§ 1. Taboos on Intercourse with Strangers.
(M69) 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.
(M70) 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.(355) 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.(356) On returning from an
attempted ascent of the great African mountain Kilimanjaro, which is
believed by the neighbouring tribes to be tenanted by dangerous demons,
Mr. New and his party, as soon as they reached the border of the inhabited
country, were disenchanted by the inhabitants, being sprinkled with “a
professionally prepared liquor, supposed to possess the potency of
neutralising evil influences, and removing the spell of wicked
spirits.”(357) In the interior of Yoruba (West Africa) the sentinels at
the gates of towns often oblige European travellers to wait till nightfall
before they admit them, fearing that if the strangers were admitted by day
the devil would enter behind them.(358) The whole Mahafaly country in
Madagascar used to be tabooed to strangers of the white race, the natives
imagining that the intrusion of a white man would immediately cause the
death of their king. The traveller Bastard had the greatest difficulty in
overcoming the reluctance of the natives to allow him to enter their land
and especially to visit their holy city.(359) 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.(360) 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.(361) “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
shewed herself outside her house without a burning bundle of _plehiding_
bark, the stinking smoke of which drives away evil spirits.”(362) In Laos,
before a stranger can be accorded hospitality, the master of the house
must offer sacrifice to the ancestral spirits; otherwise the spirits would
be offended and would send disease on the inmates.(363) When Madame
Pfeiffer arrived at the village of Hali-Bonar, among the Battas of
Sumatra, a buffalo was killed and the liver offered to her. Then a
ceremony was performed to propitiate the evil spirits. Two young men
danced, and one of them in dancing sprinkled water from a buffalo’s horn
on the visitor and the spectators.(364) In the Mentawei Islands, when a
stranger enters a house where there are children, the father or other
member of the family takes the ornament which the children wear in their
hair and hands it to the stranger, who holds it in his hands for a while
and then gives it back to him. This is thought to protect the children
from the evil effect which the sight of a stranger might have upon
them.(365) When a Dutch steamship was approaching their villages, the
people of Biak, an island off the north coast of New Guinea, shook and
knocked their idols about in order to ward off ill-luck.(366) At
Shepherd’s Isle Captain Moresby had to be disenchanted before he was
allowed to land his boat’s crew. When he leaped ashore, a devil-man seized
his right hand and waved a bunch of palm leaves over the captain’s head.
Then “he placed the leaves in my left hand, putting a small green twig
into his mouth, still holding me fast, and then, as if with great effort,
drew the twig from his mouth—this was extracting the evil spirit—after
which he blew violently, as if to speed it away. I now held a twig between
my teeth, and he went through the same process.” Then the two raced round
a couple of sticks fixed in the ground and bent to an angle at the top,
which had leaves tied to it. After some more ceremonies the devil-man
concluded by leaping to the level of Captain Moresby’s shoulders (his
hands resting on the captain’s shoulders) several times, “as if to show
that he had conquered the devil, and was now trampling him into the
earth.”(367) North American Indians “have an idea that strangers,
particularly white strangers, are ofttimes accompanied by evil spirits. Of
these they have great dread, as creating and delighting in mischief. One
of the duties of the medicine chief is to exorcise these spirits. I have
sometimes ridden into or through a camp where I was unknown or unexpected,
to be confronted by a tall, half-naked savage, standing in the middle of
the circle of lodges, and yelling in a sing-song, nasal tone, a string of
unintelligible words.”(368)
(M71) 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.(369) 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.(370) 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.(371) So on the
Slave Coast of Africa 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.(372) In Hawaii a patient is
sometimes pricked with bamboo needles for the sake of hurting and
expelling a refractory demon who is lurking in the sufferer’s body and
making him ill.(373) Dyak sorceresses in south-eastern Borneo will
sometimes slash the body of a sick man with sharp knives in order, it is
said, to allow the demon of disease to escape through the cuts;(374) but
perhaps the notion rather is to make the present quarters of the spirit
too hot for him. With a similar intention some of the natives of Borneo
and Celebes sprinkle rice upon the head or body of a person supposed to be
infested by dangerous spirits; a fowl is then brought, which, by picking
up the rice from the person’s head or body, removes along with it the
spirit or ghost which is clinging like a burr to his skin. This is done,
for example, to persons who have attended a funeral, and who may therefore
be supposed to be infested by the ghost of the deceased.(375) Similarly
Basutos, who have carried a corpse to the grave, have their hands
scratched with a knife from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the
forefinger, and magic stuff is rubbed into the wound,(376) for the
purpose, no doubt, of removing the ghost which may be adhering to their
skin. Among the Barotse of south-eastern Africa a few days after a funeral
the sorcerer makes an incision in the forehead of each surviving member of
the family and fills it with medicine, “in order to ward off contagion and
the effect of the sorcery which caused the death.”(377) When
elephant-hunters in East Africa have killed an elephant they get upon its
carcase, make little cuts in their toes, and rub gunpowder into the cuts.
This is done with the double intention of counteracting any evil influence
that may emanate from the dead elephant, and of acquiring thereby the
fleetness of foot possessed by the animal in its life.(378) The people of
Nias carefully scrub and scour the weapons and clothes which they buy, in
order to efface all connexion between the things and the persons from whom
they bought them.(379)
(M72) 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, and lie a little to the north of the Solomon Islands, 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.(380) 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.(381) Sometimes a tray of lighted embers is thrown
under the hoofs of the traveller’s horse, with the words, “You are
welcome.”(382) 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.(383) Before
strangers entered the country or city of Benin, custom compelled them to
have their feet washed; sometimes the ceremony was performed in a sacred
place.(384) Amongst the Esquimaux of Cumberland Inlet, when a stranger
arrives at an encampment, the sorcerer goes out to meet him. The stranger
folds his arms and inclines his head to one side, so as to expose his
cheek, upon which the magician deals a terrible blow, sometimes felling
him to the ground. Next the sorcerer in his turn presents his cheek to the
smiter and receives a buffet from the stranger. Then they kiss each other,
the ceremony is over, and the stranger is hospitably received by all.(385)
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.”(386)
(M73) 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 _noa_ (common), lest it
might have been previously _tapu_ (sacred).(387) 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.(388) 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. Before
Stuhlmann and his companions entered the territory of the Wanyamwesi in
central Africa, one of his men killed a white cock and buried it in a pot
just at the boundary.(389) 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.”(390) On the coast of Victoria there is a tract of country between
the La Trobe River and the Yarra River, which some of the aborigines
called the Bad Country. It was supposed to act injuriously on strangers.
Hence when a man of another clan entered it he needed some one of the
natives to look after him; and if his guardian went away from the camp, he
deputed another to take his place. During his first visit, before he
became as it were acclimatised, the visitor did nothing for himself as to
food, drinking-water, or lodging. He was painted with a band of white
pipe-clay across the face below the eyes, and had to learn the Nulit
language before going further. He slept on a thick layer of leaves so that
he should not touch the ground; and he was fed with flesh-meat from the
point of a burnt stick, which he removed with his teeth, not with his
lips. His drinking-water was drawn from a small hole in the ground by his
entertainers, and they made it muddy by stirring it with a stick. He might
only take three mouthfuls at a time, each of which he had to let slowly
trickle down his throat. If he did otherwise, his throat would close
up.(391) The Kayans and Kenyahs of Borneo think it well to conciliate the
spirit of the land when they enter a strange country. “The old men,
indeed, trusting to the protection afforded by omens, are in little need
of further aid, but when young boys are brought into a new river of
importance, the hospitality of the local demons is invoked. The Kayans
make an offering of fowls’ eggs, which must not be bought on the spot, but
are carried from the house, sometimes for distances so long that the
devotion of the travellers is more apparent than their presents to the
spirits of the land. Each boy takes an egg and puts it in a bamboo split
at the end into four, while one of the older men calls upon the hills,
rocks, trees, and streams to hear him and to witness the offering. Careful
to disguise the true nature of the gift, he speaks of it as _ovē_, a yam,
using a form of words fixed by usage. ‘Omen bird,’ he shouts into the air,
‘we have brought you these boys. It is on their account only that we have
prepared this feast. Harm them not; make things go pleasantly; and they
give you the usual offering of a yam. I give this to the country.’ The
little ceremony is performed behind the hut where the night is spent, and
the boys wait about for the charm to take effect. The custom of the
Kenyahs shows the same feeling for the unknown and unseen spirits that are
supposed to abound. A fowl’s feathers, one for each boy, are held by an
old man, while the youngsters touch his arm. The invocation is quite a
powerful example of native rhetoric: ‘Smooth away trouble, ye mystic
mountains, hills, valleys, soil, rocks, trees. Shield the lives of the
children who have come hither.’ ”(392) When the Toradjas of central
Celebes 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.(393) It is said that just before Greek armies
advanced to the shock of battle, a man bearing a lighted torch stepped out
from either side and threw his torch into the space between the hosts.
Then they retired unmolested, for they were thought to be sacred to Ares
and inviolable.(394) Now some peoples fancy that when they advance to
battle the spirits of their fathers hover in the van.(395) Hence fire
thrown out in front of the line of battle may be meant to disperse these
shadowy combatants, leaving the issue of the fight to be determined by
more substantial weapons than ghosts can wield. Similarly the fire which
is sometimes borne at the head of an army(396) is perhaps in some cases
intended to dissipate the evil influences, whether magical or spiritual,
with which the air of the enemy’s country may be conceived to teem.
(M74) Again, it is thought that a man who has been on a journey may have
contracted some magic evil from the strangers with whom he has been
brought into contact. 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.”(397) 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.(398) Every year about one-third
of the men of the Wanyamwesi tribe make journeys to the east coast of
Africa either as porters or as traffickers. Before he sets out, the
husband smears his cheeks with a sort of meal-porridge, and during his
absence his wife may eat no flesh and must keep for him the sediment of
the porridge in the pot. On their return from the coast the men sprinkle
meal every day on all the paths leading to the camp, for the purpose, it
is supposed, of keeping evil spirits off; and when they reach their homes
the men again smear porridge on their faces, while the women who have
stayed at home strew ashes on their heads.(399) In Uganda, when a man
returns from a journey, his wife takes some of the bark cloths from the
bed of one of his children and lays them on her husband’s bed; and as he
enters the house, he jumps over one of his wives who has children by him,
or over one of his children. If he neglects to do this, one of his
children or one of his wives will die.(400) When Damaras return home after
a long absence, they are given a small portion of the fat of particular
animals, which is supposed to possess certain virtues.(401) A story is
told of a Navajo Indian who, after long wanderings, returned to his own
people. When he came within sight of his house, his people made him stop
and told him not to approach nearer till they had summoned a shaman. When
the shaman was come “ceremonies were performed over the returned wanderer,
and he was washed from head to foot, and dried with corn-meal; for thus do
the Navajo treat all who return to their homes from captivity with another
tribe, in order that all alien substances and influences may be removed
from them. When he had been thus purified he entered the house, and his
people embraced him and wept over him.”(402) 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.(403) In some of the Moluccas, when a
brother or young blood-relation returns from a long journey, a young girl
awaits him at the door with a _caladi_ leaf in her hand and water in the
leaf. She throws the water over his face and bids him welcome.(404) Among
the Kayans of Borneo, men who have been absent on a long journey are
secluded for four days in a small hut made specially for the purpose
before they are allowed to enter their own house.(405) The natives of
Savage Island (South Pacific) invariably killed, not only all strangers in
distress who were drifted to their shores, but also any of their own
people who had gone away in a ship and returned home. This was done out of
dread of disease. Long after they began to venture out to ships they would
not immediately use the things they obtained from them, but hung them up
in quarantine for weeks in the bush.(406)
(M75) 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.(407) 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.(408) Before strangers were admitted to
the presence of Lobengula, king of the Matebeles, they had to be treated
with a sticky green medicine, which was profusely sprinkled over them by
means of a cow’s tail.(409) At Kilema, in eastern Africa, when a stranger
arrives, a medicine is made out of a certain plant or a tree fetched from
a distance, mixed with the blood of a sheep or goat. With this mixture the
stranger is besmeared or besprinkled before he is admitted to the presence
of the king.(410) The king of Monomotapa, in South-East Africa, might not
wear any foreign stuffs for fear of their being poisoned.(411) The king of
Cacongo, in West Africa, might not possess or even touch European goods,
except metals, arms, and articles made of wood and ivory. Persons wearing
foreign stuffs were very careful to keep at a distance from his person,
lest they should touch him.(412) The king of Loango might not look upon
the house of a white man.(413) We have already seen how the native king of
Fernando Po dwells secluded from all contact with the whites in the depths
of an extinct volcano, shunning the very sight of a pale face, which, in
the belief of his subjects, would be instantly fatal to him.(414) In a
wild mountainous district of Java, to the south of Bantam, there exists a
small aboriginal race who have been described as a living antiquity. These
are the Baduwis, who about the year 1443 fled from Bantam to escape
conversion to Islam, and in their mountain fastnesses, holding aloof from
their neighbours, still cleave to the quaint and primitive ways of their
heathen forefathers. Their villages are perched in spots which deep
ravines, lofty precipices, raging torrents, and impenetrable forests
combine to render almost inaccessible. Their hereditary ruler bears the
title of Girang-Pu-un and unites in his hands the temporal and spiritual
power. He must never quit the capital, and none even of his subjects who
live outside the town are ever allowed to see him. Were an alien to set
foot in his dwelling, the place would be desecrated and abandoned. In
former times the representatives of the Dutch Government and the Regent of
Java once paid a visit to the capital of the Baduwis. That very night all
the people fled the place and never returned.(415)
§ 2. Taboos on Eating and Drinking.
(M76) 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.”(416) Precautions are
therefore taken to guard against these dangers. Thus of the Battas of
Sumatra 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 (_tondi_) may stay and enjoy the good things set
before it.”(417) The Zafimanelo in Madagascar lock their doors when they
eat, and hardly any one ever sees them eating.(418) In Shoa, one of the
southern provinces of Abyssinia, the doors of the house are scrupulously
barred at meals to exclude the evil eye, and a fire is invariably lighted,
else devils would enter and there would be no blessing on the meat.(419)
Every time that an Abyssinian of rank drinks, a servant holds a cloth
before his master to guard him from the evil eye.(420) 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 of _pombe_ they often ask that a cloth may be
held up to hide them whilst drinking. Further, every man and woman must
cook for themselves; each person must have his own fire.(421) The Tuaregs
of the Sahara never eat or drink in presence of any one else.(422) The
Thompson Indians of British Columbia thought that a shaman could bewitch
them most easily when they were eating, drinking, or smoking; hence they
avoided doing any of these things in presence of an unknown shaman.(423)
In Fiji persons who suspected others of plotting against them avoided
eating in their presence, or were careful to leave no fragment of food
behind.(424)
(M77) 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.(425)
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.(426) 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.(427) Any one who saw the Muata Jamwo (a great potentate in the
Congo Basin) eating or drinking would certainly be put to death.(428) When
the king (_Muata_) of Cazembe raises his glass to his mouth to drink, all
who are present prostrate themselves and avert their faces in such a
manner as not to see him drinking.(429) At Asaba, on the Lower Niger,
where the kings or chiefs number fully four hundred, no one is allowed to
prepare the royal dishes. The chiefs act as their own cooks and eat in the
strictest privacy.(430) The king and royal family of Walo, on the Senegal,
never take their meals in public; it is expressly forbidden to see them
eating.(431) Among the Monbutto of central Africa the king invariably
takes his meals in private; no one may see the contents of his dish, and
all that he leaves is carefully thrown into a pit set apart for that
purpose. Everything that the king has handled is held sacred and may not
be touched.(432) When the king of Unyoro 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.(433) The king
of Susa, a region to the south of Abyssinia, presides daily at the feast
in the long banqueting-hall, but is hidden from the gaze of his subjects
by a curtain.(434) Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast the
person of the king is sacred, and if he drinks in public every one must
turn away the head so as not to see him, while some of the women of the
court hold up a cloth before him as a screen. He never eats in public, and
the people pretend to believe that he neither eats nor sleeps. It is
criminal to say the contrary.(435) When the king of Tonga ate, all the
people turned their backs to him.(436) In the palace of the Persian kings
there were two dining-rooms opposite each other; in one of them the king
dined, in the other his guests. He could see them through a curtain on the
door, but they could not see him. Generally the king took his meals alone;
but sometimes his wife or some of his sons dined with him.(437)
§ 3. Taboos on shewing the Face.
(M78) 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 _massanga_ (beer).”(438) 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.(439) The Sultan of
Wadai always speaks from behind a curtain; no one sees his face except his
intimates and a few favoured persons.(440) Similarly the Sultan of Bornu
never shewed himself to his people and only spoke to them from behind a
curtain.(441) The king of Chonga, a town on the right bank of the Niger
above Egga, may not be seen by his subjects nor by strangers. At an
interview he sits in his palace concealed by a mat which hangs like a
curtain, and from behind it he converses with his visitor.(442) The Muysca
Indians of Colombia had such a respect for their chiefs that they dared
not lift their eyes on them, but always turned their backs when they had
to address them. If a thief, after repeated punishments, proved
incorrigible, they took him to the chief, and one of the nobles, turning
the culprit round, said to him, “Since you think yourself so great a lord
that you have the right to break the laws, you have the right to look at
the chief.” From that moment the criminal was regarded as infamous. Nobody
would have anything to do with him or even speak to him, and he died an
outcast.(443) Montezuma was revered by his subjects as a god, and he set
so much store on their reverence that if on going out of the city he saw a
man lift up his eyes on him, he had the rash gazer put to death. He
generally lived in the retirement of his palace, seldom shewing himself.
On the days when he went to visit his gardens, he was carried in a litter
through a street which was enclosed by walls; none but his bearers had the
right to pass along that street.(444) It was a law of the Medes that their
king should be seen by nobody.(445) The king of Jebu, on the Slave Coast
of West Africa, is surrounded by a great deal of mystery. Until lately his
face might not be seen even by his own subjects, and if circumstances
compelled him to communicate with them he did so through a screen which
concealed him from view. Now, though his face may be seen, it is customary
to hide his body; and at audiences a cloth is held before him so as to
conceal him from the neck downwards, and it is raised so as to cover him
altogether whenever he coughs, sneezes, spits, or takes snuff. His face is
partially hidden by a conical cap with hanging strings of beads.(446)
Amongst the Tuaregs of the Sahara all the men (but not the women) keep the
lower part of their face, especially the mouth, veiled constantly; the
veil is never put off, not even in eating or sleeping.(447) Among the
Arabs men remarkable for their good looks have been known to veil their
faces, especially at festivals and markets, in order to protect themselves
against the evil eye.(448) The same reason may explain the custom of
muffling their faces which has been observed by Arab women from the
earliest times(449) and by the women of Boeotian Thebes in antiquity.(450)
In Samoa a man whose family god was the turtle might not eat a turtle, and
if he helped a neighbour to cut up and cook one he had to wear a bandage
tied over his mouth lest an embryo turtle should slip down his throat,
grow up, and be his death.(451) In West Timor a speaker holds his right
hand before his mouth in speaking lest a demon should enter his body, and
lest the person with whom he converses should harm the speaker’s soul by
magic.(452) In New South Wales for some time after his initiation into the
tribal mysteries, a young blackfellow (whose soul at this time is in a
critical state) must always cover his mouth with a rug when a woman is
present.(453) We have already seen how common is the notion that the life
or soul may escape by the mouth or nostrils.(454)
§ 4. Taboos on quitting the House.
(M79) 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. We have seen that the priestly
king at Shark Point, West Africa, may never quit his house or even his
chair, in which he is obliged to sleep sitting; and that the king of
Fernando Po, whom no white man may see, is reported to be confined to his
house with shackles on his legs.(455) The fetish king of Benin, who was
worshipped as a deity by his subjects, might not quit his palace.(456)
After his coronation the king of Loango is confined to his palace, which
he may not leave.(457) The king of Onitsha, on the Niger, “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.”(458) 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. One day the
monarch, charmed by some presents which he had received from a French
officer, politely attended his visitor to the gate, and in a moment of
forgetfulness was about to break bounds, when his chamberlain, seizing his
majesty by his legs, and his wives, friends, and servants rushing up,
prevented him from taking so fatal a step. 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.(459) The Tomas or Habes, a hardy race of mountaineers who inhabit
Mount Bandiagara in Nigeria, revere a great fetish doctor called the Ogom,
who is not suffered to quit his house on any pretext.(460) Among the
natives of the Cross River in Southern Nigeria the sacred chiefs of
certain villages are confined to their compounds, that is, to the
enclosures in which their houses are built. Such chiefs may be confined
for years within these narrow bounds. “Among these primitive people, the
head chief is often looked upon as half divine, the human representative
of their ancestral god. He regulates their religious rites, and is by some
tribes believed to have the power of making rain fall when they require
it, and of bringing them good harvests. So, being of such value to the
community, he is not permitted, except on very rare occasions, to go
outside his compound, lest evil should befall him, and the whole town have
to suffer.”(461) The kings of Ethiopia were worshipped as gods, but were
mostly kept shut up in their palaces.(462) 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.(463) 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.(464) 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.(465) So down to recent times the
kings of Corea, whose persons were sacred and received “honours almost
divine,” were shut up in their palace from the age of twelve or fifteen;
and if a suitor wished to obtain justice of the king he sometimes lit a
great bonfire on a mountain facing the palace; the king saw the fire and
informed himself of the case.(466) The Emperor of China seldom quits his
palace, and when he does so, no one may look at him; even the guards who
line the road must turn their backs.(467) The king of Tonquin was
permitted to appear abroad twice or thrice a year for the performance of
certain religious ceremonies; but the people were not allowed to look at
him. The day before he came forth notice was given to all the inhabitants
of the city and country to keep from the way the king was to go; the women
were obliged to remain in their houses and durst not shew themselves under
pain of death, a penalty which was carried out on the spot if any one
disobeyed the order, even through ignorance. Thus the king was invisible
to all but his troops and the officers of his suite.(468) In Mandalay a
stout lattice-paling, six feet high and carefully kept in repair, lined
every street in the walled city and all those streets in the suburbs
through which the king was likely at any time to pass. Behind this paling,
which stood two feet or so from the houses, all the people had to stay
when the king or any of the queens went out. Any one who was caught
outside it by the beadles after the procession had started was severely
handled, and might think himself lucky if he got off with a beating.
Nobody was supposed to peep through the holes in the lattice-work, which
were besides partly stopped up with flowering shrubs.(469)
§ 5. Taboos on leaving Food over.
(M80) 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.(470) Further,
the Narrinyeri think that if a man eats of the totem animal of his tribe,
and an enemy obtains a portion of the flesh, the latter can make it grow
in the inside of the eater, and so cause his death. Therefore when a man
partakes of his totem he is careful either to eat it all or else to
conceal or destroy the refuse.(471) In the Encounter Bay tribe of South
Australia, when a man cannot get the bone of an animal which his enemy has
eaten, he cooks a bird, beast, or fish, and keeping back one of the
creature’s bones, offers the rest under the guise of friendship to his
enemy. If the man is simple enough to partake of the proffered food, he is
at the mercy of his perfidious foe, who can kill him by placing the
abstracted bone near the fire.(472)
(M81) Ideas and practices of the same sort prevail, or used to prevail, in
Melanesia; all that was needed to injure a man was to bring the leavings
of his food into contact with a malignant ghost or spirit. Hence in the
island of Florida when a scrap of an enemy’s dinner was secreted and
thrown into a haunted place, the man was supposed to fall ill; and in the
New Hebrides if a snake of a certain sort carried away a fragment of food
to a spot sacred to a spirit, the man who had eaten the food would sicken
as the fragment decayed. In Aurora the refuse is made up by the wizard
with certain leaves; as these rot and stink, the man dies. Hence it is, or
was, a constant care with the Melanesians to prevent the remains of their
meals from falling into the hands of persons who bore them a grudge; for
this reason they regularly gave the refuse of food to the pigs.(473) 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.(474) In German 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. To such an extent does
this fear influence them that many people dare not stir beyond the
territory of their own village, lest they should leave behind them on the
land of their neighbours something by means of which a hostile sorcerer
might do them a mischief.(475) Similar fears have led to similar customs
in New Britain and the other islands of what is now called the Bismarck
Archipelago, off the north coast of New Guinea. There also the natives
bury, burn, or throw into the sea the remains of their meals to prevent
them from falling into the hands of magicians; there also the more
superstitious of them will not eat in another village because they dread
the use which a sorcerer might make of their leavings when their back is
turned. This theory has led to an odd practical result; all the cats in
the islands of the Archipelago go about with stumpy tails. The reason of
the peculiarity is this. The natives sometimes roast and eat their cats;
and unscrupulous persons might be tempted to steal a neighbour’s cat in
order to furnish a meal. Accordingly, in the interests of the higher
morality people remove this stumbling-block from the path of their weaker
brothers by docking their cats of a piece of their tails and keeping the
severed portions in a secret place. If now a cat is stolen and eaten, the
lawful owner of the animal has it in his power to avenge the crime: he
need only bury the piece of tail with certain spells in the ground, and
the thief will fall ill. Hence a man will hardly dare to steal and eat a
cat with a stumpy tail, knowing the righteous retribution that would
sooner or later overtake him for so doing.(476)
(M82) 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.(477) Similarly,
no man may drink out of the same cup or glass with the king of Fida
(Whydah) in Guinea; “he hath always one kept particularly for himself; and
that which hath but once touched another’s lips he never uses more, though
it be made of metal that may be cleansed by fire.”(478) Amongst the
Alfoors of Celebes there is a priest called the _Leleen_, whose duty
appears to be to make the rice grow. His functions begin about a month
before the rice is sown, and end after the crop is housed. During this
time he has to observe certain taboos; amongst others he may not eat or
drink with any one else, and he may drink out of no vessel but his
own.(479) An ancient Indian way of injuring an enemy was to offer him a
meal of rice and afterwards throw the remains of the rice into a fishpond;
if the fish swam up in large numbers to devour the grains, the man’s fate
was sealed.(480) 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.(481) 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.
(M83) 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.(482)