When precautions like these are taken on behalf of the people in general

against the malignant influence supposed to be exercised by strangers, we

shall not be surprised to find that special measures are adopted to

protect the king from the same insidious danger. In the middle ages the

envoys who visited a Tartar Khan were obliged to pass between two fires

before they were admitted to his presence, and the gifts they brought were

also carried between the fires. The reason assigned for the custom was

that the fire purged away any magic influence which the strangers might

mean to exercise over the Khan.(524) When subject chiefs come with their

retinues to visit Kalamba (the most powerful chief of the Bashilange in

the Congo Basin) for the first time or after being rebellious, they have

to bathe, men and women together, in two brooks on two successive days,

passing the nights in the open air in the market-place. After the second

bath they proceed, entirely naked, to the house of Kalamba, who makes a

long white mark on the breast and forehead of each of them. Then they

return to the market-place and dress, after which they undergo the pepper

ordeal. Pepper is dropped into the eyes of each of them, and while this is

being done the sufferer has to make a confession of all his sins, to

answer all questions that may be put to him, and to take certain vows.

This ends the ceremony, and the strangers are now free to take up their

quarters in the town for as long as they choose to remain.(525) At Kilema,

in Eastern Africa, when a stranger arrives, a medicine is made out of a

certain plant or a tree fetched from a distance, mixed with the blood of a

sheep or goat. With this mixture the stranger is besmeared or besprinkled

before he is admitted to the presence of the king.(526) The King of

Monomotapa (South-East Africa) might not wear any foreign stuffs for fear

of their being poisoned.(527) The King of Kakongo (West Africa) might not

possess or even touch European goods, except metals, arms, and articles

made of wood and ivory. Persons wearing foreign stuffs were very careful

to keep at a distance from his person, lest they should touch him.(528)

The King of Loango might not look upon the house of a white man.(529)

In the opinion of savages the acts of eating and drinking are attended

with special danger; for at these times the soul may escape from the

mouth, or be extracted by the magic arts of an enemy present. Precautions

are therefore taken to guard against these dangers. Thus of the Battas of

Sumatra it is said that “since the soul can leave the body, they always

take care to prevent their soul from straying on occasions when they have

most need of it. But it is only possible to prevent the soul from straying

when one is in the house. At feasts one may find the whole house shut up,

in order that the soul (_tondi_) may stay and enjoy the good things set

before it.”(530) In Fiji persons who suspected others of plotting against

them avoided eating in their presence, or were careful to leave no

fragment of food behind.(531) The Zafimanelo in Madagascar lock their

doors when they eat, and hardly any one ever sees them eating.(532) The

Warua will not allow any one to see them eating and drinking, being doubly

particular that no person of the opposite sex shall see them doing so. “I

had to pay a man to let me see him drink; I could not make a man let a

woman see him drink.” When offered a drink of _pombe_ they often ask that

a cloth may be held up to hide them whilst drinking. Further, each man and

woman must cook for themselves; each person must have his own fire.(533)

If these are the ordinary precautions taken by common people, the

precautions taken by kings are extraordinary. The King of Loango may not

be seen eating or drinking by man or beast under pain of death. A

favourite dog having broken into the room where the king was dining, the

king ordered it to be killed on the spot. Once the king’s own son, a boy

of twelve years old, inadvertently saw the king drink. Immediately the

king ordered him to be finely apparelled and feasted, after which he

commanded him to be cut in quarters, and carried about the city with a

proclamation that he had seen the king drink. “When the king has a mind to

drink, he has a cup of wine brought; he that brings it has a bell in his

hand, and as soon as he has delivered the cup to the king he turns his

face from him and rings the bell, on which all present fall down with

their faces to the ground, and continue so till the king has drank.... His

eating is much in the same style, for which he has a house on purpose,

where his victuals are set upon a bensa or table: which he goes to and

shuts the door; when he has done, he knocks and comes out. So that none

ever see the king eat or drink. For it is believed that if any one should,

the king shall immediately die.”(534) The rules observed by the

neighbouring King of Kakongo were similar; it was thought that the king

would die if any of his subjects were to see him drink.(535) It is a

capital offence to see the King of Dahomey at his meals. When he drinks in

public, as he does on extraordinary occasions, he hides himself behind a

curtain, or handkerchiefs are held up round his head, and all the people

throw themselves with their faces to the earth.(536) Any one who saw the

Muato Jamwo (a great potentate in the Congo Basin) eating or drinking

would certainly be put to death.(537) When the King of Tonga ate all the

people turned their backs to him.(538) In the palace of the Persian kings

there were two dining-rooms opposite each other; in one of them the king

dined, in the other his guests. He could see them through a curtain on the

door, but they could not see him. Generally the king took his meals alone;

but sometimes his wife or some of his sons dined with him.(539)

In these cases, however, the intention may perhaps be to hinder evil

influences from entering the body rather than to prevent the escape of the

soul. To the former rather than to the latter motive is to be ascribed the

custom observed by some African sultans of veiling their faces. The Sultan

of Darfur wraps up his face with a piece of white muslin, which goes round

his head several times, covering his mouth and nose first, and then his

forehead, so that only his eyes are visible. The same custom of veiling

the face as a mark of sovereignty is said to be observed in other parts of

Central Africa.(540) The Sultan of Wadai always speaks from behind a

curtain; no one sees his face except his intimates and a few favoured

persons.(541) Amongst the Touaregs of the Sahara all the men (but not the

women) keep the lower part of their face, especially the mouth, veiled

constantly; the veil is never put off, not even in eating or

sleeping.(542) In Samoa a man whose family god was the turtle might not

eat a turtle, and if he helped a neighbour to cut up and cook one he had

to wear a bandage tied over his mouth, lest an embryo turtle should slip

down his throat, grow up, and be his death.(543) In West Timor a speaker

holds his right hand before his mouth in speaking lest a demon should

enter his body, and lest the person with whom he converses should harm the

speaker’s soul by magic.(544) In New South Wales for some time after his

initiation into the tribal mysteries, a young blackfellow (whose soul at

this time is in a critical state) must always cover his mouth with a rug

when a woman is present.(545) Popular expressions in the language of

civilised peoples, such as to have one’s heart in one’s mouth, show how

natural is the idea that the life or soul may escape by the mouth or

nostrils.(546)

By an extension of the like precaution kings are sometimes forbidden ever

to leave their palaces; or, if they are allowed to do so, their subjects

are forbidden to see them abroad. We have seen that the priestly king at

Shark Point, West Africa, may never quit his house or even his chair, in

which he is obliged to sleep sitting.(547) After his coronation the King

of Loango is confined to his palace, which he may not leave.(548) The King

of Ibo (West Africa) “does not step out of his house into the town unless

a human sacrifice is made to propitiate the gods: on this account he never

goes out beyond the precincts of his premises.”(549) The kings of

Aethiopia were worshipped as gods, but were mostly kept shut up in their

palaces.(550) The kings of Sabaea (Sheba), the spice country of Arabia,

were not allowed to go out of their palaces; if they did so, the mob

stoned them to death.(551) But at the top of the palace there was a window

with a chain attached to it. If any man deemed he had suffered wrong, he

pulled the chain, and the king perceived him and called him in and gave

judgment.(552) So to this day the kings of Corea, whose persons are sacred

and receive “honours almost divine,” are shut up in their palace from the

age of twelve or fifteen; and if a suitor wishes to obtain justice of the

king he sometimes lights a great bonfire on a mountain facing the palace;

the king sees the fire and informs himself of the case.(553) The King of

Tonquin was permitted to appear abroad twice or thrice a year for the

performance of certain religious ceremonies; but the people were not

allowed to look at him. The day before he came forth notice was given to

all the inhabitants of the city and country to keep from the way the king

was to go; the women were obliged to remain in their houses and durst not

show themselves under pain of death, a penalty which was carried out on

the spot if any one disobeyed the order, even through ignorance. Thus the

king was invisible to all but his troops and the officers of his

suite.(554) In Mandalay a stout lattice-paling, six feet high and

carefully kept in repair, lined every street in the walled city and all

those in the suburbs through which the king was likely at any time to

pass. Behind this paling, which stood two feet or so from the houses, all

the people had to stay when the king or any of the queens went out. Any

one who was caught outside it by the beadles after the procession had

started was severely handled, and might think himself lucky if he got off

with a beating. No one was supposed to look through the holes in the

lattice-work, which were besides partly stopped up with flowering

shrubs.(555)

Again, magic mischief may be wrought upon a man through the remains of the

food he has partaken of, or the dishes out of which he has eaten. Thus the

Narrinyeri in South Australia think that if a man eats of the sacred

animal (totem) of his tribe, and an enemy gets hold of a portion of the

flesh, the latter can make it grow in the inside of the eater, and so

cause his death. Therefore when a man eats of his totem he is careful to

eat it all or else to conceal or destroy the remains.(556) In Tana, one of

the New Hebrides, people bury or throw into the sea the leavings of their

food, lest these should fall into the hands of the disease-makers. For if

a disease-maker finds the remnants of a meal, say the skin of a banana, he

picks it up and burns it slowly in the fire. As it burns the person who

ate the banana falls ill and sends to the disease-maker, offering him

presents if he will stop burning the banana skin.(557) Hence no one may

touch the food which the King of Loango leaves upon his plate; it is

buried in a hole in the ground. And no one may drink out of the king’s

vessel.(558) Similarly no man may drink out of the same cup or glass with

the King of Fida (in Guinea); “he hath always one kept particularly for

himself; and that which hath but once touched another’s lips he never uses

more, though it be made of metal that may be cleansed by fire.”(559)

Amongst the Alfoers of Celebes there is a priest called the _Leleen_,

whose duty appears to be to make the rice grow. His functions begin about

a month before the rice is sown, and end after the crop is housed. During

this time he has to observe certain taboos; amongst others he may not eat

or drink with any one else, and he may drink out of no vessel but his

own.(560)

We have seen that the Mikado’s food was cooked every day in new pots and

served up in new dishes; both pots and dishes were of common clay, in

order that they might be broken or laid aside after they had been once

used. They were generally broken, for it was believed that if any one else

ate his food out of these sacred dishes his mouth and throat would become

swollen and inflamed. The same ill effect was thought to be experienced by

any one who should wear the Mikado’s clothes without his leave; he would

have swellings and pains all over his body.(561) In the evil effects thus

supposed to follow upon the use of the Mikado’s vessels or clothes we see

that other side of the divine king’s or god-man’s character to which

attention has been already called. The divine person is a source of danger

as well as of blessing; he must not only be guarded, he must also be

guarded against. His sacred organism, so delicate that a touch may

disorder it, is also electrically charged with a powerful spiritual force

which may discharge itself with fatal effect on whatever comes in contact

with it. Hence the isolation of the man-god is quite as necessary for the

safety of others as for his own. His divinity is a fire, which, under

proper restraints, confers endless blessings, but, if rashly touched or

allowed to break bounds, burns and destroys what it touches. Hence the

disastrous effects supposed to attend a breach of taboo; the offender has

thrust his hand into the divine fire, which shrivels up and consumes him

on the spot. To take an example from the taboo we are considering. It

happened that a New Zealand chief of high rank and great sanctity had left

the remains of his dinner by the wayside. A slave, a stout, hungry fellow,

coming up after the chief had gone, saw the unfinished dinner, and ate it

up without asking questions. Hardly had he finished when he was informed

by a horror-stricken spectator that the food of which he had eaten was the

chief’s. “I knew the unfortunate delinquent well. He was remarkable for

courage, and had signalised himself in the wars of the tribe.... No sooner

did he hear the fatal news than he was seized by the most extraordinary

convulsions and cramp in the stomach, which never ceased till he died,

about sundown the same day. He was a strong man, in the prime of life, and

if any pakeha [European] freethinker should have said he was not killed by

the _tapu_ [taboo] of the chief, which had been communicated to the food

by contact, he would have been listened to with feelings of contempt for

his ignorance and inability to understand plain and direct evidence.”(562)

This is not a solitary case. A Maori woman having eaten of some fruit, and

being afterwards told that the fruit had being taken from a tabooed place,

exclaimed that the spirit of the chief whose sanctity had been thus

profaned would kill her. This was in the afternoon, and next day by twelve

o’clock she was dead.(563) An observer who knows the Maoris well, says,

“Tapu [taboo] is an awful weapon. I have seen a strong young man die the

same day he was tapued; the victims die under it as though their strength

ran out as water.”(564) A Maori chief’s tinder-box was once the means of

killing several persons; for having been lost by him, and found by some

men who used it to light their pipes, they died of fright on learning to

whom it had belonged. So too the garments of a high New Zealand chief will

kill any one else who wears them. A chief was observed by a missionary to

throw down a precipice a blanket which he found too heavy to carry. Being

asked by the missionary why he did not leave it on a tree for the use of a

future traveller, the chief replied that “it was the fear of its being

taken by another which caused him to throw it where he did, for if it were

worn, his tapu” (_i.e._ his spiritual power communicated by contact to the

blanket and through the blanket to the man) “would kill the person.”(565)

No wonder therefore that the savage should rank these human divinities

amongst what he regards as the dangerous classes, and should impose

exactly the same restraints upon the one as upon the other. For instance,

those who have defiled themselves by touching a dead body are regarded by

the Maoris as in a very dangerous state, and are sedulously shunned and

isolated. But the taboos observed by and towards these defiled persons

(_e.g._ they may not touch food with their hands, and the vessels used by

them may not be used by other people) are identical with those observed by

and towards sacred chiefs.(566) And, in general, the prohibition to use

the dress, vessels, etc., of certain persons and the effects supposed to

follow an infraction of the rule are exactly the same whether the persons

to whom the things belong are sacred or what we might call unclean and

polluted. As the garments which have been touched by a sacred chief kill

those who handle them, so do the things which have been touched by a

menstruous woman. An Australian blackfellow, who discovered that his wife

had lain on his blanket at her menstrual period, killed her and died of

terror himself within a fortnight.(567) Hence Australian women at these

times are forbidden under pain of death to touch anything that men use.

They are also secluded at child-birth, and all vessels used by them during

their seclusion are burned.(568) Amongst some of the Indians of North

America also women at menstruation are forbidden to touch men’s utensils,

which would be so defiled by their touch that their subsequent use would

be attended by certain mischief or misfortune.(569) Amongst the Eskimo of

Alaska no one will willingly drink out of the same cup or eat out of the

same dish that has been used by a woman at her confinement until it has

been purified by certain incantations.(570) Amongst some of the Tinneh

Indians of North America the dishes out of which girls eat during their

seclusion at puberty “are used by no other person, and wholly devoted to

their own use.”(571) Again amongst some Indian tribes of North America men

who have slain enemies are considered to be in a state of uncleanness, and

will not eat or drink out of any dish or smoke out of any pipe but their

own for a considerable time after the slaughter, and no one will willingly

use their dishes or pipes. They live in a kind of seclusion during this

time, at the end of which all the dishes and pipes used by them during

their seclusion are burned.(572) Amongst the Kafirs, boys at circumcision

live secluded in a special hut, and when they are healed all the vessels

which they had used during their seclusion and the boyish mantles which

they had hitherto worn are burned together with the hut.(573) When a young

Indian brave is out on the war-path for the first time the vessels he eats

and drinks out of must be touched by no one else.(574)

Thus the rules of ceremonial purity observed by divine kings, chiefs, and

priests, by homicides, women at child-birth, and so on, are in some

respects alike. To us these different 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 supernatural, that is, 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.(575)

No one was allowed to touch the body of the King or Queen of Tahiti;(576)

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.(577) No one may touch the King of Corea; and if he deigns to

touch a subject, the spot touched becomes sacred, and the person thus

honoured must wear a visible mark (generally a cord of red silk) for the

rest of his life. Above all, no iron may 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 antics made the king laugh heartily,

and so the abscess burst.(578) Roman and Sabine priests might not be

shaved with iron but only with bronze razors or shears;(579) 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 was offered, which was repeated

when the graving-tool was removed from the grove.(580) In Crete sacrifices

were offered to Menedemus without the use of iron, because, it was said,

Menedemus had been killed by an iron weapon in the Trojan war.(581) The

Archon of Plataeae might not touch iron; but once a year, at the annual

commemoration of the men who fell at the battle of Plataeae, he was

allowed to carry a sword wherewith to sacrifice a bull.(582) 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.(583) Amongst the

Moquis of Arizona stone knives, hatchets, etc., have passed out of common

use, but are retained in religious ceremonies.(584) Negroes of the Gold

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

fetish.(585) The men who made the need-fire in Scotland had to divest

themselves of all metal.(586) 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.(587) Amongst the Jews no iron tool was used in building the

temple at Jerusalem or in making an altar.(588) 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.(589) It was

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

be repaired with iron tools.(590) 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.(591) The late Raja Vijyanagram,

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

enlightened and estimable of Hindu 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.(592)

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. For everything new is apt to

excite the awe and dread of the savage. “It is a curious superstition,”

says a recent 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.”(593) 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.(594) 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. The very fact

that iron is deemed obnoxious to spirits 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 it often is so

used. Thus 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.(595) 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.(596) 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(597)) 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.”(598) 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 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.(599) When iron is used as a protective charm after a death,

as in these Hindu and Scotch customs, the spirit against which it is

directed is the ghost of the deceased.(600)

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.(601) 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 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.”(602) 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.(603) Amongst the Innuit (Eskimos) of Alaska

for four days after a death the women in the village do no sewing, and for

five days the men do not cut wood with an axe.(604) 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.”(605) 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.(606) 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.(607) 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.

We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was forbidden to touch or even name

raw flesh.(608) 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

beetel 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.(609) 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 in particular circumstances of a general rule; in other words,

its observance is particularly enjoined in circumstances which are

supposed especially to call for its application, but apart from such

special circumstances the prohibition is also observed, though less

strictly, as an ordinary 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.(610) 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.”(611) 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.(612) 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.(613) The same belief was held by the Romans,(614) and is shared by

the Arabs,(615) and by some of the Papuan tribes of New Guinea.(616)

It is a common rule that royal blood must 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.”(617) Other Siamese modes of executing a royal person are

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

billet of odoriferous “saunders wood” into his stomach,(618) 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.(619) 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.”(620)

“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.”(621) In Tonquin the ordinary mode of

execution is beheading, but persons of the blood royal are strangled.(622)

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.(623) 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.(624)

When a young king of Uganda comes of age all his brothers are burnt except

two or three, who are preserved to keep up the succession.(625) The

reluctance to shed royal blood seems to be only a particular case of a

general reluctance to shed blood or at least to allow it to fall on the

ground. Marco Polo tells us that in his day persons found on the streets

of Cambaluc (Pekin) 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.”(626)

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.(627) Amongst some primitive

peoples, when the blood of a tribesman has to be shed 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;(628)

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.(629) When Australian blacks bleed each other as a cure

for headache, and so on, they are very careful not to spill any of the

blood on the ground, but sprinkle it on each other.(630) 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.(631) In South Celebes at child-birth 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.(632) The unwillingness to shed blood is extended by some

peoples to the blood of animals. 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.”(633) Amongst the Damaras cattle killed for food

are suffocated, but when sacrificed they are speared to death.(634) 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.(635) In killing an animal for food the Easter Islanders do

not shed its blood, but stun it or suffocate it in smoke.(636) The

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.(637) 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.

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

trellised vine.(638) The reason for this prohibition was perhaps as

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

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

regarded as the blood of the plant.(639) The juice of the grape is

therefore naturally conceived as the blood of the vine.(640) 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 regarded as 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(641) would

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

made probable if we can show, 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.

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.(642) 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.(643) 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.(644) 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,(645) 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.

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.(646) 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.(647) 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.”(648) 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.(649)

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.(650)

For the blood of women is believed to have disastrous effects upon males.

In the Encounter Bay tribe of South Australia boys are warned that if they

see the blood of women they will early become gray-headed and their

strength will fail prematurely.(651) Men of the Booandik tribe 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.(652) 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.(653) The people of Ceram also believe that men who see

women’s blood will be wounded in battle.(654) Similarly the Ovahereró

(Damaras) of South Africa think that if they see a lying-in woman shortly

after child-birth they will become weaklings and will be shot when they go

to war.(655) It is an Esthonian belief that men who see women’s blood will

suffer from an eruption on the skin.(656)

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 primitive people 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 Karens

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_.”(657) The

Siamese think that a spirit called _Khuan_, or _Chom Kuan_, 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 _Khuan_ 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 Burmah’s head was washed with water taken 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.(658)

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.(659)

Similarily 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.(660) 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.”(661) It is also found in full force throughout Polynesia.

Thus of Gattanewa, a Marquesan chief, it is said that “to touch the top of

his head, or any thing 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.”(662) 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.(663) 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.(664) No one was

allowed to be over the head of the king of Tonga.(665) In Hawaii (the

Sandwich Islands) if a man climbed upon a chief’s 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 chief’s house with his head

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

death.(666) In Tahiti any one who stood over the king or queen, or passed

his hand over their heads, might be put to death.(667) 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.(668) The head of a Maori chief was so sacred

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.”(669) In some circumstances the tabooed person is forbidden to

touch his head at all. Thus in North America, Tinneh girls at puberty,

Creek lads during the year of their initiation into manhood, and young

braves on their first war-path, are forbidden to scratch their heads with

their fingers, and are provided with a stick for the purpose.(670) But to

return to the Maoris. On account of the sacredness of his head “a 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.”(671) 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.(672) Some Maori chiefs, like other

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

passing over their heads.(673) 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.”(674)

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.

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 connection which exists

between himself and every part of his body continues to exist even after

the physical connection has been severed, 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

danger is of course not to cut the hair at all; and this is the expedient

adopted where the danger is thought to be more than usually great. The

Frankish kings were not allowed to cut their hair.(675) A Haida

medicine-man may neither cut nor comb his hair, so it is always long and

tangled.(676) Amongst the Alfoers of Celebes the _Leleen_ or priest who

looks after the rice-fields may not cut 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.(677) In Ceram men do not cut their hair: if

married men did so, they would lose their wives; if young men did so, they

would grow weak and enervated.(678) In Timorlaut, married men may not cut

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.(679) Here

men on a journey are specially permitted to cut their hair; but elsewhere

men travelling abroad have been in the habit of leaving their hair uncut

until their return. The reason for the latter 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.(680) “At Tâif when a man returned from a journey his first duty was

to visit the Rabba and poll his hair.”(681) The custom of keeping the hair

unshorn during a dangerous expedition seems to have been observed, at

least occasionally, by the Romans.(682) 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.(683) 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.”(684) Six thousand

Saxons once swore that they would not cut their hair nor shave their

beards until they had taken vengeance on their enemies.(685) 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.”(686) 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.”(687)

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 probably gave rise to the

European rule that a child’s nails should not be cut during the first

year, but that if it is absolutely necessary to shorten them they should

be bitten off by the mother or nurse.(688) 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.”(689) The Slave, Hare, and

Dogrib Indians of North America do not cut the nails of female children

till they are four years of age.(690) 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;(691) or that if a boy’s hair is cut before his seventh year he

will have no courage.(692)

But when it is necessary to cut the hair, precautions are taken to lessen

the dangers which are supposed to attend the operation. 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.(693) “He who has had his hair cut is in the 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.”(694) 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.(695) It is an affair of state when the

king of Cambodia’s hair is cut. 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.(696) The hair and

nails of the Mikado could only be cut while he was asleep,(697) perhaps

because his soul being then absent from his body, there was less chance of

injuring it with the shears.

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. Thus, an Australian girl,

sick of a fever, attributed her illness to the fact that some months

before a young man 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.”(698) 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. Lieut. 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.(699) 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 his wife is dead.(700)

The way in which the charm operates was explained to Mr. Howitt by a

Mirajuri 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.”(701) 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;(702) sometimes it is thought that he will have an eruption

on the head.(703) 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 Tirol, witches are supposed to use cut or

combed out hair to make hail-stones or thunder-storms with.(704) Thlinket

Indians have been known to attribute stormy weather to the fact that a

girl had combed her hair outside of the house.(705) 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,(706) that is,

when the mischief was already done. 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 Anzikos begged

the missionaries to give him half their beards as a rain-charm.(707) 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.(708)

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.”(709) 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.”(710) The shorn locks of a chief were gathered with much care and

placed in an adjoining cemetery.(711) The Tahitians buried the cuttings of

their hair at the temples.(712) The cut hair and nails of the Flamen

Dialis were buried under a lucky tree.(713) The hair of the Vestal virgins

was hung upon an ancient lotus-tree.(714) In Germany the clippings of hair

used often to be buried under an elder-bush.(715) 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.(716) 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.(717) In Amboina before a child may taste sago-pap

for the first time, the father cuts off a lock of the child’s hair which

he buries under a sago palm.(718) In the Aru Islands, when a child is able

to run alone, a female relation cuts off a lock of its hair and deposits

it on a banana-tree.(719) In the island of Roti 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 cut off with much ceremony. As each of the friends who

are invited to the ceremony enters the house he goes up to the child, cuts

off a little of its hair and drops it into a cocoa-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.(720) 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

anywhere where they will not be disturbed by animals. For “they have a

superstition that disease will follow the disturbance of such remains by

animals.”(721) The clipped hair and nails are often buried in any secret

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

cases already mentioned. In Swabia it is said that cut hair should be

buried in a place where neither sun nor moon shines, therefore in the

ground, under a stone, etc.(722) In Danzig it is buried in a bag under the

threshold.(723) 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.(724) 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.(725) 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.(726) The Madi or Moru tribe

of Central Africa bury the parings of their nails in the ground.(727) The

Kafirs 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 sacred place, but when one of them cleans

the head of another he preserves the insects which he finds, “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.”(728) 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.(729) In North Guinea they are carefully hidden (it is not said

where) “in order that they may not be used as a fetish for the destruction

of him to whom they belong.”(730) In Bolang Mongondo (Celebes) the first

hair cut from a child’s head is kept in a young cocoa-nut, which is

commonly hung on the front of the house, under the roof.(731)

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.’ ”(732) In Chile 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.(733) Similarly

the Turks never throw away the parings of their nails, but carefully keep

them in cracks of the walls or of the boards, in the belief that they will

be needed at the resurrection.(734) 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.(735) 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.(736) To spit upon the hair before throwing it away

is thought in some parts of Europe sufficient to prevent its being used by

witches.(737) Spitting as a protective charm is well known.

Some people burn their loose hair to save it from falling into the power

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

tribes.(738) The Makololo of South Africa either burn it or bury it

secretly,(739) and the same alternative is sometimes adopted by the

Tirolese.(740) Cut and combed out hair is burned in Pomerania and

sometimes at Liége.(741) 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.(742) This destruction of the hair

or 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 connection between them and the man

from whom they were severed. And if this sympathetic connection still

exists, clearly these severed portions cannot be destroyed without injury

to the man.

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 Roti.(743) 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 destroy the separable parts of the child’s body on the ground

that they are infected, so to say, by the virus of the 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.(744) 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.(745) 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. We can,

therefore, 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.(746) Again, we can understand why a man should

poll his head after a journey.(747) 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.(748) On my hypothesis the polling of the hair is simply one of

these purificatory or disinfectant ceremonies. 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 of 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. Similarly at some Hindu 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.”(749)

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, but which for one reason or

another he considers 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

the Egyptian kings was restricted to veal and goose.(750) 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.(751) 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.(752) 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.(753) 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.”(754) 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.

It would be easy to extend the list of royal and priestly taboos, but the

above may suffice as specimens. To conclude this part of our subject it

only remains to state summarily the general conclusions to which our

inquiries have thus far conducted us. We have seen that in savage or

barbarous society there are often found men to whom the superstition of

their fellows ascribes a controlling influence over the general course of

nature. Such men are accordingly adored and treated as gods. Whether these

human divinities also hold temporal sway over the lives and fortunes of

their fellows, or whether their functions are purely spiritual and

supernatural, in other words, whether they are kings as well as gods or

only the latter, is a distinction which hardly concerns us here. Their

supposed divinity is the essential fact with which we have to deal. In

virtue of it they are a pledge and guarantee to their worshippers of the

continuance and orderly succession of those physical phenomena upon which

mankind depends for subsistence. Naturally, therefore, the life and health

of such a god-man are matters of anxious concern to the people whose

welfare and even existence are bound up with his; naturally he is

constrained by them to conform to such rules as the wit of early man has

devised for averting the ills to which flesh is heir, including the last

ill, death. These rules, as an examination of them has shown, are nothing

but the maxims with which, on the primitive view, every man of common

prudence must comply if he would live long in the land. But while in the

case of ordinary men the observance of the rules is left to the choice of

the individual, in the case of the god-man it is enforced under penalty of

dismissal from his high station, or even of death. For his worshippers

have far too great a stake in his life to allow him to play fast and loose

with it. Therefore all the quaint superstitions, the old-world maxims, the

venerable saws which the ingenuity of savage philosophers elaborated long

ago, and which old women at chimney corners still impart as treasures of

great price to their descendants gathered round the cottage fire on winter

evenings—all these antique fancies clustered, all these cobwebs of the

brain were spun about the path of the old king, the human god, who,

immeshed in them like a fly in the toils of a spider, could hardly stir a

limb for the threads of custom, “light as air but strong as links of

iron,” that crossing and recrossing each other in an endless maze bound

him fast within a network of observances from which death or deposition

alone could release him.

To students of the past the life of the old kings and priests thus teems

with instruction. In it was summed up all that passed for wisdom when the

world was young. It was the perfect pattern after which every man strove

to shape his life; a faultless model constructed with rigorous accuracy

upon the lines laid down by a barbarous philosophy. Crude and false as

that philosophy may seem to us, it would be unjust to deny it the merit of

logical consistency. Starting from a conception of the vital principle as

a tiny being or soul existing in, but distinct and separable from, the

living being, it deduces for the practical guidance of life a system of

rules which in general hangs well together and forms a fairly complete and

harmonious whole. The flaw—and it is a fatal one—of the system lies not in

its reasoning, but in its premises; in its conception of the nature of

life, not in any irrelevancy of the conclusions which it draws from that

conception. But to stigmatise these premises as ridiculous because we can

easily detect their falseness, would be ungrateful as well as

unphilosophical. We stand upon the foundation reared by the generations

that have gone before, and we can but dimly realise the painful and

prolonged efforts which it has cost humanity to struggle up to the point,

no very exalted one after all, which we have reached. Our gratitude is due

to the nameless and forgotten toilers, whose patient thought and active

exertions have largely made us what we are. The amount of new knowledge

which one age, certainly which one man, can add to the common store is

small, and it argues stupidity or dishonesty, besides ingratitude, to

ignore the heap while vaunting the few grains which it may have been our

privilege to add to it. There is indeed little danger at present of

undervaluing the contributions which modern times and even classical

antiquity have made to the general advancement of our race. But when we

pass these limits, the case is different. Contempt and ridicule or

abhorrence and denunciation are too often the only recognition vouchsafed

to the savage and his ways. Yet of the benefactors whom we are bound

thankfully to commemorate, many, perhaps most, were savages. For when all

is said and done our resemblances to the savage are still far more

numerous than our differences from him; and what we have in common with

him, and deliberately retain as true and useful, we owe to our savage

forefathers who slowly acquired by experience and transmitted to us by

inheritance those seemingly fundamental ideas which we are apt to regard

as original and intuitive. We are like heirs to a fortune which has been

handed down for so many ages that the memory of those who built it up is

lost, and its possessors for the time being regard it as having been an

original and unalterable possession of their race since the beginning of

the world. But reflection and inquiry should satisfy us that to our

predecessors we are indebted for much of what we thought most our own, and

that their errors were not wilful extravagances or the ravings of

insanity, but simply hypotheses, justifiable as such at the time when they

were propounded, but which a fuller experience has proved to be

inadequate. It is only by the successive testing of hypotheses and

rejection of the false that truth is at last elicited. After all, what we

call truth is only the hypothesis which is found to work best. Therefore

in reviewing the opinions and practices of ruder ages and races we shall

do well to look with leniency upon their errors as inevitable slips made

in the search for truth, and to give them the benefit of that indulgence

which we may one day stand in need of ourselves: _cum excusatione itaque

veteres audiendi sunt_.