon a man through the remains

of the food he has partaken of, or the dishes out of which he has

eaten. On the principles of sympathetic magic a real connexion

continues to subsist between the food which a man has in his stomach

and the refuse of it which he has left untouched, and hence by

injuring the refuse you can simultaneously injure the eater. Among

the Narrinyeri of South Australia every adult is constantly on the

look-out for bones of beasts, birds, or fish, of which the flesh has

been eaten by somebody, in order to construct a deadly charm out of

them. Every one is therefore careful to burn the bones of the

animals which he has eaten, lest they should fall into the hands of

a sorcerer. Too often, however, the sorcerer succeeds in getting

hold of such a bone, and when he does so he believes that he has the

power of life and death over the man, woman, or child who ate the

flesh of the animal. To put the charm in operation he makes a paste

of red ochre and fish oil, inserts in it the eye of a cod and a

small piece of the flesh of a corpse, and having rolled the compound

into a ball sticks it on the top of the bone. After being left for

some time in the bosom of a dead body, in order that it may derive a

deadly potency by contact with corruption, the magical implement is

set up in the ground near the fire, and as the ball melts, so the

person against whom the charm is directed wastes with disease; if

the ball is melted quite away, the victim will die. When the

bewitched man learns of the spell that is being cast upon him, he

endeavours to buy the bone from the sorcerer, and if he obtains it

he breaks the charm by throwing the bone into a river or lake. In

Tana, one of the New Hebrides, people bury or throw into the sea the

leavings of their food, lest these should fall into the hands of the

disease-makers. For if a disease-maker finds the remnants of a meal,

say the skin of a banana, he picks it up and burns it slowly in the

fire. As it burns, the person who ate the banana falls ill and sends

to the disease-maker, offering him presents if he will stop burning

the banana skin. In New Guinea the natives take the utmost care to

destroy or conceal the husks and other remains of their food, lest

these should be found by their enemies and used by them for the

injury or destruction of the eaters. Hence they burn their leavings,

throw them into the sea, or otherwise put them out of harm's way.

From a like fear, no doubt, of sorcery, no one may touch the food

which the king of Loango leaves upon his plate; it is buried in a

hole in the ground. And no one may drink out of the king's vessel.

In antiquity the Romans used immediately to break the shells of eggs

and of snails which they had eaten, in order to prevent enemies from

making magic with them. The common practice, still observed among

us, of breaking egg-shells after the eggs have been eaten may very

well have originated in the same superstition.

The superstitious fear of the magic that may be wrought on a man

through the leavings of his food has had the beneficial effect of

inducing many savages to destroy refuse which, if left to rot, might

through its corruption have proved a real, not a merely imaginary,

source of disease and death. Nor is it only the sanitary condition

of a tribe which has benefited by this superstition; curiously

enough the same baseless dread, the same false notion of causation,

has indirectly strengthened the moral bonds of hospitality, honour,

and good faith among men who entertain it. For it is obvious that no

one who intends to harm a man by working magic on the refuse of his

food will himself partake of that food, because if he did so he

would, on the principles of sympathetic magic, suffer equally with

his enemy from any injury done to the refuse. This is the idea which

in primitive society lends sanctity to the bond produced by eating

together; by participation in the same food two men give, as it

were, hostages for their good behaviour; each guarantees the other

that he will devise no mischief against him, since, being physically

united with him by the common food in their stomachs, any harm he

might do to his fellow would recoil on his own head with precisely

the same force with which it fell on the head of his victim. In

strict logic, however, the sympathetic bond lasts only so long as

the food is in the stomach of each of the parties. Hence the

covenant formed by eating together is less solemn and durable than

the covenant formed by transfusing the blood of the covenanting

parties into each other's veins, for this transfusion seems to knit

them together for life.

XX. Tabooed Persons

1. Chiefs and Kings tabooed

WE have seen that the Mikado's food was cooked every day in new pots

and served up in new dishes; both pots and dishes were of common

clay, in order that they might be broken or laid aside after they

had been once used. They were generally broken, for it was believed

that if any one else ate his food out of these sacred dishes, his

mouth and throat would become swollen and inflamed. The same ill

effect was thought to be experienced by any one who should wear the

Mikado's clothes without his leave; he would have swellings and

pains all over his body. In Fiji there is a special name (_kana

lama_) for the disease supposed to be caused by eating out of a

chief's dishes or wearing his clothes. "The throat and body swell,

and the impious person dies. I had a fine mat given to me by a man

who durst not use it because Thakombau's eldest son had sat upon it.

There was always a family or clan of commoners who were exempt from

this danger. I was talking about this once to Thakombau. 'Oh yes,'

said he. 'Here, So-and-so! come and scratch my back.' The man

scratched; he was one of those who could do it with impunity." The

name of the men thus highly privileged was _Na nduka ni,_ or the

dirt of the chief.

In the evil effects thus supposed to follow upon the use of the

vessels or clothes of the Mikado and a Fijian chief we see that

other side of the god-man's character to which attention has been

already called. The divine person is a source of danger as well as

of blessing; he must not only be guarded, he must also be guarded

against. His sacred organism, so delicate that a touch may disorder

it, is also, as it were, electrically charged with a powerful

magical or spiritual force which may discharge itself with fatal

effect on whatever comes in contact with it. Accordingly the

isolation of the man-god is quite as necessary for the safety of

others as for his own. His magical virtue is in the strictest sense

of the word contagious: his divinity is a fire, which, under proper

restraints, confers endless blessings, but, if rashly touched or

allowed to break bounds, burns and destroys what it touches. Hence

the disastrous effects supposed to attend a breach of taboo; the

offender has thrust his hand into the divine fire, which shrivels up

and consumes him on the spot.

The Nubas, for example, who inhabit the wooded and fertile range of

Jebel Nuba in Eastern Africa, believe that they would die if they

entered the house of their priestly king; however, they can evade

the penalty of their intrusion by baring the left shoulder and

getting the king to lay his hand on it. And were any man to sit on a

stone which the king has consecrated to his own use, the

transgressor would die within the year. The Cazembes of Angola

regard their king as so holy that no one can touch him without being

killed by the magical power which pervades his sacred person. But

since contact with him is sometimes unavoidable, they have devised a

means whereby the sinner can escape with his life. Kneeling down

before the king he touches the back of the royal hand with the back

of his own, then snaps his fingers; afterwards he lays the palm of

his hand on the palm of the king's hand, then snaps his fingers

again. This ceremony is repeated four or five times, and averts the

imminent danger of death. In Tonga it was believed that if any one

fed himself with his own hands after touching the sacred person of a

superior chief or anything that belonged to him, he would swell up

and die; the sanctity of the chief, like a virulent poison, infected

the hands of his inferior, and, being communicated through them to

the food, proved fatal to the eater. A commoner who had incurred

this danger could disinfect himself by performing a certain

ceremony, which consisted in touching the sole of a chief's foot

with the palm and back of each of his hands, and afterwards rinsing

his hands in water. If there was no water near, he rubbed his hands

with the juicy stem of a plantain or banana. After that he was free

to feed himself with his own hands without danger of being attacked

by the malady which would otherwise follow from eating with tabooed

or sanctified hands. But until the ceremony of expiation or

disinfection had been performed, if he wished to eat he had either

to get some one to feed him, or else to go down on his knees and

pick up the food from the ground with his mouth like a beast. He

might not even use a toothpick himself, but might guide the hand of

another person holding the toothpick. The Tongans were subject to

induration of the liver and certain forms of scrofula, which they

often attributed to a failure to perform the requisite expiation

after having inadvertently touched a chief or his belongings. Hence

they often went through the ceremony as a precaution, without

knowing that they had done anything to call for it. The king of

Tonga could not refuse to play his part in the rite by presenting

his foot to such as desired to touch it, even when they applied to

him at an inconvenient time. A fat unwieldy king, who perceived his

subjects approaching with this intention, while he chanced to be

taking his walks abroad, has been sometimes seen to waddle as fast

as his legs could carry him out of their way, in order to escape the

importunate and not wholly disinterested expression of their homage.

If any one fancied he might have already unwittingly eaten with

tabooed hands, he sat down before the chief, and, taking the chief's

foot, pressed it against his own stomach, that the food in his belly

might not injure him, and that he might not swell up and die. Since

scrofula was regarded by the Tongans as a result of eating with

tabooed hands, we may conjecture that persons who suffered from it

among them often resorted to the touch or pressure of the king's

foot as a cure for their malady. The analogy of the custom with the

old English practice of bringing scrofulous patients to the king to

be healed by his touch is sufficiently obvious, and suggests, as I

have already pointed out elsewhere, that among our own remote

ancestors scrofula may have obtained its name of the King's Evil,

from a belief, like that of the Tongans, that it was caused as well

as cured by contact with the divine majesty of kings.

In New Zealand the dread of the sanctity of chiefs was at least as

great as in Tonga. Their ghostly power, derived from an ancestral

spirit, diffused itself by contagion over everything they touched,

and could strike dead all who rashly or unwittingly meddled with it.

For instance, it once happened that a New Zealand chief of high rank

and great sanctity had left the remains of his dinner by the

wayside. A slave, a stout, hungry fellow, coming up after the chief

had gone, saw the unfinished dinner, and ate it up without asking

questions. Hardly had he finished when he was informed by a

horror-stricken spectator that the food of which he had eaten was

the chief's. "I knew the unfortunate delinquent well. He was

remarkable for courage, and had signalised himself in the wars of

the tribe," but "no sooner did he hear the fatal news than he was

seized by the most extraordinary convulsions and cramp in the

stomach, which never ceased till he died, about sundown the same

day. He was a strong man, in the prime of life, and if any pakeha

[European] freethinker should have said he was not killed by the

_tapu_ of the chief, which had been communicated to the food by

contact, he would have been listened to with feelings of contempt

for his ignorance and inability to understand plain and direct

evidence." This is not a solitary case. A Maori woman having eaten

of some fruit, and being afterwards told that the fruit had been

taken from a tabooed place, exclaimed that the spirit of the chief,

whose sanctity had been thus profaned, would kill her. This was in

the afternoon, and next day by twelve o'clock she was dead. A Maori

chief's tinder-box was once the means of killing several persons;

for, having been lost by him, and found by some men who used it to

light their pipes, they died of fright on learning to whom it had

belonged. So, too, the garments of a high New Zealand chief will

kill any one else who wears them. A chief was observed by a

missionary to throw down a precipice a blanket which he found too

heavy to carry. Being asked by the missionary why he did not leave

it on a tree for the use of a future traveller, the chief replied

that "it was the fear of its being taken by another which caused him

to throw it where he did, for if it were worn, his tapu" (that is,

his spiritual power communicated by contact to the blanket and

through the blanket to the man) "would kill the person." For a

similar reason a Maori chief would not blow a fire with his mouth;

for his sacred breath would communicate its sanctity to the fire,

which would pass it on to the pot on the fire, which would pass it

on to the meat in the pot, which would pass it on to the man who ate

the meat, which was in the pot, which stood on the fire, which was

breathed on by the chief; so that the eater, infected by the chief's

breath conveyed through these intermediaries, would surely die.

Thus in the Polynesian race, to which the Maoris belong,

superstition erected round the persons of sacred chiefs a real,

though at the same time purely imaginary barrier, to transgress

which actually entailed the death of the transgressor whenever he

became aware of what he had done. This fatal power of the

imagination working through superstitious terrors is by no means

confined to one race; it appears to be common among savages. For

example, among the aborigines of Australia a native will die after

the infliction of even the most superficial wound, if only he

believes that the weapon which inflicted the wound had been sung

over and thus endowed with magical virtue. He simply lies down,

refuses food, and pines away. Similarly among some of the Indian

tribes of Brazil, if the medicine-man predicted the death of any one

who had offended him, "the wretch took to his hammock instantly in

such full expectation of dying, that he would neither eat nor drink,

and the prediction was a sentence which faith effectually executed."

2. Mourners tabooed

THUS regarding his sacred chiefs and kings as charged with a

mysterious spiritual force which so to say explodes at contact, the

savage naturally ranks them among the dangerous classes of society,

and imposes upon them the same sort of restraints that he lays on

manslayers, menstruous women, and other persons whom he looks upon

with a certain fear and horror. For example, sacred kings and

priests in Polynesia were not allowed to touch food with their

hands, and had therefore to be fed by others; and as we have just

seen, their vessels, garments, and other property might not be used

by others on pain of disease and death. Now precisely the same

observances are exacted by some savages from girls at their first

menstruation, women after childbirth, homicides, mourners, and all

persons who have come into contact with the dead. Thus, for example,

to begin with the last class of persons, among the Maoris any one

who had handled a corpse, helped to convey it to the grave, or

touched a dead man's bones, was cut off from all intercourse and

almost all communication with mankind. He could not enter any house,

or come into contact with any person or thing, without utterly

bedevilling them. He might not even touch food with his hands, which

had become so frightfully tabooed or unclean as to be quite useless.

Food would be set for him on the ground, and he would then sit or

kneel down, and, with his hands carefully held behind his back,

would gnaw at it as best he could. In some cases he would be fed by

another person, who with outstretched arm contrived to do it without

touching the tabooed man; but the feeder was himself subjected to

many severe restrictions, little less onerous than those which were

imposed upon the other. In almost every populous village there lived

a degraded wretch, the lowest of the low, who earned a sorry

pittance by thus waiting upon the defiled. Clad in rags, daubed from

head to foot with red ochre and stinking shark oil, always solitary

and silent, generally old, haggard, and wizened, often half crazed,

he might be seen sitting motionless all day apart from the common

path or thoroughfare of the village, gazing with lack-lustre eyes on

the busy doings in which he might never take a part. Twice a day a

dole of food would be thrown on the ground before him to munch as

well as he could without the use of his hands; and at night,

huddling his greasy tatters about him, he would crawl into some

miserable lair of leaves and refuse, where, dirty, cold, and hungry,

he passed, in broken ghost-haunted slumbers, a wretched night as a

prelude to another wretched day. Such was the only human being

deemed fit to associate at arm's length with one who had paid the

last offices of respect and friendship to the dead. And when, the

dismal term of his seclusion being over, the mourner was about to

mix with his fellows once more, all the dishes he had used in his

seclusion were diligently smashed, and all the garments he had worn

were carefully thrown away, lest they should spread the contagion of

his defilement among others, just as the vessels and clothes of

sacred kings and chiefs are destroyed or cast away for a similar

reason. So complete in these respects is the analogy which the

savage traces between the spiritual influences that emanate from

divinities and from the dead, between the odour of sanctity and the

stench of corruption.

The rule which forbids persons who have been in contact with the

dead to touch food with their hands would seem to have been

universal in Polynesia. Thus in Samoa "those who attended the

deceased were most careful not to handle food, and for days were fed

by others as if they were helpless infants. Baldness and the loss of

teeth were supposed to be the punishment inflicted by the household

god if they violated the rule." Again, in Tonga, "no person can

touch a dead chief without being taboo'd for ten lunar months,

except chiefs, who are only taboo'd for three, four, or five months,

according to the superiority of the dead chief; except again it be

the body of Tooitonga [the great divine chief], and then even the

greatest chief would be taboo'd ten months. . . . During the time a

man is taboo'd he must not feed himself with his own hands, but must

be fed by somebody else: he must not even use a toothpick himself,

but must guide another person's hand holding the toothpick. If he is

hungry and there is no one to feed him, he must go down upon his

hands and knees, and pick up his victuals with his mouth: and if he

infringes upon any of these rules, it is firmly expected that he

will swell up and die."

Among the Shuswap of British Columbia widows and widowers in

mourning are secluded and forbidden to touch their own head or body;

the cups and cooking-vessels which they use may be used by no one

else. They must build a sweat-house beside a creek, sweat there all

night and bathe regularly, after which they must rub their bodies

with branches of spruce. The branches may not be used more than

once, and when they have served their purpose they are stuck into

the ground all round the hut. No hunter would come near such

mourners, for their presence is unlucky. If their shadow were to

fall on any one, he would be taken ill at once. They employ thorn

bushes for bed and pillow, in order to keep away the ghost of the

deceased; and thorn bushes are also laid all around their beds. This

last precaution shows clearly what the spiritual danger is which

leads to the exclusion of such persons from ordinary society; it is

simply a fear of the ghost who is supposed to be hovering near them.

In the Mekeo district of British New Guinea a widower loses all his

civil rights and becomes a social outcast, an object of fear and

horror, shunned by all. He may not cultivate a garden, nor show

himself in public, nor traverse the village, nor walk on the roads

and paths. Like a wild beast he must skulk in the long grass and the

bushes; and if he sees or hears any one coming, especially a woman,

he must hide behind a tree or a thicket. If he wishes to fish or

hunt, he must do it alone and at night. If he would consult any one,

even the missionary, he does so by stealth and at night; he seems to

have lost his voice and speaks only in whispers. Were he to join a

party of fishers or hunters, his presence would bring misfortune on

them; the ghost of his dead wife would frighten away the fish or the

game. He goes about everywhere and at all times armed with a

tomahawk to defend himself, not only against wild boars in the

jungle, but against the dreaded spirit of his departed spouse, who

would do him an ill turn if she could; for all the souls of the dead

are malignant and their only delight is to harm the living.

3. Women tabooed at Menstruation and Childbirth

IN GENERAL, we may say that the prohibition to use the vessels,

garments, and so forth of certain persons, and the effects supposed

to follow an infraction of the rule, are exactly the same whether

the persons to whom the things belong are sacred or what we might

call unclean and polluted. As the garments which have been touched

by a sacred chief kill those who handle them, so do the things which

have been touched by a menstruous women. An Australian blackfellow,

who discovered that his wife had lain on his blanket at her

menstrual period, killed her and died of terror himself within a

fortnight. Hence Australian women at these times are forbidden under

pain of death to touch anything that men use, or even to walk on a

path that any man frequents. They are also secluded at childbirth,

and all vessels used by them during their seclusion are burned. In

Uganda the pots which a woman touches, while the impurity of

childbirth or of menstruation is on her, should be destroyed; spears

and shields defiled by her touch are not destroyed, but only

purified. "Among all the Déné and most other American tribes, hardly

any other being was the object of so much dread as a menstruating

woman. As soon as signs of that condition made themselves apparent

in a young girl she was carefully segregated from all but female

company, and had to live by herself in a small hut away from the

gaze of the villagers or of the male members of the roving band.

While in that awful state, she had to abstain from touching anything

belonging to man, or the spoils of any venison or other animal, lest

she would thereby pollute the same, and condemn the hunters to

failure, owing to the anger of the game thus slighted. Dried fish

formed her diet, and cold water, absorbed through a drinking tube,

was her only beverage. Moreover, as the very sight of her was

dangerous to society, a special skin bonnet, with fringes falling

over her face down to her breast, hid her from the public gaze, even

some time after she had recovered her normal state." Among the

Bribri Indians of Costa Rica a menstruous woman is regarded as

unclean. The only plates she may use for her food are banana leaves,

which, when she has done with them, she throws away in some

sequestered spot; for were a cow to find them and eat them, the

animal would waste away and perish. And she drinks out of a special

vessel for a like reason; because if any one drank out of the same

cup after her, he would surely die.

Among many peoples similar restrictions are imposed on women in

childbed and apparently for similar reasons; at such periods women

are supposed to be in a dangerous condition which would infect any

person or thing they might touch; hence they are put into quarantine

until, with the recovery of their health and strength, the imaginary

danger has passed away. Thus, in Tahiti a woman after childbirth was

secluded for a fortnight or three weeks in a temporary hut erected

on sacred ground; during the time of her seclusion she was debarred

from touching provisions, and had to be fed by another. Further, if

any one else touched the child at this period, he was subjected to

the same restrictions as the mother until the ceremony of her

purification had been performed. Similarly in the island of Kadiak,

off Alaska, a woman about to be delivered retires to a miserable low

hovel built of reeds, where she must remain for twenty days after

the birth of her child, whatever the season may be, and she is

considered so unclean that no one will touch her, and food is

reached to her on sticks. The Bribri Indians regard the pollution of

childbed as much more dangerous even than that of menstruation. When

a woman feels her time approaching, she informs her husband, who

makes haste to build a hut for her in a lonely spot. There she must

live alone, holding no converse with anybody save her mother or

another woman. After her delivery the medicine-man purifies her by

breathing on her and laying an animal, it matters not what, upon

her. But even this ceremony only mitigates her uncleanness into a

state considered to be equivalent to that of a menstruous woman; and

for a full lunar month she must live apart from her housemates,

observing the same rules with regard to eating and drinking as at

her monthly periods. The case is still worse, the pollution is still

more deadly, if she has had a miscarriage or has been delivered of a

stillborn child. In that case she may not go near a living soul: the

mere contact with things she has used is exceedingly dangerous: her

food is handed to her at the end of a long stick. This lasts

generally for three weeks, after which she may go home, subject only

to the restrictions incident to an ordinary confinement.

Some Bantu tribes entertain even more exaggerated notions of the

virulent infection spread by a woman who has had a miscarriage and

has concealed it. An experienced observer of these people tells us

that the blood of childbirth "appears to the eyes of the South

Africans to be tainted with a pollution still more dangerous than

that of the menstrual fluid. The husband is excluded from the hut

for eight days of the lying-in period, chiefly from fear that he

might be contaminated by this secretion. He dare not take his child

in his arms for the three first months after the birth. But the

secretion of childbed is particularly terrible when it is the

product of a miscarriage, especially _a concealed miscarriage._ In

this case it is not merely the man who is threatened or killed, it

is the whole country, it is the sky itself which suffers. By a

curious association of ideas a physiological fact causes cosmic

troubles!" As for the disastrous effect which a miscarriage may have

on the whole country I will quote the words of a medicine-man and

rain-maker of the Ba-Pedi tribe: "When a woman has had a

miscarriage, when she has allowed her blood to flow, and has hidden

the child, it is enough to cause the burning winds to blow and to

parch the country with heat. The rain no longer falls, for the

country is no longer in order. When the rain approaches the place

where the blood is, it will not dare to approach. It will fear and

remain at a distance. That woman has committed a great fault. She

has spoiled the country of the chief, for she has hidden blood which

had not yet been well congealed to fashion a man. That blood is

taboo. It should never drip on the road! The chief will assemble his

men and say to them, 'Are you in order in your villages?' Some one

will answer, 'Such and such a woman was pregnant and we have not yet

seen the child which she has given birth to.' Then they go and

arrest the woman. They say to her, 'Show us where you have hidden

it.' They go and dig at the spot, they sprinkle the hole with a

decoction of two sorts of roots prepared in a special pot. They take

a little of the earth of this grave, they throw it into the river,

then they bring back water from the river and sprinkle it where she

shed her blood. She herself must wash every day with the medicine.

Then the country will be moistened again (by rain). Further, we

(medicine-men), summon the women of the country; we tell them to

prepare a ball of the earth which contains the blood. They bring it

to us one morning. If we wish to prepare medicine with which to

sprinkle the whole country, we crumble this earth to powder; at the

end of five days we send little boys and little girls, girls that

yet know nothing of women's affairs and have not yet had relations

with men. We put the medicine in the horns of oxen, and these

children go to all the fords, to all the entrances of the country. A

little girl turns up the soil with her mattock, the others dip a

branch in the horn and sprinkle the inside of the hole saying,

'Rain! rain!' So we remove the misfortune which the women have

brought on the roads; the rain will be able to come. The country is

purified!"

4. Warriors tabooed

ONCE more, warriors are conceived by the savage to move, so to say,

in an atmosphere of spiritual danger which constrains them to

practise a variety of superstitious observances quite different in

their nature from those rational precautions which, as a matter of

course, they adopt against foes of flesh and blood. The general

effect of these observances is to place the warrior, both before and

after victory, in the same state of seclusion or spiritual

quarantine in which, for his own safety, primitive man puts his

human gods and other dangerous characters. Thus when the Maoris went

out on the war-path they were sacred or taboo in the highest degree,

and they and their friends at home had to observe strictly many

curious customs over and above the numerous taboos of ordinary life.

They became, in the irreverent language of Europeans who knew them

in the old fighting days, "tabooed an inch thick"; and as for the

leader of the expedition, he was quite unapproachable. Similarly,

when the Israelites marched forth to war they were bound by certain

rules of ceremonial purity identical with rules observed by Maoris

and Australian blackfellows on the war-path. The vessels they used

were sacred, and they had to practise continence and a custom of

personal cleanliness of which the original motive, if we may judge

from the avowed motive of savages who conform to the same custom,

was a fear lest the enemy should obtain the refuse of their persons,

and thus be enabled to work their destruction by magic. Among some

Indian tribes of North America a young warrior in his first campaign

had to conform to certain customs, of which two were identical with

the observances imposed by the same Indians on girls at their first

menstruation: the vessels he ate and drank out of might be touched

by no other person, and he was forbidden to scratch his head or any

other part of his body with his fingers; if he could not help

scratching himself, he had to do it with a stick. The latter rule,

like the one which forbids a tabooed person to feed himself with his

own fingers, seems to rest on the supposed sanctity or pollution,

whichever we choose to call it, of the tabooed hands. Moreover among

these Indian tribes the men on the war-path had always to sleep at

night with their faces turned towards their own country; however

uneasy the posture, they might not change it. They might not sit

upon the bare ground, nor wet their feet, nor walk on a beaten path

if they could help it; when they had no choice but to walk on a

path, they sought to counteract the ill effect of doing so by

doctoring their legs with certain medicines or charms which they

carried with them for the purpose. No member of the party was

permitted to step over the legs, hands, or body of any other member

who chanced to be sitting or lying on the ground; and it was equally

forbidden to step over his blanket, gun, tomahawk, or anything that

belonged to him. If this rule was inadvertently broken, it became

the duty of the member whose person or property had been stepped

over to knock the other member down, and it was similarly the duty

of that other to be knocked down peaceably and without resistance.

The vessels out of which the warriors ate their food were commonly

small bowls of wood or birch bark, with marks to distinguish the two

sides; in marching from home the Indians invariably drank out of one

side of the bowl, and in returning they drank out of the other. When

on their way home they came within a day's march of the village,

they hung up all their bowls on trees, or threw them away on the

prairie, doubtless to prevent their sanctity or defilement from

being communicated with disastrous effects to their friends, just as

we have seen that the vessels and clothes of the sacred Mikado, of

women at childbirth and menstruation, and of persons defiled by

contact with the dead are destroyed or laid aside for a similar

reason. The first four times that an Apache Indian goes out on the

war-path, he is bound to refrain from scratching his head with his

fingers and from letting water touch his lips. Hence he scratches

his head with a stick, and drinks through a hollow reed or cane.

Stick and reed are attached to the warrior's belt and to each other

by a leathern thong. The rule not to scratch their heads with their

fingers, but to use a stick for the purpose instead, was regularly

observed by Ojebways on the war-path.

With regard to the Creek Indians and kindred tribes we are told they

"will not cohabit with women while they are out at war; they

religiously abstain from every kind of intercourse even with their

own wives, for the space of three days and nights before they go to

war, and so after they return home, because they are to sanctify

themselves." Among the Ba-Pedi and Ba-Thonga tribes of South Africa

not only have the warriors to abstain from women, but the people

left behind in the villages are also bound to continence; they think

that any incontinence on their part would cause thorns to grow on

the ground traversed by the warriors, and that success would not

attend the expedition.

Why exactly many savages have made it a rule to refrain from women

in time of war, we cannot say for certain, but we may conjecture

that their motive was a superstitious fear lest, on the principles

of sympathetic magic, close contact with women should infect them

with feminine weakness and cowardice. Similarly some savages imagine

that contact with a woman in childbed enervates warriors and

enfeebles their weapons. Indeed the Kayans of Central Borneo go so

far as to hold that to touch a loom or women's clothes would so

weaken a man that he would have no success in hunting, fishing, and

war. Hence it is not merely sexual intercourse with women that the

savage warrior sometimes shuns; he is careful to avoid the sex

altogether. Thus among the hill tribes of Assam, not only are men

forbidden to cohabit with their wives during or after a raid, but

they may not eat food cooked by a woman; nay, they should not

address a word even to their own wives. Once a woman, who

unwittingly broke the rule by speaking to her husband while he was

under the war taboo, sickened and died when she learned the awful

crime she had committed.

5. Manslayers tabooed

IF THE READER still doubts whether the rules of conduct which we

have just been considering are based on superstitious fears or

dictated by a rational prudence, his doubts will probably be

dissipated when he learns that rules of the same sort are often

imposed even more stringently on warriors after the victory has been

won and when all fear of the living corporeal foe is at an end. In

such cases one motive for the inconvenient restrictions laid on the

victors in their hour of triumph is probably a dread of the angry

ghosts of the slain; and that the fear of the vengeful ghosts does

influence the behaviour of the slayers is often expressly affirmed.

The general effect of the taboos laid on sacred chiefs, mourners,

women at childbirth, men on the war-path, and so on, is to seclude

or isolate the tabooed persons from ordinary society, this effect

being attained by a variety of rules, which oblige the men or women

to live in separate huts or in the open air, to shun the commerce of

the sexes, to avoid the use of vessels employed by others, and so

forth. Now the same effect is produced by similar means in the case

of victorious warriors, particularly such as have actually shed the

blood of their enemies. In the island of Timor, when a warlike

expedition has returned in triumph bringing the heads of the

vanquished foe, the leader of the expedition is forbidden by

religion and custom to return at once to his own house. A special

hut is prepared for him, in which he has to reside for two months,

undergoing bodily and spiritual purification. During this time he

may not go to his wife nor feed himself; the food must be put into

his mouth by another person. That these observances are dictated by

fear of the ghosts of the slain seems certain; for from another

account of the ceremonies performed on the return of a successful

head-hunter in the same island we learn that sacrifices are offered

on this occasion to appease the soul of the man whose head has been

taken; the people think that some misfortune would befall the victor

were such offerings omitted. Moreover, a part of the ceremony

consists of a dance accompanied by a song, in which the death of the

slain man is lamented and his forgiveness is entreated. "Be not

angry," they say, "because your head is here with us; had we been

less lucky, our heads might now have been exposed in your village.

We have offered the sacrifice to appease you. Your spirit may now

rest and leave us at peace. Why were you our enemy? Would it not

have been better that we should remain friends? Then your blood

would not have been spilt and your head would not have been cut

off." The people of Paloo in Central Celebes take the heads of their

enemies in war and afterwards propitiate the souls of the slain in

the temple.

Among the tribes at the mouth of the Wanigela River, in New Guinea,

"a man who has taken life is considered to be impure until he has

undergone certain ceremonies: as soon as possible after the deed he

cleanses himself and his weapon. This satisfactorily accomplished,

he repairs to his village and seats himself on the logs of

sacrificial staging. No one approaches him or takes any notice

whatever of him. A house is prepared for him which is put in charge

of two or three small boys as servants. He may eat only toasted

bananas, and only the centre portion of them--the ends being thrown

away. On the third day of his seclusion a small feast is prepared by

his friends, who also fashion some new perineal bands for him. This

is called _ivi poro._ The next day the man dons all his best

ornaments and badges for taking life, and sallies forth fully armed

and parades the village. The next day a hunt is organised, and a

kangaroo selected from the game captured. It is cut open and the

spleen and liver rubbed over the back of the man. He then walks

solemnly down to the nearest water, and standing straddle-legs in it

washes himself. All the young untried warriors swim between his

legs. This is supposed to impart courage and strength to them. The

following day, at early dawn, he dashes out of his house, fully

armed, and calls aloud the name of his victim. Having satisfied

himself that he has thoroughly scared the ghost of the dead man, he

returns to his house. The beating of flooring-boards and the

lighting of fires is also a certain method of scaring the ghost. A

day later his purification is finished. He can then enter his wife's

house."

In Windessi, Dutch New Guinea, when a party of head-hunters has been

successful, and they are nearing home, they announce their approach

and success by blowing on triton shells. Their canoes are also

decked with branches. The faces of the men who have taken a head are

blackened with charcoal. If several have taken part in killing the

same victim, his head is divided among them. They always time their

arrival so as to reach home in the early morning. They come rowing

to the village with a great noise, and the women stand ready to

dance in the verandahs of the houses. The canoes row past the _room

sram_ or house where the young men live; and as they pass, the

murderers throw as many pointed sticks or bamboos at the wall or the

roof as there were enemies killed. The day is spent very quietly.

Now and then they drum or blow on the conch; at other times they

beat the walls of the houses with loud shouts to drive away the

ghosts of the slain. So the Yabim of New Guinea believe that the

spirit of a murdered man pursues his murderer and seeks to do him a

mischief. Hence they drive away the spirit with shouts and the

beating of drums. When the Fijians had buried a man alive, as they

often did, they used at nightfall to make a great uproar by means of

bamboos, trumpet-shells, and so forth, for the purpose of

frightening away his ghost, lest he should attempt to return to his

old home. And to render his house unattractive to him they

dismantled it and clothed it with everything that to their ideas

seemed most repulsive. On the evening of the day on which they had

tortured a prisoner to death, the American Indians were wont to run

through the village with hideous yells, beating with sticks on the

furniture, the walls, and the roofs of the huts to prevent the angry

ghost of their victim from settling there and taking vengeance for

the torments that his body had endured at their hands. "Once," says

a traveller, "on approaching in the night a village of Ottawas, I

found all the inhabitants in confusion: they were all busily engaged

in raising noises of the loudest and most inharmonious kind. Upon

inquiry, I found that a battle had been lately fought between the

Ottawas and the Kickapoos, and that the object of all this noise was

to prevent the ghosts of the departed combatants from entering the

village."

Among the Basutos "ablution is specially performed on return from

battle. It is absolutely necessary that the warriors should rid

themselves, as soon as possible, of the blood they have shed, or the

shades of their victims would pursue them incessantly, and disturb

their slumbers. They go in a procession, and in full armour, to the

nearest stream. At the moment they enter the water a diviner, placed

higher up, throws some purifying substances into the current. This

is, however, not strictly necessary. The javelins and battle-axes

also undergo the process of washing." Among the Bageshu of East

Africa a man who has killed another may not return to his own house

on the same day, though he may enter the village and spend the night

in a friend's house. He kills a sheep and smears his chest, his

right arm, and his head with the contents of the animal's stomach.

His children are brought to him and he smears them in like manner.

Then he smears each side of the doorway with the tripe and entrails,

and finally throws the rest of the stomach on the roof of his house.

For a whole day he may not touch food with his hands, but picks it

up with two sticks and so conveys it to his mouth. His wife is not

under any such restrictions. She may even go to mourn for the man

whom her husband has killed, if she wishes to do so. Among the

Angoni, to the north of the Zambesi, warriors who have slain foes on

an expedition smear their bodies and faces with ashes, hang garments

of their victims on their persons, and tie bark ropes round their

necks, so that the ends hang down over their shoulders or breasts.

This costume they wear for three days after their return, and rising

at break of day they run through the village uttering frightful

yells to drive away the ghosts of the slain, which, if they were not

thus banished from the houses, might bring sickness and misfortune

on the inmates.

In some of these accounts nothing is said of an enforced seclusion,

at least after the ceremonial cleansing, but some South African

tribes certainly require the slayer of a very gallant foe in war to

keep apart from his wife and family for ten days after he has washed

his body in running water. He also receives from the tribal doctor a

medicine which he chews with his food. When a Nandi of East Africa

has killed a member of another tribe, he paints one side of his

body, spear, and sword red, and the other side white. For four days

after the slaughter he is considered unclean and may not go home. He

has to build a small shelter by a river and live there; he may not

associate with his wife or sweetheart, and he may eat nothing but

porridge, beef, and goat's flesh. At the end of the fourth day he

must purify himself by taking a strong purge made from the bark of

the _segetet_ tree and by drinking goat's milk mixed with blood.

Among the Bantu tribes of Kavirondo, when a man has killed an enemy

in warfare he shaves his head on his return home, and his friends

rub a medicine, which generally consists of goat's dung, over his

body to prevent the spirit of the slain man from troubling him.

Exactly the same custom is practised for the same reason by the

Wageia of East Africa. With the Ja-Luo of Kavirondo the custom is

somewhat different. Three days after his return from the fight the

warrior shaves his head. But before he may enter his village he has

to hang a live fowl, head uppermost, round his neck; then the bird

is decapitated and its head left hanging round his neck. Soon after

his return a feast is made for the slain man, in order that his

ghost may not haunt his slayer. In the Pelew Islands, when the men

return from a warlike expedition in which they have taken a life,

the young warriors who have been out fighting for the first time,

and all who handled the slain, are shut up in the large

council-house and become tabooed. They may not quit the edifice, nor

bathe, nor touch a woman, nor eat fish; their food is limited to

coco-nuts and syrup. They rub themselves with charmed leaves and

chew charmed betel. After three days they go together to bathe as

near as possible to the spot where the man was killed.

Among the Natchez Indians of North America young braves who had

taken their first scalps were obliged to observe certain rules of

abstinence for six months. They might not sleep with their wives nor

eat flesh; their only food was fish and hasty-pudding. If they broke

these rules, they believed that the soul of the man they had killed

would work their death by magic, that they would gain no more

successes over the enemy, and that the least wound inflicted on them

would prove mortal. When a Choctaw had killed an enemy and taken his

scalp, he went into mourning for a month, during which he might not

comb his hair, and if his head itched he might not scratch it except

with a little stick which he wore fastened to his wrist for the

purpose. This ceremonial mourning for the enemies they had slain was

not uncommon among the North American Indians.

Thus we see that warriors who have taken the life of a foe in battle

are temporarily cut off from free intercourse with their fellows,

and especially with their wives, and must undergo certain rites of

purification before they are readmitted to society. Now if the

purpose of their seclusion and of the expiatory rites which they

have to perform is, as we have been led to believe, no other than to

shake off, frighten, or appease the angry spirit of the slain man,

we may safely conjecture that the similar purification of homicides

and murderers, who have imbrued their hands in the blood of a

fellow-tribesman, had at first the same significance, and that the

idea of a moral or spiritual regeneration symbolised by the washing,

the fasting, and so on, was merely a later interpretation put upon

the old custom by men who had outgrown the primitive modes of

thought in which the custom originated. The conjecture will be

confirmed if we can show that savages have actually imposed certain

restrictions on the murderer of a fellow-tribesman from a definite

fear that he is haunted by the ghost of his victim. This we can do

with regard to the Omahas of North America. Among these Indians the

kinsmen of a murdered man had the right to put the murderer to

death, but sometimes they waived their right in consideration of

presents which they consented to accept. When the life of the

murderer was spared, he had to observe certain stringent rules for a

period which varied from two to four years. He must walk barefoot,

and he might eat no warm food, nor raise his voice, nor look around.

He was compelled to pull his robe about him and to have it tied at

the neck even in hot weather; he might not let it hang loose or fly

open. He might not move his hands about, but had to keep them close

to his body. He might not comb his hair, and it might not be blown

about by the wind. When the tribe went out hunting, he was obliged

to pitch his tent about a quarter of mile from the rest of the

people "lest the ghost of his victim should raise a high wind, which

might cause damage." Only one of his kindred was allowed to remain

with him at his tent. No one wished to eat with him, for they said,

"If we eat with him whom Wakanda hates, Wakanda will hate us."

Sometimes he wandered at night crying and lamenting his offence. At

the end of his long isolation the kinsmen of the murdered man heard

his crying and said, "It is enough. Begone, and walk among the

crowd. Put on moccasins and wear a good robe." Here the reason

alleged for keeping the murderer at a considerable distance from the

hunters gives the clue to all the other restrictions laid on him: he

was haunted and therefore dangerous. The ancient Greeks believed

that the soul of a man who had just been killed was wroth with his

slayer and troubled him; wherefore it was needful even for the

involuntary homicide to depart from his country for a year until the

anger of the dead man had cooled down; nor might the slayer return

until sacrifice had been offered and ceremonies of purification

performed. If his victim chanced to be a foreigner, the homicide had

to shun the native country of the dead man as well as his own. The

legend of the matricide Orestes, how he roamed from place to place

pursued by the Furies of his murdered mother, and none would sit at

meat with him, or take him in, till he had been purified, reflects

faithfully the real Greek dread of such as were still haunted by an

angry ghost.

6. Hunters and Fishers tabooed

IN SAVAGE society the hunter and the fisherman have often to observe

rules of abstinence and to submit to ceremonies of purification of

the same sort as those which are obligatory on the warrior and the

manslayer; and though we cannot in all cases perceive the exact

purpose which these rules and ceremonies are supposed to serve, we

may with some probability assume that, just as the dread of the

spirits of his enemies is the main motive for the seclusion and

purification of the warrior who hopes to take or has already taken

their lives, so the huntsman or fisherman who complies with similar

customs is principally actuated by a fear of the spirits of the

beasts, birds, or fish which he has killed or intends to kill. For

the savage commonly conceives animals to be endowed with souls and

intelligences like his own, and hence he naturally treats them with

similar respect. Just as he attempts to appease the ghosts of the

men he has slain, so he essays to propitiate the spirits of the

animals he has killed. These ceremonies of propitiation will be

described later on in this work; here we have to deal, first, with

the taboos observed by the hunter and the fisherman before or during

the hunting and fishing seasons, and, second, with the ceremonies of

purification which have to be practised by these men on returning

with their booty from a successful chase.

While the savage respects, more or less, the souls of all animals,

he treats with particular deference the spirits of such as are

either especially useful to him or formidable on account of their

size, strength, or ferocity. Accordingly the hunting and killing of

these valuable or dangerous beasts are subject to more elaborate

rules and ceremonies than the slaughter of comparatively useless and

insignificant creatures. Thus the Indians of Nootka Sound prepared

themselves for catching whales by observing a fast for a week,

during which they ate very little, bathed in the water several times

a day, sang, and rubbed their bodies, limbs, and faces with shells

and bushes till they looked as if they had been severely torn with

briars. They were likewise required to abstain from any commerce

with their women for the like period, this last condition being

considered indispensable to their success. A chief who failed to

catch a whale has been known to attribute his failure to a breach of

chastity on the part of his men. It should be remarked that the

conduct thus prescribed as a preparation for whaling is precisely

that which in the same tribe of Indians was required of men about to

go on the war-path. Rules of the same sort are, or were formerly,

observed by Malagasy whalers. For eight days before they went to sea

the crew of a whaler used to fast, abstaining from women and liquor,

and confessing their most secret faults to each other; and if any

man was found to have sinned deeply, he was forbidden to share in

the expedition. In the island of Mabuiag continence was imposed on

the people both before they went to hunt the dugong and while the

turtles were pairing. The turtle-season lasts during parts of

October and November; and if at that time unmarried persons had

sexual intercourse with each other, it was believed that when the

canoe approached the floating turtle, the male would separate from

the female and both would dive down in different directions. So at

Mowat in New Guinea men have no relation with women when the turtles

are coupling, though there is considerable laxity of morals at other

times. In the island of Uap, one of the Caroline group, every

fisherman plying his craft lies under a most strict taboo during the

whole of the fishing season, which lasts for six or eight weeks.

Whenever he is on shore he must spend all his time in the men's

clubhouse, and under no pretext whatever may he visit his own house

or so much as look upon the faces of his wife and womenkind. Were he

but to steal a glance at them, they think that flying fish must

inevitably bore out his eyes at night. If his wife, mother, or

daughter brings any gift for him or wishes to talk with him, she

must stand down towards the shore with her back turned to the men's

clubhouse. Then the fisherman may go out and speak to her, or with

his back turned to her he may receive what she has brought him;

after which he must return at once to his rigorous confinement.

Indeed the fishermen may not even join in dance and song with the

other men of the clubhouse in the evening; they must keep to

themselves and be silent. In Mirzapur, when the seed of the silkworm

is brought into the house, the Kol or Bhuiyar puts it in a place

which has been carefully plastered with holy cowdung to bring good

luck. From that time the owner must be careful to avoid ceremonial

impurity. He must give up cohabitation with his wife; he may not

sleep on a bed, nor shave himself, nor cut his nails, nor anoint

himself with oil, nor eat food cooked with butter, nor tell lies,

nor do anything else that he deems wrong. He vows to Singarmati Devi

that, if the worms are duly born, he will make her an offering. When

the cocoons open and the worms appear, he assembles the women of the

house and they sing the same song as at the birth of a baby, and red

lead is smeared on the parting of the hair of all the married women

of the neighbourhood. When the worms pair, rejoicings are made as at

a marriage. Thus the silkworms are treated as far as possible like

human beings. Hence the custom which prohibits the commerce of the

sexes while the worms are hatching may be only an extension, by

analogy, of the rule which is observed by many races, that the

husband may not cohabit with his wife during pregnancy and

lactation.

In the island of Nias the hunters sometimes dig pits, cover them

lightly over with twigs, grass, and leaves, and then drive the game

into them. While they are engaged in digging the pits, they have to

observe a number of taboos. They may not spit, or the game would

turn back in disgust from the pits. They may not laugh, or the sides

of the pit would fall in. They may eat no salt, prepare no fodder

for swine, and in the pit they may not scratch themselves, for if

they did, the earth would be loosened and would collapse. And the

night after digging the pit they may have no intercourse with a

woman, or all their labour would be in vain.

This practice of observing strict chastity as a condition of success

in hunting and fishing is very common among rude races; and the

instances of it which have been cited render it probable that the

rule is always based on a superstition rather than on a

consideration of the temporary weakness which a breach of the custom

may entail on the hunter or fisherman. In general it appears to be

supposed that the evil effect of incontinence is not so much that it

weakens him, as that, for some reason or other, it offends the

animals, who in consequence will not suffer themselves to be caught.

A Carrier Indian of British Columbia used to separate from his wife

for a full month before he set traps for bears, and during this time

he might not drink from the same vessel as his wife, but had to use

a special cup made of birch bark. The neglect of these precautions

would cause the game to escape after it had been snared. But when he

was about to snare martens, the period of continence was cut down to

ten days.

An examination of all the many cases in which the savage bridles his

passions and remains chaste from motives of superstition, would be

instructive, but I cannot attempt it now. I will only add a few

miscellaneous examples of the custom before passing to the

ceremonies of purification which are observed by the hunter and

fisherman after the chase and the fishing are over. The workers in

the salt-pans near Siphoum, in Laos, must abstain from all sexual

relations at the place where they are at work; and they may not

cover their heads nor shelter themselves under an umbrella from the

burning rays of the sun. Among the Kachins of Burma the ferment used

in making beer is prepared by two women, chosen by lot, who during

the three days that the process lasts may eat nothing acid and may

have no conjugal relations with their husbands; otherwise it is

supposed that the beer would be sour. Among the Masai honey-wine is

brewed by a man and a woman who live in a hut set apart for them

till the wine is ready for drinking. But they are strictly forbidden

to have sexual intercourse with each other during this time; it is

deemed essential that they should be chaste for two days before they

begin to brew and for the whole of the six days that the brewing

lasts. The Masai believe that were the couple to commit a breach of

chastity, not only would the wine be undrinkable but the bees which

made the honey would fly away. Similarly they require that a man who

is making poison should sleep alone and observe other taboos which

render him almost an outcast. The Wandorobbo, a tribe of the same

region as the Masai, believe that the mere presence of a woman in

the neighbourhood of a man who is brewing poison would deprive the

poison of its venom, and that the same thing would happen if the

wife of the poison-maker were to commit adultery while her husband

was brewing the poison. In this last case it is obvious that a

rationalistic explanation of the taboo is impossible. How could the

loss of virtue in the poison be a physical consequence of the loss

of virtue in the poison-maker's wife? Clearly the effect which the

wife's adultery is supposed to have on the poison is a case of

sympathetic magic; her misconduct sympathetically affects her

husband and his work at a distance. We may, accordingly, infer with

some confidence that the rule of continence imposed on the

poison-maker himself is also a simple case of sympathetic magic, and

not, as a civilised reader might be disposed to conjecture, a wise

precaution designed to prevent him from accidentally poisoning his

wife.

Among the Ba-Pedi and Ba-Thonga tribes of South Africa, when the

site of a new village has been chosen and the houses are building,

all the married people are forbidden to have conjugal relations with

each other. If it were discovered that any couple had broken this

rule, the work of building would immediately be stopped, and another

site chosen for the village. For they think that a breach of

chastity would spoil the village which was growing up, that the

chief would grow lean and perhaps die, and that the guilty woman

would never bear another child. Among the Chams of Cochin-China,

when a dam is made or repaired on a river for the sake of

irrigation, the chief who offers the traditional sacrifices and

implores the protection of the deities on the work has to stay all

the time in a wretched hovel of straw, taking no part in the labour,

and observing the strictest continence; for the people believe that

a breach of his chastity would entail a breach of the dam. Here, it

is plain, there can be no idea of maintaining the mere bodily vigour

of the chief for the accomplishment of a task in which he does not

even bear a hand.

If the taboos or abstinences observed by hunters and fishermen

before and during the chase are dictated, as we have seen reason to

believe, by superstitious motives, and chiefly by a dread of

offending or frightening the spirits of the creatures whom it is

proposed to kill, we may expect that the restraints imposed after

the slaughter has been perpetrated will be at least as stringent,

the slayer and his friends having now the added fear of the angry

ghosts of his victims before their eyes. Whereas on the hypothesis

that the abstinences in question, including those from food, drink,

and sleep, are merely salutary precautions for maintaining the men

in health and strength to do their work, it is obvious that the

observance of these abstinences or taboos after the work is done,

that is, when the game is killed and the fish caught, must be wholly

superfluous, absurd, and inexplicable. But as I shall now show,

these taboos often continue to be enforced or even increased in

stringency after the death of the animals, in other words, after the

hunter or fisher has accomplished his object by making his bag or

landing his fish. The rationalistic theory of them therefore breaks

down entirely; the hypothesis of superstition is clearly the only

one open to us.

Among the Inuit or Esquimaux of Bering Strait "the dead bodies of

various animals must be treated very carefully by the hunter who

obtains them, so that their shades may not be offended and bring bad

luck or even death upon him or his people." Hence the Unalit hunter

who has had a hand in the killing of a white whale, or even has

helped to take one from the net, is not allowed to do any work for

the next four days, that being the time during which the shade or

ghost of the whale is supposed to stay with its body. At the same

time no one in the village may use any sharp or pointed instrument

for fear of wounding the whale's shade, which is believed to be

hovering invisible in the neighbourhood; and no loud noise may be

made lest it should frighten or offend the ghost. Whoever cuts a

whale's body with an iron axe will die. Indeed the use of all iron

instruments is forbidden in the village during these four days.

These same Esquimaux celebrate a great annual festival in December

when the bladders of all the seals, whales, walrus, and white bears

that have been killed in the year are taken into the assembly-house

of the village. They remain there for several days, and so long as

they do so the hunters avoid all intercourse with women, saying that

if they failed in that respect the shades of the dead animals would

be offended. Similarly among the Aleuts of Alaska the hunter who had

struck a whale with a charmed spear would not throw again, but

returned at once to his home and separated himself from his people

in a hut specially constructed for the purpose, where he stayed for

three days without food or drink, and without touching or looking

upon a woman. During this time of seclusion he snorted occasionally

in imitation of the wounded and dying whale, in order to prevent the

whale which he had struck from leaving the coast. On the fourth day

he emerged from his seclusion and bathed in the sea, shrieking in a

hoarse voice and beating the water with his hands. Then, taking with

him a companion, he repaired to that part of the shore where he

expected to find the whale stranded. If the beast was dead, he at

once cut out the place where the death-wound had been inflicted. If

the whale was not dead, he again returned to his home and continued

washing himself until the whale died. Here the hunter's imitation of

the wounded whale is probably intended by means of homoeopathic

magic to make the beast die in earnest. Once more the soul of the

grim polar bear is offended if the taboos which concern him are not

observed. His soul tarries for three days near the spot where it

left his body, and during these days the Esquimaux are particularly

careful to conform rigidly to the laws of taboo, because they

believe that punishment overtakes the transgressor who sins against

the soul of a bear far more speedily than him who sins against the

souls of the sea-beasts.

When the Kayans have shot one of the dreaded Bornean panthers, they

are very anxious about the safety of their souls, for they think

that the soul of a panther is almost more powerful than their own.

Hence they step eight times over the carcase of the dead beast

reciting the spell, "Panther, thy soul under my soul." On returning

home they smear themselves, their dogs, and their weapons with the

blood of fowls in order to calm their souls and hinder them from

fleeing away; for, being themselves fond of the flesh of fowls, they

ascribe the same taste to their souls. For eight days afterwards

they must bathe by day and by night before going out again to the

chase. Among the Hottentots, when a man has killed a lion, leopard,

elephant, or rhinoceros, he is esteemed a great hero, but he has to

remain at home quite idle for three days, during which his wife may

not come near him; she is also enjoined to restrict herself to a

poor diet and to eat no more than is barely necessary to keep her in

health. Similarly the Lapps deem it the height of glory to kill a

bear, which they consider the king of beasts. Nevertheless, all the

men who take part in the slaughter are regarded as unclean, and must

live by themselves for three days in a hut or tent made specially

for them, where they cut up and cook the bear's carcase. The

reindeer which brought in the carcase on a sledge may not be driven

by a woman for a whole year; indeed, according to one account, it

may not be used by anybody for that period. Before the men go into

the tent where they are to be secluded, they strip themselves of the

garments they had worn in killing the bear, and their wives spit the

red juice of alder bark in their faces. They enter the tent not by

the ordinary door but by an opening at the back. When the bear's

flesh has been cooked, a portion of it is sent by the hands of two

men to the women, who may not approach the men's tent while the

cooking is going on. The men who convey the flesh to the women

pretend to be strangers bringing presents from a foreign land; the

women keep up the pretence and promise to tie red threads round the

legs of the strangers. The bear's flesh may not be passed in to the

women through the door of their tent, but must be thrust in at a

special opening made by lifting up the hem of the tent-cover. When

the three days' seclusion is over and the men are at liberty to

return to their wives, they run, one after the other, round the

fire, holding the chain by which pots are suspended over it. This is

regarded as a form of purification; they may now leave the tent by

the ordinary door and rejoin the women. But the leader of the party

must still abstain from cohabitation with his wife for two days

more.

Again, the Caffres are said to dread greatly the boa-constrictor or

an enormous serpent resembling it; "and being influenced by certain

superstitious notions they even fear to kill it. The man who

happened to put it to death, whether in self-defence or otherwise,

was formerly required to lie in a running stream of water during the

day for several weeks together; and no beast whatever was allowed to

be slaughtered at the hamlet to which he belonged, until this duty

had been fully performed. The body of the snake was then taken and

carefully buried in a trench, dug close to the cattle-fold, where

its remains, like those of a chief, were henceforward kept perfectly

undisturbed. The period of penance, as in the case of mourning for

the dead, is now happily reduced to a few days." In Madras it is

considered a great sin to kill a cobra. When this has happened, the

people generally burn the body of the serpent, just as they burn the

bodies of human beings. The murderer deems himself polluted for

three days. On the second day milk is poured on the remains of the

cobra. On the third day the guilty wretch is free from pollution.

In these last cases the animal whose slaughter has to be atoned for

is sacred, that is, it is one whose life is commonly spared from

motives of superstition. Yet the treatment of the sacrilegious

slayer seems to resemble so closely the treatment of hunters and

fishermen who have killed animals for food in the ordinary course of

business, that the ideas on which both sets of customs are based may

be assumed to be substantially the same. Those ideas, if I am right,

are the respect which the savage feels for the souls of beasts,

especially valuable or formidable beasts, and the dread which he

entertains of their vengeful ghosts. Some confirmation of this view

may be drawn from the ceremonies observed by fishermen of Annam when

the carcase of a whale is washed ashore. These fisherfolk, we are

told, worship the whale on account of the benefits they derive from

it. There is hardly a village on the sea-shore which has not its

small pagoda, containing the bones, more or less authentic, of a

whale. When a dead whale is washed ashore, the people accord it a

solemn burial. The man who first caught sight of it acts as chief

mourner, performing the rites which as chief mourner and heir he

would perform for a human kinsman. He puts on all the garb of woe,

the straw hat, the white robe with long sleeves turned inside out,

and the other paraphernalia of full mourning. As next of kin to the

deceased he presides over the funeral rites. Perfumes are burned,

sticks of incense kindled, leaves of gold and silver scattered,

crackers let off. When the flesh has been cut off and the oil

extracted, the remains of the carcase are buried in the sand. After

wards a shed is set up and offerings are made in it. Usually some

time after the burial the spirit of the dead whale takes possession

of some person in the village and declares by his mouth whether he

is a male or a female.

XXI. Tabooed Things

1. The Meaning of Taboo