CHAPTER V. TABOOED THINGS.

§ 1. The Meaning of Taboo.

(M144) Thus in primitive society the rules of ceremonial purity observed

by divine kings, chiefs, and priests agree in many respects with the rules

observed by homicides, mourners, women in childbed, girls at puberty,

hunters and fishermen, and so on. To us these various classes of persons

appear to differ totally in character and condition; some of them we

should call holy, others we might pronounce unclean and polluted. But the

savage makes no such moral distinction between them; the conceptions of

holiness and pollution are not yet differentiated in his mind. To him the

common feature of all these persons is that they are dangerous and in

danger, and the danger in which they stand and to which they expose others

is what we should call spiritual or ghostly, and therefore imaginary. The

danger, however, is not less real because it is imaginary; imagination

acts upon man as really as does gravitation, and may kill him as certainly

as a dose of prussic acid. To seclude these persons from the rest of the

world so that the dreaded spiritual danger shall neither reach them, nor

spread from them, is the object of the taboos which they have to observe.

These taboos act, so to say, as electrical insulators to preserve the

spiritual force with which these persons are charged from suffering or

inflicting harm by contact with the outer world.(701)

To the illustrations of these general principles which have been already

given I shall now add some more, drawing my examples, first, from the

class of tabooed things, and, second, from the class of tabooed words; for

in the opinion of the savage both things and words may, like persons, be

charged or electrified, either temporarily or permanently, with the

mysterious virtue of taboo, and may therefore require to be banished for a

longer or shorter time from the familiar usage of common life. And the

examples will be chosen with special reference to those sacred chiefs,

kings and priests, who, more than anybody else, live fenced about by taboo

as by a wall. Tabooed things will be illustrated in the present chapter,

and tabooed words in the next.

§ 2. Iron tabooed.

(M145) In the first place we may observe that the awful sanctity of kings

naturally leads to a prohibition to touch their sacred persons. Thus it

was unlawful to lay hands on the person of a Spartan king;(702) no one

might touch the body of the king or queen of Tahiti;(703) it is forbidden

to touch the person of the king of Siam under pain of death;(704) and no

one may touch the king of Cambodia, for any purpose whatever, without his

express command. In July 1874 the king was thrown from his carriage and

lay insensible on the ground, but not one of his suite dared to touch him;

a European coming to the spot carried the injured monarch to his

palace.(705) Formerly no one might touch the king of Corea; and if he

deigned to touch a subject, the spot touched became sacred, and the person

thus honoured had to wear a visible mark (generally a cord of red silk)

for the rest of his life. Above all, no iron might touch the king’s body.

In 1800 King Tieng-tsong-tai-oang died of a tumour in the back, no one

dreaming of employing the lancet, which would probably have saved his

life. It is said that one king suffered terribly from an abscess in the

lip, till his physician called in a jester, whose pranks made the king

laugh heartily, and so the abscess burst.(706) Roman and Sabine priests

might not be shaved with iron but only with bronze razors or shears;(707)

and whenever an iron graving-tool was brought into the sacred grove of the

Arval Brothers at Rome for the purpose of cutting an inscription in stone,

an expiatory sacrifice of a lamb and a pig must be offered, which was

repeated when the graving-tool was removed from the grove.(708) As a

general rule iron might not be brought into Greek sanctuaries.(709) In

Crete sacrifices were offered to Menedemus without the use of iron,

because the legend ran that Menedemus had been killed by an iron weapon in

the Trojan war.(710) The Archon of Plataea might not touch iron; but once

a year, at the annual commemoration of the men who fell at the battle of

Plataea, he was allowed to carry a sword wherewith to sacrifice a

bull.(711) To this day a Hottentot priest never uses an iron knife, but

always a sharp splint of quartz, in sacrificing an animal or circumcising

a lad.(712) Among the Ovambo of south-west Africa custom requires that

lads should be circumcised with a sharp flint; if none is to hand, the

operation may be performed with iron, but the iron must afterwards be

buried.(713) The Antandroy and Tanala of Madagascar cut the navel-strings

of their children with sharp wood or with a thread, but never with an iron

knife.(714) In Uap, one of the Caroline Islands, wood of the hibiscus

tree, which was used to make the fire-drill, must be cut with shell knives

or shell axes, never with iron or steel.(715) Amongst the Moquis of

Arizona stone knives, hatchets, and so on have passed out of common use,

but are retained in religious ceremonies.(716) After the Pawnees had

ceased to use stone arrow-heads for ordinary purposes, they still employed

them to slay the sacrifices, whether human captives or buffalo and

deer.(717) We have seen that among the Esquimaux of Bering Strait the use

of iron implements is forbidden for four days after the slaughter of a

white whale, and that the use of an iron axe at a place where salmon are

being dressed is believed by these people to be a fatal imprudence.(718)

They hold a festival in the assembly-house of the village, while the

bladders of the slain beasts are hanging there, and during its celebration

no wood may be cut with an iron axe. If it is necessary to split firewood,

this may be done with wedges of bone.(719) At Kushunuk, near Cape

Vancouver, it happened that Mr. Nelson and his party entered an

assembly-house of these Esquimaux while the festival of the bladders was

in progress. “When our camping outfit was brought in from the sledges, two

men took drums, and as the clothing and goods of the traders who were with

me were brought in, the drums were beaten softly and a song was sung in a

low, humming tone, but when our guns and some steel traps were brought in,

with other articles of iron, the drums were beaten loudly and the songs

raised in proportion. This was done that the shades of the animals present

in the bladders might not be frightened.”(720) The Esquimaux on the

western coast of Hudson Bay may not work on iron during the season for

hunting musk-oxen, which falls in March. And no such work may be done by

them until the seals have their pups.(721) Negroes of the Gold Coast

remove all iron or steel from their person when they consult their

fetish.(722) The men who made the need-fire in Scotland had to divest

themselves of all metal.(723) There was hardly any belief, we are told,

that had a stronger hold on the mind of a Scottish Highlander than that on

no account whatever should iron be put in the ground on Good Friday. Hence

no grave was dug and no field ploughed on that day. It has been suggested

that the belief was based on that rooted aversion to iron which fairies

are known to feel. These touchy beings live underground, and might resent

having the roof pulled from over their heads on the hallowed day.(724)

Again, in the Highlands of Scotland the shoulder-blades of sheep are

employed in divination, being consulted as to future marriages, births,

deaths, and funerals; but the forecasts thus made will not be accurate

unless the flesh has been removed from the bones without the use of any

iron.(725) In making the _clavie_ (a kind of Yule-tide fire-wheel) at

Burghead, no hammer may be used; the hammering must be done with a

stone.(726) Amongst the Jews no iron tool was used in building the Temple

at Jerusalem or in making an altar.(727) The old wooden bridge (_Pons

Sublicius_) at Rome, which was considered sacred, was made and had to be

kept in repair without the use of iron or bronze.(728) It was expressly

provided by law that the temple of Jupiter Liber at Furfo might be

repaired with iron tools.(729) The council chamber at Cyzicus was

constructed of wood without any iron nails, the beams being so arranged

that they could be taken out and replaced.(730) The late Rajah

Vijyanagram, a member of the Viceroy’s Council, and described as one of

the most enlightened and estimable of Hindoo princes, would not allow iron

to be used in the construction of buildings within his territory,

believing that its use would inevitably be followed by small-pox and other

epidemics.(731)

(M146) This superstitious objection to iron perhaps dates from that early

time in the history of society when iron was still a novelty, and as such

was viewed by many with suspicion and dislike.(732) For everything new is

apt to excite the awe and dread of the savage. “It is a curious

superstition,” says a pioneer in Borneo, “this of the Dusuns, to attribute

anything—whether good or bad, lucky or unlucky—that happens to them to

something novel which has arrived in their country. For instance, my

living in Kindram has caused the intensely hot weather we have experienced

of late.”(733) Some years ago a harmless naturalist was collecting plants

among the high forest-clad mountains on the borders of China and Tibet.

From the summit of a pass he gazed with delight down a long valley which,

stretching away as far as eye could reach to the south, resembled a sea of

bloom, for everywhere the forest was ablaze with the gorgeous hues of the

rhododendron and azalea in flower. In this earthly paradise the votary of

science hastened to install himself beside a lake. But hardly had he done

so when, alas! the weather changed. Though the season was early June, the

cold became intense, snow fell heavily, and the bloom of the rhododendrons

was cut off. The inhabitants of a neighbouring village at once set down

the unusual severity of the weather to the presence of a stranger in the

forest; and a round-robin, signed by them unanimously, was forwarded to

the nearest mandarin, setting forth that the snow which had blocked the

road, and the hail which was blasting their crops, were alike caused by

the intruder, and that all sorts of disturbances would follow if he were

allowed to remain. In these circumstances the naturalist, who had intended

to spend most of the summer among the mountains, was forced to decamp.

“Collecting in this country,” he adds pathetically, “is not an easy

matter.”(734) The unusually heavy rains which happened to follow the

English survey of the Nicobar Islands in the winter of 1886-1887 were

imputed by the alarmed natives to the wrath of the spirits at the

theodolites, dumpy-levellers, and other strange instruments which had been

set up in so many of their favourite haunts; and some of them proposed to

soothe the anger of the spirits by sacrificing a pig.(735) When the German

Hans Stade was a captive in a cannibal tribe of Brazilian Indians, it

happened that, shortly before a prisoner was to be eaten, a great wind

arose and blew away part of the roofs of the huts. The savages were angry

with Stade, and said he had made the wind to come by looking into his

thunder-skins, by which they meant a book he had been reading, in order to

save the prisoner, who was a friend of his, from their stomachs. So the

pious German prayed to God, and God mercifully heard his prayer; for next

morning the weather was beautifully fine, and his friend was butchered,

carved, and eaten in the most perfect comfort.(736) According to the

Orotchis of eastern Siberia, misfortunes have multiplied on them with the

coming of Europeans; “they even go so far as to lay the appearance of

_new_ phenomena like thunder at the door of the Russians.”(737) In the

seventeenth century a succession of bad seasons excited a revolt among the

Esthonian peasantry, who traced the origin of the evil to a water-mill,

which put a stream to some inconvenience by checking its flow.(738) The

first introduction of iron ploughshares into Poland having been followed

by a succession of bad harvests, the farmers attributed the badness of the

crops to the iron ploughshares, and discarded them for the old wooden

ones.(739) To this day the primitive Baduwis of Java, who live chiefly by

husbandry, will use no iron tools in tilling their fields.(740)

(M147) The general dislike of innovation, which always makes itself

strongly felt in the sphere of religion, is sufficient by itself to

account for the superstitious aversion to iron entertained by kings and

priests and attributed by them to the gods; possibly this aversion may

have been intensified in places by some such accidental cause as the

series of bad seasons which cast discredit on iron ploughshares in Poland.

But the disfavour in which iron is held by the gods and their ministers

has another side. Their antipathy to the metal furnishes men with a weapon

which may be turned against the spirits when occasion serves. As their

dislike of iron is supposed to be so great that they will not approach

persons and things protected by the obnoxious metal, iron may obviously be

employed as a charm for banning ghosts and other dangerous spirits. And

often it is so used. Thus in the Highlands of Scotland the great safeguard

against the elfin race is iron, or, better yet, steel. The metal in any

form, whether as a sword, a knife, a gun-barrel, or what not, is

all-powerful for this purpose. Whenever you enter a fairy dwelling you

should always remember to stick a piece of steel, such as a knife, a

needle, or a fish-hook, in the door; for then the elves will not be able

to shut the door till you come out again. So too when you have shot a deer

and are bringing it home at night, be sure to thrust a knife into the

carcase, for that keeps the fairies from laying their weight on it. A

knife or a nail in your pocket is quite enough to prevent the fairies from

lifting you up at night. Nails in the front of a bed ward off elves from

women “in the straw” and from their babes; but to make quite sure it is

better to put the smoothing-iron under the bed, and the reaping-hook in

the window. If a bull has fallen over a rock and been killed, a nail stuck

into it will preserve the flesh from the fairies. Music discoursed on that

melodious instrument, a Jew’s harp, keeps the elfin women away from the

hunter, because the tongue of the instrument is of steel.(741) Again, when

Scotch fishermen were at sea, and one of them happened to take the name of

God in vain, the first man who heard him called out “Cauld airn,” at which

every man of the crew grasped the nearest bit of iron and held it between

his hands for a while.(742) So too when he hears the unlucky word “pig”

mentioned, a Scotch fisherman will feel for the nails in his boots and

mutter “Cauld airn.”(743) The same magic words are even whispered in the

churches of Scotch fishing-villages when the clergyman reads the passage

about the Gadarene swine.(744) In Morocco iron is considered a great

protection against demons; hence it is usual to place a knife or dagger

under a sick man’s pillow.(745) The Singhalese believe that they are

constantly surrounded by evil spirits, who lie in wait to do them harm. A

peasant would not dare to carry good food, such as cakes or roast meat,

from one place to another without putting an iron nail on it to prevent a

demon from taking possession of the viands and so making the eater ill. No

sick person, whether man or woman, would venture out of the house without

a bunch of keys or a knife in his hand, for without such a talisman he

would fear that some devil might take advantage of his weak state to slip

into his body. And if a man has a large sore on his body he tries to keep

a morsel of iron on it as a protection against demons.(746) The

inhabitants of Salsette, an island near Bombay, dread a spirit called

_gîrâ_, which plays many pranks with a solitary traveller, leading him

astray, lowering him into an empty well, and so on. But a _gîrâ_ dare not

touch a person who has on him anything made of iron or steel, particularly

a knife or a nail, of which the spirit stands in great fear. Nor will he

meddle with a woman, especially a married woman, because he is afraid of

her bangles.(747) Among the Majhwâr, an aboriginal tribe in the hill

country of South Mirzapur, an iron implement such as a sickle or a

betel-cutter is constantly kept near an infant’s head during its first

year for the purpose of warding off the attacks of ghosts.(748) Among the

Maravars, an aboriginal race of southern India, a knife or other iron

object lies beside a woman after childbirth to keep off the devil.(749)

When a Mala woman is in labour, a sickle and some _nïm_ leaves are always

kept on the cot. In Malabar people who have to pass by burning-grounds or

other haunted places commonly carry with them iron in some form, such as a

knife or an iron rod used as a walking-stick. When pregnant women go on a

journey, they carry with them a few twigs or leaves of the _nïm_ tree, or

iron in some shape, to scare evil spirits lurking in groves or

burial-grounds which they may pass.(750) In Bilaspore people attribute

cholera to a goddess who visits the afflicted family. But they think that

she may be kept off by iron; hence during an epidemic of cholera people go

about with axes or sickles in their hands. “Their horses are not shod,

otherwise they might possibly nail horse-shoes to the door, but their

belief is more primitive; for with them iron does not _bring_ good luck,

but it _scares away_ the evil spirits, so when a man has had an epileptic

fit he will wear an iron bracelet to keep away the evil spirit which was

supposed to have possessed him.”(751) The Annamites imagine that a

new-born child is exposed to the attacks of evil spirits. To protect the

infant from these malignant beings the parents sometimes sell the child to

the village smith, who makes a small ring or circlet of iron and puts it

on the child’s foot, commonly adding a little chain of iron. When the

infant has been sold to the smith and firmly attached to him by the chain,

the demons no longer have any power over him. After the child has grown

big and the danger is over, the parents ask the smith to break the iron

ring and thank him for his services. No metal but iron will serve the

purpose.(752) On the Slave Coast of Africa when a mother sees her child

gradually wasting away, she concludes that a demon has entered into the

child and takes her measures accordingly. To lure the demon out of the

body of her offspring, she offers a sacrifice of food; and while the devil

is bolting it, she attaches iron rings and small bells to her child’s

ankles and hangs iron chains round his neck. The jingling of the iron and

the tinkling of the bells are supposed to prevent the demon, when he has

concluded his repast, from entering again into the body of the little

sufferer. Hence many children may be seen in this part of Africa weighed

down with iron ornaments.(753) The use of iron as a means to exorcise

demons was forbidden by the Coptic church.(754) In India “the mourner who

performs the ceremony of putting fire into the dead person’s mouth carries

with him a piece of iron: it may be a key or a knife, or a simple piece of

iron, and during the whole time of his separation (for he is unclean for a

certain time, and no one will either touch him or eat or drink with him,

neither can he change his clothes(755)) he carries the piece of iron about

with him to keep off the evil spirit. In Calcutta the Bengali clerks in

the Government Offices used to wear a small key on one of their fingers

when they had been chief mourners.”(756) When a woman dies in childbed in

the island of Salsette, they put a nail or other piece of iron in the

folds of her dress; this is done especially if the child survives her. The

intention plainly is to prevent her spirit from coming back; for they

believe that a dead mother haunts the house and seeks to carry away her

child.(757) In the north-east of Scotland immediately after a death had

taken place, a piece of iron, such as a nail or a knitting-wire, used to

be stuck into all the meal, butter, cheese, flesh, and whisky in the

house, “to prevent death from entering them.” The neglect of this salutary

precaution is said to have been closely followed by the corruption of the

food and drink; the whisky has been known to become as white as milk.(758)

When iron is used as a protective charm after a death, as in these Hindoo

and Scotch customs, the spirit against which it is directed is the ghost

of the deceased.(759)

§ 3. Sharp Weapons tabooed.

(M148) There is a priestly king to the north of Zengwih in Burma, revered

by the Sotih as the highest spiritual and temporal authority, into whose

house no weapon or cutting instrument may be brought.(760) This rule may

perhaps be explained by a custom observed by various peoples after a

death; they refrain from the use of sharp instruments so long as the ghost

of the deceased is supposed to be near, lest they should wound it. Thus

among the Esquimaux of Bering Strait “during the day on which a person

dies in the village no one is permitted to work, and the relatives must

perform no labour during the three following days. It is especially

forbidden during this period to cut with any edged instrument, such as a

knife or an axe; and the use of pointed instruments, like needles or

bodkins, is also forbidden. This is said to be done to avoid cutting or

injuring the shade, which may be present at any time during this period,

and, if accidentally injured by any of these things, it would become very

angry and bring sickness or death to the people. The relatives must also

be very careful at this time not to make any loud or harsh noises that may

startle or anger the shade.”(761) We have seen that in like manner after

killing a white whale these Esquimaux abstain from the use of cutting or

pointed instruments for four days, lest they should unwittingly cut or

stab the whale’s ghost.(762) The same taboo is sometimes observed by them

when there is a sick person in the village, probably from a fear of

injuring his shade which may be hovering outside of his body.(763) After a

death the Roumanians of Transylvania are careful not to leave a knife

lying with the sharp edge uppermost as long as the corpse remains in the

house, “or else the soul will be forced to ride on the blade.”(764) For

seven days after a death, the corpse being still in the house, the Chinese

abstain from the use of knives and needles, and even of chopsticks, eating

their food with their fingers.(765) On the third, sixth, ninth, and

fortieth days after the funeral the old Prussians and Lithuanians used to

prepare a meal, to which, standing at the door, they invited the soul of

the deceased. At these meals they sat silent round the table and used no

knives, and the women who served up the food were also without knives. If

any morsels fell from the table they were left lying there for the lonely

souls that had no living relations or friends to feed them. When the meal

was over the priest took a broom and swept the souls out of the house,

saying, “Dear souls, ye have eaten and drunk. Go forth, go forth.”(766) In

cutting the nails and combing the hair of a dead prince in South Celebes

only the back of the knife and of the comb may be used.(767) The Germans

say that a knife should not be left edge upwards, because God and the

spirits dwell there, or because it will cut the face of God and the

angels.(768) Among the Monumbos of New Guinea a pregnant woman may not use

sharp instruments; for example, she may not sew. If she used such

instruments, they think that she would thereby stab the child in her

womb.(769) Among the Kayans of Borneo, when the birth-pangs begin, all men

leave the room, and all cutting weapons and iron are also removed,

“perhaps in order not to frighten the child,” says the writer who reports

the custom.(770) The reason may rather be a fear of injuring the flitting

soul of mother or babe. In Uganda, when the hour of a woman’s delivery is

at hand, her husband carries all spears and weapons out of the house,(771)

doubtless in order that they may not hurt the tender soul of the new-born

child. Early in the period of the Ming dynasty a professor of geomancy

made the alarming discovery that the spiritual atmosphere of Kü-yung, a

city near Nanking, was in a truly deplorable condition through the

intrusion of an evil spirit. The Chinese emperor, with paternal

solicitude, directed that the north gate, by which the devil had effected

his entrance, should be built up solid, and that for the future the

population of the city should devote their energies to the pursuits of

hair-dressing, corn-cutting, and the shaving of bamboo-roots, because, as

he sagaciously perceived, all these professions call for the use of

sharp-edged instruments, which could not fail to keep the demon at

bay.(772) We can now understand why no cutting instrument may be taken

into the house of the Burmese pontiff. Like so many priestly kings, he is

probably regarded as divine, and it is therefore right that his sacred

spirit should not be exposed to the risk of being cut or wounded whenever

it quits his body to hover invisible in the air or to fly on some distant

mission.

§ 4. Blood tabooed.

(M149) We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was forbidden to touch or even

name raw flesh.(773) At certain times a Brahman teacher is enjoined not to

look on raw flesh, blood, or persons whose hands have been cut off.(774)

In Uganda the father of twins is in a state of taboo for some time after

the birth; among other rules he is forbidden to kill anything or to see

blood.(775) In the Pelew Islands when a raid has been made on a village

and a head carried off, the relations of the slain man are tabooed and

have to submit to certain observances in order to escape the wrath of his

ghost. They are shut up in the house, touch no raw flesh, and chew betel

over which an incantation has been uttered by the exorcist. After this the

ghost of the slaughtered man goes away to the enemy’s country in pursuit

of his murderer.(776) The taboo is probably based on the common belief

that the soul or spirit of the animal is in the blood. As tabooed persons

are believed to be in a perilous state—for example, the relations of the

slain man are liable to the attacks of his indignant ghost—it is

especially necessary to isolate them from contact with spirits; hence the

prohibition to touch raw meat. But as usual the taboo is only the special

enforcement of a general precept; in other words, its observance is

particularly enjoined in circumstances which seem urgently to call for its

application, but apart from such circumstances the prohibition is also

observed, though less strictly, as a common rule of life. Thus some of the

Esthonians will not taste blood because they believe that it contains the

animal’s soul, which would enter the body of the person who tasted the

blood.(777) Some Indian tribes of North America, “through a strong

principle of religion, abstain in the strictest manner from eating the

blood of any animal, as it contains the life and spirit of the beast.”

These Indians “commonly pull their new-killed venison (before they dress

it) several times through the smoke and flame of the fire, both by the way

of a sacrifice and to consume the blood, life, or animal spirits of the

beast, which with them would be a most horrid abomination to eat.”(778)

Among the western Dénés or Tinneh Indians of British Columbia until lately

no woman would partake of blood, “and both men and women abhorred the

flesh of a beaver which had been caught and died in a trap, and of a bear

strangled to death in a snare, because the blood remained in the

carcase.”(779) Many of the Slave, Hare, and Dogrib Indians scruple to

taste the blood of game; hunters of the former tribes collect the blood in

the animal’s paunch and bury it in the snow.(780) The Malepa, a Bantu

tribe in the north of the Transvaal, will taste no blood. Hence they cut

the throats of the cattle they slaughter and let the blood drain out of

the carcase before they will eat it. And they do the same with game.(781)

Jewish hunters poured out the blood of the game they had killed and

covered it up with dust. They would not taste the blood, believing that

the soul or life of the animal was in the blood, or actually was the

blood.(782) The same belief was held by the Romans,(783) and is shared by

the Arabs,(784) by Chinese medical writers,(785) and by some of the Papuan

tribes of New Guinea.(786)

(M150) It is a common rule that royal blood may not be shed upon the

ground. Hence when a king or one of his family is to be put to death a

mode of execution is devised by which the royal blood shall not be spilt

upon the earth. About the year 1688 the generalissimo of the army rebelled

against the king of Siam and put him to death “after the manner of royal

criminals, or as princes of the blood are treated when convicted of

capital crimes, which is by putting them into a large iron caldron, and

pounding them to pieces with wooden pestles, because none of their royal

blood must be spilt on the ground, it being, by their religion, thought

great impiety to contaminate the divine blood by mixing it with

earth.”(787) Other Siamese modes of executing a royal person are

starvation, suffocation, stretching him on a scarlet cloth and thrusting a

billet of fragrant sandal-wood into his stomach,(788) or lastly, sewing

him up in a leather sack with a large stone and throwing him into the

river; sometimes the sufferer’s neck is broken with sandal-wood clubs

before he is thrown into the water.(789) When Kublai Khan defeated and

took his uncle Nayan, who had rebelled against him, he caused Nayan to be

put to death by being wrapt in a carpet and tossed to and fro till he

died, “because he would not have the blood of his Line Imperial spilt upon

the ground or exposed in the eye of Heaven and before the Sun.”(790)

“Friar Ricold mentions the Tartar maxim: ‘One Khan will put another to

death to get possession of the throne, but he takes great care that the

blood be not spilt. For they say that it is highly improper that the blood

of the Great Khan should be spilt upon the ground; so they cause the

victim to be smothered somehow or other.’ The like feeling prevails at the

court of Burma, where a peculiar mode of execution without bloodshed is

reserved for princes of the blood.”(791) Another writer on Burma observes

that “according to Mongolian tradition, it is considered improper to spill

the blood of any member of the royal race. Princes of the Blood are

executed by a blow, or blows, of a bludgeon, inflicted on the back of the

neck. The corpse is placed in a red velvet sack, which is fixed between

two large perforated jars, and then sunk in the river Irawadi. Princesses

are executed in a similar manner, with the exception that they are put to

death by a blow in front, instead of the back of the neck.”(792) In 1878

the relations of Theebaw, king of Burma, were despatched by being beaten

across the throat with a bamboo.(793) In Tonquin the ordinary mode of

execution is beheading, but persons of the blood royal are strangled.(794)

In Ashantee the blood of none of the royal family may be shed; if one of

them is guilty of a great crime he is drowned in the river Dah.(795) As

the blood royal of Dahomey may not be spilled, offenders of the royal

family are drowned or strangled. Commonly they are bound hand and foot,

carried out to sea in a canoe, and thrown overboard.(796) When a king of

Benin came to the throne he used to put his brothers to death; but as no

one might lay hands on a prince of the blood, the king commanded his

brothers to hang themselves, after which he buried their bodies with great

pomp.(797) In Madagascar the blood of nobles might not be shed; hence when

four Christians of that class were to be executed they were burned

alive.(798) In Uganda “no one may shed royal blood on any account, not

even when ordered by the king to slay one of the royal house; royalty may

only be starved or burned to death.”(799) Formerly when a young king of

Uganda came of age all his brothers were burnt except two or three, who

were preserved to keep up the succession.(800) Or a space of ground having

been fenced in with a high paling and a deep ditch, the doomed men were

led into the enclosure and left there till they died, while guards kept

watch outside to prevent their escape.(801) Among the Bawenda of southern

Africa dangerous princes are strangled, for their blood may not be

shed.(802)

(M151) The reluctance to spill royal blood seems to be only a particular

case of a general unwillingness to shed blood or at least to allow it to

fall on the ground. Marco Polo tells us that in his day persons caught in

the streets of Cambaluc (Peking) at unseasonable hours were arrested, and

if found guilty of a misdemeanour were beaten with a stick. “Under this

punishment people sometimes die, but they adopt it in order to eschew

bloodshed, for their _Bacsis_ say that it is an evil thing to shed man’s

blood.”(803) When Captain Christian was shot by the Manx Government at the

Restoration in 1660, the spot on which he stood was covered with white

blankets, that his blood might not fall on the ground.(804) In West Sussex

people believe that the ground on which human blood has been shed is

accursed and will remain barren for ever.(805) Among some primitive

peoples, when the blood of a tribesman has to be spilt it is not suffered

to fall upon the ground, but is received upon the bodies of his

fellow-tribesmen. Thus in some Australian tribes boys who are being

circumcised are laid on a platform, formed by the living bodies of the

tribesmen;(806) and when a boy’s tooth is knocked out as an initiatory

ceremony, he is seated on the shoulders of a man, on whose breast the

blood flows and may not be wiped away.(807) When Australian blacks bleed

each other as a cure for headache and other ailments, they are very

careful not to spill any of the blood on the ground, but sprinkle it on

each other.(808) We have already seen that in the Australian ceremony for

making rain the blood which is supposed to imitate the rain is received

upon the bodies of the tribesmen.(809) “Also the Gauls used to drink their

enemies’ blood and paint themselves therewith. So also they write that the

old Irish were wont; and so have I seen some of the Irish do, but not

their enemies’ but friends’ blood, as, namely, at the execution of a

notable traitor at Limerick, called Murrogh O’Brien, I saw an old woman,

which was his foster-mother, take up his head whilst he was quartered and

suck up all the blood that ran thereout, saying that the earth was not

worthy to drink it, and therewith also steeped her face and breast and

tore her hair, crying out and shrieking most terribly.”(810) After a

battle in Horne Island, South Pacific, it was found that the brother of

the vanquished king was among the wounded. “It was sad to see his wife

collect in her hands the blood which had flowed from his wounds, and throw

it on to her head, while she uttered piercing cries. All the relatives of

the wounded collected in the same manner the blood which had flowed from

them, down even to the last drop, and they even applied their lips to the

leaves of the shrubs and licked it all up to the last drop.”(811) In the

Marquesas Islands the persons who helped a woman at childbirth received on

their heads the blood which flowed at the cutting of the navel-string; for

the blood might not touch anything but a sacred object, and in Polynesia

the head is sacred in a high degree.(812) In South Celebes at childbirth a

female slave stands under the house (the houses being raised on posts

above the ground) and receives in a basin on her head the blood which

trickles through the bamboo floor.(813) Among the Latuka of central Africa

the earth on which a drop of blood has fallen at childbirth is carefully

scraped up with an iron shovel, put into a pot along with the water used

in washing the mother, and buried tolerably deep outside the house on the

left-hand side.(814) In West Africa, if a drop of your blood has fallen on

the ground, you must carefully cover it up, rub and stamp it into the

soil; if it has fallen on the side of a canoe or a tree, the place is cut

out and the chip destroyed.(815) The Caffres, we are told, have a great

horror of blood, and must purify themselves from the pollution if they

have shed it and been bespattered by it. Hence warriors on the return from

battle purge themselves with emetics, and that so violently that some of

them give up the ghost. A Caffre would never allow even a drop of blood

from his nose or a wound to lie uncovered, but huddles it over with earth,

that his feet may not be defiled by it.(816) One motive of these African

customs may be a wish to prevent the blood from falling into the hands of

magicians, who might make an evil use of it. That is admittedly the reason

why people in West Africa stamp out any blood of theirs which has fallen

on the ground or cut out any wood that has been soaked with it.(817) From

a like dread of sorcery natives of New Guinea are careful to burn any

sticks, leaves, or rags which are stained with their blood; and if the

blood has dripped on the ground they turn up the soil and if possible

light a fire on the spot.(818) The same fear explains the curious duties

discharged by a class of men called _ramanga_ or “blue blood” among the

Betsileo of Madagascar. It is their business to eat all the nail-parings

and to lick up all the spilt blood of the nobles. When the nobles pare

their nails, the parings are collected to the last scrap and swallowed by

these _ramanga_. If the parings are too large, they are minced small and

so gulped down. Again, should a nobleman wound himself, say in cutting his

nails or treading on something, the _ramanga_ lick it up as fast as

possible. Nobles of high rank hardly go anywhere without these humble

attendants; but if it should happen that there are none of them present,

the cut nails and the spilt blood are carefully collected to be afterwards

swallowed by the _ramanga_. There is scarcely a nobleman of any

pretensions who does not strictly observe this custom,(819) the intention

of which probably is to prevent these parts of his person from falling

into the hands of sorcerers, who on the principles of contagious magic

could work him harm thereby. The tribes of the White Nile are said never

to shed human blood in their villages because they think the sight of it

would render women barren or bring misfortune on their children. Hence

executions and murders commonly take place on the roads or in the

forest.(820)

(M152) The unwillingness to shed blood is extended by some peoples to the

blood of animals. Thus, when the Caffres offer an ox to the spirits, the

blood of the beast must be carefully caught in a calabash, and none of it

may fall on the ground.(821) When the Wanika in eastern Africa kill their

cattle for food, “they either stone or beat the animal to death, so as not

to shed the blood.”(822) Amongst the Damaras cattle killed for food are

suffocated, but when sacrificed they are speared to death.(823) But like

most pastoral tribes in Africa, both the Wanika and Damaras very seldom

kill their cattle, which are indeed commonly invested with a kind of

sanctity.(824) Some of the Ewe-speaking negroes of Togoland, in West

Africa, celebrate a festival in honour of the Earth at which it is

unlawful to shed blood on the ground. Hence the fowls which are sacrificed

on these occasions have their necks wrung, not their throats cut.(825) In

killing an animal for food the Easter Islanders do not shed its blood, but

stun it or suffocate it in smoke.(826) When the natives of San Cristoval,

one of the Solomon Islands, sacrifice a pig to a ghost in a sacred place,

they take great care that the blood shall not fall on the ground; so they

place the animal in a large bowl and cut it up there.(827) It is said that

in ancient India the sacrificial victims were not slaughtered but

strangled.(828)

(M153) The general explanation of the reluctance to shed blood on the

ground is probably to be found in the belief that the soul is in the

blood, and that therefore any ground on which it may fall necessarily

becomes taboo or sacred. In New Zealand anything upon which even a drop of

a high chief’s blood chances to fall becomes taboo or sacred to him. For

instance, a party of natives having come to visit a chief in a fine new

canoe, the chief got into it, but in doing so a splinter entered his foot,

and the blood trickled on the canoe, which at once became sacred to him.

The owner jumped out, dragged the canoe ashore opposite the chief’s house,

and left it there. Again, a chief in entering a missionary’s house knocked

his head against a beam, and the blood flowed. The natives said that in

former times the house would have belonged to the chief.(829) As usually

happens with taboos of universal application, the prohibition to spill the

blood of a tribesman on the ground applies with peculiar stringency to

chiefs and kings, and is observed in their case long after it has ceased

to be observed in the case of others.

(M154) We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was not allowed to walk under a

trellised vine.(830) The reason for this prohibition was perhaps as

follows. It has been shewn that plants are considered as animate beings

which bleed when cut, the red juice which exudes from some of them being

regarded as the blood of the plant.(831) The juice of the grape is

therefore naturally conceived as the blood of the vine.(832) And since, as

we have just seen, the soul is often believed to be in the blood, the

juice of the grape is regarded as the soul, or as containing the soul, of

the vine. This belief is strengthened by the intoxicating effects of wine.

For, according to primitive notions, all abnormal mental states, such as

intoxication or madness, are caused by the entrance of a spirit into the

person; such mental states, in other words, are accounted forms of

possession or inspiration. Wine, therefore, is considered on two distinct

grounds as a spirit, or containing a spirit; first because, as a red

juice, it is identified with the blood of the plant, and second because it

intoxicates or inspires. Therefore if the Flamen Dialis had walked under a

trellised vine, the spirit of the vine, embodied in the clusters of

grapes, would have been immediately over his head and might have touched

it, which for a person like him in a state of permanent taboo(833) would

have been highly dangerous. This interpretation of the prohibition will be

made probable if we can shew, first, that wine has been actually viewed by

some peoples as blood, and intoxication as inspiration produced by

drinking the blood; and, second, that it is often considered dangerous,

especially for tabooed persons, to have either blood or a living person

over their heads.

(M155) With regard to the first point, we are informed by Plutarch that of

old the Egyptian kings neither drank wine nor offered it in libations to

the gods, because they held it to be the blood of beings who had once

fought against the gods, the vine having sprung from their rotting bodies;

and the frenzy of intoxication was explained by the supposition that the

drunken man was filled with the blood of the enemies of the gods.(834) The

Aztecs regarded _pulque_ or the wine of the country as bad, on account of

the wild deeds which men did under its influence. But these wild deeds

were believed to be the acts, not of the drunken man, but of the wine-god

by whom he was possessed and inspired; and so seriously was this theory of

inspiration held that if any one spoke ill of or insulted a tipsy man, he

was liable to be punished for disrespect to the wine-god incarnate in his

votary. Hence, says Sahagun, it was believed, not without ground, that the

Indians intoxicated themselves on purpose to commit with impunity crimes

for which they would certainly have been punished if they had committed

them sober.(835) Thus it appears that on the primitive view intoxication

or the inspiration produced by wine is exactly parallel to the inspiration

produced by drinking the blood of animals.(836) The soul or life is in the

blood, and wine is the blood of the vine. Hence whoever drinks the blood

of an animal is inspired with the soul of the animal or of the god, who,

as we have seen,(837) is often supposed to enter into the animal before it

is slain; and whoever drinks wine drinks the blood, and so receives into

himself the soul or spirit, of the god of the vine.

(M156) With regard to the second point, the fear of passing under blood or

under a living person, we are told that some of the Australian blacks have

a dread of passing under a leaning tree or even under the rails of a

fence. The reason they give is that a woman may have been upon the tree or

fence, and some blood from her may have fallen on it and might fall from

it on them.(838) In Ugi, one of the Solomon Islands, a man will never, if

he can help it, pass under a tree which has fallen across the path, for

the reason that a woman may have stepped over it before him.(839) Amongst

the Karens of Burma “going under a house, especially if there are females

within, is avoided; as is also the passing under trees of which the

branches extend downwards in a particular direction, and the butt-end of

fallen trees, etc.”(840) The Siamese think it unlucky to pass under a rope

on which women’s clothes are hung, and to avert evil consequences the

person who has done so must build a chapel to the earth-spirit.(841)

(M157) Probably in all such cases the rule is based on a fear of being

brought into contact with blood, especially the blood of women. From a

like fear a Maori will never lean his back against the wall of a native

house.(842) For the blood of women is supposed to have disastrous effects

upon males. The Arunta of central Australia believe that a draught of

woman’s blood would kill the strongest man.(843) In the Encounter Bay

tribe of South Australia boys are warned that if they see the blood of

women they will early become grey-headed and their strength will fail

prematurely.(844) Men of the Booandik tribe in South Australia think that

if they see the blood of their women they will not be able to fight

against their enemies and will be killed; if the sun dazzles their eyes at

a fight, the first woman they afterwards meet is sure to get a blow from

their club.(845) In the island of Wetar it is thought that if a man or a

lad comes upon a woman’s blood he will be unfortunate in war and other

undertakings, and that any precautions he may take to avoid the misfortune

will be vain.(846) The people of Ceram also believe that men who see

women’s blood will be wounded in battle.(847) It is an Esthonian belief

that men who see women’s blood will suffer from an eruption on the

skin.(848) A Fan negro told Miss Kingsley that a young man in his village,

who was so weak that he could hardly crawl about, had fallen into this

state through seeing the blood of a woman who had been killed by a falling

tree. “The underlying idea regarding blood is of course the old one that

the blood is the life. The life in Africa means a spirit, hence the

liberated blood is the liberated spirit, and liberated spirits are always

whipping into people who do not want them. In the case of the young Fan,

the opinion held was that the weak spirit of the woman had got into

him.”(849)

§ 5. The Head tabooed.

(M158) Again, the reason for not passing under dangerous objects, like a

vine or women’s blood, is a fear that they may come in contact with the

head; for among many peoples the head is peculiarly sacred. The special

sanctity attributed to it is sometimes explained by a belief that it is

the seat of a spirit which is very sensitive to injury or disrespect. Thus

the Yorubas of the Slave Coast hold that every man has three spiritual

inmates, of whom the first, called Olori, dwells in the head and is the

man’s protector, guardian, and guide. Offerings are made to this spirit,

chiefly of fowls, and some of the blood mixed with palm-oil is rubbed on

the forehead.(850) The Karens of Burma suppose that a being called the

_tso_ resides in the upper part of the head, and while it retains its seat

no harm can befall the person from the efforts of the seven _Kelahs_, or

personified passions. “But if the _tso_ becomes heedless or weak certain

evil to the person is the result. Hence the head is carefully attended to,

and all possible pains are taken to provide such dress and attire as will

be pleasing to the _tso_.”(851) The Siamese think that a spirit called

_khuan_ or _kwun_ dwells in the human head, of which it is the guardian

spirit. The spirit must be carefully protected from injury of every kind;

hence the act of shaving or cutting the hair is accompanied with many

ceremonies. The _kwun_ is very sensitive on points of honour, and would

feel mortally insulted if the head in which he resides were touched by the

hand of a stranger. When Dr. Bastian, in conversation with a brother of

the king of Siam, raised his hand to touch the prince’s skull in order to

illustrate some medical remarks he was making, a sullen and threatening

murmur bursting from the lips of the crouching courtiers warned him of the

breach of etiquette he had committed, for in Siam there is no greater

insult to a man of rank than to touch his head. If a Siamese touch the

head of another with his foot, both of them must build chapels to the

earth-spirit to avert the omen. Nor does the guardian spirit of the head

like to have the hair washed too often; it might injure or incommode him.

It was a grand solemnity when the king of Burma’s head was washed with

water drawn from the middle of the river. Whenever the native professor,

from whom Dr. Bastian took lessons in Burmese at Mandalay, had his head

washed, which took place as a rule once a month, he was generally absent

for three days together, that time being consumed in preparing for, and

recovering from, the operation of head-washing. Dr. Bastian’s custom of

washing his head daily gave rise to much remark.(852) The head of the king

of Persia was cleaned only once a year, on his birthday.(853) Roman women

washed their heads annually on the thirteenth of August, Diana’s day.(854)

The Indians of Peru fancied they could rid themselves of their sins by

scrubbing their heads with a small stone and then washing them in a

stream.(855)

(M159) Again, the Burmese think it an indignity to have any one,

especially a woman, over their heads, and for this reason Burmese houses

have never more than one story. The houses are raised on posts above the

ground, and whenever anything fell through the floor Dr. Bastian had

always difficulty in persuading a servant to fetch it from under the

house. In Rangoon a priest, summoned to the bedside of a sick man, climbed

up a ladder and got in at the window rather than ascend the staircase, to

reach which he must have passed under a gallery. A pious Burman of

Rangoon, finding some images of Buddha in a ship’s cabin, offered a high

price for them, that they might not be degraded by sailors walking over

them on the deck.(856) Formerly in Siam no person might cross a bridge

while his superior in rank was passing underneath, nor might he walk in a

room above one in which his superior was sitting or lying.(857) The

Cambodians esteem it a grave offence to touch a man’s head; some of them

will not enter a place where anything whatever is suspended over their

heads; and the meanest Cambodian would never consent to live under an

inhabited room. Hence the houses are built of one story only; and even the

Government respects the prejudice by never placing a prisoner in the

stocks under the floor of a house, though the houses are raised high above

the ground.(858) The same superstition exists amongst the Malays; for an

early traveller reports that in Java people “wear nothing on their heads,

and say that nothing must be on their heads ... and if any person were to

put his hand upon their head they would kill him; and they do not build

houses with storeys, in order that they may not walk over each other’s

heads.”(859) In Uganda no person belonging to the king’s totem clan was

allowed to get on the top of the palace to roof it, for that would have

been regarded as equivalent to getting on the top of the king. Hence the

palace had to be roofed by men of a different clan from the king.(860)

(M160) The same superstition as to the head is found in full force

throughout Polynesia. Thus of Gattanewa, a Marquesan chief, it is said

that “to touch the top of his head, or anything which had been on his

head, was sacrilege. To pass over his head was an indignity never to be

forgotten. Gattanewa, nay, all his family, scorned to pass a gateway which

is ever closed, or a house with a door; all must be as open and free as

their unrestrained manners. He would pass under nothing that had been

raised by the hand of man, if there was a possibility of getting round or

over it. Often have I seen him walk the whole length of our barrier, in

preference to passing between our water-casks; and at the risk of his life

scramble over the loose stones of a wall, rather than go through the

gateway.”(861) Marquesan women have been known to refuse to go on the

decks of ships for fear of passing over the heads of chiefs who might be

below.(862) The son of a Marquesan high priest has been seen to roll on

the ground in an agony of rage and despair, begging for death, because

some one had desecrated his head and deprived him of his divinity by

sprinkling a few drops of water on his hair.(863) But it was not the

Marquesan chiefs only whose heads were sacred. The head of every Marquesan

was taboo, and might neither be touched nor stepped over by another; even

a father might not step over the head of his sleeping child;(864) women

were forbidden to carry or touch anything that had been in contact with,

or had merely hung over, the head of their husband or father.(865) No one

was allowed to be over the head of the king of Tonga.(866) In Hawaii (the

Sandwich Islands) if a man climbed upon a chiefs house or upon the wall of

his yard, he was put to death; if his shadow fell on a chief, he was put

to death; if he walked in the shadow of a chiefs house with his head

painted white or decked with a garland or wetted with water, he was put to

death.(867) In Tahiti any one who stood over the king or queen, or passed

his hand over their heads, might be put to death.(868) Until certain rites

were performed over it, a Tahitian infant was especially taboo; whatever

touched the child’s head, while it was in this state, became sacred and

was deposited in a consecrated place railed in for the purpose at the

child’s house. If a branch of a tree touched the child’s head, the tree

was cut down; and if in its fall it injured another tree so as to

penetrate the bark, that tree also was cut down as unclean and unfit for

use. After the rites were performed these special taboos ceased; but the

head of a Tahitian was always sacred, he never carried anything on it, and

to touch it was an offence.(869) In New Zealand “the heads of the chiefs

were always tabooed (_tapu_), hence they could not pass, or sit, under

food hung up; or carry food, as others, on their backs; neither would they

eat a meal in a house, nor touch a calabash of water in drinking. No one

could touch their head, nor, indeed, commonly speak of it, or allude to

it; to do so offensively was one of their heaviest curses, and grossest

insults, only to be wiped out with blood.”(870) So sacred was the head of

a Maori chief that “if he only touched it with his fingers, he was obliged

immediately to apply them to his nose, and snuff up the sanctity which

they had acquired by the touch, and thus restore it to the part from

whence it was taken.”(871) On account of the sacredness of his head a

Maori chief “could not blow the fire with his mouth, for the breath being

sacred, communicated his sanctity to it, and a brand might be taken by a

slave, or a man of another tribe, or the fire might be used for other

purposes, such as cooking, and so cause his death.”(872) It is a crime for

a sacred person in New Zealand to leave his comb, or anything else which

has touched his head, in a place where food has been cooked, or to suffer

another person to drink out of any vessel which has touched his lips.

Hence when a chief wishes to drink he never puts his lips to the vessel,

but holds his hands close to his mouth so as to form a hollow, into which

water is poured by another person, and thence is allowed to flow into his

mouth. If a light is needed for his pipe, the burning ember taken from the

fire must be thrown away as soon as it is used; for the pipe becomes

sacred because it has touched his mouth; the coal becomes sacred because

it has touched the pipe; and if a particle of the sacred cinder were

replaced on the common fire, the fire would also become sacred and could

no longer be used for cooking.(873) Some Maori chiefs, like other

Polynesians, object to go down into a ship’s cabin from fear of people

passing over their heads.(874) Dire misfortune was thought by the Maoris

to await those who entered a house where any article of animal food was

suspended over their heads. “A dead pigeon, or a piece of pork hung from

the roof, was a better protection from molestation than a sentinel.”(875)

If I am right, the reason for the special objection to having animal food

over the head is the fear of bringing the sacred head into contact with

the spirit of the animal; just as the reason why the Flamen Dialis might

not walk under a vine was the fear of bringing his sacred head into

contact with the spirit of the vine. Similarly King Darius would not pass

through a gate over which there was a tomb, because in doing so he would

have had a corpse above his head.(876) Among the Awuna tribes of the Gold

Coast, West Africa, the worshippers of Hebesio, the god of thunder,

believe that their heads are sacred, being associated in some mysterious

way with the presence of the protective spirit of their god, which has

passed into them through this channel at baptism. Hence they carefully

guard their heads against injury, especially against any wound that might

draw blood, for they think that such a wound would entail the loss of

reason on the sufferer, and that it would bring down the wrath of the

thundering god and of his mouth-piece the fetish priest on the impious

smiter.(877)

§ 6. Hair tabooed.

(M161) When the head was considered so sacred that it might not even be

touched without grave offence, it is obvious that the cutting of the hair

must have been a delicate and difficult operation. The difficulties and

dangers which, on the primitive view, beset the operation are of two

kinds. There is first the danger of disturbing the spirit of the head,

which may be injured in the process and may revenge itself upon the person

who molests him. Secondly, there is the difficulty of disposing of the

shorn locks. For the savage believes that the sympathetic connexion which

exists between himself and every part of his body continues to exist even

after the physical connexion has been broken, and that therefore he will

suffer from any harm that may befall the severed parts of his body, such

as the clippings of his hair or the parings of his nails. Accordingly he

takes care that these severed portions of himself shall not be left in

places where they might either be exposed to accidental injury or fall

into the hands of malicious persons who might work magic on them to his

detriment or death. Such dangers are common to all, but sacred persons

have more to fear from them than ordinary people, so the precautions taken

by them are proportionately stringent. The simplest way of evading the

peril is not to cut the hair at all; and this is the expedient adopted

where the risk is thought to be more than usually great. The Frankish

kings were never allowed to crop their hair; from their childhood upwards

they had to keep it unshorn.(878) To poll the long locks that floated on

their shoulders would have been to renounce their right to the throne.

When the wicked brothers Clotaire and Childebert coveted the kingdom of

their dead brother Clodomir, they inveigled into their power their little

nephews, the two sons of Clodomir; and having done so, they sent a

messenger bearing scissors and a naked sword to the children’s

grandmother, Queen Clotilde, at Paris. The envoy shewed the scissors and

the sword to Clotilde, and bade her choose whether the children should be

shorn and live or remain unshorn and die. The proud queen replied that if

her grandchildren were not to come to the throne she would rather see them

dead than shorn. And murdered they were by their ruthless uncle Clotaire

with his own hand.(879) The king of Ponape, one of the Caroline Islands,

must wear his hair long, and so must his grandees.(880) The hair of the

Aztec priests hung down to their hams, so that the weight of it became

very troublesome; for they might never poll it so long as they lived, or

at least until they had been relieved of their office on the score of old

age. They wore it braided in great tresses, six fingers broad, and tied

with cotton.(881) A Haida medicine-man may neither clip nor comb his

tresses, so they are always long and tangled.(882) Among the Hos, a negro

tribe of Togoland in West Africa, “there are priests on whose head no

razor may come during the whole of their lives. The god who dwells in the

man forbids the cutting of his hair on pain of death. If the hair is at

last too long, the owner must pray to his god to allow him at least to

clip the tips of it. The hair is in fact conceived as the seat and

lodging-place of his god, so that were it shorn the god would lose his

abode in the priest.”(883) A rain-maker at Boroma, on the lower Zambesi,

used to give out that he was possessed by two spirits, one of a lion, the

other of a leopard, and in the assemblies of the people he mimicked the

roaring of these beasts. In order that their spirits might not leave him,

he never cut his hair nor drank alcohol.(884) The Masai clan of the El

Kiboron, who are believed to possess the art of making rain, may not pluck

out their beards, because the loss of their beards would, it is supposed,

entail the loss of their rain-making powers. The head chief and the

sorcerers of the Masai observe the same rule for a like reason: they think

that were they to pull out their beards, their supernatural gifts would

desert them.(885) In central Borneo the chiefs of a particular Kayan

family never allow their hair to be shorn.(886) Ancient Indian law

required that when a new king had performed the ceremony of consecration

he might not shave his hair for a year, though he was allowed to crop it.

According to one account none of his subjects, except a Brahman, might

have his hair cut during this period, and even horses were left

unclipped.(887) Amongst the Alfoors of Celebes the _Leleen_ or priest who

looks after the rice-fields may not shear his hair during the time that he

exercises his special functions, that is from a month before the rice is

sown until it is housed.(888) In Usukuma, a district to the south of Lake

Victoria Nyanza, the people are forbidden to shave their heads till the

corn has been sown.(889) Men of the Tsetsaut tribe in British Columbia do

not cut their hair, believing that if they cut it they would quickly grow

old.(890) In Ceram men do not crop their hair: if married men did so, they

would lose their wives; if young men did so, they would grow weak and

enervated.(891) In Timorlaut married men may not poll their hair for the

same reason as in Ceram, but widowers and men on a journey may do so after

offering a fowl or a pig in sacrifice.(892) Malays of the Peninsula are

forbidden to clip their hair during their wife’s pregnancy and for forty

days after the child has been born; and a similar abstention is said to

have been formerly incumbent on all persons prosecuting a journey or

engaged in war.(893) Elsewhere men travelling abroad have been in the

habit of leaving their hair unshorn until their return. The reason for

this custom is probably the danger to which, as we have seen, a traveller

is believed to be exposed from the magic arts of the strangers amongst

whom he sojourns; if they got possession of his shorn hair, they might

work his destruction through it. The Egyptians on a journey kept their

hair uncut till they returned home.(894) “At Tâif when a man returned from

a journey his first duty was to visit the Rabba and poll his hair.”(895)

Achilles kept unshorn his yellow hair, because his father had vowed to

offer it to the River Sperchius if ever his son came home from the wars

beyond the sea.(896) Formerly when Dyak warriors returned with the heads

of their enemies, each man cut off a lock from the front of his head and

threw it into the river as a mode of ending the taboo to which they had

been subjected during the expedition.(897) Bechuanas after a battle had

their hair shorn by their mothers “in order that new hair might grow, and

that all which was old and polluted might disappear and be no more.”(898)

(M162) Again, men who have taken a vow of vengeance sometimes keep their

hair unshorn till they have fulfilled their vow. Thus of the Marquesans we

are told that “occasionally they have their head entirely shaved, except

one lock on the crown, which is worn loose or put up in a knot. But the

latter mode of wearing the hair is only adopted by them when they have a

solemn vow, as to revenge the death of some near relation, etc. In such

case the lock is never cut off until they have fulfilled their

promise.”(899) A similar custom was sometimes observed by the ancient

Germans; among the Chatti the young warriors never clipped their hair or

their beard till they had slain an enemy.(900) Six thousand Saxons once

swore that they would not poll their hair nor shave their beards until

they had taken vengeance on their foes.(901) On one occasion a Hawaiian

taboo is said to have lasted thirty years, “during which the men were not

allowed to trim their beards, etc.”(902) While his vow lasted, a Nazarite

might not have his hair cut: “All the days of the vow of his separation

there shall no razor come upon his head.”(903) Possibly in this case there

was a special objection to touching the tabooed man’s head with iron. The

Roman priests, as we have seen, were shorn with bronze knives. The same

feeling perhaps gave rise to the European rule that a child’s nails should

not be pared during the first year, but that if it is absolutely necessary

to shorten them they should be bitten off by the mother or nurse.(904) For

in all parts of the world a young child is believed to be especially

exposed to supernatural dangers, and particular precautions are taken to

guard it against them; in other words, the child is under a number of

taboos, of which the rule just mentioned is one. “Among Hindus the usual

custom seems to be that the nails of a first-born child are cut at the age

of six months. With other children a year or two is allowed to

elapse.”(905) The Slave, Hare, and Dogrib Indians of North-West America do

not pare the nails of female children till they are four years of

age.(906) In Uganda a child’s hair may not be cut until the child has

received a name. Should any of it be rubbed or plucked off accidentally,

it is refastened to the child’s head with string or by being knotted to

the other hair.(907) Amongst the Ewe negroes of the Slave Coast, a mother

sometimes vows a sacrifice to the fetish if her infant should live. She

then leaves the child unshorn till its fourth or sixth year, when she

fulfils her vow and has the child’s hair cut by a priest.(908) To this day

a Syrian mother will sometimes, like Hannah, devote her little one to God.

When the child reaches a certain age, its hair is cut and weighed, and

money is paid in proportion to the weight. If the boy thus dedicated is a

Moslem, he becomes in time a dervish; if he is a Christian, he becomes a

monk.(909) Among the Toradjas of central Celebes, when a child’s hair is

cut to rid it of vermin, some locks are allowed to remain on the crown of

the head as a refuge for one of the child’s souls. Otherwise the soul

would have no place in which to settle, and the child would sicken.(910)

The Karo-Bataks of Sumatra are much afraid of frightening away the soul

(_tĕndi_) of a child; hence when they cut its hair, they always leave a

patch unshorn, to which the soul can retreat before the shears. Usually

this lock remains unshorn all through life, or at least up till

manhood.(911) In some parts of Germany it is thought that if a child’s

hair is combed in its first year the child will be unlucky;(912) or that

if a boy’s hair is cut before his seventh year he will have no

courage.(913)

§ 7. Ceremonies at Hair-cutting.

(M163) But when it becomes necessary to crop the hair, measures are taken

to lessen the dangers which are supposed to attend the operation. The

chief of Namosi in Fiji always ate a man by way of precaution when he had

had his hair cut. “There was a certain clan that had to provide the

victim, and they used to sit in solemn council among themselves to choose

him. It was a sacrificial feast to avert evil from the chief.”(914) This

remarkable custom has been described more fully by another observer. The

old heathen temple at Namosi is called Rukunitambua, “and round about it

are hundreds of stones, each of which tells a fearful tale. A subject

tribe, whose town was some little distance from Namosi, had committed an

unpardonable offence, and were condemned to a frightful doom. The

earth-mound on which their temple had stood was planted with the mountain

_ndalo_ (arum), and when the crop was ripe, the poor wretches had to carry

it down to Namosi, and give at least one of their number to be killed and

eaten by the chief. He used to take advantage of these occasions to have

his hair cut, for the human sacrifice was supposed to avert all danger of

witchcraft if any ill-wisher got hold of the cuttings of his hair, human

hair being the most dangerous channel for the deadliest spells of the

sorcerers. The stones round Rukunitambua represented these and other

victims who had been killed and eaten at Namosi. Each stone was the record

of a murder succeeded by a cannibal feast.”(915) Amongst the Maoris many

spells were uttered at hair-cutting; one, for example, was spoken to

consecrate the obsidian knife with which the hair was cut; another was

pronounced to avert the thunder and lightning which hair-cutting was

believed to cause.(916) “He who has had his hair cut is in immediate

charge of the Atua (spirit); he is removed from the contact and society of

his family and his tribe; he dare not touch his food himself; it is put

into his mouth by another person; nor can he for some days resume his

accustomed occupations or associate with his fellow-men.”(917) The person

who cuts the hair is also tabooed; his hands having been in contact with a

sacred head, he may not touch food with them or engage in any other

employment; he is fed by another person with food cooked over a sacred

fire. He cannot be released from the taboo before the following day, when

he rubs his hands with potato or fern root which has been cooked on a

sacred fire; and this food having been taken to the head of the family in

the female line and eaten by her, his hands are freed from the taboo. In

some parts of New Zealand the most sacred day of the year was that

appointed for hair-cutting; the people assembled in large numbers on that

day from all the neighbourhood.(918) Sometimes a Maori chief’s hair was

shorn by his wife, who was then tabooed for a week as a consequence of

having touched his sacred locks.(919) It is an affair of state when the

king of Cambodia’s hair is cropped. The priests place on the barber’s

fingers certain old rings set with large stones, which are supposed to

contain spirits favourable to the kings, and during the operation the

Brahmans keep up a noisy music to drive away the evil spirits.(920) The

hair and nails of the Mikado could only be cut while he was asleep,(921)

perhaps because his soul being then absent from his body, there was less

chance of injuring it with the shears.

(M164) From their earliest days little Siamese children have the crown of

the head clean shorn with the exception of a single small tuft of hair,

which is daily combed, twisted, oiled, and tied in a little knot until the

day when it is finally removed with great pomp and ceremony. The ceremony

of shaving the top-knot takes place before the child has reached puberty,

and great anxiety is felt at this time lest the _kwun_, or guardian-spirit

who commonly resides in the body and especially the head of every

Siamese,(922) should be so disturbed by the tonsure as to depart and leave

the child a hopeless wreck for life. Great pains are therefore taken to

recall this mysterious being in case he should have fled, and to fix him

securely in the child. This is the object of an elaborate ceremony

performed on the afternoon of the day when the top-knot has been cut. A

miniature pagoda is erected, and on it are placed several kinds of food

known to be favourites of the spirit. When the _kwun_ has arrived and is

feasting on these dainties, he is caught and held fast under a cloth

thrown over the food. The child is now placed near the pagoda, and all the

family and friends form a circle, with the child, the captured spirit, and

the Brahman priests in the middle. Hereupon the priests address the

spirit, earnestly entreating him to enter into the child. They amuse him

with tales, and coax and wheedle him with flattery, jest, and song; the

gongs ring out their loudest; the people cheer and only a _kwun_ of the

sourest and most obdurate disposition could resist the combined appeal.

The last sentences of the formal invocation run as follows: “Benignant

_kwun_! Thou fickle being who art wont to wander and dally about! From the

moment that the child was conceived in the womb, thou hast enjoyed every

pleasure, until ten (lunar) months having elapsed and the time of delivery

arrived, thou hast suffered and run the risk of perishing by being born

alive into the world. Gracious _kwun_! thou wast at that time so tender,

delicate, and wavering as to cause great anxiety concerning thy fate; thou

was exactly like a child, youthful, innocent, and inexperienced. The least

trifle frightened thee and made thee shudder. In thy infantile playfulness

thou wast wont to frolic and wander to no purpose. As thou didst commence

to learn to sit, and, unassisted, to crawl totteringly on all fours, thou

wast ever falling flat on thy face or on thy back. As thou didst grow up

in years and couldst move thy steps firmly, thou didst begin to run and

sport thoughtlessly and rashly all round the rooms, the terrace, and

bridging planks of travelling boat or floating house, and at times thou

didst fall into the stream, creek, or pond, among the floating

water-weeds, to the utter dismay of those to whom thy existence was most

dear. O gentle _kwun_, come into thy corporeal abode; do not delay this

auspicious rite. Thou art now full-grown and dost form everybody’s delight

and admiration. Let all the tiny particles of _kwun_ that have fallen on

land or water assemble and take permanent abode in this darling little

child. Let them all hurry to the site of this auspicious ceremony and

admire the magnificent preparations made for them in this hall.” The

brocaded cloth from the pagoda, under which lurks the captive spirit, is

now rolled up tightly and handed to the child, who is told to clasp it

firmly to his breast and not let the _kwun_ escape. Further, the child

drinks the milk of the coco-nuts which had been offered to the spirit, and

by thus absorbing the food of the _kwun_ ensures the presence of that

precious spirit in his body. A magic cord is tied round his wrist to keep

off the wicked spirits who would lure the _kwun_ away from home; and for

three nights he sleeps with the embroidered cloth from the pagoda fast

clasped in his arms.(923)

§ 8. Disposal of Cut Hair and Nails.

(M165) But even when the hair and nails have been safely cut, there

remains the difficulty of disposing of them, for their owner believes

himself liable to suffer from any harm that may befall them. The notion

that a man may be bewitched by means of the clippings of his hair, the

parings of his nails, or any other severed portion of his person is almost

world-wide,(924) and attested by evidence too ample, too familiar, and too

tedious in its uniformity to be here analysed at length. The general idea

on which the superstition rests is that of the sympathetic connexion

supposed to persist between a person and everything that has once been

part of his body or in any way closely related to him. A very few examples

must suffice. They belong to that branch of sympathetic magic which may be

called contagious.(925) Thus, when the Chilote Indians, inhabiting the

wild, deeply indented coasts and dark rain-beaten forests of southern

Chili, get possession of the hair of an enemy, they drop it from a high

tree or tie it to a piece of seaweed and fling it into the surf; for they

think that the shock of the fall, or the blows of the waves as the tress

is tossed to and fro on the heaving billows, will be transmitted through

the hair to the person from whose head it was cut.(926) Dread of sorcery,

we are told, formed one of the most salient characteristics of the

Marquesan islanders in the old days. The sorcerer took some of the hair,

spittle, or other bodily refuse of the man he wished to injure, wrapped it

up in a leaf, and placed the packet in a bag woven of threads or fibres,

which were knotted in an intricate way. The whole was then buried with

certain rites, and thereupon the victim wasted away of a languishing

sickness which lasted twenty days. His life, however, might be saved by

discovering and digging up the buried hair, spittle, or what not; for as

soon as this was done the power of the charm ceased.(927) A Marquesan

chief told Lieutenant Gamble that he was extremely ill, the Happah tribe

having stolen a lock of his hair and buried it in a plantain leaf for the

purpose of taking his life. Lieutenant Gamble argued with him, but in

vain; die he must unless the hair and the plantain leaf were brought back

to him; and to obtain them he had offered the Happahs the greater part of

his property. He complained of excessive pain in the head, breast, and

sides.(928) A Maori sorcerer intent on bewitching somebody sought to get a

tress of his victim’s hair, the parings of his nails, some of his spittle,

or a shred of his garment. Having obtained the object, whatever it was, he

chanted certain spells and curses over it in a falsetto voice and buried

it in the ground. As the thing decayed, the person to whom it had belonged

was supposed to waste away.(929) Again, an Australian girl, sick of a

fever, laid the blame of her illness on a young man who had come behind

her and cut off a lock of her hair; she was sure he had buried it and that

it was rotting. “Her hair,” she said, “was rotting somewhere, and her

_Marm-bu-la_ (kidney fat) was wasting away, and when her hair had

completely rotted, she would die.”(930) When an Australian blackfellow

wishes to get rid of his wife, he cuts off a lock of her hair in her

sleep, ties it to his spear-thrower, and goes with it to a neighbouring

tribe, where he gives it to a friend. His friend sticks the spear-thrower

up every night before the camp fire, and when it falls down it is a sign

that the wife is dead.(931) The way in which the charm operates was

explained to Dr. Howitt by a Wirajuri man. “You see,” he said, “when a

blackfellow doctor gets hold of something belonging to a man and roasts it

with things, and sings over it, the fire catches hold of the smell of the

man, and that settles the poor fellow.”(932) A slightly different form of

the charm as practised in Australia is to fasten the enemy’s hair with wax

to the pinion bone of a hawk, and set the bone in a small circle of fire.

According as the sorcerer desires the death or only the sickness of his

victim he leaves the bone in the midst of the fire or removes it and lays

it in the sun. When he thinks he has done his enemy enough harm, he places

the bone in water, which ends the enchantment.(933) Lucian describes how a

Syrian witch professed to bring back a faithless lover to his forsaken

fair one by means of a lock of his hair, his shoes, his garments, or

something of that sort. She hung the hair, or whatever it was, on a peg

and fumigated it with brimstone, sprinkling salt on the fire and

mentioning the names of the lover and his lass. Then she drew a magic

wheel from her bosom and set it spinning, while she gabbled a spell full

of barbarous and fearsome words. This soon brought the false lover back to

the feet of his charmer.(934) Apuleius tells how an amorous Thessalian

witch essayed to win the affections of a handsome Boeotian youth by

similar means. As darkness fell she mounted the roof, and there,

surrounded by a hellish array of dead men’s bones, she knotted the severed

tresses of auburn hair and threw them on the glowing embers of a perfumed

fire. But her cunning handmaid had outwitted her; the hair was only goat’s

hair; and all her enchantments ended in dismal and ludicrous failure.(935)

(M166) The Huzuls of the Carpathians imagine that if mice get a person’s

shorn hair and make a nest of it, the person will suffer from headache or

even become idiotic.(936) Similarly in Germany it is a common notion that

if birds find a person’s cut hair, and build their nests with it, the

person will suffer from headache;(937) sometimes it is thought that he

will have an eruption on the head.(938) The same superstition prevails, or

used to prevail, in West Sussex. “I knew how it would be,” exclaimed a

maidservant one day, “when I saw that bird fly off with a bit of my hair

in its beak that blew out of the window this morning when I was dressing;

I knew I should have a clapping headache, and so I have.”(939) In like

manner the Scottish Highlanders believe that if cut or loose hair is

allowed to blow away with the wind and it passes over an empty nest, or a

bird takes it to its nest, the head from which it came will ache.(940) The

Todas of southern India hide their clipped hair in bushes or hollows in

the rocks, in order that it may not be found by crows, and they bury the

parings of their nails lest they should be eaten by buffaloes, with whom,

it is believed, they would disagree.(941)