_FIRST-FRUITS AND TABOOS_
Taboo is one of the few savage words which have struck root in England.
Introduced from New Zealand (_tapu_) and other Polynesian islands, it
is used in English to denote a prohibition. This, that, or the other
thing, or person, or book is 'tabooed.' Many of the Ten Commandments
are, in this sense, taboos. But, in anthropological language, 'taboo'
generally denotes something more than a prohibition. It commonly means
a prohibition for which, to the civilised mind, there is no very
obvious meaning. In this way the prohibitive Commandments are not
precisely taboos; it is pretty obvious why we ought not to steal or
kill, though the _raison d'être_ of the Seventh Commandment is obscure
to some advanced intelligences. But the reasons why a Sinclair must
not cross the Ord on a certain 'lawful day,' or why on another 'lawful
day' the fishermen of St. Andrews might not go a-fishing, resemble
many savage taboos in the lack of a manifest reason why. Secondly, the
infraction of the savage taboo generally, unlike that of the decalogue,
carries its own punishment. Forbidden food is poison, tabooed land is
dangerous to tread upon, to handle tabooed property may mean death;
nobody knows what awful cosmic catastrophe might occur if a tabooed
woman saw the sun; many words and names are taboo, and no luck will
come of using them--for instance, you must not name 'salmon,' 'pigs,'
or the minister when out fishing in some parts of Scotland.
In many cases the reason of this or that taboo is easily discovered. A
day is unlucky because all the fishers, as at St. Andrews, were lost
on that day in a past century through a storm; or the Sinclairs on
another day were cut off in an expedition. Most of us have our lucky
or unlucky days, clothes, and other vanities. Again, things are taboo
for some reason in that kind of faith which holds that things connected
in the association of ideas are mystically connected in fact. You must
not mention salmon, lest they hear you and escape; or tin in Malay tin
mining, lest the tin should literally 'make itself scarce.' You may
not name the fairies, a jealous folk. Therefore you say 'the people of
peace,' and so on. But many other taboos have good practical reasons.
If women, among ourselves, were tabooed from salmon-fishing, eating
oysters, or entering smoking-rooms (all of which things are greatly to
be desired), the reason would be the convenience of the men, who wish a
sanctuary or asylum in the smoking-room, and want to keep oysters and
fishing to themselves. It is pretty plain why the sight of the royal
treasury is tabooed to a West African king: to speak colloquially,
if admitted to see the hoards he 'would blue the lot.' A taboo often
protects by a supernatural sanction the property and persons of the
privileged classes. If the umbrella of a bishop or a baronet were
taboo, it would not be taken away from the club by accident.
This simple explanation covers the case of many taboos.
Brother and sister may scarcely ever see each other, still less speak
to or name each other, where the law against brother and sister
marriage or amour is the one most definite law of the community. 'It
is not, therefore, surprising,' says Mr. Jevons, 'that the earlier
students of the custom' (of taboo) 'regarded it as an artificial
invention, a piece of statecraft, cunningly devised in the interests
of the nobility and the priests. This view is, however, now generally
abandoned,' because taboo 'is most at home in communities which have
no state organisation, and flourishes where there are no priests or no
priesthood. Above all the belief is not artificial and imposed, but
spontaneous and natural.'[1]
I hesitate about this theory. Taboo can hardly flourish more than it
does in Polynesia and West Africa, where there are kings and priests.
Moreover, though there are human societies without kings or priests (as
in Australia), there are no societies in which artificial rules are
not propagated, instituted, and enforced by the adult males meeting
in councils. The Arunta of Central Australia are, of course, far from
'primitive.' They have institutions, ceremonies, weapons, rules, and a
complete system of philosophy, which must have needed unknown ages to
develop. They have local head-men, or Alatunjas, whose office passes
always in the male line: from father to son, if the son be of age to
succeed, or, if he is not, to the brother, on whose death it reverts
to the son. An Alatunja dying without a son nominates a brother or
nephew to succeed him. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen know no equivalent
to this law among other Australian tribes, and it indicates, among the
so-called 'primitive' Arunta, a marked advance beyond other tribes in
social evolution. The Alatunja is hereditary Convener of Council, and
if an able man has considerable power. He is guardian of the Sacra
of the group, determines the date of the cessation of close-time for
certain sorts of game, the date of the magical ceremonies for fostering
the game or edible plants, and directs the ceremonies. In the councils
called by the Alatunja it appears that changes in stereo-typed custom
may be introduced. Men learned in the customs and skilled in magic
'settle everything.' Definite proof of fundamental innovations thus
introduced Messrs. Spencer and Gillen do not possess; but tradition
indicates alterations of custom, and it is quite possible that a strong
Alatunja, well backed, might bring in even a radical reform.[2] There
are also recognised grades of skill among the medicine-men and the
dealers with spirits, who must have their own share of social influence.
In brief, though without priests or kings these backward tribes have
councils, and conveners, and directors whose office is hereditary
in the male line. These persons, through unknown ages, have moulded
customs and taboos, which are just as much sanctioned by tradition
and authority just as little 'spontaneous and universal,' as if kings
and priests had invented them for purposes of statecraft. Mr. Jevons
next argues that taboo 'cannot have been derived from experience.
It is prior to and even contradictory of experience. In fine, it is
an inherent tendency of the human mind.' In the same way Gibbon's
ancestor, Blue Gown herald, when among North American Indians, declared
that heraldry is an inherent tendency of the human mind, an innate idea.
An opinion is not necessarily erroneous because it is obsolete, nor a
view wrong because 'it is generally abandoned.' I am here supporting
the 'generally abandoned' hypothesis that many taboos, at least, are
artificial and imposed, against Mr. Jevons's idea that the taboo,
like armorial bearings, results from 'an inherent tendency of the
human mind' 'prior to and even contradictory of experience.'[3] That
'a new-born baby is dangerous,' or that 'the water in which a holy
person has washed is dangerous,' my private experience does not tell
me; in fact, I never made either experiment: never tubbed in the water
previously used by a bishop. But I am prepared to admit that neither
babies nor bishops are proved by our experience to be dangerous.
That is not the question. The savage argued, not from unbiassed and
impartial scientific experiment, but from _fancied_ experience. Thus
Mr. Jevons mentions a Maori who died after rinding out that he had
eaten, unawares, the remains of the luncheon of a holy person, a
chief. There was experience produced by suggestion. The suggestion was
suggested in the interests of holy chiefs; they were 'tabooed an inch
thick,' as Mr. Manning writes. As to the baby, the Dyaks, as in our own
fairy belief, hold that 'new-born children are the especial prey of
evil spirits,' just as corpses were in--Scotland, where, if the door
was left ajar, the corpse sat up, and mopped and mowed. If the watchers
left it, and dined in the 'but,' an awful _vacarme_ arose in the 'ben.'
The minister entered, stilled the tumult, asked for the tongs, and came
back holding in the tongs _a bloody glove_! This he dropped into the
fire.
This kind of thing is contradictory to the experience of Mr. Jevons,
but not to the _fancied_ experience of Dyaks, Scots, and other races.
Opinion therefore makes taboos in accordance with experience, or
what is believed to be experience, and the belief is fortified by
suggestion, which produces death or disease when the taboo is broken.
On the analogy of infectious diseases, the mischief of the tabooed
thing is held to be contagious.
Thus I cannot hold with Mr. Jevons that the human mind is provided
with an _a priori_ categorical imperative that there are some
things which must not be done,' 'a feeling' 'independent of sense
experience.'[4] If the choice of what things are 'not to be done'
seems to us 'irrational,' that is merely because our reason is more
enlightened than that of the savage. He prohibited just such things
as his philosophy, and what he believed to be his experience, showed
him to be dangerous for obscure reasons. Any fool could see that it
was dangerous to eat poison berries or frolic with a bear. But it took
reflection to discover that a baby or a corpse was dangerous by reason
of evil spirits, _Iruntarinia_, whom the _Alkna Buma,_ or clairvoyant,
could see, and describe, though Mr. Jevons and I could not discern
them.[5] These Iruntarinia notoriously carry off women, and probably,
like the fairies, have their best chance in the hour of child-birth:
at all events, the fairies have.[6] The belief is socially useful: it
prevents young Arunta women from wandering off alone, and philandering
out of bounds.
Thus these taboos are sanctioned by the tribal counsellors as the
results of experience, not their own perhaps, but that of the _Alkna
Buma_, or clairvoyant, or 'sensitive,' or 'medium,' or habitually
hallucinated person. Other taboos, as to women, are imposed for very
good reasons, though not for the reasons alleged, and broken taboos are
not (in actual ordinary experience) attended by the penalties which,
however, suggestion may produce.
Taboo, then, is not imposed irrationally, nor in deference to 'an
inherent tendency of the human mind' (that Mrs. Harris of philosophy),
but for a very good reason, as savage reasoning goes, and in accordance
with what is believed to be experience, and, by dint of suggestion,
really does become experience.
It was 'irrational' in Dr. Johnson to touch certain posts, and avoid
certain stones, and enter a door twice, if he first entered it with
the wrong foot. All my life I have had similar private taboos,
though nobody knows better that they are nonsense. But some solitary
experience in childhood probably suggested a relation of cause and
effect, where there was only a fortuitous sequence of antecedent and
consequent, and so Dr. Johnson and I (though not so conspicuously as
the Doctor) imposed taboos on ourselves in deference to (fancied)
experience. Early man has acted in the same way on a large scale,
obeying no categorical _a priori_ imperative, but merely acting on his
philosophy and experience which is real to him, though not to civilised
men. They usually do not understand it, but educated persons with a
survival of savagery in their mental constitutions find the affair
intelligible.
But the reason in actual practical experience for some taboos must be
plain to the most civilised minds, except those of Badical voters for
the Border Boroughs. Man, in the hunter stage, _must_ have game laws
and a close-time for edible animals and plants. The Border Badical will
not permit a close-time for trout, preferring to destroy them, and with
them their offspring, when gravid and unfit for human food, or before
they recover condition.
The 'primitive' Arunta are not so irrational, and have a close-time,
protected by taboo, or, at least, by ceremonies of a nature more
or less magical. In these ceremonies of a people not pastoral or
agricultural, we seem to see the germs of the offerings of first-fruits
to gods or spirits, though the Australian produce is offered neither
to spirits nor to gods. These tribes recognise a great spirit, indeed,
Twanyirika, but that he plays any other part in religion or society
than presiding over the tribal mysteries we have at present no
evidence to prove. Similar figures, associated with the mysteries,
are, in other parts of Australia, provided with an ample mythology,
and are subject to a being more august and remote. But either the
Arunta are advanced thinkers who have passed beyond such ideas, or
they have not yet attained to them, or our witnesses are uninformed on
the subject.[7] In any case, the first-fruits of the game, grubs, and
plants of the Arunta are not offered to Twanyirika, or to the minor
sprites, _Iruntarinia_.
The ceremonies, partly intended to make the creatures used for food
prolific, and partly, I think, to indicate that the close-time is over
and that the creatures may be taken and eaten, are called Intichiuma.
On the mummeries expected to make animals and plants plentiful we need
not dwell. In each case the men who belong to the totem of the beast,
grub, or plant perform the ceremonies. There is believed to be a close
and essential connection between a man of the kangaroo totem and all
kangaroos, between a man of the grub totem and all grubs, so each totem
group does the magic to propagate its ally among beasts or plants. How
these ideas arose we do not know. But if a local group was originally
called kangaroos or grubs (and some name it must have), the association
of names would inevitably lead, by association of ideas, to the notion
that a mysterious connection existed between the men of a totem name
and the plant, animal, or what not which gave the name. These men,
therefore, would work the magic for propagating their kindred in the
animal and vegetable world. But the existence of this connection would
also suggest that, in common decency, a man should not kill and eat his
animal or vegetable relations. In most parts of the world he abstains
from this uncousinly behaviour: among the Arunta he may eat sparingly
of his totem, and must do so at the end of the close-time or beginning
of the season.
He thus, as a near relation of the actual kangaroos or grubs, declares
the season open, and gives his neighbours of other totems a lead. Now
they may begin to eat grubs or kangaroos; the taboo is off. Thus, in
1745, Gask tabooed the corn of his tenants; they must not reap it,
because they refused 'to rise and follow Charlie.' Prince Charles,
hearing of this, cut a few ears with his claymore, thus removing the
taboo. In the same way the grub or kangaroo men publicly eat a little
of their own totem, after which the tribesmen and other totems may fall
to and devour. When the grub or whatever it is becomes plentiful, after
the magic doings for its propagation, it is collected and placed before
some members of the grub totem. The _Alatunja_, or convener, grinds up
some of the grub, he and his fellow totemists eat a little, and hand
the mass back to the members of other totems. They eat a little of
their own totem, partly, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say, to strengthen
their mystic connection with the creature. This, in a way, is a
'sacramental' idea, though no religious regard is paid to the plants
and animals. But the men also partake, to remove the taboo, and to let
the rest of the community gorge themselves legally.[8]
The rite has thus a practical purpose. The grubs or other creatures
are not prematurely destroyed, like trout on the Border. In fact,
trout themselves are sensible enough not to begin feeding on May fly
prematurely. 'Throughout the previous week,' says Sir Herbert Maxwell,
'a few May flies had been seen ... but not a trout would point his nose
at one.... This hesitation on the part of the trout to begin their
annual banquet is one of the best known and, at the same time, least
explicable features of the May fly fortnight.'[9] The Arunta also let
the grub come on to its full rise before feeding. When a certain bulb
is ripe, the men of its totem rub off and blow away the husks, then
the general public may begin feeding. There is nothing sacramental
in _this_ ceremony, which merely opens the season for tuber eating.
The taboo is off. And so in other cases: the kangaroo men are smeared
with the fat of the kangaroo, and eat a little of the animal.[10] The
non-kangaroo tribesmen may then eat kangaroo. The traditions of the
Arunta represent their mythical ancestors as in some cases feeding
_solely_ on their totems. But this cannot possibly be true. A grub man
would die, when grubs were out, of starvation, and so with the rest.
'When fruits is in, cats is out,' and a man of the gooseberry totem,
who only ate gooseberries, would perish miserably.
The Arunta eating of the totem has nothing to do with consecrating
the first-fruits of grubs or kangaroos to a god or with absorbing the
qualities of a spirit. When Swedish peasants bake a cake shaped like a
girl, from the last sheaf of the new corn, they perhaps originally ate
the cake 'as the body of the corn spirit.'[11] But when the Lithuanian
farmer takes the first swig of the new beer--'the second brew was for
the servants'--perhaps he is only declaring his ownership, and opening
the beer season.[12] In an unnamed part of Yorkshire the parson cuts
the first corn; he is the _Alatunja_, and opens the harvest. In the
Celebes the priest opens the rice harvest; all eat of it; 'after this
every one is free to get in his rice.' At St. Andrews on the Medal
Day (which is in harvest time) the Alatunja (that is the new captain)
drives a ball from the first tee; after this every one is free to drive
off in his turn--but not before. In some places, as in Indo-China,
the first-fruits are offered to a god; in Zululand the king pops a
little into the mouth of every man present, who 'may immediately
get in his crops.' If he began harvest before he would die, or, if
detected, would be speared, or forfeited. Sometimes the first-fruits
are offered to 'the holy spirit of fire.' There are all sorts of ways
and ceremonies of opening the season and taking off the taboo. I really
don't think it follows that the first fruits are dangerous to eat,
before the ceremony, _because_ 'they are regarded as instinct with a
divine virtue, and consequently the eating of them is a sacrament or
communion.[13] I It is dangerous to eat them, as it would be dangerous
to steal a tabooed umbrella. They are tabooed because it is close-time.
The other ideas may come to be entertained, an automatic punishment
may be thought to follow the breach of the taboo, though we do not
learn that this is the case among the Arunta. But the origin of the
taboo on the immature food, I think, is the perfectly practical idea
of a close-time; plants are not to be gathered, nor animals killed,
prematurely. The more or less supreme being of the Fuegians is
angry--if you shoot flappers. 'Very bad to shoot little duck, come
rain, come wind, blow, very much blow.'[14] The 'great black man, who
cannot be escaped, and who influences the weather according to men's
conduct,' is right about the flappers. He sanctions a necessary game
law. The _How_ (king), in Tonga, used to wait till the yams were ripe,
then he fixed a day for gathering them, and had a religious function.
The sort of function depends on the stage at which local religion
has arrived; but a close-time--no premature killing or gathering--is
the practical idea at the base of all these affairs of first-fruits.
Any other superstition, sacrificial or sacramental, may crystallise
round the practical primitive prohibition, especially when it was
sanctioned by the good old device of automatic punishment, following on
infringement of taboo.
If Sir Herbert Maxwell could persuade Mr. Thomas Shaw, M.P., that the
proverbially execrable weather on the Border is the direct result of
fishing, especially with salmon-roe, out of season; if there was to be
no fishing till Mr. Shaw, after tasting of the first trout, declared
the season open; if the clergy of all denominations lent their presence
to the imposing ceremony, then I believe that Tweed, Ettrick, Teviot,
Yarrow, Ail, and Kale would be worth fishing in again.
Taboo, as Mr. Frazer and Mr. Jevons agree, has had its uses in the
evolution of morality; but remark that strictly moral offences are
nowhere under taboo. You may steal (as long as the object stolen is not
tabooed and does not belong to a chief or priest), you may kill, you
may interfere with the domestic bliss of your neighbour, you may lie,
but the automatic punishment of taboo-breaking nowhere follows. Baiame
or Pundjel may punish you; but there is no instant mechanical penalty,
as under taboo.
After writing this paper, I found that Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson's
experience of _tapu_, in the Pacific, led him to form the same opinions
as are here expressed. 'The devil-fish, it seems, were growing scarce
upon the reef; it was judged fit to interpose what we should call a
close season ... a tapu had to be declared.' The tapus described 'are
for thoroughly sensible ends.' There are tapus which, to us, appear
absurd, 'but the tapu is more often the instrument of wise and needful
restrictions.'[15]
These taboos are imposed from above, by Government. In other cases,
where the taboo expresses an inference from savage superstition (say
that a baby or a corpse is dangerous), the taboo is not imposed
except by public opinion. That opinion is sanctioned (as in the case
of first-fruits) by the action of the Alatunja, or headman: in more
advanced societies, by the king. In many cases, taboos are imposed on
the king himself by the priestly colleges. But the greatest authority
is tradition, resting on fancied experience.
[1] _Introduction to the History of Religion_, p. 82.
[2] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 10-16.
[3] Jevons, p. 85.
[4] Jevons, pp. 85-87.
[5] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 15, 515.
[6] _Ibid._ p. 517.
[7] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 222, 246.
[8] The Arunta eating of the totem, at the magic ceremony, is not
religious. Mr. Jevons, however, adduces it as proof of 'the existence
of the totem-sacrament,' surviving 'in an etiolated form.' But what
proof have we that the totems were once 'totem gods,' or in any
way divine, among the Arunta? Jevons, 'The Science of Religion,'
_International Monthly_, p. 489, April 1901.
[9] _Memories of the Months_, 1900, pp. 132, 133.
[10] Spencer and Gillen, chapter vi.
[11] _G. B_. ii. 318.
[12] _Ibid._
[13] _G. B_. ii. 335.
[14] Fitzroy, _Cruise of the Beagle_, ii. 180.
[15] _In the South Seas_, pp. 47-50.