slain an enemy in battle becomes tabooed for ten days, during which he may
hold no intercourse with his wife, and may not meddle with fire. Hence
another has to make fire and to cook for him. Nevertheless he is treated
with marked distinction and receives presents of pigs.(606) In Fiji any
one who had clubbed a human being to death in war was consecrated or
tabooed. He was smeared red by the king with turmeric from the roots of
his hair to his heels. A hut was built, and in it he had to pass the next
three nights, during which he might not lie down, but must sleep as he
sat. Till the three nights had elapsed he might not change his garment,
nor remove the turmeric, nor enter a house in which there was a
woman.(607) 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.(608)
(M111) When the Tupi Indians of Brazil had made a prisoner in war, they
used to bring him home amid great rejoicings, decked with the gorgeous
plumage of tropical birds. In the village he was well treated: he received
a house and furniture and was married to a wife. When he was thus
comfortably installed, the relations and friends of his captor, who had
the first pick, came and examined him and decided which of his limbs and
joints they proposed to eat; and according to their choice they were bound
to provide him with victuals. Thus he might live for months or years,
treated like a king, supplied with all the delicacies of the country, and
rearing a family of children who, when they were big, might or might not
be eaten with their father. While he was thus being fattened like a capon
for the slaughter, he wore a necklace of fruit or of fish-bones strung on
a cotton thread. This was the measure of his life. For every fruit or
every bone on the string he had a month to live; and as each moon waned
and vanished they took a fruit or a bone from the necklace. When only one
remained, they sent out invitations to friends and neighbours far and
near, who flocked in, sometimes to the number of ten or twelve thousand,
to witness the spectacle and partake of the feast; for often a number of
prisoners were to die the same day, father, mother, and children all
together. As a rule they shewed a remarkable stolidity and indifference to
death. The club with which they were to be despatched was elaborately
prepared by the women, who adorned it with tassels of feathers, smeared it
with the pounded shells of a macaw’s eggs, and traced lines on the
egg-shell powder. Then they hung it to a pole, above the ground, in an
empty hut, and sang around it all night. The executioner, who was painted
grey with ashes and his whole body covered with the beautiful feathers of
parrots and other birds of gay plumage, performed his office by striking
the victim on the head from behind and dashing out his brains. No sooner
had he despatched the prisoner than he retired to his house, where he had
to stay all that day without eating or drinking, while the rest of the
people feasted on the body of the victim or victims. And for three days he
was obliged to fast and remain in seclusion. All this time he lay in his
hammock and might not set foot on the ground; if he had to go anywhere, he
was carried by bearers. They thought that, were he to break this rule,
some disaster would befall him or he would die. Meantime he was given a
small bow and passed his time in shooting arrows into wax. This he did in
order to keep his hand and aim steady. In some of the tribes they rubbed
the pulse of the executioner with one of the eyes of his victim, and hung
the mouth of the murdered man like a bracelet on his arm. Afterwards he
made incisions in his breast, arms, and legs, and other parts of his body
with a saw made of the teeth of an animal. An ointment and a black powder
were then rubbed into the wounds, which left ineffaceable scars so
artistically arranged that they presented the appearance of a
tightly-fitting garment. It was believed that he would die if he did not
thus draw blood from his own body after slaughtering the captive.(609) We
may conjecture that the original intention of these customs was to guard
the executioner against the angry and dangerous ghosts of his victims.
(M112) Among the Natchez 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.(610) 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.(611) This ceremonial mourning for the enemies they had
slain was not uncommon among the North American Indians. Thus the Dacotas,
when they had killed a foe, unbraided their hair, blackened themselves all
over, and wore a small knot of swan’s down on the top of the head. “They
dress as mourners yet rejoice.”(612) A Thompson River Indian of British
Columbia, who had slain an enemy, used to blacken his own face, lest his
victim’s ghost should blind him.(613) When the Osages have mourned over
their own dead, “they will mourn for the foe just as if he was a
friend.”(614) From observing the great respect paid by the Indians to the
scalps they had taken, and listening to the mournful songs which they
howled to the shades of their victims, Catlin was convinced that “they
have a superstitious dread of the spirits of their slain enemies, and many
conciliatory offices to perform, to ensure their own peace.”(615) When a
Pima Indian has killed an Apache, he must undergo purification. Sixteen
days he fasts, and only after the fourth day is he allowed to drink a
little pinole. During the whole time he may not touch meat nor salt, nor
look on a blazing fire, nor speak to a human being. He lives alone in the
woods, waited on by an old woman, who brings him his scanty dole of food.
He bathes often in a river, and keeps his head covered almost the whole
time with a plaster of mud. On the seventeenth day a large space is
cleared near the village and a fire lit in the middle of it. The men of
the tribe form a circle round the fire, and outside of it sit all the
warriors who have just been purified, each in a small excavation. Some of
the old men then take the weapons of the purified and dance with them in
the circle, after which both the slayer and his weapon are considered
clean; but not until four days later is the man allowed to return to his
family.(616) No doubt the peace enforced by the government of the United
States has, along with tribal warfare, abolished also these quaint
customs. A fuller account of them has been given by a recent writer, and
it deserves to be quoted at length. “There was no law among the Pimas,” he
says, “observed with greater strictness than that which required
purification and expiation for the deed that was at the same time the most
lauded—the killing of an enemy. For sixteen days the warrior fasted in
seclusion and observed meanwhile a number of tabus.... Attended by an old
man, the warrior who had to expiate the crime of blood guilt retired to
the groves along the river bottom at some distance from the villages or
wandered about the adjoining hills. During the period of sixteen days he
was not allowed to touch his head with his fingers or his hair would turn
white. If he touched his face it would become wrinkled. He kept a stick to
scratch his head with, and at the end of every four days this stick was
buried at the root and on the west side of a cat’s claw tree and a new
stick was made of greasewood, arrow bush, or any other convenient shrub.
He then bathed in the river, no matter how cold the temperature. The feast
of victory which his friends were observing in the meantime at the village
lasted eight days. At the end of that time, or when his period of
retirement was half-completed, the warrior might go to his home to get a
fetish made from the hair of the Apache whom he had killed. The hair was
wrapped in eagle down and tied with a cotton string and kept in a long
medicine basket. He drank no water for the first two days and fasted for
the first four. After that time he was supplied with pinole by his
attendant, who also instructed him as to his future conduct, telling him
that he must henceforth stand back until all others were served when
partaking of food and drink. If he was a married man his wife was not
allowed to eat salt during his retirement, else she would suffer from the
owl disease which causes stiff limbs. The explanation offered for the
observance of this law of lustration is that if it is not obeyed the
warrior’s limbs will become stiffened or paralyzed.”(617) The Apaches, the
enemies of the Pimas, purify themselves for the slaughter of their foes by
means of baths in the sweat-house, singing, and other rites. These
ceremonies they perform for all the dead simultaneously after their return
home; but the Pimas, more punctilious on this point, resort to their
elaborate ceremonies of purification the moment a single one of their own
band or of the enemy has been laid low.(618) How heavily these religious
scruples must have told against the Pimas in their wars with their
ferocious enemies is obvious enough. “This long period of retirement
immediately after a battle,” says an American writer, “greatly diminished
the value of the Pimas as scouts and allies for the United States troops
operating against the Apaches. The bravery of the Pimas was praised by all
army officers having any experience with them, but Captain Bourke and
others have complained of their unreliability, due solely to their rigid
observance of this religious law.”(619) In nothing, perhaps, is the
penalty which superstition sooner or later entails on its devotees more
prompt and crushing than in the operations of war.
(M113) Far away from the torrid home of the Pima and Apaches, an old
traveller witnessed ceremonies of the same sort practised near the Arctic
Circle by some Indians who had surprised and brutally massacred an
unoffending and helpless party of Esquimaux. His description is so
interesting that I will quote it in full. “Among the various superstitious
customs of those people, it is worth remarking, and ought to have been
mentioned in its proper place, that immediately after my companions had
killed the Esquimaux at the Copper River, they considered themselves in a
state of uncleanness, which induced them to practise some very curious and
unusual ceremonies. In the first place, all who were absolutely concerned
in the murder were prohibited from cooking any kind of victuals, either
for themselves or others. As luckily there were two in company who had not
shed blood, they were employed always as cooks till we joined the women.
This circumstance was exceedingly favourable on my side; for had there
been no persons of the above description in company, that task, I was
told, would have fallen on me; which would have been no less fatiguing and
troublesome, than humiliating and vexatious. When the victuals were
cooked, all the murderers took a kind of red earth, or oker, and painted
all the space between the nose and chin, as well as the greater part of
their cheeks, almost to the ears, before they would taste a bit, and would
not drink out of any other dish, or smoke out of any other pipe, but their
own; and none of the others seemed willing to drink or smoke out of
theirs. We had no sooner joined the women, at our return from the
expedition, than there seemed to be an universal spirit of emulation among
them, vying who should first make a suit of ornaments for their husbands,
which consisted of bracelets for the wrists, and a band for the forehead,
composed of porcupine quills and moose-hair, curiously wrought on leather.
The custom of painting the mouth and part of the cheeks before each meal,
and drinking and smoking out of their own utensils, was strictly and
invariably observed, till the winter began to set in; and during the whole
of that time they would never kiss any of their wives or children. They
refrained also from eating many parts of the deer and other animals,
particularly the head, entrails, and blood; and during their uncleanness,
their victuals were never sodden in water, but dried in the sun, eaten
quite raw, or broiled, when a fire fit for the purpose could be procured.
When the time arrived that was to put an end to these ceremonies, the men,
without a female being present, made a fire at some distance from the
tents, into which they threw all their ornaments, pipe-stems, and dishes,
which were soon consumed to ashes; after which a feast was prepared,
consisting of such articles as they had long been prohibited from eating;
and when all was over, each man was at liberty to eat, drink, and smoke as
he pleased; and also to kiss his wives and children at discretion, which
they seemed to do with more raptures than I had ever known them do it
either before or since.”(620)
(M114) 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 shew 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, a tribe of the Siouan stock in 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 a 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.”(621) 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.(622) 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,(623) reflects faithfully the real Greek
dread of such as were still haunted by an angry ghost. When the turbulent
people of Cynaetha, after perpetrating an atrocious massacre, sent an
embassy to Sparta, every Arcadian town through which the envoys passed on
their journey ordered them out of its walls at once; and the Mantineans,
after the embassy had departed, even instituted a solemn purification of
the city and its territory by carrying sacrificial victims round them
both.(624)
(M115) Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia, men who have
partaken of human flesh as a ceremonial rite are subject for a long time
afterwards to many restrictions or taboos of the sort we have been dealing
with. They may not touch their wives for a whole year; and during the same
time they are forbidden to work or gamble. For four months they must live
alone in their bedrooms, and when they are obliged to quit the house for a
necessary purpose, they may not go out at the ordinary door, but must use
only the secret door in the rear of the house. On such occasions each of
them is attended by all the rest, carrying small sticks. They must all sit
down together on a long log, then get up, then sit down again, repeating
this three times before they are allowed to remain seated. Before they
rise they must turn round four times. Then they go back to the house.
Before entering they must raise their feet four times; with the fourth
step they really pass the door, taking care to enter with the right foot
foremost. In the doorway they turn four times and walk slowly into the
house. They are not permitted to look back. During the four months of
their seclusion each man in eating must use a spoon, dish, and kettle of
his own, which are thrown away at the end of the period. Before he draws
water from a bucket or a brook, he must dip his cup into it thrice; and he
may not take more than four mouthfuls at one time. He must carry a
wing-bone of an eagle and drink through it, for his lips may not touch the
brim of his cup. Also he keeps a copper nail to scratch his head with, for
were his own nails to touch his own skin they would drop off. For sixteen
days after he has partaken of human flesh he may not eat any warm food,
and for the whole of the four months he is forbidden to cool hot food by
blowing on it with his breath. At the end of winter, when the season of
ceremonies is over, he feigns to have forgotten the ordinary ways of men,
and has to learn everything anew. The reason for these remarkable
restrictions imposed on men who have eaten human flesh is not stated; but
we may surmise that fear of the ghost of the man whose body was eaten has
at least a good deal to do with them. We are confirmed in our conjecture
by observing that though these cannibals sometimes content themselves with
taking bites out of living people, the rules in question are especially
obligatory on them after they have devoured a corpse. Moreover, the
careful treatment of the bones of the victim points to the same
conclusion; for during the four months of seclusion observed by the
cannibals, the bones of the person on whom they feasted are kept
alternately for four days at a time under rocks in the sea and in their
bedrooms on the north side of the house, where the sun cannot shine on
them. Finally the bones are taken out of the house, tied up, weighted with
a stone, and thrown into deep water, “because it is believed that if they
were buried they would come back and take their master’s soul.”(625) This
seems to mean that if the bones of the victim were buried, his ghost would
come back and fetch away the souls of the men who had eaten his body. The
Gebars, a cannibal tribe in the north of New Guinea, are much afraid of
the spirit of a slain man or woman. Among them persons who have partaken
of human flesh for the first time reside for a month afterwards in a small
hut and may not enter the dwelling-house.(626)
§ 6. Hunters and Fishers tabooed.
(M116) 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;(627) 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.
(M117) 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.(628) 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.(629) 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.(630) In the island of Kadiak, off the south coast
of Alaska, whalers were reckoned unclean during the fishing season, and
nobody would eat out of the same dish with them or even come near them.
Yet we are told that great respect was paid to them, and that they were
regarded as the purveyors of their country.(631) Though it is not
expressly said it seems to be implied, and on the strength of analogy we
may assume, that these Kadiak whalers had to remain chaste so long as the
whaling season lasted. 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.(632) So at Mowat in New Guinea men have
no relation with women when the turtle are coupling, though there is
considerable laxity of morals at other times.(633) Among the Motu of Port
Moresby, in New Guinea, chastity is enjoined before fishing and
wallaby-hunting; they believe that men who have been unchaste will be
unable to catch the fish and the wallabies, which will turn round and jeer
at their pursuers.(634) Among the tribes about the mouth of the Wanigela
River in New Guinea the preparations for fishing turtle and dugong are
most elaborate. They begin two months before the fishing. A headman is
appointed who becomes holy. On his strict observance of the laws of the
dugong net depends the success of the season. While the men of the village
are making the nets, this sanctified leader lives entirely secluded from
his family, and may only eat a roasted banana or two after the sun has
gone down. Every evening at sundown he goes ashore and, stripping himself
of all his ornaments, which he is never allowed to doff at other times,
bathes near where the dugongs feed; as he does so he throws scraped
coco-nut and scented herbs and gums into the water to charm the
dugong.(635) Among the Roro-speaking tribes of British New Guinea the
magician who performs ceremonies for the success of a wallaby hunt must
abstain from intercourse with his wife for a month before the hunt takes
place; and he may not eat food cooked by his wife or by any other
woman.(636) 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 (_failu_), 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.(637) In the Pelew Islands, also, which belong to the Caroline
group, fishermen are likewise debarred from intercourse with women, since
it is believed that any such intercourse would infallibly have a
prejudicial effect on the fishing. The same taboo is said to be observed
in all the other islands of the South Sea.(638) 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 cow-dung 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.(639) 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.
(M118) On Lake Victoria Nyanza the Baganda fishermen use a long stout line
which is supported on the surface of the water by wooden floats, while
short lines with baited hooks attached to them depend from it at frequent
intervals. The place where the fisherman makes his line, whether in his
hut or his garden, is tabooed. People may not step over his cords or
tools, and he himself has to observe a number of restrictions. He may not
go near his wife or any other woman. He eats alone, works alone, sleeps
alone. He may not wash, except in the lake. He may not eat salt or meat or
butter. He may not smear any fat on his body. When the line is ready he
goes to the god, asks his blessing on it, and offers him a pot of beer. In
return he receives from the deity a stick or bit of wood to fasten to the
line, and also some medicine of herbs to smoke and blow over the water in
order that the fish may come to the line and be caught. Then he carries
the line to the lake. If in going thither he should stumble over a stone
or a tree-root, he takes it with him, and he does the same with any
grass-seeds that may stick to his clothes. These stones, roots, and seeds
he puts on the line, believing that just as he stumbled over them and they
stuck to him, so the fish will also stumble over them and stick to the
line. The taboo lasts till he has caught his first fish. If his wife has
kept the taboo, he eats the fish with her; but if she has broken it, she
may not partake of the fish. After that if he wishes to go in to his wife,
he must take his line out of the water and place it in a tree or some
other place of safety; he is then free to be with her. But so long as the
line is in the water, he must keep apart from women, or the fish would at
once leave the shore. Any breach of this taboo renders the line useless to
him. He must sell it and make a new one and offer an expiatory offering to
the god.(640) Again, in Uganda the fisherman offers fish to his canoe,
believing that if he neglected to make this offering more than twice, his
net would catch nothing. The fish thus offered to the canoe is eaten by
the fishermen. But if at the time of emptying the traps there is any man
in the canoe who has committed adultery, eaten flesh or salt, or rubbed
his body with butter or fat, that man is not allowed to partake of the
fish offered to the canoe. And if the sinner has not confessed his fault
to the priest and been purified, the catch will be small. When the
adulterer has confessed his sin, the priest calls the husband of the
guilty woman and tells him of her crime. Her paramour has to wear a sign
to shew that he is doing penance, and he makes a feast for the injured
husband, which the latter is obliged to accept in token of reconciliation.
After that the husband may not punish either of the erring couple; the sin
is atoned for and they are able to catch fish again.(641) Among the
Bangala of the Upper Congo, while fishermen are making their traps, they
must observe strict continence, and the restriction lasts until the traps
have caught fish and the fish have been eaten. Similarly Bangala hunters
may have no sexual intercourse from the time they made their traps till
they have caught game and eaten it; it is believed that any hunter who
broke this rule of chastity would have bad luck in the chase.(642)
(M119) 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.(643)
(M120) 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. In the Motumotu tribe of New Guinea a man will
not see his wife the night before he starts on a great fishing or hunting
expedition; if he did, he would have no luck. In the Motu tribe he is
regarded as holy that night, and in the morning no one may speak to him or
call out his name.(644) In German East Africa elephant hunters must
refrain from women for several days before they set out for the
chase.(645) We have seen that in the same region a wife’s infidelity
during the hunter’s absence is believed to give the elephant power over
him so as to kill or wound him.(646) As this belief is clearly a
superstition, based on sympathetic magic, so doubtless is the practice of
chastity before the hunt. The pygmies of the great African forest are also
reported to observe strict continence the night before an important hunt.
It is said that at this time they propitiate their ancestors by rubbing
their skulls, which they keep in boxes, with palm oil and with water in
which the ashes of the bark and leaves of a certain tree (_moduma_) have
been mixed.(647)
(M121) The Huichol Indians of Mexico think that only the pure of heart
should hunt the deer. The deer would never enter a snare put up by a man
in love; it would only look at it, snort “Pooh, pooh,” and go back the way
it came. Good luck in love means bad luck in deer-hunting. But even those
who have been abstinent must invoke the aid of the fire to burn the last
taint or blemish out of them. So the night before they set out for the
chase they gather round the fire and pray aloud, all trying to get as near
as they can to the flaming god, and turning every side of their bodies to
his blessed influence. They hold out their open hands to it, warm the
palms, spit on them, and then rub them quickly over their joints, legs,
and shoulders, as the shamans do in curing a sick man, in order that their
limbs and sinews may be as strong as their hearts are pure for the task of
the morrow.(648) 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.(649) The Sia, a tribe of Pueblo Indians, observe chastity for four
days before a hunt as well as the whole time that it lasts, even if the
game be only rabbits.(650) Among the Tsetsaut Indians of British Columbia
hunters who desire to secure good luck fast and wash their bodies with
ginger-root for three or four days, and do not touch a woman for two or
three months.(651) A Shuswap Indian, who intends to go out hunting must
also keep away from his wife, or he would have no luck.(652) Among the
Thompson Indians the grisly-bear hunter must abstain from sexual
intercourse for some time before he went forth to hunt. These Indians
believe that bears always hear what is said of them. Hence a man who
intends to go bear-hunting must be very careful what he says about the
beasts or about his preparations for killing them, or they will get wind
of it and keep out of his way.(653) In the same tribe of Indians some
trappers and hunters, who were very particular, would not eat with other
people when they were engaged, or about to be engaged, in hunting or
trapping; neither would they eat food cooked by any woman, unless she were
old. They drank cold water in which mountain juniper or wild rhubarb had
been soaked, using a cup of their own, which no one else might touch.
Hunters seldom combed their hair when they were on an expedition, but
waited to do so till their return.(654) The reason for this last rule is
certainly not that at such seasons they have no time to attend to their
persons; the custom is probably based on that superstitious objection to
touch the heads of tabooed persons of which some examples have already
been given, and of which more will be adduced shortly.
(M122) In the late autumn or early winter a few families of the Hidatsa
Indians seek some quiet spot in the forest and pitch their camp there to
catch eagles. After setting up their tents they build a small
medicine-lodge, where the ceremonies supposed to be indispensable for
trapping the eagles are performed. No woman may enter it. The traps are
set on high places among the neighbouring hills. When some of the men wish
to take part in the trapping, they fast and then go by day to the
medicine-lodge. There they continue without food until about midnight,
when they partake of a little nourishment and fall asleep. They get up
just before dawn, or when the morning-star has risen, and go to their
traps. There they sit all day without food or drink, watching for their
prey, and struggling, it may be, from time to time with a captive eagle,
for they always take the birds alive. They return to the camp at sunset.
As they approach, every one rushes into his tent; for the hunter may
neither see nor be seen by any of his fellow-hunters until he enters the
medicine-lodge. They spend the night in the lodge, and about midnight eat
and drink for the first time since the previous midnight; then they lie
down to sleep, only to rise again before dawn and repair anew to the
traps. If any one of them has caught nothing during the day, he may not
sleep at night, but must spend his time in loud lamentation and prayer.
This routine has to be observed by each hunter for four days and four
nights, after which he returns to his own tent, hungry, thirsty, and
tired, and follows his ordinary pursuits till he feels able to go again to
the eagle-traps. During the four days of the trapping he sees none of his
family, and speaks to none of his friends except those who are engaged in
the trapping at the same time. They believe that if any hunter fails to
perform all these rites, the captive eagle will get one of his claws loose
and tear his captor’s hands. There are men in the tribe who have had their
hands crippled for life in that way.(655) It is obvious that the severe
fasting coupled with the short sleep, or even the total sleeplessness, of
these eagle-hunters can only impair their physical vigour and so far tend
to incapacitate them for capturing the eagles. The motive of their
behaviour in these respects is purely superstitious, not rational, and so,
we may safely conclude, is the custom which simultaneously cuts them off
from all intercourse with their wives and families.
(M123) 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.(656) 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.(657) 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.(658)
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.(659) 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. Again, to take other instances, in the East Indian
island of Buru people smear their bodies with coco-nut oil as a protection
against demons. But in order that the charm may be effective, the oil must
have been made by young unmarried girls.(660) In the Seranglao and Gorong
archipelagoes the same oil is regarded as an antidote to poison; but it
only possesses this virtue if the nuts have been gathered on a Friday by a
youth who has never known a woman, and if the oil has been extracted by a
pure maiden, while a priest recited the appropriate spells.(661) So in the
Marquesas Islands, when a woman was making coco-nut oil, she was tabooed
for four or five or more days, during which she might have no intercourse
with her husband. If she broke this rule, it was believed that she would
obtain no oil.(662) In the same islands when a man had placed a dish of
bananas and coco-nuts in an oven of hot stones to bake over night, he
might not go in to his wife, or the food would not be found baked in the
morning.(663) In ancient Mexico the men who distilled the wine known as
_pulque_ from the sap of the great aloe, might not touch a woman for four
days; if they were unchaste, they thought the wine would be sour and
putrid.(664)
(M124) 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.(665) 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.(666) 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. In New
Caledonia the wizard who performs certain superstitious ceremonies at the
building and launching of a large canoe is bound to the most rigorous
chastity the whole time that the vessel is on the stocks.(667) Among the
natives of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain men who are engaged in
making fish-traps avoid women and observe strict continence. They believe
that if a woman were even to touch a fish-trap, it would catch
nothing.(668) Here, therefore, the rule of continence probably springs
from a fear of infecting sympathetically the traps with feminine weakness
or perhaps with menstrual pollution. Every year at the end of September or
the beginning of October, when the north-east monsoon is near an end, a
fleet of large sailing canoes leaves Port Moresby and the neighbouring
Motu villages of New Guinea on a trading voyage to the deltas of the
rivers which flow into the Papuan Gulf. The canoes are laden with a cargo
of earthenware pots, and after about three months they return, sailing
before the north-west monsoon and bringing back a cargo of sago which they
have obtained by barter for their crockery. It is about the beginning of
the south-east monsoon, that is, in April or May, that the skippers, who
are leading men in the villages, make up their minds to go on these
trading voyages. When their resolution is taken they communicate it to
their wives, and from about that time husband and wife cease to cohabit.
The same custom of conjugal separation is observed by what we may call the
mate or second in command of each vessel. But it is not till the month of
August that the work of preparing the canoes for sea by overhauling and
caulking them is taken seriously in hand. From that time both skipper and
mate become particularly sacred or taboo (_helaga_), and consequently they
keep apart from their wives more than ever. Husband and wife, indeed,
sleep in the same house but on opposite sides of it. In speaking of his
wife he calls her “maiden,” and she calls him “youth.” They have no direct
conversation or dealings with each other. If he wishes to communicate with
her, he does so through a third person, usually a relative of one of them.
Both refrain from washing themselves, and he from combing his hair. “The
wife’s position indeed becomes very much like that of a widow.” When the
canoe has been launched, skipper, mate, and crew are all forbidden to
touch their food with their fingers; they must always handle it and convey
it to their mouths with a bone fork.(669) A briefer account of the custom
and superstition had previously been given by a native pastor settled in
the neighbourhood of Port Moresby. He says: “Here is a custom of
trading-voyage parties:—If it is arranged to go westward, to procure
arrowroot, the leader of the party sleeps apart from his wife for the time
being, and on until the return from the expedition, which is sometimes a
term of five months. They say if this is not done the canoe of the chief
will be sunk on the return voyage, all the arrowroot lost in the sea, and
he himself covered with shame. He, however, who observes the rule of
self-denial, returns laden with arrowroot, has not a drop of salt water to
injure his cargo, and so is praised by his companions and crew.”(670) The
Akamba and Akikuyu of eastern Africa refrain from the commerce of the
sexes on a journey, even if their wives are with them in the caravan; and
they observe the same rule of chastity so long as the cattle are at
pasture, that is, from the time the herds are driven out to graze in the
morning till they come back in the evening.(671) Why the rule should be in
force just while the cattle are at pasture is not said, but we may
conjecture that any act of incontinence at that time is somehow supposed,
on the principles of sympathetic magic, to affect the animals injuriously.
The conjecture is confirmed by the observation that among the Akikuyu for
eight days after the quarterly festivals, which they hold for the sake of
securing God’s blessing on their flocks and herds, no commerce is
permitted between the sexes. They think that any breach of continence in
these eight days would be followed by a mortality among the flocks.(672)
(M125) 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 shew, 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.
(M126) 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
Inuit have a special name (_nu-na hlukh-tuk_) “for a spot of ground where
certain things are tabooed, or where there is to be feared any evil
influence caused by the presence of offended shades of men or animals, or
through the influence of other supernatural means. This ground is
sometimes considered unclean, and to go upon it would bring misfortune to
the offender, producing sickness, death, or lack of success in hunting or
fishing. The same term is also applied to ground where certain animals
have been killed or have died.” In the latter case the ground is thought
to be dangerous only to him who there performs some forbidden act. For
example, the shore where a dead white whale has been beached is so
regarded. At such a place and time to chop wood with an iron axe is
supposed to be fatal to the imprudent person who chops. Death, too, is
supposed to result from cutting wood with an iron axe where salmon are
being dressed. An old man at St. Michael told Mr. Nelson of a melancholy
case of this kind which had fallen within the scope of his own
observation. A man began to chop a log near a woman who was splitting
salmon: both of them died soon afterwards. The reason of this disaster, as
the old man explained, was that the shade or ghost (_inua_) of the salmon
and the spirit or mystery (_yu-a_) of the ground were incensed at the
proceeding. Such offences are indeed fatal to every person who may be
present at the desecrated spot. Dogs are regarded as very unclean and
offensive to the shades of game animals, and great care is taken that no
dog shall get at the bones of a white whale. Should a dog touch one of
them, the hunter might lose his luck; his nets would break or be shunned
by the whales, and his spears would not strike. But in addition to the
state of uncleanness or taboo which arises from the presence of the shades
of men or animals, these Esquimaux believe in uncleanness of another sort
which, though not so serious, nevertheless produces sickness or bad luck
in hunting. It consists, we are told, of a kind of invisible, impalpable
vapour, which may attach itself to a person from some contamination. A
hunter infected by such a vapour is much more than usually visible to
game, so that his luck in the chase is gone until he succeeds in cleansing
himself once more. That is why hunters must avoid menstruous women; if
they do not, they will be unable to catch game.(673)
(M127) These same Esquimaux of Bering Strait 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.(674) 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.(675) Here the hunter’s imitation of the
wounded whale is probably intended by means of homoeopathic magic to make
the beast die in earnest. Among the Kaniagmuts of Alaska the men who
attacked the whale were considered by their countrymen as unclean during
the fishing season, though otherwise they were held in high honour.(676)
(M128) The central Esquimaux of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay think that
whales, ground seals, and common seals originated in the severed fingers
of the goddess Sedna. Hence an Esquimau of these regions must make
atonement for each of these animals that he kills, and must observe
strictly certain taboos after their slaughter. Some of the rules of
conduct thus enjoined are identical with those which are in force after
the death of a human being. Thus after the killing of one of these
sea-mammals, as after the decease of a person, it is forbidden to scrape
the frost from the window, to shake the bed or to disturb the shrubs under
the bed, to remove the drippings of oil from under the lamp, to scrape
hair from skins, to cut snow for the purpose of melting it, to work on
iron, wood, stone, or ivory. Furthermore, women are forbidden to comb
their hair, to wash their faces, and to dry their boots and stockings. All
these regulations must be kept with the greatest care after a ground seal
has been killed, because the transgression of taboos that refer to this
animal makes the hands of Sedna very sore. When a seal is brought into the
hut, the women must stop working until it is cut up. After the capture of
a ground seal, walrus, or whale, they must rest for three days. Not all
kinds of work, however, are forbidden; they may mend articles made of
sealskin, but they may not make anything new. Working on the new skins of
caribou, the American reindeer, is strictly prohibited; for a series of
rules forbids all contact between that animal and the sea-mammals. Thus
reindeer-skins obtained in summer may not be prepared before the ice has
formed and the first seal is caught with the harpoon. Later, as soon as
the first walrus has been killed, the work must stop again until the next
autumn. Hence everybody is eager to have his reindeer-skins ready as
quickly as possible, for until that is done the walrus season will not
begin. When the first walrus has been killed a messenger goes from village
to village and announces the news, whereupon all work on reindeer-skins
immediately ceases. On the other hand, when the season for hunting the
reindeer begins, all the winter clothing and the winter tents that had
been in use during the walrus hunting season become tabooed and are buried
under stones; they may not be used again till the next walrus hunting
season comes round. No walrus-hide or thongs made of such hide may be
taken inland, where the reindeer live. Venison may not be put in the same
boat with walrus-meat, nor yet with salmon. If venison or the antlers of
the reindeer were in a boat which goes walrus-hunting, the boat would be
liable to be broken by the walrus. The Esquimaux are not allowed to eat
venison and walrus on the same day, unless they first strip naked or put
on clothing of reindeer-skin that has never been worn in hunting walrus.
The transgression of these taboos gives umbrage to the souls of walrus;
and a myth is told to account for the mutual aversion of the walrus and
the reindeer. And in general the Esquimaux say that Sedna dislikes the
reindeer, wherefore they may not bring the beast into contact with her
favourites, the sea-mammals. Hence the meat of the whale and the seal, as
well as of the walrus, may not be eaten on the same day with venison. It
is not permitted that both sorts of meat lie on the floor of the hut or
behind the lamps at the same time. If a man who has eaten venison in the
morning happens to enter a hut in which seal meat is being cooked, he is
allowed to eat venison on the bed, but it must be wrapped up before it is
carried into the hut, and he must take care to keep clear of the floor.
Before they change from one food to the other the Esquimaux must wash
themselves.
(M129) But even among the sea-beasts themselves there are rules of mutual
avoidance which these central Esquimaux must observe. Thus a person who
has been eating or hunting walrus must strip naked or change his clothes
before he eats seal; otherwise the transgression will become fastened to
the soul of the walrus in a manner which will be explained presently.
Again, the soul of a salmon is very powerful, and its body may not be
eaten on the same day with walrus or venison. Salmon may not be cooked in
a pot that has been used to boil any other kind of meat; and it must
always be cooked at some distance from the hut. The salmon-fisher is not
allowed to wear boots that have been used in hunting walrus; and no work
may be done on boot-legs till the first salmon has been caught and put on
a boot-leg. 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.(677)
(M130) The native explanation of the taboos thus enjoined on hunters among
the central Esquimaux has been given us by the eminent American
ethnologist Dr. Franz Boas. As it sets what may be called the spiritual
basis of taboo in the clearest light, it deserves to be studied with
attention.
(M131) The goddess Sedna, he tells us, the mother of the sea-mammals, may
be considered to be the chief deity of the central Esquimaux. She is
supposed to bear supreme sway over the destinies of mankind, and almost
all the observances of these tribes have for their object to retain her
good will or appease her anger. Her home is in the lower world, where she
dwells in a house built of stone and whale-ribs. “The souls of seals,
ground seals, and whales are believed to proceed from her house. After one
of these animals has been killed, its soul stays with the body for three
days. Then it goes back to Sedna’s abode, to be sent forth again by her.
If, during the three days that the soul stays with the body, any taboo or
proscribed custom is violated, the violation (_pitssēte_) becomes attached
to the animal’s soul, and causes it pain. The soul strives in vain to free
itself of these attachments, but is compelled to take them down to Sedna.
The attachments, in some manner not explained, make her hands sore, and
she punishes the people who are the cause of her pains by sending to them
sickness, bad weather, and starvation. If, on the other hand, all taboos
have been observed, the sea-animals will allow themselves to be caught;
they will even come to meet the hunter. The object of the innumerable
taboos that are in force after the killing of these sea-animals,
therefore, is to keep their souls free from attachments that would hurt
their souls as well as Sedna.
(M132) “The souls of the sea-animals are endowed with greater powers than
those of ordinary human beings. They can see the effect of contact with a
corpse, which causes objects touched by it to appear dark in colour; and
they can see the effect of flowing human blood, from which a vapour rises
that surrounds the bleeding person and is communicated to every one and
every thing that comes in contact with such a person. This vapour and the
dark colour of death are exceedingly unpleasant to the souls of the
sea-animals, that will not come near a hunter thus affected. The hunter
must therefore avoid contact with people who have touched a body, or with
those who are bleeding, more particularly with menstruating women or with
those who have recently given birth. The hands of menstruating women
appear red to the sea-animals. If any one who has touched a body or who is
bleeding should allow others to come in contact with him, he would cause
them to become distasteful to the seals, and therefore to Sedna as well.
For this reason custom demands that every person must at once announce if
he has touched a body, and that women must make known when they are
menstruating or when they have had a miscarriage. If they do not do so,
they will bring ill-luck to all the hunters.
(M133) “These ideas have given rise to the belief that it is necessary to
announce the transgression of any taboo. The transgressor of a custom is
distasteful to Sedna and to the animals, and those who abide with him will
become equally distasteful through contact with him. For this reason it
has come to be an act required by custom and morals to confess any and
every transgression of a taboo, in order to protect the community from the
evil influence of contact with the evil-doer. The descriptions of Eskimo
life given by many observers contain records of starvation, which,
according to the belief of the natives, was brought about by some one
transgressing a law, and not announcing what he had done.
(M134) “I presume the importance of the confession of a transgression,
with a view to warning others to keep at a distance from the transgressor,
has gradually led to the idea that a transgression, or, we might say, a
sin can be atoned for by confession. This is one of the most remarkable
traits among the religious beliefs of the central Eskimo. There are
innumerable tales of starvation brought about by the transgression of a
taboo. In vain the hunters try to supply their families with food; gales
and drifting snow make their endeavours fruitless. Finally the help of the
_angakok_(678) is invoked, and he discovers that the cause of the
misfortune of the people is due to the transgression of a taboo. Then the
guilty one is searched for. If he confesses, all is well; the weather
moderates, and the seals allow themselves to be caught; but if he
obstinately maintains his innocence, his death alone will soothe the wrath
of the offended deity....
(M135) “The transgressions of taboos do not affect the souls of game
alone. It has already been stated that the sea-mammals see their effect
upon man also, who appears to them of a dark colour, or surrounded by a
vapour which is invisible to ordinary man. This means, of course, that the
transgression also affects the soul of the evil-doer. It becomes attached
to it, and makes him sick. The _angakok_(679) is able to see these
attachments with the help of his guardian spirit, and is able to free the
soul from them. If this is not done, the person must die. In many cases
the transgressions become fastened also to persons who come in contact
with the evil-doer. This is especially true of children, to whose souls
the sins of their parents, and particularly of their mothers, become
readily attached. Therefore, when a child is sick, the _angakok_ first of
all, asks its mother if she has transgressed any taboos. The attachment
seems to have a different appearance, according to the taboo that has been
violated. A black attachment is due to removing oil-drippings from under
the lamp, a piece of caribou-skin represents the scrapings removed from a
caribou-skin at a time when such work was forbidden. As soon as the mother
acknowledges the transgression of a taboo, the attachment leaves the
child’s soul, and the child recovers.
(M136) “A number of customs may be explained by the endeavours of the
natives to keep the sea-mammals free from contaminating influences. All
the clothing of a dead person, the tent in which he died, and the skins
obtained by him, must be discarded; for if a hunter should wear clothing
made of skins that had been in contact with the deceased, these would
appear dark, and the seal would avoid him. Neither would a seal allow
itself to be taken into a hut darkened by a dead body; and all those who
entered such a hut would appear dark to it, and would be avoided.
“While it is customary for a successful hunter to invite all the men of
the village to eat of the seal that he has caught, they must not take any
of the seal-meat out of the hut, because it might come in contact with
persons who are under taboo, and thus the hunter might incur the
displeasure of the seal and of Sedna. This is particularly strictly
forbidden in the case of the first seal of the season.
“A woman who has a new-born child, and who has not quite recovered, must
eat only of seals caught by her husband, by a boy, or by an aged man; else
the vapour arising from her body would become attached to the souls of
other seals, which would take the transgression down to Sedna, thus making
her hands sore.
“Cases of premature birth require particularly careful treatment. The
event must be announced publicly, else dire results will follow. If a
woman should conceal from the other people that she has had a premature
birth, they might come near her, or even eat in her hut of the seals
procured by her husband. The vapour arising from her would thus affect
them, and they would be avoided by the seals. The transgression would also
become attached to the soul of the seal, which would take it down to
Sedna.”(680)
(M137) In these elaborate taboos so well described by Dr. Boas we seem to
see a system of animism in the act of passing into religion. The rules
themselves bear the clearest traces of having originated in a doctrine of
souls, and of being determined by the supposed likes and dislikes,
sympathies and antipathies of the various classes of spirits toward each
other. But above and behind the souls of men and animals has grown up the
overshadowing conception of a powerful goddess who rules them all, so that
the taboos come more and more to be viewed as a means of propitiating her
rather than as merely adapted to suit the tastes of the souls themselves.
Thus the standard of conduct is shifted from a natural to a supernatural
basis: the supposed wish of the deity or, as we commonly put it, the will
of God, tends to supersede the wishes, real or imaginative, of purely
natural beings as the measure of right and wrong. The old savage taboos,
resting on a theory of the direct relations of living creatures to each
other, remain in substance unchanged, but they are outwardly transformed
into ethical precepts with a religious or supernatural sanction. In this
gradual passage of a rude philosophy into an elementary religion the place
occupied by confession as a moral purgative is particularly interesting. I
can hardly agree with Dr. Boas that among these Esquimaux the confession
of sins was in its origin no more than a means of warning others against
the dangerous contagion of the sinner; in other words, that its saving
efficacy consisted merely in preventing the innocent from suffering with
the guilty, and that it had no healing virtue, no purifying influence, for
the evil-doer himself. It seems more probable that originally the
violation of taboo, in other words, the sin, was conceived as something
almost physical, a sort of morbid substance lurking in the sinner’s body,
from which it could be expelled by confession as by a sort of spiritual
purge or emetic. This is confirmed by the form of auricular confession
which is practised by the Akikuyu of British East Africa. Amongst them, we
are told, “sin is essentially remissable; it suffices to confess it.
Usually this is done to the sorcerer, who expels the sin by a ceremony of
which the principal rite is a pretended emetic: _kotahikio_, derived from
_tahika_, ‘to vomit.’ ”(681) Thus among these savages the confession and
absolution of sins is, so to say, a purely physical process of relieving a
sufferer of a burden which sits heavy on his stomach rather than on his
conscience. This view of the matter is again confirmed by the observation
that these same Akikuyu resort to another physical mode of expelling sin
from a sinner, and that is by the employment of a scapegoat, which by
them, as by the Jews and many other people, has been employed as a vehicle
for carting away moral rubbish and dumping it somewhere else. For example,
if a Kikuyu man has committed incest, which would naturally entail his
death, he produces a substitute in the shape of a he-goat, to which by an
ignoble ceremony he transfers his guilt. Then the throat of the animal is
cut, and the human culprit is thereby purged of his sin.(682)
(M138) Hence we may suspect that the primary motive of the confession of
sins among savages was self-regarding; in other words, the intention was
rather to benefit the sinner himself than to safeguard others by warning
them of the danger they would incur by coming into contact with him. This
view is borne out by the observation that confession is sometimes used as
a means of healing the sick transgressor himself, who is supposed to
recover as soon as he has made a clean breast of his transgression. Thus
“when the Carriers are severely sick, they often think that they shall not
recover, unless they divulge to a priest or magician every crime which
they may have committed, which has hitherto been kept secret. In such a
case they will make a full confession, and then they expect that their
lives will be spared for a time longer. But should they keep back a single
crime, they as firmly believe that they shall suffer almost instant
death.”(683) Again, the Aurohuaca Indians, who, under the tropical sun of
South America, inhabit a chilly region bordering on the perpetual snows of
the Sierra Nevada in Colombia, believe that all sickness is a punishment
for sin. So when one of their medicine-men is summoned to a sick bed, he
does not enquire after the patient’s symptoms but makes strange passes
over him and asks in a sepulchral voice whether he will confess his sins.
If the sick man persists in drawing a veil of silence over his frailties,
the doctor will not attempt to treat him, but will turn on his heel and
leave the house. On the other hand if a satisfactory confession has been
made, the leech directs the patient’s friends to procure certain
odd-looking bits of stone or shell to which the sins of the sufferer may
be transferred, for when that is done he will be made whole. For this
purpose the sin-laden stones or shells are carried high up into the
mountains and laid in some spot where the first beams of the sun, rising
in clear or clouded majesty above the long white slopes or the towering
crags of the Sierra Nevada, will strike down on them, driving sin and
sickness far away by their radiant influence.(684) Here, again, we see
that sin is regarded as something almost material which by confession can
be removed from the body of the patient and laid on stones or shells.
Further, the confession of sins has been resorted to by some people as a
means of accelerating the birth of a child when the mother was in hard
labour. Thus, “among the Indians of Guatemala, in the time of their
idolatry when a woman was in labour, the midwife ordered her to confess
her sins; and if she was not delivered, the husband was to confess his;
and if that did not do they took off his clouts and put them about his
wife’s loins; if still she could not be delivered, the midwife drew blood
from herself and sprinkled it towards the four quarters of heaven with
some invocations and ceremonies.”(685) In these attempts of the Indians to
accelerate the birth of the child it seems clear that the confession of
sins on the part first of the wife and afterwards of the husband is
nothing but a magical ceremony like the putting of the husband’s clothes
on the suffering woman(686) or the sprinkling of the midwife’s blood
towards the four quarters of the heaven. Amongst the Antambahoaka, a
savage tribe of Madagascar, when a woman is in hard labour, a sorcerer is
called in to her aid. After making some magical signs and uttering some
incantations, he generally declares that the patient cannot be delivered
until she has publicly confessed a secret fault which she has committed.
In such a case a woman has been known to confess to incest with her
brother; and immediately after her confession the child was born.(687) In
these cases the confession of sins is clearly not a mode of warning people
to keep clear of the sinner; it is a magical ceremony primarily intended
to benefit the sinner himself or herself and no other. The same thing may
perhaps be said of a confession which was prescribed in a certain case by
ancient Hindoo ritual. At a great festival of Varuna, which fell at the
beginning of the rainy season, the priest asked the wife of the sacrificer
to name her paramour or paramours, and she had to mention their names or
at least to take up as many grass-stalks as she had lovers.(688) “Now when
a woman who belongs to one man carries on intercourse with another, she
undoubtedly commits a sin against Varuna. He therefore thus asks her, lest
she should sacrifice with a secret pang in her mind; for when confessed
the sin becomes less, since it becomes truth; this is why he thus asks
her. And whatever connection she confesses not, that indeed will turn out
injurious to her relatives.”(689) In this passage of the _Satapatha
Brahmana_ confession of sin is said to diminish the sin, just as if the
mere utterance of the words ejected or expelled some morbid matter from
the person of the sinner, thereby relieving her of its burden and
benefiting also her relatives, who would suffer through any sin which she
might not have confessed.
(M139) Thus at an early stage of culture the confession of sins wears the
aspect of a bodily rather than of a moral and spiritual purgation; it is a
magical rather than a religious rite, and as such it resembles the
ceremonies of washing, scouring, fumigation, and so forth, which in like
manner are applied by many primitive peoples to the purification of what
we should regard as moral guilt, but what they consider rather as a
corporeal pollution or infection, which can be removed by the physical
agencies of fire, water, fasts, purgatives, abrasion, scarification, and
so forth. But when the guilt of sin ceases to be regarded as something
material, a sort of clinging vapour of death, and is conceived as the
transgression of the will of a wise and good God, it is obvious that the
observance of these outward rites of purification becomes superfluous and
absurd, a vain show which cannot appease the anger of the offended deity.
The only means of turning away his wrath and averting the fatal
consequences of sin is now believed to be the humble confession and true
repentance of the sinner. At this stage of ethical evolution the practice
of confession loses its old magical character as a bodily purge and
assumes the new aspect of a purely religious rite, the propitiation of a
great supernatural and moral being, who by a simple fiat can cancel the
transgression and restore the transgressor to a state of pristine
innocence. This comfortable doctrine teaches us that in order to blot out
the effects of our misdeeds we have only to acknowledge and confess them
with a lowly and penitent heart, whereupon a merciful God will graciously
pardon our sin and absolve us and ours from its consequences. It might
indeed be well for the world if we could thus easily undo the past, if we
could recall the words that have been spoken amiss, if we could arrest the
long train that follows, like a flight of avenging Furies, on every evil
action. But this we cannot do. Our words and acts, good and bad, have
their natural, their inevitable consequences. God may pardon sin, but
Nature cannot.
(M140) It seems not improbable that in our own rules of conduct, in what
we call the common decencies of life as well as in the weightier matters
of morality, there may survive not a few old savage taboos which,
masquerading as an expression of the divine will or draped in the flowing
robes of a false philosophy, have maintained their credit long after the
crude ideas out of which they sprang have been discarded by the progress
of thought and knowledge; while on the other hand many ethical precepts
and social laws, which now rest firmly on a solid basis of utility, may at
first have drawn some portion of their sanctity from the same ancient
system of superstition. For example, we can hardly doubt that in primitive
society the crime of murder derived much of its horror from a fear of the
angry ghost of the murdered man. Thus superstition may serve as a
convenient crutch to morality till she is strong enough to throw away the
crutch and walk alone. To judge by the legislation of the Pentateuch the
ancient Semites appear to have passed through a course of moral evolution
not unlike that which we can still detect in process among the Esquimaux
of Baffin Land. Some of the old laws of Israel are clearly savage taboos
of a familiar type thinly disguised as commands of the deity. This
disguise is indeed a good deal more perfect in Palestine than in Baffin
Land, but in substance it is the same. Among the Esquimaux it is the will
of Sedna; among the Israelites it is the will of Jehovah.(690)
But it is time to return to our immediate subject, to wit, the rules of
conduct observed by hunters after the slaughter of the game.
(M141) When the Kayans or Bahaus of central Borneo 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.(691) After killing an animal
some Indian hunters used to purify themselves in water as a religious
rite.(692) When a Damara hunter returns from a successful chase he takes
water in his mouth and ejects it three times over his feet, and also into
the fire on his own hearth.(693) Amongst the Caffres of South Africa “the
slaughter of a lion, however honourable it is esteemed, is nevertheless
associated with an idea of moral uncleanness, and is followed by a very
strange ceremony. When the hunters approach the village on their return,
the man who gave the lion the first wound is hidden from every eye by the
shields which his comrades hold up before him. One of the hunters steps
forward and, leaping and bounding in a strange manner, praises the courage
of the lion-killer. Then he rejoins the band, and the same performance is
repeated by another. All the rest meanwhile keep up a ceaseless shouting,
rattling with their clubs on their shields. This goes on till they have
reached the village. Then a mean hut is run up not far from the village;
and in this hut the lion-killer, because he is unclean, must remain four
days, cut off from all association with the tribe. There he dyes his body
all over with white paint; and lads who have not yet been circumcised, and
are therefore, in respect to uncleanness, in the same state as himself,
bring him a calf to eat, and wait upon him. When the four days are over,
the unclean man washes himself, paints himself with red paint in the usual
manner, and is escorted back to the village by the head chief, attended
with a guard of honour. Lastly, a second calf is killed; and, the
uncleanness being now at an end, every one is free to eat of the calf with
him.”(694) Among the Hottentots, when a man has killed a lion, leopard,
elephant, or rhinoceros he is esteemed a great hero, but he is deluged
with urine by the medicine-man and 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.(695) 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.(696)
(M142) 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.”(697)
Amongst the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, who worship the
python, a native who killed one of these serpents used to be burned alive.
But for some time past, though a semblance of carrying out the old penalty
is preserved, the culprit is allowed to escape with his life, but he has
to pay a heavy fine. A small hut of dry faggots and grass is set up,
generally near the lagoon at Whydah, if the crime has been perpetrated
there; the guilty man is thrust inside, the door of plaited grass is shut
on him, and the hut is set on fire. Sometimes a dog, a kid, and two fowls
are enclosed along with him, and he is drenched with palm-oil and yeast,
probably to render him the more combustible. As he is unbound, he easily
breaks out of the frail hut before the flames consume him; but he has to
run the gauntlet of the angry serpent-worshippers, who belabour the
murderer of their god with sticks and pelt him with clods until he reaches
water and plunges into it, which is supposed to wash away his sin.
Thirteen days later a commemoration service is held in honour of the
deceased python.(698) 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.(699) Under native rule, we may suspect, he would not get off so
lightly.
(M143) 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.
Afterwards 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.(700)