(M167) Again it is thought that cut or combed-out hair may disturb the

weather by producing rain and hail, thunder and lightning. We have seen

that in New Zealand a spell was uttered at hair-cutting to avert thunder

and lightning. In the Tyrol, witches are supposed to use cut or combed-out

hair to make hailstones or thunderstorms with.(942) Thlinkeet Indians have

been known to attribute stormy weather to the rash act of a girl who had

combed her hair outside of the house.(943) The Romans seem to have held

similar views, for it was a maxim with them that no one on shipboard

should cut his hair or nails except in a storm,(944) that is, when the

mischief was already done. In the Highlands of Scotland it is said that no

sister should comb her hair at night if she have a brother at sea.(945) In

West Africa, when the Mani of Chitombe or Jumba died, the people used to

run in crowds to the corpse and tear out his hair, teeth, and nails, which

they kept as a rain-charm, believing that otherwise no rain would fall.

The Makoko of the Anzikos begged the missionaries to give him half their

beards as a rain-charm.(946) When Du Chaillu had his hair cut among the

Ashira of West Africa, the people scuffled and fought for the clippings of

his hair, even the aged king himself taking part in the scrimmage. Every

one who succeeded in getting some of the hairs wrapped them up carefully

and went off in triumph. When the traveller, who was regarded as a spirit

by these simple-minded folk, asked the king what use the clippings could

be to him, his sable majesty replied, “Oh, spirit! these hairs are very

precious; we shall make _mondas_ (fetiches) of them, and they will bring

other white men to us, and bring us great good luck and riches. Since you

have come to us, oh spirit! we have wished to have some of your hair, but

did not dare to ask for it, not knowing that it could be cut.”(947) The

Wabondei of eastern Africa preserve the hair and nails of their dead

chiefs and use them both for the making of rain and the healing of the

sick.(948) The hair, beard, and nails of their deceased chiefs are the

most sacred possession, the most precious treasure of the Baronga of

south-eastern Africa. Preserved in pellets of cow-dung wrapt round with

leathern thongs, they are kept in a special hut under the charge of a high

priest, who offers sacrifices and prayers at certain seasons, and has to

observe strict continence for a month before he handles these holy relics

in the offices of religion. A terrible drought was once the result of this

palladium falling into the hands of the enemy.(949) In some Victorian

tribes the sorcerer used to burn human hair in time of drought; it was

never burned at other times for fear of causing a deluge of rain. Also

when the river was low, the sorcerer would place human hair in the stream

to increase the supply of water.(950)

(M168) If cut hair and nails remain in sympathetic connexion with the

person from whose body they have been severed, it is clear that they can

be used as hostages for his good behaviour by any one who may chance to

possess them; for on the principles of contagious magic he has only to

injure the hair or nails in order to hurt simultaneously their original

owner. Hence when the Nandi have taken a prisoner they shave his head and

keep the shorn hair as a surety that he will not attempt to escape; but

when the captive is ransomed, they return his shorn hair with him to his

own people.(951) For a similar reason, perhaps, when the Tiaha, an Arab

tribe of Moab, have taken a prisoner whom they do not wish to put to

death, they shave one corner of his head above his temples and let him go.

So, too, an Arab of Moab who pardons a murderer will sometimes cut off the

man’s hair and shave his chin before releasing him. Again, when two

Moabite Arabs had got hold of a traitor who had revealed their plan of

campaign to the enemy, they contented themselves with shaving completely

one side of his head and his moustache on the other, after which they set

him at liberty.(952) We can now, perhaps, understand why Hanun King of

Ammon shaved off one-half of the beards of King David’s messengers and cut

off half their garments before he sent them back to their master.(953) His

intention, we may conjecture, was not simply to put a gross affront on the

envoys. He distrusted the ambitious designs of King David and wished to

have some guarantee of the maintenance of peace and friendly relations

between the two countries. That guarantee he may have imagined that he

possessed in half of the beards and garments of the ambassadors; and if

that was so, we may suppose that when the indignant David set the army of

Israel in motion against Ammon, and the fords of Jordan were alive with

the passage of his troops, the wizards of Ammon were busy in the strong

keep of Rabbah muttering their weird spells and performing their quaint

enchantments over the shorn hair and severed skirts in order to dispel the

thundercloud of war that was gathering black about their country. Vain

hopes! The city fell, and from the gates the sad inhabitants trooped forth

in thousands to be laid in long lines on the ground and sawed asunder or

ripped up with harrows or to walk into the red glow of the burning brick

kilns.(954) Again, the parings of nails may serve the same purpose as the

clippings of hair; they too may be treated as bail for the good behaviour

of the persons from whose fingers they have been cut. It is apparently on

this principle that when the Ba-yaka of the Congo valley cement a peace,

the chiefs of the two tribes meet and eat a cake which contains some of

their nail-parings as a pledge of the maintenance of the treaty. They

believe that he who breaks an engagement contracted in this solemn manner

will die.(955) Each of the high contracting parties has in fact given

hostages to fortune in the shape of the nail-parings which are lodged in

the other man’s stomach.

(M169) To preserve the cut hair and nails from injury and from the

dangerous uses to which they may be put by sorcerers, it is necessary to

deposit them in some safe place. Hence the natives of the Maldives

carefully keep the cuttings of their hair and nails and bury them, with a

little water, in the cemeteries; “for they would not for the world tread

upon them nor cast them in the fire, for they say that they are part of

their body, and demand burial as it does; and, indeed, they fold them

neatly in cotton; and most of them like to be shaved at the gates of

temples and mosques.”(956) In New Zealand the severed hair was deposited

on some sacred spot of ground “to protect it from being touched

accidentally or designedly by any one.”(957) The shorn locks of a chief

were gathered with much care and placed in an adjoining cemetery.(958) The

Tahitians buried the cuttings of their hair at the temples.(959) In the

streets of Soku, West Africa, a modern traveller observed cairns of large

stones piled against walls with tufts of human hair inserted in the

crevices. On asking the meaning of this, he was told that when any native

of the place polled his hair he carefully gathered up the clippings and

deposited them in one of these cairns, all of which were sacred to the

fetish and therefore inviolable. These cairns of sacred stones, he further

learned, were simply a precaution against witchcraft, for if a man were

not thus careful in disposing of his hair, some of it might fall into the

hands of his enemies, who would, by means of it, be able to cast spells

over him and so compass his destruction.(960) When the top-knot of a

Siamese child has been cut with great ceremony, the short hairs are put

into a little vessel made of plantain leaves and set adrift on the nearest

river or canal. As they float away, all that was wrong or harmful in the

child’s disposition is believed to depart with them. The long hairs are

kept till the child makes a pilgrimage to the holy Footprint of Buddha on

the sacred hill at Prabat. They are then presented to the priests, who are

supposed to make them into brushes with which they sweep the Footprint;

but in fact so much hair is thus offered every year that the priests

cannot use it all, so they quietly burn the superfluity as soon as the

pilgrims’ backs are turned.(961) The cut hair and nails of the Flamen

Dialis were buried under a lucky tree.(962) The shorn tresses of the

Vestal virgins were hung on an ancient lotus-tree.(963) In Morocco women

often hang their cut hair on a tree that grows on or near the grave of a

wonder-working saint; for they think thus to rid themselves of headache or

to guard against it.(964) In Germany the clippings of hair used often to

be buried under an elder-bush.(965) In Oldenburg cut hair and nails are

wrapt in a cloth which is deposited in a hole in an elder-tree three days

before the new moon; the hole is then plugged up.(966) In the West of

Northumberland it is thought that if the first parings of a child’s nails

are buried under an ash-tree, the child will turn out a fine singer.(967)

In Amboyna, before a child may taste sago-pap for the first time, the

father cuts off a lock of the infant’s hair, which he buries under a

sago-palm.(968) In the Aru Islands, when a child is able to run alone, a

female relation shears a lock of its hair and deposits it on a

banana-tree.(969) In the island of Rotti it is thought that the first hair

which a child gets is not his own, and that, if it is not cut off, it will

make him weak and ill. Hence, when the child is about a month old, his

hair is polled with much ceremony. As each of the friends who are invited

to the ceremony enters the house he goes up to the child, snips off a

little of its hair and drops it into a coco-nut shell full of water.

Afterwards the father or another relation takes the hair and packs it into

a little bag made of leaves, which he fastens to the top of a palm-tree.

Then he gives the leaves of the palm a good shaking, climbs down, and goes

home without speaking to any one.(970) Indians of the Yukon territory,

Alaska, do not throw away their cut hair and nails, but tie them up in

little bundles and place them in the crotches of trees or wherever they

are not likely to be disturbed by beasts. For “they have a superstition

that disease will follow the disturbance of such remains by animals.”(971)

(M170) Often the clipped hair and nails are stowed away in any secret

place, not necessarily in a temple or cemetery or at a tree, as in the

cases already mentioned. Thus in Swabia you are recommended to deposit

your clipped hair in some spot where neither sun nor moon can shine on it,

for example in the earth or under a stone.(972) In Danzig it is buried in

a bag under the threshold.(973) In Ugi, one of the Solomon Islands, men

bury their hair lest it should fall into the hands of an enemy who would

make magic with it and so bring sickness or calamity on them.(974) The

same fear seems to be general in Melanesia, and has led to a regular

practice of hiding cut hair and nails.(975) In Fiji, the shorn hair is

concealed in the thatch of the house.(976) Most Burmese and Shans tie the

combings of their hair and the parings of their nails to a stone and sink

them in deep water or bury them in the ground.(977) The Zend-Avesta

directs that the clippings of hair and the parings of nails shall be

placed in separate holes, and that three, six, or nine furrows shall be

drawn round each hole with a metal knife.(978) In the _Grihya-Sûtras_ it

is provided that the hair cut from a child’s head at the end of the first,

third, fifth, or seventh year shall be buried in the earth at a place

covered with grass or in the neighbourhood of water.(979) At the end of

the period of his studentship a Brahman has his hair shaved and his nails

cut; and a person who is kindly disposed to him gathers the shorn hair and

the clipped nails, puts them in a lump of bull’s dung, and buries them in

a cow-stable or near an _adumbara_ tree or in a clump of _darbha_ grass,

with the words, “Thus I hide the sins of So-and-so.”(980) The Madi or Moru

tribe of central Africa bury the parings of their nails in the

ground.(981) In Uganda grown people throw away the clippings of their

hair, but carefully bury the parings of their nails.(982) The A-lur are

careful to collect and bury both their hair and nails in safe places.(983)

The same practice prevails among many tribes of South Africa, from a fear

lest wizards should get hold of the severed particles and work evil with

them.(984) The Caffres carry still further this dread of allowing any

portion of themselves to fall into the hands of an enemy; for not only do

they bury their cut hair and nails in a secret spot, but when one of them

cleans the head of another he preserves the vermin which he catches,

“carefully delivering them to the person to whom they originally

appertained, supposing, according to their theory, that as they derived

their support from the blood of the man from whom they were taken, should

they be killed by another, the blood of his neighbour would be in his

possession, thus placing in his hands the power of some superhuman

influence.”(985) Amongst the Wanyoro of central Africa all cuttings of the

hair and nails are carefully stored under the bed and afterwards strewed

about among the tall grass.(986) Similarly the Wahoko of central Africa

take pains to collect their cut hair and nails and scatter them in the

forest.(987) The Asa, a branch of the Masai, hide the clippings of their

hair and the parings of their nails or throw them away far from the kraal,

lest a sorcerer should get hold of them and make their original owners ill

by his magic.(988) In North Guinea the parings of the finger-nails and the

shorn locks of the head are scrupulously concealed, lest they be converted

into a charm for the destruction of the person to whom they belong.(989)

For the same reason the clipped hair and nail-parings of chiefs in

Southern Nigeria are secretly buried.(990) Among the Thompson Indians of

British Columbia loose hair was buried, hidden, or thrown into the water,

because, if an enemy got hold of it, he might bewitch the owner.(991) In

Bolang Mongondo, a district of western Celebes, the first hair cut from a

child’s head is kept in a young coco-nut, which is commonly hung on the

front of the house, under the roof.(992) To spit upon the hair before

throwing it away is thought in some parts of Europe to be a sufficient

safeguard against its use by witches.(993) Spitting as a protective charm

is well known.(994)

(M171) Sometimes the severed hair and nails are preserved, not to prevent

them from falling into the hands of a magician, but that the owner may

have them at the resurrection of the body, to which some races look

forward. Thus the Incas of Peru “took extreme care to preserve the

nail-parings and the hairs that were shorn off or torn out with a comb;

placing them in holes or niches in the walls; and if they fell out, any

other Indian that saw them picked them up and put them in their places

again. I very often asked different Indians, at various times, why they

did this, in order to see what they would say, and they all replied in the

same words saying, ‘Know that all persons who are born must return to

life’ (they have no word to express resuscitation), ‘and the souls must

rise out of their tombs with all that belonged to their bodies. We,

therefore, in order that we may not have to search for our hair and nails

at a time when there will be much hurry and confusion, place them in one

place, that they may be brought together more conveniently, and, whenever

it is possible, we are also careful to spit in one place.’ ”(995) In Chili

this custom of stuffing the shorn hair into holes in the wall is still

observed, it being thought the height of imprudence to throw the hair

away.(996) Similarly the Turks never throw away the parings of their

nails, but carefully stow them in cracks of the walls or of the boards, in

the belief that they will be needed at the resurrection.(997) The

Armenians do not throw away their cut hair and nails and extracted teeth,

but hide them in places that are esteemed holy, such as a crack in the

church wall, a pillar of the house, or a hollow tree. They think that all

these severed portions of themselves will be wanted at the resurrection,

and that he who has not stowed them away in a safe place will have to hunt

about for them on the great day.(998) With the same intention the

Macedonians bury the parings of their nails in a hole,(999) and devout

Moslems in Morocco hide them in a secret place.(1000) Similarly the Arabs

of Moab bestow the parings of their nails in the crannies of walls, where

they are sanguine enough to expect to find them when they appear before

their Maker.(1001) Some of the Esthonians keep the parings of their finger

and toe nails in their bosom, in order to have them at hand when they are

asked for them at the day of judgment.(1002) In a like spirit peasants of

the Vosges will sometimes bury their extracted teeth secretly, marking the

spot well so that they may be able to walk straight to it on the

resurrection day.(1003) In the village of Drumconrath, near Abbeyleix, in

Ireland, there used to be some old women who, having ascertained from

Scripture that the hairs of their heads were all numbered by the Almighty,

expected to have to account for them at the day of judgment. In order to

be able to do so they stuffed the severed hair away in the thatch of their

cottages.(1004) In Abyssinia men who have had their hands or feet cut off

are careful to dry the severed limbs over a fire and preserve them in

butter for the purpose of being buried with them in the grave. Thus they

expect to get up with all their limbs complete at the general

rising.(1005) The pains taken by the Chinese to preserve corpses entire

and free from decay seems to rest on a firm belief in the resurrection of

the dead; hence it is natural to find their ancient books laying down a

rule that the hair, nails, and teeth which have fallen out during life

should be buried with the dead in the coffin, or at least in the

grave.(1006) The Fors of central Africa object to cut any one else’s

nails, for should the part cut off be lost and not delivered into its

owner’s hands, it will have to be made up to him somehow or other after

death. The parings are buried in the ground.(1007)

(M172) Some people burn their loose hair to save it from falling into the

hands of sorcerers. This is done by the Patagonians and some of the

Victorian tribes.(1008) In the Upper Vosges they say that you should never

leave the clippings of your hair and nails lying about, but burn them to

hinder the sorcerers from using them against you.(1009) For the same

reason Italian women either burn their loose hairs or throw them into a

place where no one is likely to look for them.(1010) The almost universal

dread of witchcraft induces the West African negroes, the Makololo of

South Africa, and the Tahitians to burn or bury their shorn hair.(1011)

For the same reason the natives of Uap, one of the Caroline Islands,

either burn or throw into the sea the clippings of their hair and the

parings of their nails.(1012) One of the pygmies who roam through the

gloomy depths of the vast central African forests has been seen to collect

carefully the clippings of his hair in a packet of banana leaves and keep

them till next morning, when, the camp breaking up for the day’s march, he

threw them into the hot ashes of the abandoned fire.(1013) Australian

aborigines of the Proserpine River, in Queensland, burn a woman’s cut hair

to prevent it from getting into a man’s bag; for if it did, the woman

would fall ill.(1014) When an English officer had cut off a lock of hair

of a Fuegian woman, the men of her party were angry, and one of them,

taking the lock away, threw half of it into the fire and swallowed the

rest. “Immediately afterwards, placing his hands to the fire, as if to

warm them, and looking upwards, he uttered a few words, apparently of

invocation: then, looking at us, pointed upwards, and exclaimed, with a

tone and gesture of explanation, ‘_Pecheray, Pecheray_.’ After which they

cut off some hair from several of the officers who were present, and

repeated a similar ceremony.”(1015) The Thompson Indians used to burn the

parings of their nails, because if an enemy got possession of the parings

he might bewitch the person to whom they belonged.(1016) In the Tyrol many

people burn their hair lest the witches should use it to raise

thunderstorms; others burn or bury it to prevent the birds from lining

their nests with it, which would cause the heads from which the hair came

to ache.(1017) Cut and combed-out hair is burned in Pomerania and

sometimes in Belgium.(1018) In Norway the parings of nails are either

burned or buried, lest the elves or the Finns should find them and make

them into bullets wherewith to shoot the cattle.(1019) In Corea all the

clippings and combings of the hair of a whole family are carefully

preserved throughout the year and then burned in potsherds outside the

house on the evening of New Year’s Day. At such seasons the streets of

Seoul, the capital, present a weird spectacle. They are for the most part

silent and deserted, sometimes muffled deep in snow; but through the dusk

of twilight red lights glimmer at every door, where little groups are busy

tending tiny fires whose flickering flames cast a ruddy fitful glow on the

moving figures. The burning of the hair in these fires is thought to

exclude demons from the house for a year; but coupled with this belief may

well be, or once have been, a wish to put these relics out of the reach of

witches and wizards.(1020)

(M173) This destruction of the hair and nails plainly involves an

inconsistency of thought. The object of the destruction is avowedly to

prevent these severed portions of the body from being used by sorcerers.

But the possibility of their being so used depends upon the supposed

sympathetic connexion between them and the man from whom they were

severed. And if this sympathetic connexion still exists, clearly these

severed portions cannot be destroyed without injury to the man.

(M174) Before leaving this subject, on which I have perhaps dwelt too

long, it may be well to call attention to the motive assigned for cutting

a young child’s hair in Rotti.(1021) In that island the first hair is

regarded as a danger to the child, and its removal is intended to avert

the danger. The reason of this may be that as a young child is almost

universally supposed to be in a tabooed or dangerous state, it is

necessary, in removing the taboo, to remove also the separable parts of

the child’s body because they are infected, so to say, by the virus of

taboo and as such are dangerous. The cutting of the child’s hair would

thus be exactly parallel to the destruction of the vessels which have been

used by a tabooed person.(1022) This view is borne out by a practice,

observed by some Australians, of burning off part of a woman’s hair after

childbirth as well as burning every vessel which has been used by her

during her seclusion.(1023) Here the burning of the woman’s hair seems

plainly intended to serve the same purpose as the burning of the vessels

used by her; and as the vessels are burned because they are believed to be

tainted with a dangerous infection, so, we must suppose, is also the hair.

Similarly among the Latuka of central Africa, a woman is secluded for

fourteen days after the birth of her child, and at the end of her

seclusion her hair is shaved off and burnt.(1024) Again, we have seen that

girls at puberty are strongly infected with taboo; hence it is not

surprising to find that the Ticunas of Brazil tear out all the hair of

girls at that period.(1025) Once more, the father of twins in Uganda is

tabooed for some time after the birth of the children, and during that

time he may not dress his hair nor cut his finger nails. This state of

taboo lasts until the next war breaks out. When the army is under orders

to march, the father of twins has the whole of his body shaved and his

nails cut. The shorn hair and the cut nails are then tied up in a ball,

which the man takes with him to the war, together with the bark cloth he

wore at the ceremonial dances after the birth of the twins. When he has

killed a foe, he crams the ball into the dead man’s mouth, ties the bark

cloth round the neck of the corpse, and leaves them there on the

battlefield.(1026) The ceremony appears to be intended to rid the man of

the taint of taboo which may be supposed to adhere to his hair, nails, and

the garment he wore. Hence we can understand the importance attached by

many peoples to the first cutting of a child’s hair and the elaborate

ceremonies by which the operation is accompanied.(1027) Again, we can

understand why a man should poll his head after a journey.(1028) For we

have seen that a traveller is often believed to contract a dangerous

infection from strangers, and that, therefore, on his return home he is

obliged to submit to various purificatory ceremonies before he is allowed

to mingle freely with his own people.(1029) On my hypothesis the polling

of the hair is simply one of these purificatory or disinfectant

ceremonies. Certainly this explanation applies to the custom as practised

by the Bechuanas, for we are expressly told that “they cleanse or purify

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

have contracted from strangers some evil by witchcraft or sorcery.”(1030)

The cutting of the hair after a vow may have the same meaning. It is a way

of ridding the man of what has been infected by the dangerous state,

whether we call it taboo, sanctity, or uncleanness (for all these are only

different expressions for the same primitive conception), under which he

laboured during the continuance of the vow. Still more clearly does the

meaning of the practice come out in the case of mourners, who cut their

hair and nails and use new vessels when the period of their mourning is at

an end. This was done in ancient India, obviously for the purpose of

purifying such persons from the dangerous influence of death and the ghost

to which for a time they had been exposed.(1031) Among the Bodos and

Dhimals of Assam, when a death has occurred, the family of the deceased is

reckoned unclean for three days. At the end of that time they bathe,

shave, and are sprinkled with holy water, after which they hold the

funeral feast.(1032) Here the act of shaving must clearly be regarded as a

purificatory rite, like the bathing and sprinkling with holy water. At

Hierapolis no man might enter the great temple of Astarte on the same day

on which he had seen a corpse; next day he might enter, provided he had

first purified himself. But the kinsmen of the deceased were not allowed

to set foot in the sanctuary for thirty days after the death, and before

doing so they had to shave their heads.(1033) At Agweh, on the Slave Coast

of West Africa, widows and widowers at the end of their period of mourning

wash themselves, shave their heads, pare their nails, and put on new

cloths; and the old cloths, the shorn hair, and the nail-parings are all

burnt.(1034) The Kayans of Borneo are not allowed to cut their hair or

shave their temples during the period of mourning; but as soon as the

mourning is ended by the ceremony of bringing home a newly severed human

head, the barber’s knife is kept busy enough. As each man leaves the

barber’s hands, he gathers up the shorn locks and spitting on them murmurs

a prayer to the evil spirits not to harm him. He then blows the hair out

of the verandah of the house.(1035) Among the Wajagga of East Africa

mourners shear their hair under a fruit-bearing banana-tree and lay their

shorn locks at the foot of the tree. When the fruit of the tree is ripe,

they brew beer with it and invite all the mourners to partake of it,

saying, “Come and drink the beer of those hair-bananas.”(1036) The tribes

of British Central Africa destroy the house in which a man has died, and

on the day when this is done the mourners have their heads shaved and bury

the shorn hair on the site of the house; the Atonga burn it in a new fire

made by the rubbing of two sticks.(1037) When an Akikuyu woman has, in

accordance with custom, exposed her misshapen or prematurely born infant

in the wood for the hyaenas to devour, she is shaved on her return by an

old woman and given a magic potion to drink; after which she is regarded

as clean.(1038) Similarly at some Hindoo places of pilgrimage on the banks

of rivers men who have committed great crimes or are troubled by uneasy

consciences have every hair shaved off by professional barbers before they

plunge into the sacred stream, from which “they emerge new creatures, with

all the accumulated guilt of a long life effaced.”(1039) The matricide

Orestes is said to have polled his hair after appeasing the angry Furies

of his murdered mother.(1040)

§ 9. Spittle tabooed.

(M175) The same fear of witchcraft which has led so many people to hide or

destroy their loose hair and nails has induced other or the same people to

treat their spittle in a like fashion. For on the principles of

sympathetic magic the spittle is part of the man, and whatever is done to

it will have a corresponding effect on him. A Chilote Indian, who has

gathered up the spittle of an enemy, will put it in a potato, and hang the

potato in the smoke, uttering certain spells as he does so in the belief

that his foe will waste away as the potato dries in the smoke. Or he will

put the spittle in a frog and throw the animal into an inaccessible,

unnavigable river, which will make the victim quake and shake with

ague.(1041) When a Cherokee sorcerer desires to destroy a man, he gathers

up his victim’s spittle on a stick and puts it in a joint of wild parsnip,

together with seven earthworms beaten to a paste and several splinters

from a tree which has been struck by lightning. He then goes into the

forest, digs a hole at the foot of a tree which has been struck by

lightning, and deposits in the hole the joint of wild parsnip with its

contents. Further, he lays seven yellow stones in the hole, then fills in

the earth, and makes a fire over the spot to destroy all traces of his

work. If the ceremony has been properly carried out, the man whose spittle

has thus been treated begins to feel ill at once; his soul shrivels up and

dwindles; and within seven days he is a dead man.(1042) In the East Indian

island of Siaoo or Siauw, one of the Sangi group, there are witches who by

means of hellish charms compounded from the roots of plants can change

their shape and bring sickness and misfortune on other folk. These hags

also crawl under the houses, which are raised above the ground on posts,

and there gathering up the spittle of the inmates cause them to fall

ill.(1043) If a Wotjobaluk sorcerer cannot get the hair of his foe, a

shred of his rug, or something else that belongs to the man, he will watch

till he sees him spit, when he will carefully pick up the spittle with a

stick and use it for the destruction of the careless spitter.(1044) The

natives of Urewera, a district in the north island of New Zealand, enjoyed

a high reputation for their skill in magic. It was said that they made use

of people’s spittle to bewitch them. Hence visitors were careful to

conceal their spittle, lest they should furnish these wizards with a

handle for working them harm.(1045) Similarly among some tribes of South

Africa no man will spit when an enemy is near, lest his foe should find

the spittle and give it to a wizard, who would then mix it with magical

ingredients so as to injure the person from whom it fell. Even in a man’s

own house his saliva is carefully swept away and obliterated for a similar

reason.(1046) For a like reason, no doubt, the natives of the Marianne

Islands use great precautions in spitting and take care never to

expectorate near somebody else’s house.(1047) Negroes of Senegal, the

Bissagos Archipelago, and some of the West Indian Islands, such as

Guadeloupe and Martinique, are also careful to efface their spittle by

pressing it into the ground with their feet, lest a sorcerer should use it

to their hurt.(1048) Natives of Astrolabe Bay, in German New Guinea, wipe

out their spittle for the same reason;(1049) and a like dread of sorcery

prevents some natives of German New Guinea from spitting on the ground in

presence of others.(1050) The Telugus say that if a man, rinsing his teeth

with charcoal in the mornings, spits on the road and somebody else treads

on his spittle, the spitter will be laid up with a sharp attack of fever

for two or three days. Hence all who wish to avoid the ailment should at

once efface their spittle by sprinkling water on it.(1051)

(M176) If common folk are thus cautious, it is natural that kings and

chiefs should be doubly so. In the Sandwich Islands chiefs were attended

by a confidential servant bearing a portable spittoon, and the deposit was

carefully buried every morning to put it out of the reach of

sorcerers.(1052) On the Slave Coast of Africa, for the same reason,

whenever a king or chief expectorates, the saliva is scrupulously gathered

up and hidden or buried.(1053) The same precautions are taken for the same

reason with the spittle of the chief of Tabali in Southern Nigeria.(1054)

At Bulebane, in Senegambia, a French traveller observed a captive engaged,

with an air of great importance, in covering over with sand all the

spittle that fell from the lips of a native dignitary; the man used a

small stick for the purpose.(1055) Page-boys, who carry tails of

elephants, hasten to sweep up or cover with sand the spittle of the king

of Ashantee;(1056) an attendant used to perform a similar service for the

king of Congo;(1057) and a custom of the same sort prevails or used to

prevail at the court of the Muata Jamwo in the interior of Angola.(1058)

In Yap, one of the Caroline Islands, there are two great wizards, the head

of all the magicians, whose exalted dignity compels them to lead a very

strict life. They may eat fruit only from plants or trees which are grown

specially for them. When one of them goes abroad the other must stay at

home, for if they were to meet each other on the road, some direful

calamity would surely follow. Though they may not smoke tobacco, they are

allowed to chew a quid of betel; but that which they expectorate is

carefully gathered up, carried away, and burned in a special manner, lest

any evil-disposed person should get possession of the spittle and do their

reverences a mischief by uttering a curse over it.(1059) Among the

Guaycurus and Payaguas of Brazil, when a chief spat, the persons about him

received his saliva on their hands,(1060) probably in order to prevent it

from being misused by magicians.

(M177) The magical use to which spittle may be put marks it out, like

blood or nail-parings, as a suitable material basis for a covenant, since

by exchanging their saliva the covenanting parties give each other a

guarantee of good faith. If either of them afterwards forswears himself,

the other can punish his perfidy by a magical treatment of the perjurer’s

spittle which he has in his custody. Thus when the Wajagga of East Africa

desire to make a covenant, the two parties will sometimes sit down with a

bowl of milk or beer between them, and after uttering an incantation over

the beverage they each take a mouthful of the milk or beer and spit it

into the other’s mouth. In urgent cases, when there is no time to stand on

ceremony, the two will simply spit into each other’s mouth, which seals

the covenant just as well.(1061)

§ 10. Foods tabooed.

(M178) As might have been expected, the superstitions of the savage

cluster thick about the subject of food; and he abstains from eating many

animals and plants, wholesome enough in themselves, which for one reason

or another he fancies would prove dangerous or fatal to the eater.

Examples of such abstinence are too familiar and far too numerous to

quote. But if the ordinary man is thus deterred by superstitious fear from

partaking of various foods, the restraints of this kind which are laid

upon sacred or tabooed persons, such as kings and priests, are still more

numerous and stringent. We have already seen that the Flamen Dialis was

forbidden to eat or even name several plants and animals, and that the

flesh diet of Egyptian kings was restricted to veal and goose.(1062) In

antiquity many priests and many kings of barbarous peoples abstained

wholly from a flesh diet.(1063) The _Gangas_ or fetish priests of the

Loango Coast are forbidden to eat or even see a variety of animals and

fish, in consequence of which their flesh diet is extremely limited; often

they live only on herbs and roots, though they may drink fresh

blood.(1064) The heir to the throne of Loango is forbidden from infancy to

eat pork; from early childhood he is interdicted the use of the _cola_

fruit in company; at puberty he is taught by a priest not to partake of

fowls except such as he has himself killed and cooked; and so the number

of taboos goes on increasing with his years.(1065) In Fernando Po the king

after installation is forbidden to eat _cocco_ (_arum acaule_), deer, and

porcupine, which are the ordinary foods of the people.(1066) The head

chief of the Masai may eat nothing but milk, honey, and the roasted livers

of goats; for if he partook of any other food he would lose his power of

soothsaying and of compounding charms.(1067) The diet of the king of

Unyoro in Central Africa was strictly regulated by immemorial custom. He

might never eat vegetables, but must live on milk and beef. Mutton he

might not touch. The beef he ate must be that of young animals not more

than one year old, and it must be spitted and roasted before a wood fire.

But he might not drink milk and eat beef at the same meal. He drank milk

thrice a day in the dairy, and the milk was always drawn from a sacred

herd which was kept for his exclusive use. Nine cows, neither more nor

less, were daily brought from pasture to the royal enclosure to be milked

for the king. The herding and the milking of the sacred animals were

performed according to certain rules prescribed by ancient custom.(1068)

Amongst the Murrams of Manipur (a district of eastern India, on the border

of Burma) “there are many prohibitions in regard to the food, both animal

and vegetable, which the chief should eat, and the Murrams say the chief’s

post must be a very uncomfortable one.”(1069) Among the hill tribes of

Manipur the scale of diet allowed by custom to the _ghennabura_ or

religious head of a village is always extremely limited. The savoury dog,

the tomato, the _murghi_, are forbidden to him. If a man in one of these

tribes is wealthy enough to feast his whole village and to erect a

memorial stone, he is entitled to become subject to the same self-denying

ordinances as the _ghennabura_. He wears the same special clothes, and for

the space of a year at least he may not use a drinking horn, but must

drink from a bamboo cup.(1070) Among the Karennis or Red Karens of Burma a

chief attains his position not by hereditary right but in virtue of the

observance of taboo. He must abstain from rice and liquor. His mother too

must have eschewed these things and lived only on yams and potatoes while

she was with child. During that time she might neither eat meat nor drink

water from a common well; and in order to be duly qualified for a

chiefship her son must continue these habits.(1071) Among the Pshaws and

Chewsurs of the Caucasus, whose nominal Christianity has degenerated into

superstition and polytheism, there is an annual office which entails a

number of taboos on the holder or _dasturi_, as he is called. He must live

the whole year in the temple, without going to his house or visiting his

wife; indeed he may not speak to any one, except the priests, for fear of

defiling himself. Once a week he must bathe in the river, whatever the

weather may be, using for the purpose a ladder on which no one else may

set foot. His only nourishment is bread and water. In the temple he

superintends the brewing of the beer for the festivals.(1072) In the

village of Tomil, in Yap, one of the Caroline Islands, the year consists

of twenty-four months, and there are five men who for a hundred days of

the year may eat only fish and taro, may not chew betel, and must observe

strict continence. The reason assigned by them for submitting to these

restraints is that if they did not act thus the immature girls would

attain to puberty too soon.(1073)

To explain the ultimate reason why any particular food is prohibited to a

whole tribe or to certain of its members would commonly require a far more

intimate knowledge of the history and beliefs of the tribe than we

possess. The general motive of such prohibitions is doubtless the same

which underlies the whole taboo system, namely, the conservation of the

tribe and the individual.

§ 11. Knots and Rings tabooed.

(M179) We have seen that among the many taboos which the Flamen Dialis at

Rome had to observe, there was one that forbade him to have a knot on any

part of his garments, and another that obliged him to wear no ring unless

it were broken.(1074) In like manner Moslem pilgrims to Mecca are in a

state of sanctity or taboo and may wear on their persons neither knots nor

rings.(1075) These rules are probably of kindred significance, and may

conveniently be considered together. To begin with knots, many people in

different parts of the world entertain a strong objection to having any

knot about their person at certain critical seasons, particularly

childbirth, marriage, and death. Thus among the Saxons of Transylvania,

when a woman is in travail all knots on her garments are untied, because

it is believed that this will facilitate her delivery, and with the same

intention all the locks in the house, whether on doors or boxes, are

unlocked.(1076) The Lapps think that a lying-in woman should have no knot

on her garments, because a knot would have the effect of making the

delivery difficult and painful.(1077) In ancient India it was a rule to

untie all knots in a house at the moment of childbirth.(1078) Roman

religion required that women who took part in the rites of Juno Lucina,

the goddess of childbirth, should have no knot tied on their

persons.(1079) In the East Indies this superstition is extended to the

whole time of pregnancy; the people believe that if a pregnant woman were

to tie knots, or braid, or make anything fast, the child would thereby be

constricted or the woman would herself be “tied up” when her time

came.(1080) Nay, some of them enforce the observance of the rule on the

father as well as the mother of the unborn child. Among the Sea Dyaks

neither of the parents may bind up anything with string or make anything

fast during the wife’s pregnancy.(1081) Among the Land Dyaks the husband

of the expectant mother is bound to refrain from tying things together

with rattans until after her delivery.(1082) In the Toumbuluh tribe of

North Celebes a ceremony is performed in the fourth or fifth month of a

woman’s pregnancy, and after it her husband is forbidden, among many other

things, to tie any fast knots and to sit with his legs crossed over each

other.(1083) In the Kaitish tribe of central Australia the father of a

newborn child goes out into the scrub for three days, away from his camp,

leaving his girdle and arm-bands behind him, so that he has nothing tied

tightly round any part of his body. This freedom from constriction is

supposed to benefit his wife.(1084)

(M180) In all these cases the idea seems to be that the tying of a knot

would, as they say in the East Indies, “tie up” the woman, in other words,

impede and perhaps prevent her delivery, or delay her convalescence after

the birth. On the principles of homoeopathic or imitative magic the

physical obstacle or impediment of a knot on a cord would create a

corresponding obstacle or impediment in the body of the woman. That this

is really the explanation of the rule appears from a custom observed by

the Hos of Togoland in West Africa at a difficult birth. When a woman is

in hard labour and cannot bring forth, they call in a magician to her aid.

He looks at her and says, “The child is bound in the womb, that is why she

cannot be delivered.” On the entreaties of her female relations he then

promises to loose the bond so that she may bring forth. For that purpose

he orders them to fetch a tough creeper from the forest, and with it he

binds the hands and feet of the sufferer on her back. Then he takes a

knife and calls out the woman’s name, and when she answers he cuts through

the creeper with a knife, saying, “I cut through to-day thy bonds and thy

child’s bonds.” After that he chops up the creeper small, puts the bits in

a vessel of water, and bathes the woman with the water.(1085) Here the

cutting of the creeper with which the woman’s hands and feet are bound is

a simple piece of homoeopathic or imitative magic: by releasing her limbs

from their bonds the magician imagines that he simultaneously releases the

child in her womb from the trammels which impede its birth. For a similar

reason, no doubt, among the same people a priest ties up the limbs of a

pregnant woman with grass and then unties the knots, saying, “I will now

open you.” After that the woman has to partake of some maize-porridge in

which a ring made of a magic cord had been previously placed by the

priest.(1086) The intention of this ceremony is probably, on the

principles of homoeopathic magic, to ensure for the woman an easy delivery

by releasing her from the bonds of grass. The same train of thought

underlies a practice observed by some peoples of opening all locks, doors,

and so on, while a birth is taking place in the house. We have seen that

at such a time the Germans of Transylvania open all the locks, and the

same thing is done also in Voigtland and Mecklenburg.(1087) In

north-western Argyllshire superstitious people used to open every lock in

the house at childbirth.(1088) The old Roman custom of presenting women

with a key as a symbol of an easy delivery(1089) perhaps points to the

observance of a similar custom. In the island of Salsette near Bombay,

when a woman is in hard labour, all locks of doors or drawers are opened

with a key to facilitate her delivery.(1090) Among the Mandelings of

Sumatra the lids of all chests, boxes, pans and so forth are opened; and

if this does not produce the desired effect, the anxious husband has to

strike the projecting ends of some of the house-beams in order to loosen

them; for they think that “everything must be open and loose to facilitate

the delivery.”(1091) At a difficult birth the Battas of Sumatra make a

search through the possessions of husband and wife and untie everything

that is tied up in a bundle.(1092) In some parts of Java, when a woman is

in travail, everything in the house that was shut is opened, in order that

the birth may not be impeded; not only are doors opened and the lids of

chests, boxes, rice-pots, and water-buts lifted up, but even swords are

unsheathed and spears drawn out of their cases.(1093) Customs of the same

sort are practised with the same intention in other parts of the East

Indies.(1094) In Chittagong, when a woman cannot bring her child to the

birth, the midwife gives orders to throw all doors and windows wide open,

to uncork all bottles, to remove the bungs from all casks, to unloose the

cows in the stall, the horses in the stable, the watchdog in his kennel,

to set free sheep, fowls, ducks, and so forth. This universal liberty

accorded to the animals and even to inanimate things is, according to the

people, an infallible means of ensuring the woman’s delivery and allowing

the babe to be born.(1095) At the moment of childbirth the Chams of

Cochin-China hasten to open the stall of the buffaloes and to unyoke the

plough, doubtless with the intention of aiding the woman in travail,

though the writer who reports the custom is unable to explain it.(1096)

Among the Singhalese, a few hours before a birth is expected to take

place, all the cupboards in the house are unlocked with the express

purpose of facilitating the delivery.(1097) In the island of Saghalien,

when a woman is in labour, her husband undoes everything that can be

undone. He loosens the plaits of his hair and the laces of his shoes. Then

he unties whatever is tied in the house or its vicinity. In the courtyard

he takes the axe out of the log in which it is stuck; he unfastens the

boat, if it is moored to a tree, he withdraws the cartridges from his gun,

and the arrows from his crossbow.(1098) In Bilaspore a woman’s hair is

never allowed to remain knotted while she is in the act of giving birth to

a child.(1099) Among some modern Jews of Roumania it is customary for the

unmarried girls of a household to unbraid their hair and let it hang loose

on their shoulders while a woman is in hard labour in the house.(1100)

(M181) Again, we have seen that a Toumbuluh man abstains not only from

tying knots, but also from sitting with crossed legs during his wife’s

pregnancy. The train of thought is the same in both cases. Whether you

cross threads in tying a knot, or only cross your legs in sitting at your

ease, you are equally, on the principles of homoeopathic magic, crossing

or thwarting the free course of things, and your action cannot but check

and impede whatever may be going forward in your neighbourhood. Of this

important truth the Romans were fully aware. To sit beside a pregnant

woman or a patient under medical treatment with clasped hands, says the

grave Pliny, is to cast a malignant spell over the person, and it is worse

still if you nurse your leg or legs with your clasped hands, or lay one

leg over the other. Such postures were regarded by the old Romans as a let

and hindrance to business of every sort, and at a council of war or a

meeting of magistrates, at prayers and sacrifices, no man was suffered to

cross his legs or clasp his hands.(1101) The stock instance of the

dreadful consequences that might flow from doing one or the other was that

of Alcmena, who travailed with Hercules for seven days and seven nights,

because the goddess Lucina sat in front of the house with clasped hands

and crossed legs, and the child could not be born until the goddess had

been beguiled into changing her attitude.(1102) It is a Bulgarian

superstition that if a pregnant woman is in the habit of sitting with

crossed legs, she will suffer much in childbed.(1103) In some parts of

Bavaria, when conversation comes to a standstill and silence ensues, they

say, “Surely somebody has crossed his legs.”(1104)

(M182) The magical effect of knots in trammelling and obstructing human

activity was believed to be manifested at marriage not less than at birth.

During the Middle Ages, and down to the eighteenth century, it seems to

have been commonly held in Europe that the consummation of marriage could

be prevented by any one who, while the wedding ceremony was taking place,

either locked a lock or tied a knot in a cord, and then threw the lock or

the cord away. The lock or the knotted cord had to be flung into water;

and until it had been found and unlocked, or untied, no real union of the

married pair was possible.(1105) Hence it was a grave offence, not only to

cast such a spell, but also to steal or make away with the material

instrument of it, whether lock or knotted cord. In the year 1718 the

parliament of Bordeaux sentenced some one to be burned alive for having

spread desolation through a whole family by means of knotted cords; and in

1705 two persons were condemned to death in Scotland for stealing certain

charmed knots which a woman had made, in order thereby to mar the wedded

happiness of Spalding of Ashintilly.(1106) The belief in the efficacy of

these charms appears to have lingered in the Highlands of Perthshire down

to the end of the eighteenth century, for at that time it was still

customary in the beautiful parish of Logierait, between the river Tummel

and the river Tay, to unloose carefully every knot in the clothes of the

bride and bridegroom before the celebration of the marriage ceremony. When

the ceremony was over, and the bridal party had left the church, the

bridegroom immediately retired one way with some young men to tie the

knots that had been loosed a little before; and the bride in like manner

withdrew somewhere else to adjust the disorder of her dress.(1107) In some

parts of the Highlands it was deemed enough that the bridegroom’s left

shoe should be without buckle or latchet, “to prevent witches from

depriving him, on the nuptial night, of the power of loosening the virgin

zone.”(1108) We meet with the same superstition and the same custom at the

present day in Syria. The persons who help a Syrian bridegroom to don his

wedding garments take care that no knot is tied on them and no button

buttoned, for they believe that a button buttoned or a knot tied would put

it within the power of his enemies to deprive him of his nuptial rights by

magical means.(1109) In Lesbos the malignant person who would thus injure

a bridegroom on his wedding day ties a thread to a bush, while he utters

imprecations; but the bridegroom can defeat the spell by wearing at his

girdle a piece of an old net or of an old mantilla belonging to the bride

in which knots have been tied.(1110) The fear of such charms is diffused

all over North Africa at the present day. To render a bridegroom impotent

the enchanter has only to tie a knot in a handkerchief which he had

previously placed quietly on some part of the bridegroom’s body when he

was mounted on horseback ready to fetch his bride: so long as the knot in

the handkerchief remains tied, so long will the bridegroom remain

powerless to consummate the marriage. Another way of effecting the same

object is to stand behind the bridegroom when he is on horseback, with an

open clasp-knife or pair of scissors in your hand and to call out his

name; if he imprudently answers, you at once shut the clasp-knife or the

pair of scissors with a snap, and that makes him impotent. To guard

against this malignant spell the bridegroom’s mother will sometimes buy a

penknife on the eve of the marriage, shut it up, and then open it just at

the moment when her son is about to enter the bridal chamber.(1111)

(M183) A curious use is made of knots at marriage in the little East

Indian island of Rotti. When a man has paid the price of his bride, a cord

is fastened round her waist, if she is a maid, but not otherwise. Nine

knots are tied in the cord, and in order to make them harder to unloose,

they are smeared with wax. Bride and bridegroom are then secluded in a

chamber, where he has to untie the knots with the thumb and forefinger of

his left hand only. It may be from one to twelve months before he succeeds

in undoing them all. Until he has done so he may not look on the woman as

his wife. In no case may the cord be broken, or the bridegroom would

render himself liable to any fine that the bride’s father might choose to

impose. When all the knots are loosed, the woman is his wife, and he shews

the cord to her father, and generally presents his wife with a golden or

silver necklace instead of the cord.(1112) The meaning of this custom is

not clear, but we may conjecture that the nine knots refer to the nine

months of pregnancy, and that miscarriage would be the supposed result of

leaving a single knot untied.

(M184) The maleficent power of knots may also be manifested in the

infliction of sickness, disease, and all kinds of misfortune. Thus among

the Hos of Togoland a sorcerer will sometimes curse his enemy and tie a

knot in a stalk of grass, saying, “I have tied up So-and-So in this knot.

May all evil light upon him! When he goes into the field, may a snake

sting him! When he goes to the chase, may a ravening beast attack him! And

when he steps into a river, may the water sweep him away! When it rains,

may the lightning strike him! May evil nights be his!” It is believed that

in the knot the sorcerer has bound up the life of his enemy.(1113)

Babylonian witches and wizards of old used to strangle their victim, seal

his mouth, wrack his limbs, and tear his entrails by merely tying knots in

a cord, while at each knot they muttered a spell. But happily the evil

could be undone by simply undoing the knots.(1114) We hear of a man in one

of the Orkney Islands who was utterly ruined by nine knots cast on a blue

thread; and it would seem that sick people in Scotland sometimes prayed to

the devil to restore them to health by loosing the secret knot that was

doing all the mischief.(1115) In the Koran there is an allusion to the

mischief of “those who puff into the knots,” and an Arab commentator on

the passage explains that the words refer to women who practise magic by

tying knots in cords, and then blowing and spitting upon them. He goes on

to relate how, once upon a time, a wicked Jew bewitched the prophet

Mohammed himself by tying nine knots on a string, which he then hid in a

well. So the prophet fell ill, and nobody knows what might have happened

if the archangel Gabriel had not opportunely revealed to the holy man the

place where the knotted cord was concealed. The trusty Ali soon fetched

the baleful thing from the well; and the prophet recited over it certain

charms, which were specially revealed to him for the purpose. At every

verse of the charms a knot untied itself, and the prophet experienced a

certain relief.(1116) It will hardly be disputed that by tying knots on

the string the pestilent Hebrew contrived, if I may say so, to constrict

or astringe or, in short, to tie up some vital organ or organs in the

prophet’s stomach. At least we are informed that something of this sort is

done by Australian blackfellows at the present day, and if so, why should

it not have been done by Arabs in the time of Mohammed? The Australian

mode of operation is as follows. When a blackfellow wishes to settle old

scores with another blackfellow, he ties a rope of fibre or bark so

tightly round the neck of his slumbering friend as partially to choke him.

Having done this he takes out the man’s caul-fat from under his short rib,

ties up his inside carefully with string, replaces the skin, and having

effaced all external marks of the wound, makes off with the stolen fat.

The victim on awakening feels no inconvenience, but sooner or later,

sometimes months afterwards, while he is hunting or exerting himself

violently in some other way, he will feel the string snap in his inside.

“Hallo,” says he, “somebody has tied me up inside with string!” and he

goes home to the camp and dies on the spot.(1117) Who can doubt but that

in this lucid diagnosis we have the true key to the prophet’s malady, and

that he too might have succumbed to the wiles of his insidious foe if it

had not been for the timely intervention of the archangel Gabriel?

(M185) If knots are supposed to kill, they are also supposed to cure. This

follows from the belief that to undo the knots which are causing sickness

will bring the sufferer relief. But apart from this negative virtue of

maleficent knots, there are certain beneficent knots to which a positive

power of healing is ascribed. Pliny tells us that some folk cured diseases

of the groin by taking a thread from a web, tying seven or nine knots on

it, and then fastening it to the patient’s groin; but to make the cure

effectual it was necessary to name some widow as each knot was tied.(1118)

The ancient Assyrians seem to have made much use of knotted cords as a

remedy for ailments and disease. The cord with its knots, which were

sometimes twice seven in number, was tied round the head, neck, or limbs

of the patient, and then after a time cut off and thrown away, carrying

with it, as was apparently supposed, the aches and pains of the sufferer.

Sometimes the magic cord which was used for this beneficent purpose

consisted of a double strand of black and white wool; sometimes it was

woven of the hair of a virgin kid.(1119) A modern Arab cure for fever

reported from the ruins of Nineveh is to tie a cotton thread with seven

knots on it round the wrist of the patient, who must wear it for seven or

eight days or till such time as the fever passes, after which he may throw

it away.(1120) O’Donovan describes a similar remedy for fever employed

among the Turcomans. The enchanter takes some camel hair and spins it into

a stout thread, droning a spell the while. Next he ties seven knots on the

thread, blowing on each knot before he pulls it tight. This knotted thread

is then worn as a bracelet on his wrist by the patient. Every day one of

the knots is untied and blown upon, and when the seventh knot is undone

the whole thread is rolled up into a ball and thrown into a river, bearing

away (as they imagine) the fever with it.(1121) The Hos of Togoland in

like manner tie strings round a sick man’s neck, arms, or legs, according

to the nature of the malady; some of the strings are intended to guard him

against the influence of “the evil mouth”; others are a protection against

the ghosts of the dead.(1122) In Argyleshire, threads with three knots on

them are still used to cure the internal ailments of man and beast. The

witch rubs the sick person or cow with the knotted thread, burns two of

the knots in the fire, saying, “I put the disease and the sickness on the

top of the fire,” and ties the rest of the thread with the single knot

round the neck of the person or the tail of the cow, but always so that it

may not be seen.(1123) A Scotch cure for a sprained leg or arm is to cast

nine knots in a black thread and then tie the thread round the suffering

limb, while you say:

“_The Lord rade,_

_And the foal slade;_

_He lighted_

_And he righted,_

_Set joint to joint,_

_Bone to bone,_

_And sinew to sinew._

_Heal, in the Holy Ghost’s name!_”(1124)

In Gujarat, if a man takes seven cotton threads, goes to a place where an

owl is hooting, strips naked, ties a knot at each hoot, and fastens the

knotted thread round the right arm of a man sick of the fever, the malady

will leave him.(1125)

(M186) Again, knots may be used by an enchantress to win a lover and

attach him firmly to herself. Thus the love-sick maid in Virgil seeks to

draw Daphnis to her from the city by spells and by tying three knots on

each of three strings of different colours.(1126) So an Arab maiden, who

had lost her heart to a certain man, tried to gain his love and bind him

to herself by tying knots in his whip; but her jealous rival undid the

knots.(1127) On the same principle magic knots may be employed to stop a

runaway. In Swazieland you may often see grass tied in knots at the side

of the footpaths. Every one of these knots tells of a domestic tragedy. A

wife has run away from her husband, and he and his friends have gone in

pursuit, binding up the paths, as they call it, in this fashion to prevent

the fugitive from doubling back over them.(1128) When a Swaheli wishes to

capture a runaway slave he will sometimes take a string of coco-nut fibre

to a wise man and get him to recite a passage of the Koran seven times

over it, while at each reading the wizard ties a knot in the string. Then

the slave-owner, armed with the knotted string, takes his stand in the

door of the house and calls on his slave seven times by name, after which

he hangs the string over the door.(1129)

(M187) The obstructive power of knots and locks as means of barring out

evil manifests itself in many ways. Thus on the principle that prevention

is better than cure, Zulu hunters immediately tie a knot in the tail of

any animal they have killed, because they believe that this will hinder

the meat from giving them pains in their stomachs.(1130) An ancient Hindoo

book recommends that travellers on a dangerous road should tie knots in

the skirts of their garments, for this will cause their journey to

prosper.(1131) Similarly among some Caffre tribes, when a man is going on

a doubtful journey, he knots a few blades of grass together that the

journey may turn out well.(1132) In Laos hunters fancy that they can throw

a spell over a forest so as to prevent any one else from hunting there

successfully. Having killed game of any kind, they utter certain magical

words, while they knot together some stalks of grass, adding, “As I knot

this grass, so let no hunter be lucky here.” The virtue of this spell will

last, as usually happens in such cases, so long as the stalks remain

knotted together.(1133) The Yabims of German New Guinea lay a knot in a

fishing-boat that is not ready for sea, in order that a certain being

called Balum may not embark in it; for he has the power of taking away the

fish and weighing down the boat.(1134)

(M188) In Russia amulets often derive their protective virtue in great

measure from knots. Here, for example, is a spell which will warrant its

employer against all risk of being shot: “I attach five knots to each

hostile, infidel shooter, over arquebuses, bows, and all manner of warlike

weapons. Do ye, O knots, bar the shooter from every road and way, lock

fast every arquebuse, entangle every bow, involve all warlike weapons, so

that the shooters may not reach me with their arquebuses, nor may their

arrows attain to me, nor their warlike weapons do me hurt. In my knots

lies hid the mighty strength of snakes—from the twelve-headed snake.” A

net, from its affluence of knots, has always been considered in Russia

very efficacious against sorcerers; hence in some places, when a bride is

being dressed in her wedding attire, a fishing-net is flung over her to

keep her out of harm’s way. For a similar purpose the bridegroom and his

companions are often girt with pieces of net, or at least with tight-drawn

girdles, for before a wizard can begin to injure them he must undo all the

knots in the net, or take off the girdles. But often a Russian amulet is

merely a knotted thread. A skein of red wool wound about the arms and legs

is thought to ward off agues and fevers; and nine skeins, fastened round a

child’s neck, are deemed a preservative against scarlatina. In the Tver

Government a bag of a special kind is tied to the neck of the cow which

walks before the rest of a herd, in order to keep off wolves; its force

binds the maw of the ravening beast. On the same principle, a padlock is

carried thrice round a herd of horses before they go afield in the spring,

and the bearer locks and unlocks it as he goes, saying, “I lock from my

herd the mouths of the grey wolves with this steel lock.” After the third

round the padlock is finally locked, and then, when the horses have gone

off, it is hidden away somewhere till late in the autumn, when the time

comes for the drove to return to winter quarters. In this case the “firm

word” of the spell is supposed to lock up the mouths of the wolves. The

Bulgarians have a similar mode of guarding their cattle against wild

beasts. A woman takes a needle and thread after dark, and sews together

the skirt of her dress. A child asks her what she is doing, and she tells

him that she is sewing up the ears, eyes, and jaws of the wolves so that

they may not hear, see, or bite the sheep, goats, calves, and pigs.(1135)

Similarly in antiquity a witch fancied that she could shut the mouths of

her enemies by sewing up the mouth of a fish with a bronze needle,(1136)

and farmers attempted to ward off hail from their crops by tying keys to

ropes all round the fields.(1137) The Armenians essay to lock the jaws of

wolves by uttering a spell, tying seven knots in a shoe-lace, and placing

the string between the teeth of a wool-comber, which are probably taken to

represent the fangs of a wolf.(1138) And an Armenian bride and bridegroom

will carry a locked lock on their persons at and after marriage to guard

them against those evil influences to which at this crisis of life they

are especially exposed.(1139) The following mode of keeping an epidemic

from a village is known to have been practised among the Balkan Slavs. Two

old women proceed to a spot outside the village, the one with a copper

kettle full of water, the other with a house-lock and key. The old dame

with the kettle asks the other, “Whither away?” The one with the lock

answers, “I came to lock the village against mishap,” and suiting the

action to the words she locks the lock and throws it, together with the

key, into the kettle of water. Then she strides thrice round the village,

each time repeating the performance with the lock and kettle.(1140) To

this day a Transylvanian sower thinks he can keep birds from the corn by

carrying a lock in the seed-bag.(1141) Such magical uses of locks and keys

are clearly parallel to the magical use of knots, with which we are here

concerned. In Ceylon the Singhalese observe “a curious custom of the

threshing-floor called ‘Goigote’—the tying of the cultivator’s knot. When

a sheaf of corn has been threshed out, before it is removed the grain is

heaped up and the threshers, generally six in number, sit round it, and

taking a few stalks, with the ears of corn attached, jointly tie a knot

and bury it in the heap. It is left there until all the sheaves have been

threshed, and the corn winnowed and measured. The object of this ceremony

is to prevent the devils from diminishing the quantity of corn in the

heap.”(1142) Knots and locks may serve to avert not only devils but death

itself. When they brought a woman to the stake at St. Andrews in 1572 to

burn her alive for a witch, they found on her a white cloth like a collar,

with strings and many knots on the strings. They took it from her, sorely

against her will, for she seemed to think that she could not die in the

fire, if only the cloth with the knotted strings was on her. When it was

taken away, she said, “Now I have no hope of myself.”(1143) In many parts

of England it is thought that a person cannot die so long as any locks are

locked or bolts shot in the house. It is therefore a very common practice

to undo all locks and bolts when the sufferer is plainly near his end, in

order that his agony may not be unduly prolonged.(1144) For example, in

the year 1863, at Taunton, a child lay sick of scarlatina and death seemed

inevitable. “A jury of matrons was, as it were, empanelled, and to prevent

the child ‘dying hard’ all the doors in the house, all the drawers, all

the boxes, all the cupboards were thrown wide open, the keys taken out,

and the body of the child placed under a beam, whereby a sure, certain,

and easy passage into eternity could be secured.” Strange to say, the

child declined to avail itself of the facilities for dying so obligingly

placed at its disposal by the sagacity and experience of the British

matrons of Taunton; it preferred to live rather than give up the ghost

just then.(1145) A Masai man whose sons have gone out to war will take a

hair and tie a knot in it for each of his absent sons, praying God to keep

their bodies and souls as firmly fastened together as these knots.(1146)

(M189) The precise mode in which the virtue of the knot is supposed to

take effect in some of these instances does not clearly appear. But in

general we may say that in all the cases we have been considering the

leading characteristic of the magic knot or lock is that, in strict

accordance with its physical nature, it always acts as an impediment,

hindrance, or obstacle, and that its influence is maleficent or beneficent

according as the thing which it impedes or hinders is good or evil. The

obstructive tendency attributed to the knot in spiritual matters appears

in a Swiss superstition that if, in sewing a corpse into its shroud, you

make a knot on the thread, it will hinder the soul of the deceased on its

passage to eternity.(1147) In coffining a corpse the Highlanders of

Scotland used to untie or cut every string in the shroud; else the spirit

could not rest.(1148) The Germans of Transylvania place a little pillow

with the dead in the coffin; but in sewing it they take great care not to

make any knot on the thread, for they say that to do so would hinder the

dead man from resting in the grave and his widow from marrying

again.(1149) Among the Pidhireanes, a Ruthenian people on the hem of the

Carpathians, when a widow wishes to marry again soon, she unties the knots

on her dead husband’s grave-clothes before the coffin is shut down on him.

This removes all impediments to her future marriage.(1150) A Nandi who is

starting on a journey will tie a knot in grass by the wayside, as he

believes that by so doing he will prevent the people whom he is going to

visit from taking their meal till he arrives, or at all events he will

ensure that they leave enough food over for him.(1151)

(M190) The rule which prescribes that at certain magical and religious

ceremonies the hair should hang loose and the feet should be bare(1152) is

probably based on the same fear of trammelling and impeding the action in

hand, whatever it may be, by the presence of any knot or constriction,

whether on the head or on the feet of the performer. This connexion of

ideas comes out clearly in a passage of Ovid, who bids a pregnant woman

loosen her hair before she prays to the goddess of childbirth, in order

that the goddess may gently loose her teeming womb.(1153) It is less easy

to say why on certain solemn occasions it appears to have been customary

with some people to go with one shoe off and one shoe on. The forlorn hope

of two hundred men who, on a dark and stormy night, stole out of Plataea,

broke through the lines of the besieging Spartans, and escaped from the

doomed city, were shod on the left foot only. The historian who records

the fact assumes that the intention was to prevent their feet from

slipping in the mud.(1154) But if so, why were not both feet unshod or

shod? What is good for the one foot is surely good for the other. The

peculiar attire of the Plataeans on this occasion had probably nothing to

do with the particular state of the ground and the weather at the time

when they made their desperate sally, but was an old custom, a form of

consecration or devotion, observed by men in any great hazard or grave

emergency. Certainly the costume appears to have been regularly worn by

some fighting races in antiquity, at least when they went forth to battle.

Thus we are told that all the Aetolians were shod only on one foot,

“because they were so warlike,”(1155) and Virgil represents some of the

rustic militia of ancient Latium as marching to war, their right feet shod

in boots of raw hide, while their left feet were bare.(1156) An oracle

warned Pelias, king of Iolcus, to beware of the man with one sandal, and

when Jason arrived with a sandal on his right foot but with his left foot

bare, the king recognised the hand of fate. The common story that Jason

had lost one of his sandals in fording a river was probably invented when

the real motive of the costume was forgotten.(1157) Again, according to

one legend Perseus seems to have worn only one shoe when he went on his

perilous enterprise to cut off the Gorgon’s head.(1158) In certain forms

of purification Greek ritual appears to have required that the person to

be cleansed should wear a rough shoe on one foot, while the other was

unshod. The rule is not mentioned by ancient writers, but may be inferred

from a scene painted on a Greek vase, where a man, naked except for a

fillet round his head, is seen crouching on the skin of a sacrificial

victim, his bare right foot resting on the skin, while his left foot, shod

in a rough boot, is planted on the ground in front of him. Round about

women with torches and vessels are engaged in performing ceremonies of

purification over him.(1159) When Dido in Virgil, deserted by Aeneas, has

resolved to die, she feigns to perform certain magical rites which will

either win back her false lover or bring relief to her wounded heart. In

appealing to the gods and the stars, she stands by the altar with her

dress loosened and with one foot bare.(1160) Among the heathen Arabs the

cursing of an enemy was a public act. The maledictions were often couched

in the form of a satirical poem, which the poet himself recited with

certain solemn formalities. Thus when the young Lebid appeared at the

Court of Norman to denounce the Absites, he anointed the hair of his head

on one side only, let his garment hang down loosely, and wore but one

shoe. This, we are told, was the costume regularly adopted by certain

poets on such occasions.(1161)

(M191) Thus various peoples seem to be of opinion that it stands a man in

good stead to go with one foot shod and one foot bare on certain momentous

occasions. But why? The explanation must apparently be sought in the

magical virtue attributed to knots; for down to recent times, we may take

it, shoes have been universally tied to the feet by latchets. Now the

magical action of a knot, as we have seen, is supposed to be to bind and

restrain not merely the body but the soul,(1162) and this action is

beneficial or harmful according as the thing which is bound and restrained

is evil or good. It is a necessary corollary of this doctrine that to be

without knots is to be free and untrammelled, which, by the way, may be

the reason why the augur’s staff at Rome had to be made from a piece of

wood in which there was no knot;(1163) it would never do for a divining

rod to be spell-bound. Hence we may suppose that the intention of going

with one shoe on and one shoe off is both to restrain and to set at

liberty, to bind and to unbind. But to bind or unbind whom or what?

Perhaps the notion is to rid the man himself of magical restraint, but to

lay it on his foe, or at all events on his foe’s magic; in short, to bind

his enemy by a spell while he himself goes free. This is substantially the

explanation which the acute and learned Servius gives of Dido’s costume.

He says that she went with one shoe on and one shoe off in order that

Aeneas might be entangled and herself released.(1164) An analogous

explanation would obviously apply to all the other cases we have

considered, for in all of them the man who wears this peculiar costume is

confronted with hostile powers, whether human or supernatural, which it

must be his object to lay under a ban.

(M192) A similar power to bind and hamper spiritual as well as bodily

activities is ascribed by some people to rings. Thus in the Greek island

of Carpathus, people never button the clothes they put upon a dead body

and they are careful to remove all rings from it; “for the spirit, they

say, can even be detained in the little finger, and cannot rest.”(1165)

Here it is plain that even if the soul is not definitely supposed to issue

at death from the finger-tips, yet the ring is conceived to exercise a

certain constrictive influence which detains and imprisons the immortal

spirit in spite of its efforts to escape from the tabernacle of clay; in

short the ring, like the knot, acts as a spiritual fetter. This may have

been the reason of an ancient Greek maxim, attributed to Pythagoras, which

forbade people to wear rings.(1166) Nobody might enter the ancient

Arcadian sanctuary of the Mistress at Lycosura with a ring on his or her

finger.(1167) Persons who consulted the oracle of Faunus had to be chaste,

to eat no flesh, and to wear no rings.(1168)

(M193) On the other hand, the same constriction which hinders the egress

of the soul may prevent the entrance of evil spirits; hence we find rings

used as amulets against demons, witches, and ghosts. In the Tyrol it is

said that a woman in childbed should never take off her wedding-ring, or

spirits and witches will have power over her.(1169) Among the Lapps, the

person who is about to place a corpse in the coffin receives from the

husband, wife, or children of the deceased a brass ring, which he must

wear fastened to his right arm until the corpse is safely deposited in the

grave. The ring is believed to serve the person as an amulet against any

harm which the ghost might do to him.(1170) The Huzuls of the Carpathians

sometimes milk a cow through a wedding-ring to prevent witches from

stealing its milk.(1171) In India iron rings are often worn as an amulet

against disease or to counteract the malignant influence of the planet

Saturn. A coral ring is used in Gujarat to ward off the baleful influence

of the sun, and in Bengal mourners touch it as a form of

purification.(1172) A Masai mother who has lost one or more children at an

early age will put a copper ring on the second toe of her next infant’s

right foot to guard it against sickness.(1173) Masai men also wear on the

middle finger of the right hand a ring made out of the hide of a

sacrificial victim; it is supposed to protect the wearer from witchcraft

and disease of every kind.(1174) We have seen that magic cords are

fastened round the wrists of Siamese children to keep off evil

spirits;(1175) that some people tie strings round the wrists of women in

childbed, of convalescents after sickness, and of mourners after a funeral

in order to prevent the escape of their souls at these critical

seasons;(1176) and that with the same intention the Bagobos put brass

rings on the wrists or ankles of the sick.(1177) This use of wrist-bands,

bracelets, and anklets as amulets to keep the soul in the body is exactly

parallel to the use of finger-rings which we are here considering. The

placing of these spiritual fetters on the wrists is especially

appropriate, because some people fancy that a soul resides wherever a

pulse is felt beating.(1178) How far the custom of wearing finger-rings,

bracelets, and anklets may have been influenced by, or even have sprung

from, a belief in their efficacy as amulets to keep the soul in the body,

or demons out of it, is a question which seems worth considering.(1179)

Here we are only concerned with the belief in so far as it seems to throw

light on the rule that the Flamen Dialis might not wear a ring unless it

were broken. Taken in conjunction with the rule which forbade him to have

a knot on his garments, it points to a fear that the powerful spirit

embodied in him might be trammelled and hampered in its goings-out and

comings-in by such corporeal and spiritual fetters as rings and knots. The

same fear probably dictated the rule that if a man in bonds were taken

into the house of the Flamen Dialis, the captive was to be unbound and the

cords to be drawn up through a hole in the roof and so let down into the

street.(1180) Further, we may conjecture that the custom of releasing

prisoners at a festival may have originated in the same train of thought;

it might be imagined that their fetters would impede the flow of the

divine grace. The custom was observed at the Greek festival of the

Thesmophoria,(1181) and at the Athenian festival of Dionysus in the

city.(1182) At the great festival of the Dassera, celebrated in October by

the Goorkhas of Nepaul, all the law courts are closed, and all prisoners

in gaol are removed from the precincts of the city; but those who are

imprisoned outside the city do not have to change their place of

confinement at the time of the Dassera.(1183) This Nepaulese custom

appears strongly to support the explanation here suggested of such

gaol-deliveries. For observe that the prisoners are not released, but

merely removed from the city. The intention is therefore not to allow them

to share the general happiness, but merely to rid the city of their

inopportune presence at the festival.

(M194) Before quitting the subject of knots I may be allowed to hazard a

conjecture as to the meaning of the famous Gordian knot, which Alexander

the Great, failing in his efforts to untie it, cut through with his sword.

In Gordium, the ancient capital of the kings of Phrygia, there was

preserved a waggon of which the yoke was fastened to the pole by a strip

of cornel-bark or a vine-shoot twisted and tied in an intricate knot.

Tradition ran that the waggon had been dedicated by Midas, the first king

of the dynasty, and that whoever untied the knot would be ruler of

Asia.(1184) Perhaps the knot was a talisman with which the fate of the

dynasty was believed to be bound up in such a way that whenever the knot

was loosed the reign of the dynasty would come to an end. We have seen

that the magic virtue ascribed to knots is naturally enough supposed to

last only so long as they remain untied. If the Gordian knot was the

talisman of the Phrygian kings, the local fame it enjoyed, as guaranteeing

to them the rule of Phrygia, might easily be exaggerated by distant rumour

into a report that the sceptre of Asia itself would fall to him who should

undo the wondrous knot.(1185)