The Golden Bough_ A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition_ Vol. 03 of 12) James George Frazer 2747 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Golden Bough: A Study
in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12)
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third
Edition, Vol. 03 of 12)

Author: James George Frazer

Release date: January 12, 2013 [eBook #41832]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41832

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN
BOUGH: A STUDY IN MAGIC AND RELIGION (THIRD EDITION,
VOL. 03 OF 12) ***

The Golden Bough

A Study in Magic and Religion
By

James George Frazer, D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D.
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool

Third Edition.

Vol. III.

Part II

Taboo and the Perils of the Soul

New York and London

MacMillan and Co.

1911

Contents

Preface.
Chapter I. The Burden Of Royalty.
§ 1. Royal and Priestly Taboos.
§ 2. Divorce of the Spiritual from the Temporal Power.
Chapter II. The Perils Of The Soul.
§ 1. The Soul as a Mannikin.
§ 2. Absence and Recall of the Soul.
§ 3. The Soul as a Shadow and a Reflection.
Chapter III. Tabooed Acts.
§ 1. Taboos on Intercourse with Strangers.
§ 2. Taboos on Eating and Drinking.
§ 3. Taboos on shewing the Face.
§ 4. Taboos on quitting the House.
§ 5. Taboos on leaving Food over.
Chapter IV. Tabooed Persons.
§ 1. Chiefs and Kings tabooed.
§ 2. Mourners tabooed.
§ 3. Women tabooed at Menstruation and Childbirth.
§ 4. Warriors tabooed.
§ 5. Manslayers tabooed.
§ 6. Hunters and Fishers tabooed.
Chapter V. Tabooed Things.
§ 1. The Meaning of Taboo.
§ 2. Iron tabooed.
§ 3. Sharp Weapons tabooed.
§ 4. Blood tabooed.
§ 5. The Head tabooed.
§ 6. Hair tabooed.

§ 7. Ceremonies at Hair-cutting.
§ 8. Disposal of Cut Hair and Nails.
§ 9. Spittle tabooed.
§ 10. Foods tabooed.
§ 11. Knots and Rings tabooed.
Chapter VI. Tabooed Words.
§ 1. Personal Names tabooed.
§ 2. Names of Relations tabooed.
§ 3. Names of the Dead tabooed.
§ 4. Names of Kings and other Sacred Persons tabooed.
§ 5. Names of Gods tabooed.
§ 6. Common Words tabooed.
Chapter VII. Our Debt To The Savage.
Note. Not To Step Over Persons And Things.
Index.
Footnotes

[Transcriber's Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter
at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.]

[pg v]

Preface.

The term Taboo is one of the very few words which the English language
has borrowed from the speech of savages. In the Polynesian tongue, from
which we have adopted it, the word designates a remarkable system which
has deeply influenced the religious, social, and political life of the Oceanic
islanders, both Polynesians and Melanesians, particularly by inculcating a
superstitious veneration for the persons of nobles and the rights of private
property. When about the year 1886 my ever-lamented friend William
Robertson Smith asked me to write an article on Taboo for the Ninth
Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, I shared what I believe to have
been at the time the current view of anthropologists, that the institution in
question was confined to the brown and black races of the Pacific. But an
attentive study of the accounts given of Taboo by observers who wrote

while it still flourished in Polynesia soon led me to modify that view. The
analogies which the system presents to the superstitions, not only of
savages elsewhere, but of the civilised races of antiquity, were too
numerous and too striking to be overlooked; and I came to the conclusion
that Taboo is only one of a number of similar systems of superstition which
among many, perhaps among all races of men have contributed in large
measure, under many different names and with many variations of detail, to
build up the complex fabric of society in all the various sides or elements of
it which we describe as religious, social, [pg vi] political, moral and
economic. This conclusion I briefly indicated in my article. My general
views on the subject were accepted by my friend Robertson Smith and
applied by him in his celebrated Lectures to the elucidation of some aspects
of Semitic religion. Since then the importance of Taboo and of systems like
it in the evolution of religion and morality, of government and property, has
been generally recognised and has indeed become a commonplace of
anthropology.

The present volume is merely an expansion of the corresponding chapter in
the first edition of The Golden Bough. It treats of the principles of taboo in
their special application to sacred personages, such as kings and priests,
who are the proper theme of the book. It does not profess to handle the
subject as a whole, to pursue it into all its ramifications, to trace the
manifold influences which systems of this sort have exerted in moulding the
multitudinous forms of human society. A treatise which should adequately
discuss these topics would far exceed the limits which I have prescribed for
myself in The Golden Bough. For example, I have barely touched in passing
on the part which these superstitions have played in shaping the moral ideas
and directing the moral practice of mankind, a profound subject fraught
perhaps with momentous issues for the time when men shall seriously set
themselves to revise their ethical code in the light of its origin. For that the
ethical like the legal code of a people stands in need of constant revision
will hardly be disputed by any attentive and dispassionate observer. The old
view that the principles of right and wrong are immutable and eternal is no
longer tenable. The moral world is as little exempt as the physical world
from the law of ceaseless change, of perpetual flux. Contemplate the
diversities, the inconsistencies, the contradictions of the ethical ideas and
the ethical practice, not merely of different peoples in different countries,

but of the same [pg vii] people in the same country in different ages, then
say whether the foundations of morality are eternally fixed and unchanging.
If they seem so to us, as they have probably seemed to men in all ages who
did not extend their views beyond the narrow limits of their time and
country, it is in all likelihood merely because the rate of change is
commonly so slow that it is imperceptible at any moment and can only be
detected by a comparison of accurate observations extending over long
periods of time. Such a comparison, could we make it, would probably
convince us that if we speak of the moral law as immutable and eternal, it
can only be in the relative or figurative sense in which we apply the same
words to the outlines of the great mountains, by comparison with the short-
lived generations of men. The mountains, too, are passing away, though we
do not see it; nothing is stable and abiding under or above the sun. We can
as little arrest the process of moral evolution as we can stay the sweep of
the tides or the courses of the stars.

Therefore, whether we like it or not, the moral code by which we regulate
our conduct is being constantly revised and altered: old rules are being
silently expunged and new rules silently inscribed in the palimpsest by the
busy, the unresting hand of an invisible scribe. For unlike the public and
formal revision of a legal code, the revision of the moral code is always
private, tacit, and informal. The legislators who make and the judges who
administer it are not clad in ermine and scarlet, their edicts are not
proclaimed with the blare of trumpets and the pomp of heraldry. We
ourselves are the lawgivers and the judges: it is the whole people who make
and alter the ethical standard and judge every case by reference to it. We sit
in the highest court of appeal, judging offenders daily, and we cannot if we
would rid ourselves of the responsibility. All that we can do is to take as
clear and comprehensive a view as possible of the evidence, lest from too
narrow and partial a view we [pg viii] should do injustice, perhaps gross
and irreparable injustice, to the prisoners at the bar. Few things, perhaps,
can better guard us from narrowness and illiberality in our moral judgments
than a survey of the amazing diversities of ethical theory and practice which
have been recorded among the various races of mankind in different ages;
and accordingly the Comparative Method applied to the study of ethical
phenomena may be expected to do for morality what the same method
applied to religious phenomena is now doing for religion, by enlarging our

mental horizon, extending the boundaries of knowledge, throwing light on
the origin of current beliefs and practices, and thereby directly assisting us
to replace what is effete by what is vigorous, and what is false by what is
true. The facts which I have put together in this volume as well as in some
of my other writings may perhaps serve as materials for a future science of
Comparative Ethics. They are rough stones which await the master-builder,
rude sketches which more cunning hands than mine may hereafter work up
into a finished picture.

J. G. Frazer.

Cambridge,
1st February 1911.

[pg 001]

Chapter I. The Burden Of Royalty.

§ 1. Royal and Priestly Taboos.

At a certain stage of early society the king or priest is often thought to be
endowed with supernatural powers or to be an incarnation of a deity, and
f consistently with this belief the course of nature is supposed to be more or
less under his control, and he is held responsible for bad weather, failure of
d the crops, and similar calamities.1 To some extent it appears to be assumed
that the king's power over nature, like that over his subjects and slaves, is
exerted through definite acts of will; and therefore if drought, famine,
e pestilence, or storms arise, the people attribute the misfortune to the
e negligence or guilt of their king, and punish him accordingly with stripes
r and bonds, or, if he remains obdurate, with deposition and death.2
f Sometimes, however, the course of nature, while regarded as dependent on
the king, is supposed to be partly independent of his will. His person is
considered, if we may express it so, as the dynamical centre of the universe,
from which lines of force radiate to all quarters of the heaven; so that any
motion of his—the turning of his head, the lifting of his hand—
instantaneously affects and may seriously disturb some part of nature. He is
the point of support on which hangs the balance of the world, and the
slightest irregularity on his part may overthrow the delicate equipoise. The
greatest care must, therefore, be taken both by and of him; [pg 002] and his
whole life, down to its minutest details, must be so regulated that no act of
his, voluntary or involuntary, may disarrange or upset the established order
of nature. Of this class of monarchs the Mikado or Dairi, the spiritual
emperor of Japan, is or rather used to be a typical example. He is an
incarnation of the sun goddess, the deity who rules the universe, gods and
men included; once a year all the gods wait upon him and spend a month at
his court. During that month, the name of which means “without gods,” no
one frequents the temples, for they are believed to be deserted.3 The Mikado
receives from his people and assumes in his official proclamations and
decrees the title of “manifest or incarnate deity” (Akitsu Kami) and he
claims a general authority over the gods of Japan.4 For example, in an [pg

003] official decree of the year 646 the emperor is described as “the
incarnate god who governs the universe.”5

The following description of the Mikado's mode of life was written about
two hundred years ago:—6
f
“Even to this day the princes descended of this family more particularly
those who sit on the throne, are looked upon as persons most holy in
themselves, and as Popes by birth. And, in order to preserve these
e advantageous notions in the minds of their subjects, they are obliged to take
an uncommon care of their sacred persons, and to do such things, which,
examined according to the customs of other nations, would be thought
ridiculous and impertinent. It will not be improper to give a few instances
of it. He thinks that it would be very prejudicial to his dignity and holiness
to touch the ground with his feet; for this reason when he intends to go
anywhere, he must be carried thither on men's shoulders. Much less will
they suffer that he should expose his sacred person to the open air, and the
sun is not thought worthy to shine on his head. There is such a holiness
ascribed to all the parts of his body that he dares to cut off neither his hair,
nor his beard, nor his nails. However, lest he should grow too dirty, they
may clean him in the night when he is asleep; because, they say, that which
is taken from his body at that time, hath been stolen from him, and that such
a theft doth not prejudice his holiness or dignity. In ancient times, he was
obliged to sit on the throne for some hours every morning, with the imperial
crown on his head, but to sit altogether like a [pg 004] statue, without
stirring either hands or feet, head or eyes, nor indeed any part of his body,
because, by this means, it was thought that he could preserve peace and
tranquillity in his empire; for if, unfortunately, he turned himself on one
side or the other, or if he looked a good while towards any part of his
dominions, it was apprehended that war, famine, fire, or some other great
misfortune was near at hand to desolate the country. But it having been
afterwards discovered, that the imperial crown was the palladium, which by
its immobility7 could preserve peace in the empire, it was thought expedient
to deliver his imperial person, consecrated only to idleness and pleasures,
from this burthensome duty, and therefore the crown is at present placed on
the throne for some hours every morning. His victuals must be dressed
every time in new pots, and served at table in new dishes: both are very

clean and neat, but made only of common clay; that without any
considerable expense they may be laid aside, or broke, after they have
served once. They are generally broke, for fear they should come into the
hands of laymen, for they believe religiously, that if any layman should
presume to eat his food out of these sacred dishes, it would swell and
inflame his mouth and throat. The like ill effect is dreaded from the Dairi's
sacred habits; for they believe that if a layman should wear them, without
the Emperor's express leave or command, they would occasion swellings
and pains in all parts of his body.” To the same effect an earlier account of
the Mikado says: “It was considered as a shameful degradation for him
even to touch the ground with his foot. The sun and moon were not even
permitted to shine upon his head. None of the superfluities of the body were
ever taken from him, neither his hair, his beard, nor his nails were cut.
Whatever he eat was dressed in new vessels.”8

[pg 005]

Similar priestly or rather divine kings are found, at a lower level of
barbarism, on the west coast of Africa. At Shark Point near Cape Padron, in
f Lower Guinea, lives the priestly king Kukulu, alone in a wood. He may not
touch a woman nor leave his house; indeed he may not even quit his chair,
in which he is obliged to sleep sitting, for if he lay down no wind would
arise and navigation would be stopped. He regulates storms, and in general
maintains a wholesome and equable state of the atmosphere.9 On Mount
a Agu in Togo, a German possession in West Africa, there lives a fetish or
spirit called Bagba, who is of great importance for the whole of the
surrounding country. The power of giving or withholding rain is ascribed to
him, and he is lord of the winds, including the Harmattan, the dry, hot wind
which blows from the interior. His priest dwells in a house on the highest
peak of the mountain, where he keeps the winds bottled up in huge jars.
Applications for rain, too, are made to him, and he does a good business in
amulets, which consist of the teeth and claws of leopards. Yet though his
power is great and he is indeed the real chief of the land, the rule of the
fetish forbids him ever to leave the mountain, and he must spend the whole
of his life on its summit. Only once a year may he come down to make
purchases in the market; but even then he may not set foot in the hut of any
mortal man, and must return to his place of exile the same day. The business

of government in the villages is conducted by subordinate chiefs, who are
appointed by him.10 In the West African kingdom of Congo there was a
supreme pontiff called Chitomé or Chitombé, whom the negroes regarded
as a god on earth and all-powerful in heaven. Hence before they would taste
the new crops they offered him the first-fruits, fearing that manifold
misfortunes would befall them if they broke this rule. When he left his
residence to visit other places within his jurisdiction, all married people had
to observe strict continence the whole time he was out; [pg 006] for it was
supposed that any act of incontinence would prove fatal to him. And if he
were to die a natural death, they thought that the world would perish, and
the earth, which he alone sustained by his power and merit, would
immediately be annihilated.11 Similarly in Humbe, a kingdom of Angola,
the incontinence of young people under the age of puberty used to be a
capital crime, because it was believed to entail the death of the king within
the year. Of late the death penalty has been commuted for a fine of ten oxen
inflicted on each of the culprits. This commutation has attracted thousands
of dissolute youth to Humbe from the neighbouring tribes, among whom
the old penalty is still rigorously exacted.12 Amongst the semi-barbarous
nations of the New World, at the date of the Spanish conquest, there were
found hierarchies or theocracies like those of Japan;13 in particular, the high
pontiff of the Zapotecs in Southern Mexico appears to have presented a
close parallel to the Mikado. A powerful rival to the king himself, this
spiritual lord governed Yopaa, one of the chief cities of the kingdom, with
absolute dominion. It is impossible, we are told, to overrate the reverence in
which he was held. He was looked on as a god whom the earth was not
worthy to hold nor the sun to shine upon. He profaned his sanctity if he
even touched the ground with his foot. The officers who bore his palanquin
on their shoulders were members of the highest families; he hardly deigned
to look on anything around him; and all who met him fell with their faces to
the earth, fearing that death would overtake them if they saw even his
shadow. A rule of continence was regularly imposed on the Zapotec priests,
especially upon the high pontiff; but “on certain days in each year, which
were generally celebrated with feasts and dances, it was customary for the
high priest to become drunk. While in this state, seeming to belong neither
to heaven nor to earth, one of the most beautiful of the virgins consecrated
to the service of the gods was brought to him.” If the child [pg 007] she
bore him was a son, he was brought up as a prince of the blood, and the

eldest son succeeded his father on the pontifical throne.14 The supernatural
powers attributed to this pontiff are not specified, but probably they
resembled those of the Mikado and Chitomé.

Wherever, as in Japan and West Africa, it is supposed that the order of
nature, and even the existence of the world, is bound up with the life of the
king or priest, it is clear that he must be regarded by his subjects as a source
e both of infinite blessing and of infinite danger. On the one hand, the people
have to thank him for the rain and sunshine which foster the fruits of the
n earth, for the wind which brings ships to their coasts, and even for the solid
ground beneath their feet. But what he gives he can refuse; and so close is
e the dependence of nature on his person, so delicate the balance of the
system of forces whereof he is the centre, that the least irregularity on his
part may set up a tremor which shall shake the earth to its foundations. And
if nature may be disturbed by the slightest involuntary act of the king, it is
e easy to conceive the convulsion which his death might provoke. The natural
f death of the Chitomé, as we have seen, was thought to entail the destruction
of all things. Clearly, therefore, out of a regard for their own safety, which
might be imperilled by any rash act of the king, and still more by his death,
the people will exact of their king or priest a strict conformity to those rules,
the observance of which is deemed necessary for his own preservation, and
consequently for the preservation of his people and the world. The idea that
early kingdoms are despotisms in which the people exist only for the
sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are considering. On
the contrary, the sovereign in them exists only for his subjects; his life is
only valuable so long as he discharges the duties of his position by ordering
the course of nature for his people's benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the
care, the devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished
on him cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is [pg 008]
dismissed ignominiously, and may be thankful if he escapes with his life.
Worshipped as a god one day, he is killed as a criminal the next. But in this
changed behaviour of the people there is nothing capricious or inconsistent.
On the contrary, their conduct is entirely of a piece. If their king is their
god, he is or should be also their preserver; and if he will not preserve them,
he must make room for another who will. So long, however, as he answers
their expectations, there is no limit to the care which they take of him, and
which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged

in by a ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and observances,
of which the intention is not to contribute to his dignity, much less to his
comfort, but to restrain him from conduct which, by disturbing the harmony
of nature, might involve himself, his people, and the universe in one
common catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by
trammelling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very
life, which it is their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him.

Of the supernaturally endowed kings of Loango it is said that the more
powerful a king is, the more taboos is he bound to observe; they regulate all
his actions, his walking and his standing, his eating and drinking, his
sleeping and waking.15 To these restraints the heir to the throne is subject
n from infancy; but as he advances in life the number of abstinences and
ceremonies which he must observe increases, “until at the moment that he
ascends the throne he is lost in the ocean of rites and taboos.”16 In the crater
of an extinct volcano, enclosed on all sides by grassy slopes, lie the
scattered huts and yam-fields of Riabba, the capital of the native king of
Fernando Po. This mysterious being lives in the lowest depths of the crater,
surrounded by a harem of forty women, and covered, it is said, with old
silver coins. Naked savage as he is, he yet exercises far more influence in
the island than the Spanish governor at Santa Isabel. In him the
conservative spirit of the Boobies or aboriginal inhabitants of the island is,
as it were, incorporate. [pg 009] He has never seen a white man and,
according to the firm conviction of all the Boobies, the sight of a pale face
would cause his instant death. He cannot bear to look upon the sea; indeed
it is said that he may never see it even in the distance, and that therefore he
wears away his life with shackles on his legs in the dim twilight of his hut.
Certain it is that he has never set foot on the beach. With the exception of
his musket and knife, he uses nothing that comes from the whites; European
cloth never touches his person, and he scorns tobacco, rum, and even salt.17

Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, in West Africa, “the
king is at the same time high priest. In this quality he was, particularly in
former times, unapproachable by his subjects. Only by night was he
allowed to quit his dwelling in order to bathe and so forth. None but his
n representative, the so-called ‘visible king,’ with three chosen elders might
converse with him, and even they had to sit on an ox-hide with their backs

e turned to him. He might not see any European nor any horse, nor might he
look upon the sea, for which reason he was not allowed to quit his capital
even for a few moments. These rules have been disregarded in recent
times.”18 The king of Dahomey himself is subject to the prohibition of
beholding the sea,19 and so are the kings of Loango20 and Great Ardra in
Guinea.21 The sea is the fetish of the Eyeos, to the north-west of Dahomey,
and they and their king are threatened with death by their priests if ever
they dare to look on it.22 It is believed that the king of Cayor in Senegal
would infallibly die within the year if he were to cross a river or an arm of
the sea.23 In Mashonaland down to recent times the chiefs would not cross
certain rivers, particularly the Rurikwi and the Nyadiri; and the [pg 010]
custom was still strictly observed by at least one chief within the last few
years. “On no account will the chief cross the river. If it is absolutely
necessary for him to do so, he is blindfolded and carried across with
shouting and singing. Should he walk across, he will go blind or die and
certainly lose the chieftainship.”24 So among the Mahafalys and Sakalavas
in the south of Madagascar some kings are forbidden to sail on the sea or to
cross certain rivers.25 The horror of the sea is not peculiar to kings. The
Basutos are said to share it instinctively, though they have never seen salt
water, and live hundreds of miles from the Indian Ocean.26 The Egyptian
priests loathed the sea, and called it the foam of Typhon; they were
forbidden to set salt on their table, and they would not speak to pilots
because they got their living by the sea; hence too they would not eat fish,
and the hieroglyphic symbol for hatred was a fish.27 When the Indians of the
Peruvian Andes were sent by the Spaniards to work in the hot valleys of the
coast, the vast ocean which they saw before them as they descended the
Cordillera was dreaded by them as a cause of disease; hence they prayed to
it that they might not fall ill. This they all did without exception, even the
little children.28 Similarly the inland people of Lampong in Sumatra are said
to pay a kind of adoration to the sea, and to make it an offering of cakes and
sweetmeats when they behold it for the first time, deprecating its power of
doing them mischief.29

Among the Sakalavas of southern Madagascar the chief is regarded as a
sacred being, but “he is held in leash by a crowd of restrictions, which
regulate his behaviour like that of the emperor of China. He can undertake
nothing whatever unless the sorcerers have declared the omens favourable:

he may not eat warm food: on certain days he may not quit [pg 011] his hut;
30
e and so on.” Among some of the hill tribes of Assam both the headman and
his wife have to observe many taboos in respect of food; thus they may not
e eat buffalo, pork, dog, fowl, or tomatoes. The headman must be chaste, the
s husband of one wife, and he must separate himself from her on the eve of a
general or public observance of taboo. In one group of tribes the headman is
forbidden to eat in a strange village, and under no provocation whatever
may he utter a word of abuse. Apparently the people imagine that the
violation of any of these taboos by a headman would bring down
misfortune on the whole village.31

The ancient kings of Ireland, as well as the kings of the four provinces of
Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and Ulster, were subject to certain quaint
prohibitions or taboos, on the due observance of which the prosperity of the
people and the country, as well as their own, was supposed to depend. Thus,
h for example, the sun might not rise on the king of Ireland in his bed at Tara,
the old capital of Erin; he was forbidden to alight on Wednesday at Magh
Breagh, to traverse Magh Cuillinn after sunset, to incite his horse at Fan-
Chomair, to go in a ship upon the water the Monday after Bealltaine (May
day), and to leave the track of his army upon Ath Maighne the Tuesday after
All-Hallows. The king of Leinster might not go round Tuath Laighean left-
hand-wise on Wednesday, nor sleep between the Dothair (Dodder) and the
Duibhlinn32 with his head inclining to one side, nor encamp for nine days on
the plains of Cualann, nor travel the road of Duibhlinn on Monday, nor ride
a dirty black-heeled horse across Magh Maistean. The king of Munster was
prohibited from enjoying the feast of Loch Lein from one Monday to
another; from banqueting by night in the beginning of harvest before Geim
at Leitreacha; from encamping for nine days upon the Siuir; and from
holding a border meeting at Gabhran. The king of [pg 012] Connaught
might not conclude a treaty respecting his ancient palace of Cruachan33 after
making peace on All-Hallows Day, nor go in a speckled garment on a grey
speckled steed to the heath of Dal Chais, nor repair to an assembly of
women at Seaghais, nor sit in autumn on the sepulchral mounds of the wife
of Maine, nor contend in running with the rider of a grey one-eyed horse at
Ath Gallta between two posts. The king of Ulster was forbidden to attend
the horse fair at Rath Line among the youths of Dal Araidhe, to listen to the
fluttering of the flocks of birds of Linn Saileach after sunset, to celebrate

the feast of the bull of Daire-mic-Daire, to go into Magh Cobha in the
month of March, and to drink of the water of Bo Neimhidh between two
darknesses. If the kings of Ireland strictly observed these and many other
customs, which were enjoined by immemorial usage, it was believed that
they would never meet with mischance or misfortune, and would live for
ninety years without experiencing the decay of old age; that no epidemic or
mortality would occur during their reigns; and that the seasons would be
favourable and the earth yield its fruit in abundance; whereas, if they set the
ancient usages at naught, the country would be visited with plague, famine,
and bad weather.34

The kings of Egypt were worshipped as gods,35 and the routine of their daily
life was regulated in every detail by precise and unvarying rules. “The life
of the kings of Egypt,” says Diodorus, “was not like that of other monarchs
who are irresponsible and may do just what they choose; on the contrary,
everything was fixed for them by law, not only their official duties, but even
the details of their daily life.... The hours both of day and night were [pg
013] arranged at which the king had to do, not what he pleased, but what
was prescribed for him.... For not only were the times appointed at which he
should transact public business or sit in judgment; but the very hours for his
walking and bathing and sleeping with his wife, and, in short, performing
every act of life were all settled. Custom enjoined a simple diet; the only
flesh he might eat was veal and goose, and he might only drink a prescribed
quantity of wine.”36 However, there is reason to think that these rules were
observed, not by the ancient Pharaohs, but by the priestly kings who
reigned at Thebes and in Ethiopia at the close of the twentieth dynasty.37
Among the Karen-nis of Upper Burma a chief attains his position, not by
hereditary right, but on account of his habit of abstaining from rice and
liquor. The mother, too, of a candidate for the chieftainship must have
eschewed these things and lived solely on yams and potatoes so long as she
was with child. During that time she may not eat any meat nor drink water
from a common well. And if her son is to be qualified for the office of chief
he must continue to observe these habits.38

Of the taboos imposed on priests we may see a striking example in the rules
of life prescribed for the Flamen Dialis at Rome, who has been interpreted
as a living image of Jupiter, or a human embodiment of the sky-spirit.39

e They were such as the following:—The Flamen Dialis might not ride or
even touch a horse, nor see an army under arms,40 nor wear a ring which
t was not broken, nor have a knot on any part of his garments; no fire except
a sacred fire might be taken out of his house; he might not touch wheaten
flour or leavened bread; he might not touch or even name a goat, a dog,41
raw meat, [pg 014] beans,42 and ivy; he might not walk under a vine; the
feet of his bed had to be daubed with mud; his hair could be cut only by a
free man and with a bronze knife, and his hair and nails when cut had to be
buried under a lucky tree; he might not touch a dead body nor enter a place
where one was burned;43 he might not see work being done on holy days; he
might not be uncovered in the open air; if a man in bonds were taken into
his house, the captive had to be unbound and the cords had to be drawn up
through a hole in the roof and so let down into the street. His wife, the
Flaminica, had to observe nearly the same rules, and others of her own
besides. She might not ascend more than three steps of the kind of staircase
called Greek; at a certain festival she might not comb her hair; the leather of
her shoes might not be made from a beast that had died a natural death, but
only from one that had been slain or sacrificed; if she heard thunder she was
tabooed till she had offered an expiatory sacrifice.44

Among the Grebo people of Sierra Leone there is a pontiff who bears the
title of Bodia and has been compared, on somewhat slender grounds, to the
high priest of the Jews. He is appointed in accordance with the behest of an
oracle. At an elaborate ceremony of installation he is anointed, a [pg 015]
e ring is put on his ankle as a badge of office, and the door-posts of his house
f are sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed goat. He has charge of the
public talismans and idols, which he feeds with rice and oil every new
moon; and he sacrifices on behalf of the town to the dead and to demons.
Nominally his power is very great, but in practice it is very limited; for he
dare not defy public opinion, and he is held responsible, even with his life,
for any adversity that befalls the country. It is expected of him that he
should cause the earth to bring forth abundantly, the people to be healthy,
war to be driven far away, and witchcraft to be kept in abeyance. His life is
trammelled by the observance of certain restrictions or taboos. Thus he may
not sleep in any house but his own official residence, which is called the
“anointed house” with reference to the ceremony of anointing him at
inauguration. He may not drink water on the highway. He may not eat while

a corpse is in the town, and he may not mourn for the dead. If he dies while
in office, he must be buried at dead of night; few may hear of his burial, and
none may mourn for him when his death is made public. Should he have
fallen a victim to the poison ordeal by drinking a decoction of sassywood,
as it is called, he must be buried under a running stream of water.45

Among the Todas of Southern India the holy milkman (palol), who acts as
priest of the sacred dairy, is subject to a variety of irksome and burdensome
restrictions during the whole time of his incumbency, which may last many
years. Thus he must live at the sacred dairy and may never visit his home or
d any ordinary village. He must be celibate; if he is married he must leave his
wife. On no account may any ordinary person touch the holy milkman or
e the holy dairy; such a touch would so defile his holiness that he [pg 016]
f would forfeit his office. It is only on two days a week, namely Mondays and
Thursdays, that a mere layman may even approach the milkman; on other
days if he has any business with him, he must stand at a distance (some say
a quarter of a mile) and shout his message across the intervening space.
Further, the holy milkman never cuts his hair or pares his nails so long as he
holds office; he never crosses a river by a bridge, but wades through a ford
and only certain fords; if a death occurs in his clan, he may not attend any
of the funeral ceremonies, unless he first resigns his office and descends
from the exalted rank of milkman to that of a mere common mortal. Indeed
it appears that in old days he had to resign the seals, or rather the pails, of
office whenever any member of his clan departed this life. However, these
heavy restraints are laid in their entirety only on milkmen of the very
highest class.46 Among the Todas there are milkmen and milkmen; and
some of them get off more lightly in consideration of their humbler station
in life.47 Still, apart from the dignity they enjoy, the lot even of these other
milkmen is not altogether a happy one. Thus, for example, at a place called
Kanodrs there is a dairy-temple of a conical form. The milkman who has
charge of it must be celibate during the tenure of his office: he must sleep in
the calves' house, a very flimsy structure with an open door and a fire-place
that gives little heat: he may wear only one very scanty garment: he must
take his meals sitting on the outer wall which surrounds the dairy: in eating
he may not put his hand to his lips, but must throw the food into his mouth;
and in drinking he may not put to his lips the leaf which serves as a cup, he
must tilt his head back and pour the liquid into his mouth in a jet from

above. With the exception of a single layman, who is allowed to bear the
milkman company, but who is also bound to celibacy and has a bed rigged
up for him in the calves' house, no other person is allowed to go near this
very sacred dairy under any pretext whatever. No wonder that some years
ago the dairy was unoccupied and the office of milkman [pg 017] stood
vacant. “At the present time,” says Dr. Rivers, “a dairyman is appointed
about once a year and holds office for thirty or forty days only. So far as I
could ascertain, the failure to occupy the dairy constantly is due to the very
considerable hardships and restrictions which have to be endured by the
holder of the office of dairyman, and the time is probably not far distant
when this dairy, one of the most sacred among the Todas, will cease
altogether to be used.”48

§ 2. Divorce of the Spiritual from the Temporal
Power.

The burdensome observances attached to the royal or priestly office
produced their natural effect. Either men refused to accept the office, which
t hence tended to fall into abeyance; or accepting it, they sank under its
e weight into spiritless creatures, cloistered recluses, from whose nerveless
fingers the reins of government slipped into the firmer grasp of men who
were often content to wield the reality of sovereignty without its name. In
e some countries this rift in the supreme power deepened into a total and
permanent separation of the spiritual and temporal powers, the old royal
house retaining their purely religious functions, while the civil government
e passed into the hands of a younger and more vigorous race.

To take examples. In a previous part of this work we saw that in Cambodia
it is often necessary to force the kingships of Fire and Water upon the
reluctant successors,49 and that in Savage Island the monarchy actually
t came to an end because at last no one could be induced to accept the
dangerous distinction.50 In some parts of West Africa, when the king dies, a
s family council is secretly held to determine his successor. He on whom the
choice falls is suddenly seized, bound, and thrown into the fetish-house,
where he is kept in durance till he consents to accept the crown. Sometimes
the heir finds means of evading the honour which it is sought to thrust upon
him; a ferocious chief has been known to go about [pg 018] constantly
armed, resolute to resist by force any attempt to set him on the throne.51 The
savage Timmes of Sierra Leone, who elect their king, reserve to themselves
the right of beating him on the eve of his coronation; and they avail
themselves of this constitutional privilege with such hearty goodwill that
sometimes the unhappy monarch does not long survive his elevation to the
throne. Hence when the leading chiefs have a spite at a man and wish to rid
themselves of him, they elect him king.52 Formerly, before a man was
proclaimed king of Sierra Leone, it used to be the custom to load him with

chains and thrash him. Then the fetters were knocked off, the kingly robe
was placed on him, and he received in his hands the symbol of royal
dignity, which was nothing but the axe of the executioner.53 It is not
therefore surprising to read that in Sierra Leone, where such customs have
prevailed, “except among the Mandingoes and Suzees, few kings are
natives of the countries they govern. So different are their ideas from ours,
that very few are solicitous of the honour, and competition is very seldom
heard of.”54 Another writer on Sierra Leone tells us that “the honour of
reigning, so much coveted in Europe, is very frequently rejected in Africa,
on account of the expense attached to it, which sometimes greatly exceeds
the revenues of the crown.”55 A reluctance to accept the sovereignty in the
Ethiopian kingdom of Gingiro was simulated, if not really felt, as we learn
from the old Jesuit missionaries. “They wrap up the dead king's body in
costly garments, and killing a cow, put it into the hide; then all those who
hope to succeed him, being his sons or others of the royal blood, flying
from the honour they covet, abscond and hide themselves in the woods.
This done, the electors, who are all great sorcerers, agree among themselves
who shall be king, and go out to seek him, when entering the woods by
means of their enchantments, they say, a large [pg 019] bird called liber, as
big as an eagle, comes down with mighty cries over the place where he is
hid, and they find him encompass'd by lyons, tygers, snakes, and other
creatures gather'd about him by witchcraft. The elect, as fierce as those
beasts, rushes out upon those who seek him, wounding and sometimes
killing some of them, to prevent being seiz'd. They take all in good part,
defending themselves the best they can, till they have seiz'd him. Thus they
carry him away by force, he still struggling and seeming to refuse taking
upon him the burthen of government, all which is mere cheat and
hypocrisy.”56

The Mikados of Japan seem early to have resorted to the expedient of
transferring the honours and burdens of supreme power to their infant
children; and the rise of the Tycoons, long the temporal sovereigns of the
country, is traced to the abdication of a certain Mikado in favour of his
three-year-old son. The sovereignty having been wrested by a usurper from
a the infant prince, the cause of the Mikado was championed by Yoritomo, a
man of spirit and conduct, who overthrew the usurper and restored to the
a Mikado the shadow, while he retained for himself the substance, of power.

He bequeathed to his descendants the dignity he had won, and thus became
the founder of the line of Tycoons. Down to the latter half of the sixteenth
century the Tycoons were active and efficient rulers; but the same fate
overtook them which had befallen the Mikados. Immeshed in the same
inextricable web of custom and law, they degenerated into mere puppets,
hardly stirring from their palaces and occupied in a perpetual round of
empty ceremonies, while the real business of government was managed by
the council of state.57 In Tonquin the monarchy ran a similar course. Living
like his predecessors in effeminacy and sloth, the king was driven from the
throne by an ambitious adventurer named Mack, who from a fisherman had
risen to be Grand Mandarin. But the king's brother Tring put down the
usurper and restored the king, retaining, however, for himself and his
descendants the [pg 020] dignity of general of all the forces. Thenceforward
the kings or dovas, though invested with the title and pomp of sovereignty,
ceased to govern. While they lived secluded in their palaces, all real
political power was wielded by the hereditary generals or chovas.58 The
present king of Sikhim, “like most of his predecessors in the kingship, is a
mere puppet in the hands of his crafty priests, who have made a sort of
priest-king of him. They encourage him by every means in their power to
leave the government to them, whilst he devotes all his time to the
degrading rites of devil-worship, and the ceaseless muttering of
meaningless jargon, of which the Tibetan form of Buddhism chiefly
consists. They declare that he is a saint by birth, that he is the direct
descendant of the greatest king of Tibet, the canonised Srongtsan Gampo,
who was a contemporary of Mahomed in the seventh century a.d. and who
first introduced Buddhism to Tibet.” “This saintly lineage, which secures
for the king's person popular homage amounting to worship, is probably,
however, a mere invention of the priests to glorify their puppet-prince for
their own sordid ends. Such devices are common in the East.”59 The custom
regularly observed by the Tahitian kings of abdicating on the birth of a son,
who was immediately proclaimed sovereign and received his father's
homage, may perhaps have originated, like the similar custom occasionally
practised by the Mikados, in a wish to shift to other shoulders the irksome
burden of royalty; for in Tahiti as elsewhere the sovereign was subjected to
a system of vexatious restrictions.60 In Mangaia, another Polynesian island,
religious and civil authority were lodged in separate hands, spiritual
functions being discharged by a line of hereditary kings, while the temporal

government was entrusted from time to time to a victorious war-chief,
whose investiture, however, had to be completed by the king. To the latter
were assigned the best lands, and he received daily offerings of the choicest
food.61 The Mikado and [pg 021] Tycoon of Japan had their counterparts in
the Roko Tui and Vunivalu of Fiji. The Roko Tui was the Reverend or
Sacred King. The Vunivalu was the Root of War or War King. In one
kingdom a certain Thakambau, who was the War King, kept all power in his
own hands, but in a neighbouring kingdom the real ruler was the Sacred
King.62 Similarly in Tonga, besides the civil king or How, whose right to the
throne was partly hereditary and partly derived from his warlike reputation
and the number of his fighting men, there was a great divine chief called
Tooitonga or “Chief of Tonga,” who ranked above the king and the other
chiefs in virtue of his supposed descent from one of the chief gods. Once a
year the first-fruits of the ground were offered to him at a solemn ceremony,
and it was believed that if these offerings were not made the vengeance of
the gods would fall in a signal manner on the people. Peculiar forms of
speech, such as were applied to no one else, were used in speaking of him,
and everything that he chanced to touch became sacred or tabooed. When
he and the king met, the monarch had to sit down on the ground in token of
respect until his holiness had passed by. Yet though he enjoyed the highest
veneration by reason of his divine origin, this sacred personage possessed
no political authority, and if he ventured to meddle with affairs of state it
was at the risk of receiving a rebuff from the king, to whom the real power
belonged, and who finally succeeded in ridding himself of his spiritual
rival.63 The king of the Getae regularly shared his power with a priest,
whom his subjects called a god. This divine man led a solitary life in a cave
on a holy mountain, seeing few people but the king and his attendants. His
counsels added much to the king's influence with his subjects, who believed
that he was thereby enabled to impart to them the commands and
admonitions of the gods.64 At Athens the kings degenerated into little more
than sacred functionaries and it is said that the institution of the new office
of [pg 022] Polemarch or War Lord was rendered necessary by their
growing effeminacy.65 American examples of the partition of authority
between a king and a pope have already been cited from the early history of
Mexico and Colombia.66

In some parts of western Africa two kings reign side by side, a fetish or
religious king and a civil king, but the fetish king is really supreme. He
controls the weather and so forth, and can put a stop to everything. When he
d lays his red staff on the ground, no one may pass that way. This division of
power between a sacred and a secular ruler is to be met with wherever the
t true negro culture has been left unmolested, but where the negro form of
society has been disturbed, as in Dahomey and Ashantee, there is a
tendency to consolidate the two powers in a single king.67 Thus, for
example, there used to be a fetish king at New Calabar who ranked above
the ordinary king in all native matters, whether religious or civil, and
always walked in front of him on public occasions, attended by a slave who
held an umbrella over his head. His opinion carried great weight.68 The
office and the causes which led to its extinction are thus described by a
missionary who spent many years in Calabar: “The worship of the people is
now given especially to their various idems, one of which, called Ndem
Efik, is a sort of tutelary deity of the country. An individual was appointed
to take charge of this object of worship, who bore the name of King
Calabar; and likely, in bypast times, possessed the power indicated by the
title, being both king and priest. He had as a tribute the skins of all leopards
killed, and should a slave take refuge in his shrine he belonged to Ndem
Efik. The office, however, imposed certain restrictions on its occupant. He,
for instance, could not partake of food in the presence of [pg 023] any one,
and he was prohibited from engaging in traffic. On account of these and
other disabilities, when the last holder of the office died, a poor old man of
the Cobham family, no successor was found for him, and the priesthood has
become extinct.”69 One of the practical inconveniences of such an office is
that the house of the fetish king enjoys the right of sanctuary, and so tends
to become little better than a rookery of bad characters. Thus on the Grain
Coast of West Africa the fetish king or Bodio, as he is called, “exercises the
functions of a high-priest, and is regarded as protector of the whole nation.
He lives in a house provided for him by the people, and takes care of the
national fetiches. He enjoys some immunities in virtue of his office, but is
subject to certain restrictions which more than counterbalance his
privileges. His house is a sanctum to which culprits may betake themselves
without the danger of being removed by any one except by the Bodio
himself.”70 One of these Bodios resigned office because of the sort of
people who quartered themselves on him, the cost of feeding them, and the

squabbles they had among themselves. He led a cat-and-dog life with them
for three years. Then there came a man with homicidal mania varied by
epileptic fits; and soon afterwards the spiritual shepherd retired into private
life, but not before he had lost an ear and sustained other bodily injury in a
personal conflict with this very black sheep.71

At Porto Novo there used to be, in addition to the ordinary monarch, a King
of the Night, who reigned during the hours of darkness from sunset to
g sunrise. He might not shew himself in the street after the sun was up. His
e duty was to patrol the streets with his satellites and to arrest all whom he
found abroad after a certain hour. Each band of his catchpoles was led by a
man who went about concealed from head to foot under a conical casing of
straw and blew blasts on a shell which caused every one that heard it to
shudder. The King of the Night never met the ordinary [pg 024] king except
on the first and last days of their respective reign; for each of them invested
the other with office and paid him the last honours at death.72 With this King
of the Night at Porto Novo we may compare a certain king of Hawaii who
was so very sacred that no man might see him, even accidentally, by day
under pain of death; he only shewed himself by night.73

In some parts of the East Indian island of Timor we meet with a partition of
power like that which is represented by the civil king and the fetish king of
western Africa. Some of the Timorese tribes recognise two rajahs, the
d ordinary or civil rajah, who governs the people, and the fetish or taboo rajah
(radja pomali), who is charged with the control of everything that concerns
n the earth and its products. This latter ruler has the right of declaring
t anything taboo; his permission must be obtained before new land may be
brought under cultivation, and he must perform certain necessary
ceremonies when the work is being carried out. If drought or blight
threatens the crops, his help is invoked to save them. Though he ranks
below the civil rajah, he exercises a momentous influence on the course of
events, for his secular colleague is bound to consult him in all important
matters. In some of the neighbouring islands, such as Rotti and eastern
Flores, a spiritual ruler of the same sort is recognised under various native
names, which all mean “lord of the ground.”74 Similarly in the Mekeo
district of British New Guinea there is a double chieftainship. The people
are divided into two groups according to families, and each of the groups

has its chief. One of the two is the war chief, the other is the taboo (afu)
chief. The office of the latter is hereditary; his duty is to impose a taboo on
any of the [pg 025] crops, such as the coco-nuts and areca nuts, whenever
he thinks it desirable to prohibit their use. In his office we may perhaps
detect the beginning of a priestly dynasty, but as yet his functions appear to
be more magical than religious, being concerned with the control of the
harvests rather than with the propitiation of higher powers. The members of
another family are bound to see to it that the taboo imposed by the chief is
strictly observed. For this purpose some fourteen or fifteen men of the
family form a sort of constabulary. Every evening they go round the village
armed with clubs and disguised with masks or leaves. All the time they are
in office they are forbidden to live with their wives and even to look at a
woman. Hence women may not quit their houses while the men are going
their rounds. Further, the constables on duty are prohibited from chewing
betel nut and drinking coco-nut water, lest the areca and coco-nuts should
not grow. When there is a good show of nuts, the taboo chief proclaims that
on a certain day the restriction will come to an end.75 In Ponape, one of the
Caroline Islands, the kingship is elective within the limits of the blood
royal, which runs in the female line, so that the sovereignty passes
backwards and forwards between families which we, reckoning descent in
the male line, should regard as distinct. The chosen monarch must be in
possession of certain secrets. He must know the places where the sacred
stones are kept, on which he has to seat himself. He must understand the
holy words and prayers of the liturgy, and after his election he must recite
them at the place of the sacred stones. But he enjoys only the honours of his
office; the real powers of government are in the hands of his prime-minister
or vizier.76

[pg 026]

Chapter II. The Perils Of The Soul.

§ 1. The Soul as a Mannikin.

The foregoing examples have taught us that the office of a sacred king or
priest is often hedged in by a series of burdensome restrictions or taboos, of
which a principal purpose appears to be to preserve the life of the divine
man for the good of his people. But if the object of the taboos is to save his
life, the question arises, How is their observance supposed to effect this
end? To understand this we must know the nature of the danger which
threatens the king's life, and which it is the intention of these curious
restrictions to guard against. We must, therefore, ask: What does early man
understand by death? To what causes does he attribute it? And how does he
think it may be guarded against?

As the savage commonly explains the processes of inanimate nature by
supposing that they are produced by living beings working in or behind the
phenomena, so he explains the phenomena of life itself. If an animal lives
and moves, it can only be, he thinks, because there is a little animal inside
n which moves it: if a man lives and moves, it can only be because he has a
a little man or animal inside who moves him. The animal inside the animal,
the man inside the man, is the soul. And as the activity of an animal or man
is explained by the presence of the soul, so the repose of sleep or death is
explained by its absence; sleep or trance being the temporary, death being
f the permanent absence of the soul. Hence if death be the permanent absence
of the [pg 027] soul, the way to guard against it is either to prevent the soul
e from leaving the body, or, if it does depart, to ensure that it shall return. The
precautions adopted by savages to secure one or other of these ends take the
form of certain prohibitions or taboos, which are nothing but rules intended
to ensure either the continued presence or the return of the soul. In short,
they are life-preservers or life-guards. These general statements will now be
illustrated by examples.

Addressing some Australian blacks, a European missionary said, “I am not
one, as you think, but two.” Upon this they laughed. “You may laugh as

much as you like,” continued the missionary, “I tell you that I am two in
one; this great body that you see is one; within that there is another little
l one which is not visible. The great body dies, and is buried, but the little
a body flies away when the great one dies.” To this some of the blacks
replied, “Yes, yes. We also are two, we also have a little body within the
breast.” On being asked where the little body went after death, some said it
went behind the bush, others said it went into the sea, and some said they
did not know.77 The Hurons thought that the soul had a head and body, arms
g and legs; in short, that it was a complete little model of the man himself.78
The Esquimaux believe that “the soul exhibits the same shape as the body it
belongs to, but is of a more subtle and ethereal nature.”79 According to the
Nootkas of British Columbia the soul has the shape of a tiny man; its seat is
the crown of the head. So long as it stands erect, its owner is hale and
hearty; but when from any cause it loses its upright position, he loses his
senses.80 Among the Indian tribes of the Lower Fraser River, man is held to
have four souls, of which the principal one has the form of a mannikin,
while the other [pg 028] three are shadows of it.81 The Malays conceive the
human soul (semangat) as a little man, mostly invisible and of the bigness
of a thumb, who corresponds exactly in shape, proportion, and even in
complexion to the man in whose body he resides. This mannikin is of a thin
unsubstantial nature, though not so impalpable but that it may cause
displacement on entering a physical object, and it can flit quickly from
place to place; it is temporarily absent from the body in sleep, trance, and
disease, and permanently absent after death.82

The ancient Egyptians believed that every man has a soul (ka) which is his
exact counterpart or double, with the same features, the same gait, even the
l same dress as the man himself. Many of the monuments dating from the
a eighteenth century onwards represent various kings appearing before
divinities, while behind the king stands his soul or double, portrayed as a
t little man with the king's features. Some of the reliefs in the temple at Luxor
illustrate the birth of King Amenophis III. While the queen-mother is being
tended by two goddesses acting as midwives, two other goddesses are
bringing away two figures of new-born children, only one of which is
supposed to be a child of flesh and blood: the inscriptions engraved above
their heads shew that, while the first is Amenophis, the second is his soul or
double. And as with kings and queens, so it was with common men and

women. Whenever a child was born, there was born with him a double
which followed him through the various stages of life; young while he was
young, it grew to maturity and declined along with him. And not only
human beings, but gods and animals, stones and trees, natural and artificial
objects, everybody and everything had its own soul or double. The doubles
of oxen and sheep were the duplicates of the original oxen or sheep; the
doubles of linen or beds, of chairs or knives, had the same form as the real
linen, beds, chairs, and knives. So thin and subtle was the stuff, so fine and
delicate the texture of these doubles, that they made no impression on
ordinary eyes. Only certain classes of priests [pg 029] or seers were enabled
by natural gifts or special training to perceive the doubles of the gods, and
to win from them a knowledge of the past and the future. The doubles of
men and things were hidden from sight in the ordinary course of life; still,
they sometimes flew out of the body endowed with colour and voice, left it
in a kind of trance, and departed to manifest themselves at a distance.83

So exact is the resemblance of the mannikin to the man, in other words, of
the soul to the body, that, as there are fat bodies and thin bodies, so there are
l fat souls and thin souls;84 as there are heavy bodies and light bodies, long
a bodies and short bodies, so there are heavy souls and light souls, long souls
and short souls. The people of Nias (an island to the west of Sumatra) think
that every man, before he is born, is asked how long or how heavy a soul he
d would like, and a soul of the desired weight or length is measured out to
him. The heaviest soul ever given out weighs about ten grammes. The
length of a man's life is proportioned to the length of his soul; children who
die young had short souls.85 The Fijian conception of the soul as a tiny
human being comes clearly out in the customs observed at the death of a
chief among the Nakelo tribe. When a chief dies, certain men, who are the
hereditary undertakers, call him, as he lies, oiled and ornamented, on fine
mats, saying, “Rise, sir, the chief and let us be going. The day has come
over the land.” Then they conduct him to the river side, where the ghostly
ferryman comes to ferry Nakelo ghosts across the stream [pg 030] As they
thus attend the chief on his last journey, they hold their great fans close to
the ground to shelter him, because, as one of them explained to a
missionary, “His soul is only a little child.”86 People in the Punjaub who
tattoo themselves believe that at death the soul, “the little entire man or
woman” inside the mortal frame, will go to heaven blazoned with the same

tattoo patterns which adorned the body in life.87 Sometimes, however, as we
shall see, the human soul is conceived not in human but in animal form.

§ 2. Absence and Recall of the Soul.

The soul is commonly supposed to escape by the natural openings of the
body, especially the mouth and nostrils. Hence in Celebes they sometimes
fasten fishhooks to a sick man's nose, navel, and feet, so that if his soul
t should try to escape it may be hooked and held fast.88 A Turik on the Baram
l River, in Borneo, refused to part with some hook-like stones, because they,
as it were, hooked his soul to his body, and so prevented the spiritual
portion of him from becoming detached from the material.89 When a Sea
e Dyak sorcerer or medicine-man is initiated, his fingers are supposed to be
furnished with fish-hooks, with which he will thereafter clutch the human
soul in the act of flying away, and restore it to the body of the sufferer.90 But
hooks, it is plain, may be used to catch the souls of enemies as well as of
friends. Acting on this principle head-hunters in Borneo hang wooden
hooks beside the skulls of their slain enemies in the belief that this helps
them on their forays to hook in fresh heads.91 When an epidemic is raging,
the Goajiro Indians of Colombia attribute it to an evil spirit, it may be the
prowling ghost of an enemy. [pg 031] So they hang strings furnished with
hooks from the roofs of their huts and from all the trees in the
neighbourhood, in order that the demon or ghost may be caught on a hook
and thus rendered powerless to harm them.92 Similarly the Calchaquis
Indians to the west of Paraguay used to plant arrows in the ground about a
sick man to keep death from getting at him.93 One of the implements of a
Haida medicine-man is a hollow bone, in which he bottles up departing
souls, and so restores them to their owners.94 When any one yawns in their
presence the Hindoos always snap their thumbs, believing that this will
hinder the soul from issuing through the open mouth.95 The Marquesans
used to hold the mouth and nose of a dying man, in order to keep him in life
by preventing his soul from escaping;96 the same custom is reported of the
New Caledonians;97 and with the like intention the Bagobos of the
Philippine Islands put rings of brass wire on the wrists or ankles of their
sick.98 On the other hand, the Itonamas in South America seal up the eyes,
nose, and mouth of a dying person, in case his ghost should get out and

carry off others;99 and for a similar reason the people of Nias, who fear the
spirits of the recently deceased and identify them with the breath, seek to
confine the vagrant soul in its earthly tabernacle by bunging up the nose or
tying up the jaws of the corpse.100 Before leaving a corpse the Wakelbura in
Australia used to place hot coals in its ears in order to keep the ghost in the
body, until they had got such a good start that he could not [pg 032]
overtake them.101 Esquimaux mourners plug their nostrils with deerskin,
hair, or hay for several days,102 probably to prevent their souls from
following that of their departed friend; the custom is especially incumbent
on the persons who dress the corpse.103 In southern Celebes, to hinder the
escape of a woman's soul at childbirth, the nurse ties a band as tightly as
possible round the body of the expectant mother.104 The Minangkabauers of
Sumatra observe a similar custom; a skein of thread or a string is sometimes
fastened round the wrist or loins of a woman in childbed, so that when her
soul seeks to depart in her hour of travail it may find the egress barred.105
Among the Kayans of Borneo illness is attributed to the absence of the soul;
so when a man has been ill and is well again, he attempts to prevent his soul
from departing afresh. For this purpose he ties the truant into his body by
fastening round his wrist a piece of string on which a lukut, or antique bead,
is threaded; for a magical virtue appears to be ascribed to such beads. But
lest the string and the bead should be broken and lost, he will sometimes
tattoo the pattern of the bead on his wrist, and this is found to answer the
purpose of tethering his soul quite as well.106 Again, the Koryak of North-
Eastern Asia fancy that if [pg 033] there are two sick people in a house and
one of them is at the last extremity, the soul of the other is apt to be lured
away by the soul of the dying man; hence in order to hinder its departure
they tie the patient's neck by a string to the bands of the sleeping-tent and
recite a charm over the string so that it may be sure to detain the soul.107
And lest the soul of a babe should escape and be lost as soon as it is born,
the Alfoors of Celebes, when a birth is about to take place, are careful to
close every opening in the house, even the keyhole; and they stop up every
chink and cranny in the walls. Also they tie up the mouths of all animals
inside and outside the house, for fear one of them might swallow the child's
soul. For a similar reason all persons present in the house, even the mother
herself, are obliged to keep their mouths shut the whole time the birth is
taking place. When the question was put, Why they did not hold their noses
also, lest the child's soul should get into one of them? the answer was that

breath being exhaled as well as inhaled through the nostrils, the soul would
be expelled before it could have time to settle down.108 Popular expressions
in the language of civilised peoples, such as to have one's heart in one's
mouth, or the soul on the lips or in the nose, shew how natural is the idea
that the life or soul may escape by the mouth or nostrils.109

Often the soul is conceived as a bird ready to take flight. This conception
has probably left traces in most [pg 034] languages,110 and it lingers as a
l metaphor in poetry. But what is metaphor to a modern European poet was
sober earnest to his savage ancestor, and is still so to many people. The
d Bororos of Brazil fancy that the human soul has the shape of a bird, and
passes in that shape out of the body in dreams.111 According to the Bilqula
or Bella Coola Indians of British Columbia the soul dwells in the nape of
the neck and resembles a bird enclosed in an egg. If the shell breaks and the
soul flies away, the man must die. If he swoons or becomes crazed, it is
because his soul has flown away without breaking its shell. The shaman can
hear the buzzing of its wings, like the buzz of a mosquito, as the soul flits
past; and he may catch and replace it in the nape of its owner's neck.112 A
Melanesian wizard in Lepers' Island has been known to send out his soul in
the form of an eagle to pursue a ship and learn the fortunes of some natives
who were being carried off in it.113 The soul of Aristeas of Proconnesus was
seen to issue from his mouth in the shape of a raven.114 There is a popular
opinion in Bohemia that the parting soul comes forth from the mouth like a
white bird.115 The Malays carry out the conception of the bird-soul in a
number of odd ways. If the soul is a bird on the wing, it may be attracted by
rice, and so either prevented from taking wing or lured back again from its
perilous flight. Thus in Java when a child is placed on the ground for the
first time (a moment which uncultured people seem to regard as especially
dangerous), it is put in a hen-coop and the mother makes a clucking sound,
as if she were calling hens.116 Amongst the Battas of Sumatra, when a man
returns from a dangerous enterprise, grains of rice are placed on his head,
and these [pg 035] grains are called padiruma tondi, that is, “means to make
the soul (tondi) stay at home.” In Java also rice is placed on the head of
persons who have escaped a great danger or have returned home
unexpectedly after it had been supposed that they were lost.117 Similarly in
the district of Sintang in West Borneo, if any one has had a great fright, or
escaped a serious peril, or comes back after a long and dangerous journey,

or has taken a solemn oath, the first thing that his relations or friends do is
to strew yellow rice on his head, mumbling, “Cluck! cluck! soul!” (koer,
koer, semangat). And when a person, whether man, woman, or child, has
fallen out of a house or off a tree, and has been brought home, his wife or
other kinswoman goes as speedily as possible to the spot where the accident
happened, and there strews rice, which has been coloured yellow, while she
utters the words, “Cluck! cluck! soul! So-and-so is in his house again.
Cluck! cluck! soul!” Then she gathers up the rice in a basket, carries it to
the sufferer, and drops the grains from her hand on his head, saying again,
“Cluck! cluck! soul!”118 Here the intention clearly is to decoy back the
loitering bird-soul and replace it in the head of its owner. In southern
Celebes they think that a bridegroom's soul is apt to fly away at marriage,
so coloured rice is scattered over him to induce it to stay. And, in general, at
festivals in South Celebes rice is strewed on the head of the person in
whose honour the festival is held, with the object of detaining his soul,
which at such times is in especial danger of being lured away by envious
demons.119 For example, after a successful war the welcome to the
victorious prince takes the form of strewing him with roasted and coloured
rice “to [pg 036] prevent his life-spirit, as if it were a bird, from flying out
of his body in consequence of the envy of evil spirits.”120 In Central
Celebes, when a party of head-hunters returns from a successful expedition,
a woman scatters rice on their heads for a similar purpose.121 Among the
Minangkabauers of Sumatra the old rude notions of the soul seem to be
dying out. Nowadays most of the people hold that the soul, being
immaterial, has no shape or form. But some of the sorcerers assert that the
soul goes and comes in the shape of a tiny man. Others are of opinion that it
does so in the form of a fly; hence they make food ready to induce the
absent soul to come back, and the first fly that settles on the food is
regarded as the returning truant. But in native poetry and popular
expressions there are traces of the belief that the soul quits the body in the
form of a bird.122

The soul of a sleeper is supposed to wander away from his body and
actually to visit the places, to see the persons, and to perform the acts of
which he dreams. For example, when an Indian of Brazil or Guiana wakes
up from a sound sleep, he is firmly convinced that his soul has really been
e away hunting, fishing, felling trees, or whatever else he has dreamed of

n doing, while all the time his body has been lying motionless in his
hammock. A whole Bororo village has been thrown into a panic and nearly
deserted because somebody had dreamed that he saw enemies stealthily
approaching it. A Macusi Indian in weak health, who dreamed that his
employer had made him haul the canoe up a series of difficult cataracts,
bitterly reproached his master next [pg 037] morning for his want of
consideration in thus making a poor invalid go out and toil during the
night.123 The Indians of the Gran Chaco are often heard to relate the most
incredible stories as things which they have themselves seen and heard;
hence strangers who do not know them intimately say in their haste that
these Indians are liars. In point of fact the Indians are firmly convinced of
the truth of what they relate; for these wonderful adventures are simply
their dreams, which they do not distinguish from waking realities.124

Now the absence of the soul in sleep has its dangers, for if from any cause
the soul should be permanently detained away from the body, the person
l thus deprived of the vital principle must die.125 There is a German belief that
n the soul escapes from a sleeper's mouth in the form of a white mouse or a
y little bird, and that to prevent the return of the bird or animal would be fatal
to the sleeper.126 Hence in Transylvania they say that you should not let a
child sleep with its mouth open, or its soul will slip out in the shape of a
mouse, and the child will never wake.127 Many causes may detain the
sleeper's soul. Thus, his soul may meet the soul of another sleeper and the
e two souls may fight; if a Guinea negro wakens with sore bones in the
morning, he thinks that his soul has been thrashed by another soul in
sleep.128 Or it may meet the soul of a person just deceased and be carried off
by it; hence in the Aru Islands the inmates of a house will not sleep the
night after a death has taken place in it, because the soul of the deceased is
supposed to be still in the house and they fear to meet it in a dream.129
Similarly among the Upper Thompson Indians of British Columbia, the
friends and neighbours [pg 038] who gathered in a house after a death and
remained there till the burial was over were not allowed to sleep, lest their
souls should be drawn away by the ghost of the deceased or by his guardian
spirit.130 The Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco hold that the vagrant spirits
of the dead may come to life again if only they can take possession of a
sleeper's body during the absence of his soul in dreams. Hence, when the
shades of night have fallen, the ghosts of the departed gather round the

villages, watching for a chance to pounce on the bodies of dreamers and to
enter into them through the gateway of the breast.131 Again, the soul of the
sleeper may be prevented by an accident or by physical force from
returning to his body. When a Dyak dreams of falling into the water, he
supposes that this accident has really befallen his spirit, and he sends for a
wizard, who fishes for the spirit with a hand-net in a basin of water till he
catches it and restores it to its owner.132 The Santals tell how a man fell
asleep, and growing very thirsty, his soul, in the form of a lizard, left his
body and entered a pitcher of water to drink. Just then the owner of the
pitcher happened to cover it; so the soul could not return to the body and the
man died. While his friends were preparing to burn the body some one
uncovered the pitcher to get water. The lizard thus escaped and returned to
the body, which immediately revived; so the man rose up and asked his
friends why they were weeping. They told him they thought he was dead
and were about to burn his body. He said he had been down a well to get
water, but had found it hard to get out and had just returned. So they saw it
all.133 A similar story is reported from Transylvania [pg 039] as follows. In
the account of a witch's trial at Mühlbach in the eighteenth century it is said
that a woman had engaged two men to work in her vineyard. After noon
they all lay down to rest as usual. An hour later the men got up and tried to
waken the woman, but could not. She lay motionless with her mouth wide
open. They came back at sunset and still she lay like a corpse. Just at that
moment a big fly came buzzing past, which one of the men caught and shut
up in his leathern pouch. Then they tried again to waken the woman, but
could not. Afterwards they let out the fly; it flew straight into the woman's
mouth and she awoke. On seeing this the men had no further doubt that she
was a witch.134

It is a common rule with primitive people not to waken a sleeper, because
his soul is away and might not have time to get back; so if the man wakened
f without his soul, he would fall sick. If it is absolutely necessary to rouse a
a sleeper, it must be done very gradually, to allow the soul time to return.135 A
Fijian in Matuku, suddenly wakened from a nap by somebody treading on
his foot, has been [pg 040] heard bawling after his soul and imploring it to
s return. He had just been dreaming that he was far away in Tonga, and great
s was his alarm on suddenly wakening to find his body in Matuku. Death
stared him in the face unless his soul could be induced to speed at once

across the sea and reanimate its deserted tenement. The man would
probably have died of fright if a missionary had not been at hand to allay
his terror.136 Some Brazilian Indians explain the headache from which a man
sometimes suffers after a broken sleep by saying that his soul is tired with
the exertions it made to return quickly to the body.137 A Highland story, told
to Hugh Miller on the picturesque shores of Loch Shin, well illustrates the
haste made by the soul to regain its body when the sleeper has been
prematurely roused by an indiscreet friend. Two young men had been
spending the early part of a warm summer day in the open air, and sat down
on a mossy bank to rest. Hard by was an ancient ruin separated from the
bank on which they sat only by a slender runnel, across which there lay,
immediately over a miniature cascade, a few withered stalks of grass.
“Overcome by the heat of the day, one of the young men fell asleep; his
companion watched drowsily beside him; when all at once the watcher was
aroused to attention by seeing a little indistinct form, scarce larger than a
humble-bee, issue from the mouth of the sleeping man, and, leaping upon
the moss, move downwards to the runnel, which it crossed along the
withered grass stalks, and then disappeared among the interstices of the
ruin. Alarmed by what he saw, the watcher hastily shook his companion by
the shoulder, and awoke him; though, with all his haste, the little cloud-like
creature, still more rapid in its movements, issued from the interstice into
which it had gone, and, flying across the runnel, instead of creeping along
the grass stalks and over the sward, as before, it re-entered the mouth of the
sleeper, just as he was in the act of awakening. ‘What is the matter with
you?’ said the watcher, greatly alarmed, ‘what ails you?’ ‘Nothing ails me,’
replied the other; ‘but you [pg 041] have robbed me of a most delightful
dream. I dreamed I was walking through a fine rich country, and came at
length to the shores of a noble river; and, just where the clear water went
thundering down a precipice, there was a bridge all of silver, which I
crossed; and then, entering a noble palace on the opposite side, I saw great
heaps of gold and jewels; and I was just going to load myself with treasure,
when you rudely awoke me, and I lost all.’ ”138

Still more dangerous is it in the opinion of primitive man to move a sleeper
or alter his appearance, for if this were done the soul on its return might not
f be able to find or recognise its body, and so the person would die. The
a Minangkabauers of Sumatra deem it highly improper to blacken or dirty the

r face of a sleeper, lest the absent soul should shrink from re-entering a body
thus disfigured.139 Patani Malays fancy that if a person's face be painted
while he sleeps, the soul which has gone out of him will not recognise him,
and he will sleep on till his face is washed.140 In Bombay it is thought
equivalent to murder to change the aspect of a sleeper, as by painting his
face in fantastic colours or giving moustaches to a sleeping woman. For
when the soul returns it will not know its own body and the person will
die.141 The Coreans are of opinion that in sleep “the soul goes out of the
body, and that if a piece of paper is put over the face of the sleeper he will
surely die, for his soul cannot find its way back into him again.”142 The
Servians believe that the soul of a sleeping witch often leaves her body in
the form of a butterfly. If during its absence her body be turned round, so
that her feet are placed where her head was before, the butterfly soul will
not find its way back into her body through the mouth, and the witch will
die.143 The Esthonians [pg 042] of the island of Oesel think that the gusts
which sweep up all kinds of trifles from the ground and whirl them along
are the souls of old women, who have gone out in this shape to seek what
they can find. Meantime the beldame's body lies as still as a stone, and if
you turn it round her soul will never be able to enter it again, until you have
replaced the body in its original position. You can hear the soul whining and
whimpering till it has found the right aperture.144 Similarly in Livonia they
think that when the soul of a were-wolf is out on his hateful business, his
body lies like dead; and if meanwhile the body were accidentally moved,
the soul would never more find its way into it, but would remain in the
body of a wolf till death.145 In the picturesque but little known Black
Mountain of southern France, which forms a sort of link between the
Pyrenees and the Cevennes, they tell how a woman, who had long been
suspected of being a witch, one day fell asleep at noon among the reapers in
the field. Resolved to put her to the test, the reapers carried her, while she
slept, to another part of the field, leaving a large pitcher on the spot from
which they had moved her. When her soul returned, it entered the pitcher
and cunningly rolled it over and over till the vessel lay beside her body, of
which the soul thereupon took possession.146

But in order that a man's soul should quit his body, it is not necessary that
he should be asleep. It may quit him in his waking hours, and then sickness,
insanity, or death will be the result. Thus a man of the Wurunjeri tribe in

Victoria lay at his last gasp because his spirit (murup) had departed from
him. A medicine-man went in pursuit and caught the spirit by the middle
l just as it was about to plunge into the sunset glow, which is the light cast by
t the souls of the dead as they pass in and out of the underworld, [pg 043]
y where the sun goes to rest. Having captured the vagrant spirit, the doctor
g brought it back under his opossum rug, laid himself down on the dying
man, and put the soul back into him, so that after a time he revived.147 The
Karens of Burma are perpetually anxious about their souls, lest these should
go roving from their bodies, leaving the owners to die. When a man has
reason to fear that his soul is about to take this fatal step, a ceremony is
r performed to retain or recall it, in which the whole family must take part. A
meal is prepared consisting of a cock and hen, a special kind of rice, and a
bunch of bananas. Then the head of the family takes the bowl which is used
to skim rice, and knocking with it thrice on the top of the house-ladder says:
n “Prrrroo! Come back, soul, do not tarry outside! If it rains, you will be wet.
If the sun shines, you will be hot. The gnats will sting you, the leeches will
bite you, the tigers will devour you, the thunder will crush you. Prrrroo!
Come back, soul! Here it will be well with you. You shall want for nothing.
Come and eat under shelter from the wind and the storm.” After that the
d family partakes of the meal, and the ceremony ends with everybody tying
their right wrist with a string which has been charmed by a sorcerer.148
Similarly the Lolos, an aboriginal tribe of western China, believe that the
soul leaves the body in chronic illness. In that case they read a sort of
elaborate litany, calling on the soul by name and beseeching it to return
from the hills, the vales, the rivers, the forests, the fields, or from wherever
it may be straying. At the same time cups of water, wine, and rice are set at
the door for the refreshment of the weary wandering spirit. When the
ceremony is over, they tie a red cord round the arm of the sick man to tether
the soul, and this cord is worn by him until it decays and drops off.149 So
among the Kenyahs of Sarawak a medicine-man has been known to recall
the stray soul of a child, and to fasten it firmly in its body by tying a string
round the child's right wrist, and smearing [pg 044] its little arm with the
blood of a fowl.150 The Ilocanes of Luzon think that a man may lose his soul
in the woods or gardens, and that he who has thus lost his soul loses also his
senses. Hence before they quit the woods or the fields they call to their soul,
“Let us go! let us go!” lest it should loiter behind or go astray. And when a
man becomes crazed or mad, they take him to the place where he is

supposed to have lost his soul and invite the truant spirit to return to his
body.151 The Mongols sometimes explain sickness by supposing that the
patient's soul is absent, and either does not care to return to its body or
cannot find the way back. To secure the return of the soul it is therefore
necessary on the one hand to make its body as attractive as possible, and on
the other hand to shew the soul the way home. To make the body attractive
all the sick man's best clothes and most valued possessions are placed
beside him; he is washed, incensed, and made as comfortable as may be;
and all his friends march thrice round the hut calling out the sick man's
name and coaxing his soul to return. To help the wanderer to find its way
back a coloured cord is stretched from the patient's head to the door of the
hut. The priest in his robes reads a list of the horrors of hell and the dangers
incurred by souls which wilfully absent themselves from their bodies. Then
turning to the assembled friends and the patient he asks, “Is it come?” All
answer “Yes,” and bowing to the returning soul throw seed over the sick
man. The cord which guided the soul back is then rolled up and placed
round the patient's neck, who must wear it for seven days without taking it
off. No one may frighten or hurt him, lest his soul, not yet familiar with its
body, should again take flight.152

Some of the Congo tribes believe that when a man is ill, his soul has left his
body and is wandering at large. The aid of the sorcerer is then called in to
capture the [pg 045] vagrant spirit and restore it to the invalid. Generally
the physician declares that he has successfully chased the soul into the
n branch of a tree. The whole town thereupon turns out and accompanies the
d doctor to the tree, where the strongest men are deputed to break off the
branch in which the soul of the sick man is supposed to be lodged. This they
do and carry the branch back to the town, insinuating by their gestures that
the burden is heavy and hard to bear. When the branch has been brought to
the sick man's hut, he is placed in an upright position by its side, and the
sorcerer performs the enchantments by which the soul is believed to be
restored to its owner.153 The soul or shade of a Déné or Tinneh Indian in the
old days generally remained invisible, but appeared wandering about in one
form or another whenever disease or death was imminent. All the efforts of
the sufferer's friends were therefore concentrated on catching the roving
shade. The method adopted was simple. They stuffed the patient's
moccasins with down and hung them up. If next morning the down was

warm, they made sure that the lost soul was in the boots, with which
accordingly they carefully and silently shod their suffering friend. Nothing
more could reasonably be demanded for a perfect cure.154 An Ottawa
medicine-man has been known to catch a stray soul in a little box, which he
brought back and inserted in the patient's mouth.155

Pining, sickness, great fright, and death are ascribed by the Battas or Bataks
of Sumatra to the absence of the soul (tendi) from the body. At first they try
to beckon the wanderer back, and to lure him, like a fowl, by strewing rice.
Then the following form of words is commonly repeated: “Come back, O
n soul, whether thou art lingering in the wood, or on the hills, or in the dale.
See, I call thee with a toemba bras, with an egg of the fowl Rajah moelija,
with the eleven healing leaves. Detain it not, let it come straight here, [pg
046] detain it not, neither in the wood, nor on the hill, nor in the dale. That
may not be. O come straight home!”156 Sometimes the means adopted by
the Battas to procure the return of a sick person's soul are more elaborate. A
procession sets out from the village to the tuck of drum to find and bring
home the strayed soul. First goes a person bearing a basket which contains
cakes of rice-meal, rice dyed yellow, and a boiled fowl's egg. The sorcerer
follows carrying a chicken, and behind him walks a man with a black, red,
and white flag. A crowd of sympathisers brings up the rear. On reaching the
spot where the lost soul is supposed to tarry, they set up a small bamboo
altar, and the sorcerer offers on it the chicken to the spirit of the place, the
drums beating all the time. Then, waving his shawl to attract the soul of the
sick man, he says: “Come hither, thou soul of So-and-So, whether thou
sittest among the stones or in the mud. In the house is thy place. We have
besought the spirit to let thee go.” After that the procession reforms and
marches back to the village to the roll of drums and the clash of cymbals.
On reaching the door of the house the sorcerer calls out to the inmates, “Has
it come?” and a voice from within answers, “It is here, good sorcerer.” At
evening the drums beat again.157 A number of plants, including rice, a
species of fig, and garlic, are supposed by the Battas to possess soul-
compelling virtue and are accordingly made use of by them in rites for the
recovery of lost souls. When a child is sick, the mother commonly waves a
cloth to beckon home its wandering spirit, and when a cock crows or a hen
cackles in the yard, she knows that the prodigal has returned. If the little
sufferer persists in being ill in spite of these favourable omens, the mother

will hang a bag of rice at the head of her bed when she goes to sleep, and
next morning on getting up she measures the rice. If the rice has increased
in volume during the night, as it may do in a moisture-laden [pg 047]
atmosphere, she is confident that the lost soul has indeed come home to
stay.158 The Kayans of Borneo fasten packets of rice, flesh, and fish to the
window in the roof through which the wandering soul of a sick man is
expected to return home. The doctor sits cross-legged on a mat under the
open window with a display of pretty things spread out temptingly before
him as baits to entice the spirit back to its deserted tabernacle. From the
window hangs a string of precious corals or pearls to serve the returning
prodigal as a ladder and so facilitate his descent into the house. The lower
end of the string is attached to a bundle composed of wooden hooks, a
fowl's feather, little packets of rice, and so forth. Chanting his spells, the
doctor strokes the soul down the string into the bundle, which he then
deposits in a basket and hides in a corner till the dusk of the evening. When
darkness has fallen, he blows the captured soul back into the patient's head
and strokes the sufferer's arm downwards with the point of an old spear in
order to settle the soul firmly in his body.159 Once when a popular traveller
was leaving a Kayan village, the mothers, fearing that their children's souls
might follow him on his journey, brought him the boards on which they
carry their infants and begged him to pray that the souls of the little ones
would return to the familiar boards and not go away with him into the far
country. To each board was fastened a looped string for the purpose of
tethering the vagrant spirits, and through the loop each baby was made to
pass a chubby finger to make sure that its tiny soul would not wander
away.160 When a Dyak is dangerously ill, the medicine-men may say that his
soul has escaped far away, perhaps to the river; then they will wave a
garment or cloth about to imitate the casting of a net, signifying thereby that
they are catching the soul like a fish in a net. Or they may give out that the
soul has escaped into the jungle; and then they will rush out of the house to
circumvent and secure it there. Or again they [pg 048] may allege that it has
been carried away over seas to some unknown land; and then they will play
at paddling a boat to follow it across the great water. But more commonly
their mode of treatment is as follows. A spear is set up in the middle of the
verandah with a few leaves tied to it and the medicine-boxes of the
medicine-men laid at its foot. Round this the doctors run at full speed,
chanting the while, till one of them falls down and lies motionless. The

bystanders cover him with a blanket, and wait while his spirit hies away
after the errant soul and brings it back. Presently he comes to himself, stares
vacantly about like a man awaking from sleep, and then rises, holding the
soul in his clenched right hand. He then returns it to the patient through the
crown of his head, while he mutters a spell.161 Among the Dyaks of the
Kayan and Lower Melawie districts you will often see, in houses where
there are children, a basket of a peculiar shape with shells and dried fruits
attached to it. These shells contain the remains of the children's navel-
strings, and the basket to which they are fastened is commonly hung beside
the place where the children sleep. When a child is frightened, for example
by being bathed or by the bursting of a thunderstorm, its soul flees from its
body and nestles beside its old familiar friend the navel-string in the basket,
from which the mother easily induces it to return by shaking the basket and
pressing it to the child's body.162 The Toboongkoos of Central Celebes
believe that sickness in general is caused by the departure of the soul. To
recover the wanderer a priest will set out food in the courtyard of the
sufferer's house and then invoke the soul, promising it many fine things if it
will only come back. When he thinks it has complied with his request, he
catches it in a cloth which he keeps ready for the purpose. This cloth he
afterwards claps on the sick man's head, thereby restoring to him his lost
soul.163

[pg 049]

In an Indian story a king conveys his soul into the dead body of a Brahman,
and a hunchback conveys his soul into the deserted body of the king. The
hunchback is now king and the king is a Brahman. However, the hunchback
n is induced to shew his skill by transferring his soul to the dead body of a
parrot, and the king seizes the opportunity to regain possession of his own
body.164 A tale of the same type, with variations of detail, reappears among
the Malays. A king has incautiously transferred his soul to an ape, upon
which the vizier adroitly inserts his own soul into the king's body and so
takes possession of the queen and the kingdom, while the true king
languishes at court in the outward semblance of an ape. But one day the
false king, who played for high stakes, was watching a combat of rams, and
it happened that the animal on which he had laid his money fell down dead.
All efforts to restore animation proved unavailing till the false king, with

the instinct of a true sportsman, transferred his own soul to the body of the
deceased ram, and thus renewed the fray. The real king in the body of the
ape saw his chance, and with great presence of mind darted back into his
own body, which the vizier had rashly vacated. So he came to his own
again, and the usurper in the ram's body met with the fate he richly
deserved.165 In another Indian story a Brahman reanimates the dead body of
a king by conveying his own soul into it. Meantime the Brahman's body has
been burnt, and his soul is obliged to remain in the body of the king.166 In a
Chinese story we read of a monk in a Buddhist monastery who used from
time to time to send his soul away out of himself. Whenever he was thus
absent from the body, he took the precaution of locking the door of his cell.
On one of these occasions an envoy from the north arrived and put up at [pg
050] the monastery, but there was no cell for him to pass the night in. Then
he looked into the cell of the brother whose soul was not at home, and
seeing his body lying there motionless, he battered the door in and said, “I
will lodge here. The man is dead. Take the body and burn it.” His servants
obeyed his orders, the monks being powerless to interfere. That very night
the soul came back, only to find its body reduced to ashes. Every night it
could be heard crying, “Where shall I settle?” Those who knew him then
opened their windows, saying, “Here I am.” So the soul came in and united
itself with their body, and the result was that they became much cleverer
than before.167 Similarly the Greeks told how the soul of Hermotimus of
Clazomenae used to quit his body and roam far and wide, bringing back
intelligence of what he had seen on his rambles to his friends at home; until
one day, when his spirit was abroad, his enemies contrived to seize his
deserted body and committed it to the flames.168 It is said that during the last
seven years of his life Sultan Bayazid ate nothing that had life and blood in
it. One day, being seized with a great longing for sheep's trotters, he
struggled long in this glorious contest with his soul, until at last, a savoury
dish of trotters being set before him, he said unto his soul, “My soul, the
trotters are before thee; if thou wishest to enjoy them, leave the body and
feed on them.” Hardly had he uttered these words when a living creature
was seen to issue from his mouth and drink of the juice in the dish, after
which it endeavoured to return whence it came. But the austere sultan,
determined to mortify his carnal appetite, prevented it with his hand from
entering his mouth, and when it fell to the ground commanded that it should
be beaten. The pages kicked it to death, and after this murder of his soul the

sultan remained in gloomy seclusion, taking no part or interest in the affairs
of government.169

[pg 051]

The departure of the soul is not always voluntary. It may be extracted from
the body against its will by ghosts, demons, or sorcerers. Hence, when a
funeral is passing the house, the Karens of Burma tie their children with a
special kind of string to a particular part of the house, lest the souls of the
y children should leave their bodies and go into the corpse which is passing.
The children are kept tied in this way until the corpse is out of sight.170 And
after the corpse has been laid in the grave, but before the earth has been
shovelled in, the mourners and friends range themselves round the grave,
each with a bamboo split lengthwise in one hand and a little stick in the
other; each man thrusts his bamboo into the grave, and drawing the stick
along the groove of the bamboo points out to his soul that in this way it may
easily climb up out of the tomb. While the earth is being shovelled in, the
bamboos are kept out of the way, lest the souls should be in them, and so
should be inadvertently buried with the earth as it is being thrown into the
grave; and when the people leave the spot they carry away the bamboos,
begging their souls to come with them.171 Further, on returning from the
grave each Karen provides himself with three little hooks made of branches
of trees, and calling his spirit to follow him, at short intervals, as he returns,
he makes a motion as if hooking it, and then thrusts the hook into the
ground. This is done to prevent the soul of the living from staying behind
with the soul of the dead.172 On the return of a Burmese or Shan family from
a burial, old men tie up the wrists of each member of the family with string,
to prevent his or her “butterfly” or soul from escaping; and this string
remains till it is worn out and falls off.173 When a mother dies leaving a
young baby, the [pg 052] Burmese think that the “butterfly” or soul of the
baby follows that of the mother, and that if it is not recovered the child must
die. So a wise woman is called in to get back the baby's soul. She places a
mirror near the corpse, and on the mirror a piece of feathery cotton down.
Holding a cloth in her open hands at the foot of the mirror, she with wild
words entreats the mother not to take with her the “butterfly” or soul of her
child, but to send it back. As the gossamer down slips from the face of the
mirror she catches it in the cloth and tenderly places it on the baby's breast.

The same ceremony is sometimes observed when one of two children that
have played together dies, and is thought to be luring away the soul of its
playmate to the spirit-land. It is sometimes performed also for a bereaved
husband or wife.174 The Bahnars of eastern Cochin-China think that when a
man is sick of a fever his soul has gone away with the ghosts to the tombs.
At sunset a sorcerer attempts to lure the soul back by offering it sugar-cane,
bananas, and other fruits, while he sings an incantation inviting the
wanderer to return from among the dead to the land of the living. He
pretends to catch the truant soul in a piece of cotton, which he then lays on
the patient's head.175 When the Karo-Bataks of Sumatra have buried
somebody and are filling in the grave, a sorceress runs about beating the air
with a stick. This she does in order to drive away the souls of the survivors,
for if one of these souls happened to slip into the grave and to be covered
up with earth, its owner would die.176 Among some of the Dyak tribes of
south-eastern Borneo, as soon as the coffin is carried to the place of burial,
the house in which the death occurred is sprinkled with water, and the father
of the family calls out the names of all his children and the other members
of his household. For they think that the ghost loves to decoy away the
souls of his kinsfolk, but that [pg 053] his designs upon them can be
defeated by calling out their names, which has the effect of bringing back
the souls to their owners. The same ceremony is repeated on the return from
the burial.177 It is a rule with the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia that
a corpse must not be coffined in the house, or the souls of the other inmates
would enter the coffin, and they, too, would die. The body is taken out
either through the roof or through a hole made in one of the walls, and is
then coffined outside the house.178 In the East Indian island of Keisar it is
deemed imprudent to go near a grave at night, lest the ghosts should catch
and keep the soul of the passer-by.179 The Kei Islanders believe that the
spirits of their forefathers, angry at not receiving food, make people sick by
detaining their souls. So they lay offerings of food on the grave and beg
their ancestors to allow the soul of the sick to return, or to drive it home
speedily if it should be lingering by the way.180

In Bolang Mongondo, a district in the west of Celebes, all sickness is
ascribed to the ancestral spirits who have carried off the patient's soul. The
object therefore is to bring back the soul of the sufferer and restore it to
e him. An eye-witness has thus described the attempted cure of a sick boy.

t The priestesses, who acted as physicians, made a doll of cloth and fastened
m it to the point of a spear, which an old woman held upright. Round this doll
s the priestesses danced, uttering charms, and chirruping as when one calls a
d dog. Then the old woman lowered the point of the spear a little, so that the
e priestesses could reach the doll. By this time the soul of the sick boy was
supposed to be in the doll, having been brought into it by the incantations.
So the priestesses approached it cautiously on tiptoe and caught the soul in
the many-coloured cloths which they had been waving in the air. Then they
laid the soul on the boy's head, that is, they wrapped his head in the cloth in
which the soul was [pg 054] supposed to be, and stood still for some
moments with great gravity, holding their hands on the patient's head.
Suddenly there was a jerk, the priestesses whispered and shook their heads,
and the cloth was taken off—the soul had escaped. The priestesses gave
chase to it, running round and round the house, clucking and gesticulating
as if they were driving hens into a poultry-yard. At last they recaptured the
soul at the foot of the stair and restored it to its owner as before.181 Much in
the same way an Australian medicine-man will sometimes bring the lost
soul of a sick man into a puppet and restore it to the patient by pressing the
puppet to his breast.182 In Uea, one of the Loyalty Islands, the souls of the
dead seem to have been credited with the power of stealing the souls of the
living. For when a man was sick the soul-doctor would go with a large
troop of men and women to the graveyard. Here the men played on flutes
and the women whistled softly to lure the soul home. After this had gone on
for some time they formed in procession and moved homewards, the flutes
playing and the women whistling all the way, while they led back the
wandering soul and drove it gently along with open palms. On entering the
patient's dwelling they commanded the soul in a loud voice to enter his
body.183 In Madagascar when a man was sick or lunatic in consequence of
the loss of his soul, his friends despatched a wizard in haste to fetch him a
soul from the graveyard. The emissary repaired by night to the spot, and
having made a hole in the wooden house which served as a tomb, begged
the spirit of the patient's father to bestow a soul on his son or daughter, who
had none. So saying he applied a bonnet to the hole, then folded it up and
rushed back to the house of the sufferer, saying he had a soul for him. With
that he clapped the bonnet on the head of the invalid, who at once said he
felt much better and had recovered the soul which he had lost.184

[pg 055]

When a Dyak or Malay of some of the western tribes or districts of Borneo
is taken ill, with vomiting and profuse sweating as the only symptoms, he
thinks that one of his deceased kinsfolk or ancestors is at the bottom of it.
l To discover which of them is the culprit, a wise man or woman pulls a lock
e of hair on the crown of the sufferer's head, calling out the names of all his
n dead relations. The name at which the lock gives forth a sound is the name
of the guilty party. If the patient's hair is too short to be tugged with effect,
he knocks his forehead seven times against the forehead of a kinsman who
has long hair. The hair of the latter is then tugged instead of that of the
patient and answers to the test quite as well. When the blame has thus been
satisfactorily laid at the door of the ghost who is responsible for the
sickness, the physician, who, as in other countries, is often an old woman,
remonstrates with him on his ill behaviour. “Go back,” says she, “to your
grave; what do you come here for? The soul of the sick man does not
choose to be called by you, and will remain yet a long time in its body.”
Then she puts some ashes from the hearth in a winnowing fan and moulds
out of them a small figure or image in human likeness. Seven times she
moves the basket with the little ashen figure up and down before the
patient, taking care not to obliterate the figure, while at the same time she
says, “Sickness, settle in the head, belly, hands, etc.; then quickly pass into
the corresponding part of the image,” whereupon the patient spits on the
ashen image and pushes it from him with his left hand. Next the beldame
lights a candle and goes to the grave of the person whose ghost is doing all
the mischief. On the grave she throws the figure of ashes, calling out,
“Ghost, plague the sick man no longer, and stay in your grave, that he may
see you no more.” On her return she asks the anxious relations in the house,
“Has his soul come back?” and they must answer quickly, “Yes, the soul of
the sick man has come back.” Then she stands beside the patient, blows out
the candle which had lighted the returning soul on its way, and strews
yellow-coloured rice on the head of the convalescent, saying, “Cluck, soul!
cluck, soul! cluck, soul!” Last of all she fastens on his right wrist a bracelet
or ring which he [pg 056] must wear for three days.185 In this case we see
that the saving of the soul is combined with a vicarious sacrifice to the
ghost, who receives a puppet on which to work his will instead of on the
poor soul. In San Cristoval, one of the Melanesian islands, the vicarious

sacrifice takes the form of a pig or a fish. A malignant ghost of the name of
Tapia is supposed to have seized on the sick man's soul and tied it up to a
banyan-tree. Accordingly a man who has influence with Tapia takes a pig or
fish to the holy place where the ghost resides and offers it to him, saying,
“This is for you to eat in place of that man; eat this, don't kill him.” This
satisfies the ghost; the soul is loosed from the tree and carried back to the
sufferer, who naturally recovers.186 A regular part of the stock-in-trade of a
Dyak medicine-man is a crystal into which he gazes to detect the hiding-
place of a lost soul or to identify the demon who is causing the sickness.187
In one of the New Hebrides a ghost will sometimes impound the souls of
trespassers within a magic fence in his garden, and will only consent to pull
up the fence and let the souls out on receiving an unqualified apology and a
satisfactory assurance that no personal disrespect was intended.188 In
Motlav, another Melanesian island, it is enough to call out the sick man's
name in the sacred place where he rashly intruded, and then, when the cry
of the kingfisher or some other bird is heard, to shout “Come back” to the
soul of the sick man and run back with it to the house.189

It is a comparatively easy matter to save a soul which is merely tied up to a
tree or detained as a vagrant in a pound; but it is a far harder task to fetch it
up from the nether world, if it once gets down there. When a Buryat shaman
f is called in to attend a patient, the first thing he does is to ascertain where
exactly the soul of the invalid is; for it may have strayed, or been stolen, or
l be languishing [pg 057] in the prison of the gloomy Erlik, lord of the world
e below. If it is anywhere in the neighbourhood, the shaman soon catches and
replaces it in the patient's body. If it is far away, he searches the wide world
till he finds it, ransacking the deep woods, the lonely steppes, and the
bottom of the sea, not to be thrown off the scent even though the cunning
soul runs to the sheep-walks in the hope that its footprints will be lost
among the tracks of the sheep. But when the whole world has been searched
in vain for the errant soul, the shaman knows that there is nothing for it but
to go down to hell and seek the lost one among the spirits in prison. At the
stern call of duty he does not flinch, though he knows that the journey is
toilsome, and that the travelling expenses, which are naturally defrayed by
the patient, are very heavy. Sometimes the lord of the infernal regions will
only agree to release the soul on condition of receiving another in its stead,
and that one the soul of the sick man's dearest friend. If the patient consents

to the substitution, the shaman turns himself into a hawk, pounces upon the
soul of the friend as it soars from his slumbering body in the form of a lark,
and hands over the fluttering, struggling thing to the grim warden of the
dead, who thereupon sets the soul of the sick man at liberty. So the sick man
recovers and his friend dies.190

When a shaman declares that the soul of a sick Thompson Indian has been
carried off by the dead, the good physician, who is the shaman himself, puts
on a conical mask and sets off in pursuit. He now acts as if on a journey,
jumping rivers and such like obstacles, searching, talking, and sometimes
f engaging in a tussle for the possession of the soul. His first step is to repair
to the old trail by which the souls of heathen Thompsons went to the spirit-
l land; for nowadays the souls of Christian Thompsons travel by a new road.
e If he fails to find the tracks of the lost soul there, he searches all the
e graveyards, one after the other, and almost always discovers it in one of
them. Sometimes he succeeds in heading off the departing soul by taking a
short cut to the other world. A shaman can only [pg 058] stay a short time
there. So as soon as he lays hands on the soul he is after, he bolts with it.
The other souls give chase, but he stamps with his foot, on which he wears
a rattle made of deer's hoofs. At the rattle of the hoofs the ghosts retreat and
he hurries on. A bolder shaman will sometimes ask the ghosts for the soul,
and if they refuse to give it, he will wrest it from them. They attack him, but
he clubs them and brings away the soul by force. When he comes back to
the world, he takes off his mask and shews his club all bloody. Then the
people know he had a desperate struggle. If he foresees that the harrowing
of hell is likely to prove a tough job, he increases the number of wooden
pins in his mask. The rescued soul is placed by him on the patient's head
and so returned to his body.191 Among the Twana Indians of Washington
State the descent of the medicine-men into the nether world to rescue lost
souls is represented in pantomime before the eyes of the spectators, who
include women and children as well as men. The surface of the ground is
often broken to facilitate the descent of the rescue party. When the
adventurous band is supposed to have reached the bottom, they journey
along, cross at least one stream, and travel till they come to the abode of the
spirits. These they surprise, and after a desperate struggle, sustained with
great ardour and a prodigious noise, they succeed in rescuing the poor
souls, and so, wrapping them up in cloth, they make the best of their way

back to the upper world and restore the recovered souls to their owners,
who have been seen to cry heartily for joy at receiving them back.192

Often the abduction of a man's soul is set down to demons. The Annamites
believe that when a man meets a demon and speaks to him, the demon
inhales the man's breath and soul.193 The souls of the Bahnars of eastern
y Cochin-China are apt to be carried off by evil spirits, and [pg 059] the
n modes of recovering them are various. If a man suffers from a colic, the
sorcerer may say that in planting sugar-cane, maize or what-not, he has
pierced the stomach of a certain god who lives like a mole in the ground,
d and that the injured deity has punished him by abstracting his soul and
burying it under a plant. Hence the cure for the colic is to pull up the plant
and water the hole with millet wine and the blood of a fowl, a goat, or a pig.
Again, if a child falls ill in the forest or the fields, it is because some devil
has made off with its soul. To retrieve this spiritual loss the sorcerer
constructs an apparatus which comprises an egg-shell in an egg-holder, a
little waxen image of the sick child, and a small bamboo full of millet wine.
This apparatus he sets up at a cross-road, praying the devil to drink the wine
and surrender the stolen soul by depositing it in the egg-shell. Then he
returns to the house, and putting a little cotton to the child's head restores
the soul to its owner. Sometimes the sorcerer lays a trap for the thievish
demon, the bait consisting of the liver of a pig or a fowl and the blood-
smeared handle of a little mattock. At nightfall he sets the trap at a cross-
road and lies in wait hard by. While the devil is licking the blood and
munching the liver, the artful sorcerer pounces out on him, and after a
severe struggle wrests the soul from his clutches, returning to the village
victorious, but breathless and bleeding from his terrific encounter with the
enemy of souls.194 Fits and convulsions are generally set down by the
Chinese to the agency of certain mischievous spirits who love to draw
men's souls out of their bodies. At Amoy the spirits who serve babies and
children in this way rejoice in the high-sounding titles of “celestial agencies
bestriding galloping horses” and “literary graduates residing halfway up in
the sky.” When an infant is writhing in convulsions, the frightened mother
hastens to the roof of the house, and, waving about a bamboo pole to which
one of the child's garments is attached, cries out several times, “My child
So-and-so, come back, return home!” Meantime, another inmate of the
house bangs away at a gong in the [pg 060] hope of attracting the attention

of the strayed soul, which is supposed to recognise the familiar garment and
to slip into it. The garment containing the soul is then placed on or beside
the child, and if the child does not die recovery is sure to follow sooner or
later.195 Similarly we saw that some Indians catch a man's lost soul in his
boots and restore it to his body by putting his feet into them.196

If Galelareese mariners are sailing past certain rocks or come to a river
where they never were before, they must wash their faces, for otherwise the
spirits of the rocks or the river would snatch away their souls.197 When a
y Dyak is about to leave a forest through which he has been walking alone, he
n never forgets to ask the demons to give him back his soul, for it may be that
t some forest-devil has carried it off. For the abduction of a soul may take
place without its owner being aware of his loss, and it may happen either
while he is awake or asleep.198 The Papuans of Geelvink Bay in New
Guinea are apt to think that the mists which sometimes hang about the tops
of tall trees in their tropical forests envelop a spirit or god called Narbrooi,
who draws away the breath or soul of those whom he loves, thus causing
them to languish and die. Accordingly, when a man lies sick, a friend or
relation will go to one of these mist-capped trees and endeavour to recover
the lost soul. At the foot of the tree he makes a peculiar sound to attract the
attention of the spirit, and lights a cigar. In its curling smoke his fancy
discerns the fair and youthful form of Narbrooi himself, who, decked with
flowers, appears and informs the anxious enquirer whether the soul of his
sick friend is with him or not. If it is, the man asks, “Has he done any
wrong?” “Oh no!” the spirit answers, “I love him, and therefore I have
taken him to myself.” So the man lays down an offering at the foot of the
tree, and goes home with the soul of the sufferer in a straw bag. Arrived at
the house, he empties the bag with its precious contents [pg 061] over the
sick man's head, rubs his arms and hands with ginger-root, which he had
first chewed small, and then ties a bandage round one of the patient's wrists.
If the bandage bursts, it is a sign that Narbrooi has repented of his bargain,
and is drawing away the sufferer once more to himself.199

In the Moluccas when a man is unwell it is thought that some devil has
carried away his soul to the tree, mountain, or hill where he (the devil)
resides. A sorcerer having pointed out the devil's abode, the friends of the
y patient carry thither cooked rice, fruit, fish, raw eggs, a hen, a chicken, a
n

silken robe, gold, armlets, and so forth. Having set out the food in order
they pray, saying: “We come to offer to you, O devil, this offering of food,
clothes, gold, and so on; take it and release the soul of the patient for whom
we pray. Let it return to his body, and he who now is sick shall be made
whole.” Then they eat a little and let the hen loose as a ransom for the soul
of the patient; also they put down the raw eggs; but the silken robe, the
gold, and the armlets they take home with them. As soon as they are come
to the house they place a flat bowl containing the offerings which have been
brought back at the sick man's head, and say to him: “Now is your soul
released, and you shall fare well and live to grey hairs on the earth.”200 A
more modern account from the same region describes how the friend of the
patient, after depositing his offerings on the spot where the missing soul is
supposed to be, calls out thrice the name of the sick person, adding, “Come
with me, come with me.” Then he returns, making a motion with a cloth as
if he had caught the soul in it. He must not look to right or left or speak a
word to any one he meets, but must go straight to the patient's house. At the
door he stands, and calling out the sick person's name, asks whether he is
returned. Being [pg 062] answered from within that he is returned, he enters
and lays the cloth in which he has caught the soul on the patient's throat,
saying, “Now you are returned to the house.” Sometimes a substitute is
provided; a doll, dressed up in gay clothing and tinsel, is offered to the
demon in exchange for the patient's soul, with these words, “Give us back
the ugly one which you have taken away and receive this pretty one
instead.”201

Among the Alfoors or Toradjas of Poso, in Central Celebes, a wooden
puppet is offered to the demon as a substitute for the soul which he has
abstracted, and the patient must touch the puppet in order to identify
y himself with it. The effigy is then hung on a bamboo pole, which is planted
n at the place of sacrifice outside of the house. Here too are deposited
offerings of rice, an egg, a little wood (which is afterwards kindled), a sherd
of a broken cooking-pot, and so forth. A long rattan extends from the place
of sacrifice to the sufferer, who grasps one end of it firmly, for along it his
lost soul will return when the devil has kindly released it. All being ready,
the priestess informs the demon that he has come to the wrong place, and
that there are no doubt much better quarters where he could reside. Then the
father of the patient, standing beside the offerings, takes up his parable as

follows: “O demon, we forgot to sacrifice to you. You have visited us with
this sickness; will you now go away from us to some other place? We have
made ready provisions for you on the journey. See, here is a cooking-pot,
here are rice, fire, and a fowl. O demon, go away from us.” With that the
priestess strews rice towards the bamboo-pole to lure back the wandering
soul; and the fowl promised to the devil is thrown in the same direction, but
is instantly jerked back again by a string which, in a spirit of intelligent
economy, has been previously attached to its leg. The demon is now
supposed to accept the puppet, which hangs from the pole, and to release
the soul, which, sliding down the pole and along the rattan, returns to its
proper owner. And lest the [pg 063] evil spirit should repent of the barter
which has just been effected, all communication with him is broken off by
cutting down the pole.202 Similarly the Mongols make up a horse of birch-
bark and a doll, and invite the demon to take the doll instead of the patient
and to ride away on the horse.203 A Yakut shaman, rigged out in his
professional costume, with his drum in his hand, will boldly descend into
the lower world and haggle with the demon who has carried off a sick man's
soul. Not uncommonly the demon proves amenable to reason, and in
consideration of the narrow circumstances of the patient's family will accept
a more moderate ransom than he at first demanded. For instance, he may be
brought to put up with the skin of an Arctic hare or Arctic fox instead of a
foal or a steer. The bargain being struck, the shaman hurries back to the
sufferer's bedside, from which to the merely carnal eye he has never stirred,
and informs the anxious relatives of the success of his mission. They in turn
gladly hasten to provide the ransom.204

Demons are especially feared by persons who have just entered a new
house. Hence at a house-warming among the Alfoors of Minahassa in
Celebes the priest performs a ceremony for the purpose of restoring their
souls to the inmates. He hangs up a bag at the place of sacrifice and then
goes through a list of the gods. There are so many of them that this takes
t him the whole night through without stopping. In the morning he offers the
gods an egg and some rice. By this time the souls of the household are
supposed to be [pg 064] gathered in the bag. So the priest takes the bag, and
holding it on the head of the master of the house, says, “Here you have your
soul; go (soul) to-morrow away again.” He then does the same, saying the
same words, to the housewife and all the other members of the family.205

Amongst the same Alfoors one way of recovering a sick man's soul is to let
down a bowl by a belt out of a window and fish for the soul till it is caught
in the bowl and hauled up.206 And among the same people, when a priest is
bringing back a sick man's soul which he has caught in a cloth, he is
preceded by a girl holding the large leaf of a certain palm over his head as
an umbrella to keep him and the soul from getting wet, in case it should
rain; and he is followed by a man brandishing a sword to deter other souls
from any attempt at rescuing the captured spirit.207

In Nias, when a man dreams that a pig is fastened under a neighbour's
house, it is a sign that some one in that house will die. They think that the
sun-god is drawing away the shadows or souls of that household from this
f world of shadows to his own bright world of radiant light, and a ceremony
n must needs be performed to win back these passing souls to earth.
r Accordingly, while it is still night, the priest begins to drum and pray, and
he continues his orisons till about nine o'clock next morning. Then he takes
his stand at an opening in the roof through which he can behold the sun, and
spreading out a cloth waits till the beams of the morning sun fall full upon
it. In the sunbeams he thinks the wandering souls have come back again; so
he wraps the cloth up tightly, and quitting the opening in the roof, hastens
with his precious charge to the expectant household. Before each member
of it he stops, and dipping his fingers into the cloth takes out his or her soul
and restores it to the owner by touching the person on the forehead.208 [pg
065] The Thompson Indians of British Columbia think that the setting sun
draws the souls of men away towards it; hence they will never sleep with
their heads to the sunset.209 The Samoans tell how two young wizards,
passing a house where a chief lay very sick, saw a company of gods from
the mountain sitting in the doorway. They were handing from one to
another the soul of the dying chief. It was wrapt in a leaf, and had been
passed from the gods inside the house to those sitting in the doorway. One
of the gods handed the soul to one of the wizards, taking him for a god in
the dark, for it was night. Then all the gods rose up and went away; but the
wizard kept the chief's soul. In the morning some women went with a
present of fine mats to fetch a famous physician. The wizards were sitting
on the shore as the women passed, and they said to the women, “Give us the
mats and we will heal him.” So they went to the chief's house. He was very
ill, his jaw hung down, and his end seemed near. But the wizards undid the

leaf and let the soul into him again, and forthwith he brightened up and
lived.210

The Battas or Bataks of Sumatra believe that the soul of a living man may
transmigrate into the body of an animal. Hence, for example, the doctor is
sometimes desired to extract the patient's soul from the body of a fowl, in
which it has been hidden away by an evil spirit.211
a
Sometimes the lost soul is brought back in a visible shape. In Melanesia a
woman, knowing that a neighbour was at the point of death, heard a rustling
in her house, as of a moth fluttering, just at the moment when a noise of
weeping and lamentation told her that the soul was flown. She caught the
a fluttering thing between her hands and ran with it, crying out that she had
caught the soul. But though she opened her hands above the mouth of the
l corpse, it did not revive.212 In Lepers' Island, one of the New [pg 066]
a Hebrides, for ten days after a birth the father is careful not to exert himself
d or the baby would suffer for it. If during this time he goes away to any
distance, he will bring back with him on his return a little stone representing
e the infant's soul. Arrived at home he cries, “Come hither,” and puts down
the stone in the house. Then he waits till the child sneezes, at which he
cries, “Here it is”; for now he knows that the little soul has not been lost
after all.213 The Salish or Flathead Indians of Oregon believe that a man's
soul may be separated for a time from his body without causing death and
without the man being aware of his loss. It is necessary, however, that the
lost soul should be soon found and restored to its owner or he will die. The
name of the man who has lost his soul is revealed in a dream to the
medicine-man, who hastens to inform the sufferer of his loss. Generally a
number of men have sustained a like loss at the same time; all their names
are revealed to the medicine-man, and all employ him to recover their souls.
The whole night long these soulless men go about the village from lodge to
lodge, dancing and singing. Towards daybreak they go into a separate
lodge, which is closed up so as to be totally dark. A small hole is then made
in the roof, through which the medicine-man, with a bunch of feathers,
brushes in the souls, in the shape of bits of bone and the like, which he
receives on a piece of matting. A fire is next kindled, by the light of which
the medicine-man sorts out the souls. First he puts aside the souls of dead
people, of which there are usually several; for if he were to give the soul of

a dead person to a living man, the man would die instantly. Next he picks
out the souls of all the persons present, and making them all to sit down
before him, he takes the soul of each, in the shape of a splinter of bone,
wood, or shell, and placing it on the owner's head, pats it with many prayers
and contortions till it descends into the heart and so resumes its proper
place.214 In Amboyna the sorcerer, to recover a soul detained [pg 067] by
demons, plucks a branch from a tree, and waving it to and fro as if to catch
something, calls out the sick man's name. Returning he strikes the patient
over the head and body with the branch, into which the lost soul is supposed
to have passed, and from which it returns to the patient.215 In the Babar
Islands offerings for evil spirits are laid at the root of a great tree
(wokiorai), from which a leaf is plucked and pressed on the patient's
forehead and breast; the lost soul, which is in the leaf, is thus restored to its
owner.216 In some other islands of the same seas, when a man returns ill and
speechless from the forest, it is inferred that the evil spirits which dwell in
the great trees have caught and kept his soul. Offerings of food are therefore
left under a tree and the soul is brought home in a piece of wax.217 Amongst
the Dyaks of Sarawak the priest conjures the lost soul into a cup, where it is
seen by the uninitiated as a lock of hair, but by the initiated as a miniature
human being. This the priest pokes back into the patient's body through an
invisible hole in his skull.218 In Nias the sick man's soul is restored to him in
the shape of a firefly, visible only to the sorcerer, who catches it in a cloth
and places it on the forehead of the patient.219 Amongst the Indians of
Santiago Tepehuacan, if a child has fallen from the arms of its bearer and an
illness has resulted from the fall, the parents will take the child's shirt,
stretch it out on the spot where the little one fell, and say, “Come, come,
come back to the infant.” [pg 068] Then they bring back a little of the earth
wrapped up in the shirt, and put the shirt on the child. They say that in this
manner the spirit is replaced in the child's body and that he will recover.220
With this we may compare an Irish custom reported by Camden. When any
one happens to fall, he springs up again, and turning round thrice to the
right, digs the earth with a sword or knife, and takes up a turf, because they
say the earth restores his shade to him. But if he falls sick within two or
three days thereafter, a woman skilled in these matters is sent to the spot,
and there says: “I call thee, So-and-so, from the East and West, from the
South and North, from the groves, woods, rivers, marshes, fairies white,
red, and black,” and so forth. After uttering certain short prayers, she

returns home to the sick person, and whispering in his ear another prayer,
along with a Pater Noster, puts some burning coals into a cup of clean
water, and so decides whether the distemper has been inflicted by the
fairies.221 Here, though Camden is not very explicit, and he probably did not
quite understand the custom he describes, it seems plain that the shade or
soul of a man who has fallen is conceived as adhering to the ground where
he fell. Accordingly he seeks to regain possession of it by digging up the
earth; but if he fails to recover it, he sends a wise woman to the spot to win
back his soul from the fairies who are detaining it.

The ancient Egyptians held that a dead man is not in a state to enter on the
life hereafter until his soul has been found and restored to his mummified
body. The vital spark had been commonly devoured by the malignant god
l Sit, who concealed his true form in the likeness of a horned beast, such as
t an ox or a gazelle. So the priests went in quest of the missing spirit,
slaughtered the animal which had devoured it, and cutting open the carcase
found the soul still undigested in its stomach. Afterwards the son of the
deceased embraced the mummy or the image of his father in order to restore
his soul to him. Formerly it was [pg 069] customary to place the skin of the
slain beast on the dead man for the purpose of recruiting his strength with
that of the animal.222

Again, souls may be extracted from their bodies or detained on their
wanderings not only by ghosts and demons but also by men, especially by
sorcerers. In Fiji, if a criminal refused to confess, the chief sent for a scarf
r with which “to catch away the soul of the rogue.” At the sight or even at the
mention of the scarf the culprit generally made a clean breast. For if he did
not, the scarf would be waved over his head till his soul was caught in it,
when it would be carefully folded up and nailed to the end of a chief's
d canoe; and for want of his soul the criminal would pine and die.223 The
sorcerers of Danger Island used to set snares for souls. The snares were
made of stout cinet, about fifteen to thirty feet long, with loops on either
side of different sizes, to suit the different sizes of souls; for fat souls there
were large loops, for thin souls there were small ones. When a man was sick
against whom the sorcerers had a grudge, they set up these soul-snares near
his house and watched for the flight of his soul. If in the shape of a bird or
an insect it was caught in the snare the man would infallibly die.224 When a

Polynesian mother desired that the child in her womb should grow up to be
a great warrior or a great thief, she repaired to the temple of the war-god
Oro or of the thief-god Hiro. There the priest obligingly caught the spirit of
the god in a snare made of coco-nut fibre, and then infused it into the
woman. When the child was born, the mother took it to the temple and
dedicated it to the god with whose divine spirit the infant was already
possessed.225 The Algonquin Indians also used nets to catch souls, but only
as [pg 070] a measure of defence. They feared lest passing souls, which had
just quitted the bodies of dying people, should enter their huts and carry off
the souls of the inmates to deadland. So they spread nets about their houses
to catch and entangle these ghostly intruders in the meshes.226

Among the Sereres of Senegambia, when a man wishes to revenge himself
on his enemy he goes to the Fitaure (chief and priest in one), and prevails
on him by presents to conjure the soul of his enemy into a large jar of red
y earthenware, which is then deposited under a consecrated tree. The man
whose soul is shut up in the jar soon dies.227 Among the Baoules of the
Ivory Coast it happened once that a chief's soul was extracted by the magic
of an enemy, who succeeded in shutting it up in a box. To recover it, two
men held a garment of the sick man, while a witch performed certain
enchantments. After a time she declared that the soul was now in the
garment, which was accordingly rolled up and hastily wrapped about the
invalid for the purpose of restoring his spirit to him.228 Some of the Congo
negroes think that enchanters can get possession of human souls, and
enclosing them in tusks of ivory, sell them to the white man, who makes
them work for him in his country under the sea. It is believed that very
many of the coast labourers are men thus obtained; so when these people go
to trade they often look anxiously about for their dead relations. The man
whose soul is thus sold into slavery will die “in due course, if not at the
time.”229 In some parts of West Africa, indeed, wizards are continually
setting traps to catch souls that wander from their bodies in sleep; and when
they have caught one, they tie it up over the fire, and as it shrivels in the
heat the owner sickens. This is done, not out of any grudge towards the
sufferer, but purely as a matter of business. The wizard does not care whose
soul he has captured, and will readily restore it to its owner if only he is
paid for doing so. Some sorcerers keep regular asylums for strayed souls,
and anybody [pg 071] who has lost or mislaid his own soul can always have

another one from the asylum on payment of the usual fee. No blame
whatever attaches to men who keep these private asylums or set traps for
passing souls; it is their profession, and in the exercise of it they are
actuated by no harsh or unkindly feelings. But there are also wretches who
from pure spite or for the sake of lucre set and bait traps with the deliberate
purpose of catching the soul of a particular man; and in the bottom of the
pot, hidden by the bait, are knives and sharp hooks which tear and rend the
poor soul, either killing it outright or mauling it so as to impair the health of
its owner when it succeeds in escaping and returning to him. Miss Kingsley
knew a Kruman who became very anxious about his soul, because for
several nights he had smelt in his dreams the savoury smell of smoked
crawfish seasoned with red pepper. Clearly some ill-wisher had set a trap
baited with this dainty for his dream-soul, intending to do him grievous
bodily, or rather spiritual, harm; and for the next few nights great pains
were taken to keep his soul from straying abroad in his sleep. In the
sweltering heat of the tropical night he lay sweating and snorting under a
blanket, his nose and mouth tied up with a handkerchief to prevent the
escape of his precious soul.230

When Dyaks of the Upper Melawie are about to go out head-hunting they
take the precaution of securing the souls of their enemies before they
e attempt to kill their bodies, calculating apparently that mere bodily death
f will soon follow the spiritual death, or capture, of the soul. With this
intention they clear a small space in the underwood of the forest, and set up
d in the clearing one of those miniature houses in which it is customary to
s deposit the ashes of the dead. Food is placed in the little house, which,
though raised on four posts, is connected with the ground by a tiny inverted
ladder of the sort up which spirits are believed to swarm. When these
preparations have been completed, the leader of the expedition comes and
sits down a little way from the miniature house, and addressing the spirits
of kinsmen who had the misfortune to be beheaded by their enemies, he
says, “O ghosts of So-and-so, come speedily back [pg 072] to our village.
We have rice in abundance. Our trees all bear ripe fruit. Our baskets are full
to the brim. O ghosts, come swiftly back and forget not to bring your new
friends and acquaintances with you.” But by the new friends and
acquaintances of the ghosts he means the souls of the enemies against
whom he is about to lead the expedition. Meantime the other warriors have

hidden themselves close by behind trees and bushes, and are listening with
all their ears. When the cry of an animal is heard in the forest, or a
humming sound seems to issue from the little house, it is a sign that the
ghosts of their friends have come, bringing with them the souls of their
enemies, which are accordingly at their mercy. At that the lurking warriors
leap forth from their ambush, and with brandished blades hew and slash at
the souls of their foemen swarming unseen in the air. Taken completely by
surprise, the panic-stricken souls flee in all directions, and are fain to hide
under every leaf and stone on the ground. But even here their retreat is cut
off. For now the leader of the expedition is hard at work, grubbing up with
his hands every stone and leaf to right and left, and thrusting them with
feverish haste into the basket, which he at once ties up securely. He now
flatters himself that he has the souls of the enemy safe in his possession;
and when in the course of the expedition the heads of the foe are severed
from their bodies, he will pack them into the same basket in which their
souls are already languishing in captivity.231

In Hawaii there were sorcerers who caught souls of living people, shut them
up in calabashes, and gave them to people [pg 073] to eat. By squeezing a
f captured soul in their hands they discovered the place where people had
been secretly buried.232 Amongst the Canadian Indians, when a wizard
e wished to kill a man, he sent out his familiar spirits, who brought him the
d victim's soul in the shape of a stone or the like. The wizard struck the soul
y with a sword or an axe till it bled profusely, and as it bled the man to whom
it belonged fell ill and died.233 In Amboyna if a doctor is convinced that a
patient's soul has been carried away by a demon beyond recovery, he seeks
to supply its place with a soul abstracted from another man. For this
purpose he goes by night to a house and asks, “Who's there?” If an inmate
is incautious enough to answer, the doctor takes up from before the door a
clod of earth, into which the soul of the person who replied is thought to
have passed. This clod the doctor lays under the sick man's pillow, and
performs certain ceremonies by which the stolen soul is conveyed into the
patient's body. Then as he goes home the doctor fires two shots to frighten
the soul from returning to its proper owner.234 A Karen wizard will catch the
wandering soul of a sleeper and transfer it to the body of a dead man. The
latter, therefore, comes to life as the former dies. But the friends of the
sleeper in turn engage a wizard to steal the soul of another sleeper, who dies

as the first sleeper comes to life. In this way an indefinite succession of
deaths and resurrections is supposed to take place.235

Nowhere perhaps is the art of abducting human souls more carefully
cultivated or carried to higher perfection than in the Malay Peninsula. Here
the methods by which the wizard works his will are various, and so too are
n his motives. Sometimes he desires to destroy an enemy, sometimes to win
y the love of a cold or bashful beauty. Some of the charms operate entirely
without contact; in others, the receptacle into which the soul is to be lured
has formed part of, or at least touched, the person of the victim. Thus, to
take an [pg 074] instance of the latter sort of charm, the following are the
directions given for securing the soul of one whom you wish to render
distraught. Take soil from the middle of his footprint; wrap it up in pieces of
red, black, and yellow cloth, taking care to keep the yellow outside; and
hang it from the centre of your mosquito curtain with parti-coloured thread.
It will then become your victim's soul. To complete the transubstantiation,
however, it is needful to switch the packet with a birch composed of seven
leaf-ribs from a “green” coco-nut. Do this seven times at sunset, at
midnight, and at sunrise, saying, “It is not earth that I switch, but the heart
of So-and-so.” Then bury it in the middle of a path where your victim is
sure to step over it, and he will unquestionably become distraught.236
Another way is to scrape the wood of the floor where your intended victim
has been sitting, mix the scrapings with earth from his or her footprint, and
knead the whole with wax from a deserted bees' comb into a likeness of him
or her. Then fumigate the figure with incense and beckon to the soul every
night for three nights successively by waving a cloth, while you recite the
appropriate spell.237 In the following cases the charm takes effect without
any contact whatever, whether direct or indirect, with the victim. When the
moon, just risen, looks red above the eastern horizon, go out, and standing
in the moonlight, with the big toe of your right foot on the big toe of your
left, make a speaking-trumpet of your right hand and recite through it the
following words:

“OM. I loose my shaft, I loose it and the moon clouds over,
I loose it, and the sun is extinguished.
I loose it, and the stars burn dim.
But it is not the sun, moon, and stars that I shoot at,

It is the stalk of the heart of that child of the congregation, So-and-so.

Cluck! cluck! soul of So-and-so, come and walk with me,
Come and sit with me,
Come and sleep and share my pillow.
Cluck! cluck! soul.”

Repeat this thrice and after every repetition blow through [pg 075] your
hollow fist.238 Or you may catch the soul in your turban, thus. Go out on the
night of the full moon and the two succeeding nights; sit down on an ant-
hill facing the moon, burn incense, and recite the following incantation:

“I bring you a betel leaf to chew,
Dab the lime on to it, Prince Ferocious,
For Somebody, Prince Distraction's daughter, to chew.
Somebody at sunrise be distraught for love of me,
Somebody at sunset be distraught for love of me.
As you remember your parents, remember me;
As you remember your house and house-ladder, remember me.
When thunder rumbles, remember me;
When wind whistles, remember me;
When the heavens rain, remember me;
When cocks crow, remember me;
When the dial-bird tells its tales, remember me;
When you look up at the sun, remember me;
When you look up at the moon, remember me,
For in that self-same moon I am there.
Cluck! cluck! soul of Somebody come hither to me.
I do not mean to let you have my soul,
Let your soul come hither to mine.”

Now wave the end of your turban towards the moon seven times each night.
Go home and put it under your pillow, and if you want to wear it in the
daytime, burn incense and say, “It is not a turban that I carry in my girdle,
but the soul of Somebody.”239

Perhaps the magical ceremonies just described may help to explain a
curious rite, of immemorial antiquity, which was performed on a very
solemn occasion at Athens. On the eve of the sailing of the fleet for
Syracuse, when all hearts beat high with hope, and visions of empire
dazzled all eyes, consternation suddenly fell on the people one May
e morning when they rose and found that most of the images of Hermes in the
f city had been mysteriously mutilated in the night. The impious perpetrators
of the sacrilege were unknown, but whoever they were, the priests and
priestesses solemnly cursed them according to the ancient ritual, standing
with their faces to the west and shaking red cloths up and down.240 Perhaps
in these cloths they were catching the [pg 076] souls of those at whom their
curses were levelled, just as we have seen that Fijian chiefs used to catch
the souls of criminals in scarves and nail them to canoes.241

The Indians of the Nass River, in British Columbia, are impressed with a
belief that a physician may swallow his patient's soul by mistake. A doctor
who is believed to have done so is made by the other members of the
s faculty to stand over the patient, while one of them thrusts his fingers down
m the doctor's throat, another kneads him in the stomach with his knuckles,
and a third slaps him on the back. If the soul is not in him after all, and if
f the same process has been repeated upon all the medical men without
success, it is concluded that the soul must be in the head-doctor's box. A
party of doctors, therefore, waits upon him at his house and requests him to
produce his box. When he has done so and arranged its contents on a new
mat, they take the votary of Aesculapius and hold him up by the heels with
his head in a hole in the floor. In this position they wash his head, and “any
water remaining from the ablution is taken and poured upon the sick man's
head.”242 Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia it is forbidden to
pass behind the back of a shaman while he is eating, lest the shaman should
inadvertently swallow the soul of the passer-by. When that happens, both
the shaman and the person whose soul he has swallowed fall down in a
swoon. Blood flows from the shaman's mouth, because the soul is too large
for him and is tearing his inside. Then the clan of the person whose soul is
doing this mischief must assemble and sing the song of the shaman. In time
the suffering sorcerer [pg 077] vomits out the soul, which he exhibits in the
shape of a small bloody ball in the open palms of his hands. He restores it to
its owner, who is lying prostrate on a mat, by throwing it at him and then

blowing on his head. The man whose soul was swallowed has very
naturally to pay for the damage he did to the shaman as well as for his own
cure.243

§ 3. The Soul as a Shadow and a Reflection.

But the spiritual dangers I have enumerated are not the only ones which
beset the savage. Often he regards his [pg 078] shadow or reflection as his
soul, or at all events as a vital part of himself, and as such it is necessarily a
source of danger to him. For if it is trampled upon, struck, or stabbed, he
will feel the injury as if it were done to his person; and if it is detached from
s him entirely (as he believes that it may be) he will die. In the island of
Wetar there are magicians who can make a man ill by stabbing his shadow
with a pike or hacking it with a sword.244 After Sankara had destroyed the
e Buddhists in India, it is said that he journeyed to Nepaul, where he had
some difference of opinion with the Grand Lama. To prove his supernatural
e powers, he soared into the air. But as he mounted up, the Grand Lama,
perceiving his shadow swaying and wavering on the ground, struck his
knife into it and down fell Sankara and broke his neck.245 In the Babar
Islands the demons get power over a man's soul by holding fast his shadow,
or by striking and wounding it.246 Among the Tolindoos of central Celebes
to tread on a man's shadow is an offence, because it is supposed to make the
owner sick;247 and for the same reason the Toboongkoos of that region
forbid their children to play with their shadows.248 The Ottawa Indians
thought they could kill a man by making certain figures on his shadow.249
The Baganda of central Africa regarded a man's shadow as his ghost; hence
they used to kill or injure their enemies by stabbing or treading on their
shadows.250 Among the Bavili of West Africa it used to be considered a
crime to trample on or even to cross the shadow of another, especially if the
shadow were that of a married woman.251 Some Caffres are very unwilling
to let anybody stand on their shadow, believing that they can be [pg 079]
influenced for evil through it.252 They think that “a sick man's shadow
dwindles in intensity when he is about to die; for it has such an intimate
relation to the man that it suffers with him.”253 The Ja-Luo tribes of
Kavirondo, to the east of Lake Victoria Nyanza, tell of the ancestor of all
men, Apodtho by name, who descended to earth from above, bringing with
him cattle, fowls, and seeds. When he was old, the Ja-Luo plotted to kill

him, but for a long time they did not dare to attack him. At last, hearing that
he was sick, they thought their chance had come, and sent a girl to see how
he was. She took a small horn, used for cupping blood, in her hand, and
while she talked with him she placed the cupping-horn on his shadow. To
her surprise it drew blood. So she returned and told her friends that, if they
wished to kill Apodtho, they must not touch his body, but spear his shadow.
They did so, and he died and turned into a rock, which has ever since
possessed the property of sharpening spears unusually well.254 In a Chinese
book we read of a sage who examined human shadows by lamplight in
order to discover the fate of their owners. “A man's shadow,” he said,
“ought to be deep, for, if so, he will attain honourable positions, and a great
age. Shadows are averse to being reflected in water, or in wells, or in
washing-basins. It was on such grounds that the ancients avoided shadows,
and that in old days Khü-seu, twan-hu, and other shadow-treading vermin
caused injury by hitting the shadows of men. In recent times there have
been men versed in the art of cauterizing the shadows of their patients.”
Another sapient Chinese writer observes: “I have heard that, if the shadow
of a bird is hit with a piece of wood that was struck by thunder, the bird
falls to the ground immediately. I never tried it, but on account of the matter
stated above I consider the thing certain.”255 The natives of Nias tremble at
the sight of a rainbow, because they think it is a net spread by a powerful
spirit to catch their shadows.256

[pg 080]

In the Banks Islands, Melanesia, there are certain stones of a remarkably
long shape which go by the name of tamate gangan or “eating ghosts,”
because certain powerful and dangerous ghosts are believed to lodge in
f them. If a man's shadow falls on one of these stones, the ghost will draw his
soul out from him, so that he will die. Such stones, therefore, are set in a
house to guard it; and a messenger sent to a house by the absent owner will
n call out the name of the sender, lest the watchful ghost in the stone should
fancy that he came with evil intent and should do him a mischief.257 In
Florida, one of the Solomon Islands, there are places sacred to ghosts, some
in the village, some in the gardens, and some in the bush. No man would
pass one of these places when the sun was so low as to cast his shadow into
y it, for then the ghost would draw it from him.258 The Indian tribes of the
d

Lower Fraser River believe that man has four souls, of which the shadow is
one, though not the principal, and that sickness is caused by the absence of
one of the souls. Hence no one will let his shadow fall on a sick shaman,
lest the latter should purloin it to replace his own lost soul.259 At a funeral in
China, when the lid is about to be placed on the coffin, most of the
bystanders, with the exception of the nearest kin, retire a few steps or even
retreat to another room, for a person's health is believed to be endangered
by allowing his shadow to be enclosed in a coffin. And when the coffin is
about to be lowered into the grave most of the spectators recoil to a little
distance lest their shadows should fall into the grave and harm should thus
be done to their persons. The geomancer and his assistants stand on the side
of the grave which is turned away from the sun; and the grave-diggers and
coffin-bearers attach their shadows firmly to their persons by tying a strip of
cloth tightly round their waists.260 In the Nicobar Islands burial usually takes
place at sundown, before midnight, or at early dawn. In no case can an
interment be carried out at noon or within an hour of it, lest the shadows of
the bearers who lower the [pg 081] body into the earth, or of the mourners
taking their last look at the shrouded figure, should fall into the grave; for
that would cause them to be sick or die. And when the dead has been laid in
his last home, but before the earth is shovelled in upon him, the leaves of a
certain jungle tree are waved over the grave, and a lighted torch is
brandished inside it, to disperse any souls of the sorrowing bystanders that
may be lingering with their departed friend in his narrow bed. Then the
signal is given, and the earth or sand is rapidly shovelled in by a party of
young men who have been standing in readiness to perform the duty.261
When the Malays are building a house, and the central post is being set up,
the greatest precautions are taken to prevent the shadow of any of the
workers from falling either on the post or on the hole dug to receive it; for
otherwise they think that sickness and trouble will be sure to follow.262
When members of some Victorian tribes were performing magical
ceremonies for the purpose of bringing disease and misfortune on their
enemies, they took care not to let their shadows fall on the object by which
the evil influence was supposed to be wafted to the foe.263 In Darfur people
think that they can do an enemy to death by burying a certain root in the
earth on the spot where the shadow of his head happens to fall. The man
whose shadow is thus tampered with loses consciousness at once and will
die if the proper antidote be not administered. In like manner they can

paralyse any limb, as a hand or leg, by planting a particular root in the earth
in the shadow of the limb they desire to maim.264 Nor is it human beings
alone who are thus liable to be injured by means of their shadows. Animals
are to some extent in the same predicament. A small snail, which frequents
the neighbourhood of the limestone hills in Perak, is believed to suck the
blood of cattle through their shadows; hence the beasts grow lean and
sometimes die from loss of [pg 082] blood.265 The ancients supposed that in
Arabia, if a hyæna trod on a man's shadow, it deprived him of the power of
speech and motion; and that if a dog, standing on a roof in the moonlight,
cast a shadow on the ground and a hyæna trod on it, the dog would fall
down as if dragged with a rope.266 Clearly in these cases the shadow, if not
equivalent to the soul, is at least regarded as a living part of the man or the
animal, so that injury done to the shadow is felt by the person or animal as
if it were done to his body. Even the shadows of trees are supposed by the
Caffres to be sensitive. Hence when a Caffre doctor seeks to pluck the
leaves of a tree for medicinal purposes, he “takes care to run up quickly, and
to avoid touching the shadow lest it should inform the tree of the danger,
and so give the tree time to withdraw the medicinal properties from its
extremities into the safety of the inaccessible trunk. The shadow of the tree
is said to feel the touch of the man's feet.”267

Conversely, if the shadow is a vital part of a man or an animal, it may under
certain circumstances be as hazardous to be touched by it as it would be to
f come into contact with the person or animal. Thus in the North-West
Provinces of India people believe that if the shadow of the goat-sucker bird
falls on an ox or a cow, but especially on a cow buffalo, the beast will soon
y die. The remedy is for some one to kill the bird, rub his hands or a stick in
the blood, and then wave the stick over the animal. There are certain men
r who are noted for their powers in this respect all over the district.268 The
Kaitish of central Australia hold that if the shadow of a brown hawk falls on
the breast of a woman who is suckling a child, the breast will swell up and
burst. Hence if a woman sees one of these birds in these circumstances, she
runs away in fear.269 In the Central Provinces of India a [pg 083] pregnant
woman avoids the shadow of a man, believing that if it fell on her, the child
would take after him in features, though not in character.270 In Shoa any
obstinate disorder, for which no remedy is known, such as insanity,
epilepsy, delirium, hysteria, and St. Vitus's dance, is traced either to

possession by a demon or to the shadow of an enemy which has fallen on
the sufferer.271 The Bushman is most careful not to let his shadow fall on the
dead game, as he thinks this would bring bad luck.272 Amongst the Caffres
to overshadow the king by standing in his presence was an offence worthy
of instant death.273 And it is a Caffre superstition that if the shadow of a man
who is protected by a certain charm falls on the shadow of a man who is not
so protected, the unprotected person will fall down, overcome by the power
of the charm which is transmitted through the shadow.274 In the Punjaub
some people believe that if the shadow of a pregnant woman fell on a
snake, it would blind the creature instantly.275

Hence the savage makes it a rule to shun the shadow of certain persons
whom for various reasons he regards as sources of dangerous influence.
Amongst the dangerous classes he commonly ranks mourners and women
in general, but especially his mother-in-law. The Shuswap Indians of British
n Columbia think that the shadow of a mourner falling upon a person would
make him sick.276 Amongst the Kurnai tribe of Victoria novices at initiation
were cautioned not to let a woman's shadow fall across them, as this would
make them thin, lazy, and stupid.277 An Australian native is said to have
once nearly died of fright because the shadow of his mother-in-law fell on
his legs as he lay asleep under a tree.278 [pg 084] The awe and dread with
which the untutored savage contemplates his mother-in-law are amongst the
most familiar facts of anthropology. In the Yuin tribes of New South Wales
the rule which forbade a man to hold any communication with his wife's
f mother was very strict. He might not look at her or even in her direction. It
r was a ground of divorce if his shadow happened to fall on his mother-in-
law: in that case he had to leave his wife, and she returned to her parents.279
In the Hunter River tribes of New South Wales it was formerly death for a
man to speak to his mother-in-law; however, in later times the wretch who
had committed this heinous crime was suffered to live, but he was severely
reprimanded and banished for a time from the camp.280 In the Kulin tribe it
was thought that if a woman looked at or spoke to her son-in-law or even
his brother, her hair would turn white. The same result, it was supposed,
would follow if she ate of game which had been presented to her husband
by her son-in-law; but she could obviate this ill consequence by blackening
her face, and especially her mouth, with charcoal, for then her hair would
not turn white.281 Similarly in the Kurnai tribe of Victoria a woman is not

permitted to see her daughter's husband in camp or elsewhere. When he is
present, she keeps her head covered with an opossum rug. The camp of the
mother-in-law faces in a different direction to that of her son-in-law. A
screen of high bushes is erected between both huts, so that no one can see
over from either. When the mother-in-law goes for firewood, she crouches
down as she goes out or in, with her head covered.282 In Uganda a man may
not see his mother-in-law nor speak to her face to face. Should they meet by
accident, she must turn aside and cover her head with her clothes; or if her
garments are too scanty for that, she may squat on her haunches and hide
her face in her hands. If he wishes to hold any communication with her, it
must be done through a third person, or through a wall or closed door. Were
he to break these [pg 085] rules, he would certainly be seized with a
shaking of the hands and general debility.283 Among some tribes of eastern
Africa which formerly acknowledged the suzerainty of the sultan of
Zanzibar, before a young couple had children they might meet neither their
father-in-law nor their mother-in-law. To avoid them they must take a long
roundabout. But if they could not do that, they must throw themselves on
the ground and hide their faces till the father-in-law or mother-in-law had
passed by.284 Among the Basutos a man may never meet his wife's mother,
nor speak to her, nor see her. If his wife is ill and her mother comes to nurse
her, he must flee the house so long as she is in it; sentinels are posted to
warn him of her departure.285 In New Britain the native imagination fails to
conceive the extent and nature of the calamities which would result from a
man's accidentally speaking to his wife's mother; suicide of one or both
would probably be the only course open to them. The most solemn form of
oath a New Briton can take is, “Sir, if I am not telling the truth, I hope I
may shake hands with my mother-in-law.”286 At Vanua Lava in the Banks
Islands, a man would not so much as follow his mother-in-law along the
beach until the rising tide had washed out her footprints in the sand.287 To
avoid meeting his mother-in-law face to face a very desperate Apache
Indian, one of the bravest of the brave, has been seen to clamber along the
brink of a precipice at the risk of his life, hanging on to rocks from which
had he fallen he would have been dashed to pieces or at least have broken
several of his limbs.288 Still more curious [pg 086] and difficult to explain is
the rule which forbids certain African kings, after the coronation
ceremonies have been completed, ever to see their own mothers again. This
restriction was imposed on the kings of Benin and Uganda. Yet the queen-

mothers lived in regal state with a court and lands of their own. In Uganda
it was thought that if the king were to see his mother again, some evil and
probably death would surely befall him.289

Where the shadow is regarded as so intimately bound up with the life of the
man that its loss entails debility or death, it is natural to expect that its
diminution should be regarded with solicitude and apprehension, as
d betokening a corresponding decrease in the vital energy of its owner. An
elegant Greek rhetorician has compared the man who lives only for fame to
one who should set all his heart on his shadow, puffed up and boastful when
y it lengthened, sad and dejected when it shortened, wasting and pining away
e when it dwindled to nothing. The spirits of such an one, he goes on, would
f necessarily be volatile, since they must rise or fall with every passing hour
of the day. In the morning, when the level sun, just risen above the eastern
horizon, stretched out his shadow to enormous length, rivalling the shadows
e cast by the cypresses and the towers on the city wall, how blithe and
e exultant would he be, fancying that in stature he had become a match for
the fabled giants of old; with what a lofty port he would then strut and shew
e himself in the streets and the market-place and wherever men congregated,
that he might be seen and admired of all. But as the day wore on, his
a countenance would change and he would slink back crestfallen to his house.
At noon, when his once towering shadow had shrunk to his feet, he would
shut himself up and refuse to stir abroad, ashamed to look [pg 087] his
fellow-townsmen in the face; but in the afternoon his drooping spirits would
revive, and as the day declined his joy and pride would swell again with the
length of the evening shadows.290 The rhetorician who thus sought to expose
the vanity of fame as an object of human ambition by likening it to an ever-
changing shadow, little dreamed that in real life there were men who set
almost as much store by their shadows as the fool whom he had conjured up
in his imagination to point a moral. So hard is it for the straining wings of
fancy to outstrip the folly of mankind. In Amboyna and Uliase, two islands
near the equator, where necessarily there is little or no shadow cast at noon,
the people make it a rule not to go out of the house at mid-day, because they
fancy that by doing so a man may lose the shadow of his soul.291 The
Mangaians tell of a mighty warrior, Tukaitawa, whose strength waxed and
waned with the length of his shadow. In the morning, when his shadow fell
longest, his strength was greatest; but as the shadow shortened towards

noon his strength ebbed with it, till exactly at noon it reached its lowest
point; then, as the shadow stretched out in the afternoon, his strength
returned. A certain hero discovered the secret of Tukaitawa's strength and
slew him at noon.292 The savage Besisis of the Malay Peninsula fear to bury
their dead at noon, because they fancy that the shortness of their shadows at
that hour would sympathetically shorten their own lives.293 The Baganda of
central Africa used to judge of a man's health by the length of his shadow.
They said, “So-and-so is going to die, his shadow is very small”; or, “He is
in good health, his shadow is large.”294 Similarly the Caffres of South Africa
think that a man's shadow grows very small or vanishes at death. When her
husband is away at the wars, a woman hangs up his sleeping-mat; if the
shadow grows less, she says her husband is killed; if it remains unchanged,
she says he is unscathed.295 [pg 088] It is possible that even in lands outside
the tropics the observation of the diminished shadow at noon may have
contributed, even if it did not give rise, to the superstitious dread with
which that hour has been viewed by many peoples, as by the Greeks,
ancient and modern, the Bretons, the Russians, the Roumanians of
Transylvania, and the Indians of Santiago Tepehuacan.296 In this
observation, too, we may perhaps detect the reason why noon was chosen
by the Greeks as the hour for sacrificing to the shadowless dead.297 The loss
of the shadow, real or apparent, has often been regarded as a cause or
precursor of death. Whoever entered the sanctuary of Zeus on Mount
Lycaeus in Arcadia was believed to lose his shadow and to die within the
year.298 In Lower Austria on the evening of St. Sylvester's day—the last day
of the year—the company seated round the table mark whose shadow is not
cast on the wall, and believe that the seemingly shadowless person will die
next year. Similar presages are drawn in Germany both on St. Sylvester's
day and on Christmas Eve.299 The Galelareese fancy that if a child
resembles his father, they will not both live long; for the child has taken
away his father's likeness or shadow, and consequently the father must soon
die.300 Similarly among [pg 089] some tribes of the Lower Congo, “if the
child is like its mother, father, or uncle, they think it has the spirit of the
person it resembles, and that that person will soon die. Hence a parent will
resent it if you say that the baby is like him or her.”301

Nowhere, perhaps, does the equivalence of the shadow to the life or soul
come out more clearly than in some customs practised to this day in south-

eastern Europe. In modern Greece, when the foundation of a new building
is being laid, it is the custom to kill a cock, a ram, or a lamb, and to let its
blood flow on the foundation-stone, under which the animal is afterwards
buried. The object of the sacrifice is to give strength and stability to the
e building. But sometimes, instead of killing an animal, the builder entices a
man to the foundation-stone, secretly measures his body, or a part of it, or
his shadow, and buries the measure under the foundation-stone; or he lays
the foundation-stone upon the man's shadow. It is believed that the man will
die within the year.302 In the island of Lesbos it is deemed enough if the
builder merely casts a stone at the shadow of a passer-by; the man whose
shadow is thus struck will die, but the building will be solid.303 A Bulgarian
mason measures the shadow of a man with a string, places the string in a
box, and then builds the box into the wall of the edifice. Within forty days
thereafter the man whose shadow was measured will be dead and his soul
will be in the box beside the string; but often it will come forth and appear
in its former shape to persons who were born on a Saturday. If a Bulgarian
builder cannot obtain a human shadow for this purpose, he will content
himself with measuring the shadow of the first animal that comes that
way.304 The Roumanians of Transylvania think that he whose shadow is thus
immured will die within forty days; so persons passing by a building which
is in course of erection may hear a warning cry, “Beware lest they take thy
shadow!” Not long ago there [pg 090] were still shadow-traders whose
business it was to provide architects with the shadows necessary for
securing their walls.305 In these cases the measure of the shadow is looked
on as equivalent to the shadow itself, and to bury it is to bury the life or soul
of the man, who, deprived of it, must die. Thus the custom is a substitute for
the old practice of immuring a living person in the walls, or crushing him
under the foundation-stone of a new building, in order to give strength and
durability to the structure, or more definitely in order that the angry ghost
may haunt the place and guard it against the intrusion of enemies. Thus
when a new gate was made or an old gate was repaired in the walls of
Bangkok, it used to be customary to crush three men to death under an
enormous beam in a pit at the gateway. Before they were led to their doom,
they were regaled at a splendid banquet; the whole court came to salute
them; and the king himself charged them straitly to guard well the gate that
was to be committed to their care, and to warn him if enemies or rebels
came to assault the city. The next moment the ropes were cut and the beam

descended on them. The Siamese believed that these unfortunates were
transformed into the genii which they called phi.306 It is said that when the
massive teak posts of the gateways of Mandalay were set up, a man was
bound and placed under each post and crushed to death. The Burmese
believe that men who die a violent death turn into nats or demons and haunt
the spot where they were killed, doing a mischief to such as attempt to
molest the place. Thus their spirits become guardians of the gates.307 This
theory would explain why such sacrifices appear to be offered most
commonly at thoroughfares, such as gates and bridges, where ghostly
warders may be deemed especially serviceable in keeping; watch on the
multitudes that go to and fro.308 In Bima, a [pg 091] district of the East
Indian island of Sambawa, the custom is marked by some peculiar features,
which deserve to be mentioned. When a new flag-pole is set up at the
sultan's palace a woman is crushed to death under it; but she must be
pregnant. If the destined victim should be brought to bed before her
execution, she goes free. The notion may be that the ghost of such a woman
would be more than usually fierce and vigilant. Again, when the wooden
doors are set up at the palace, it is customary to bury a child under each of
the door-posts. For these purposes officers are sent to scour the country for
a pregnant woman or little children, as the case may be, and if they come
back empty-handed they must give up their own wives or children to serve
as victims. When the gates are set up, the children are killed, their bodies
stript of flesh, and their bones laid in the holes in which the door-posts are
erected. Then the flesh is boiled with horse's flesh and served up to the
officers. Any officer who refuses to eat of it is at once cut down.309 The
intention of this last practice is perhaps to secure the fidelity of the officers
by compelling them to enter into a covenant of the most solemn and binding
nature with the ghosts of the murdered children who are to guard the gates.

The practice of burying the measure of a man's shadow, as a substitute for
the man himself, under the foundation-stone of a building may perhaps
throw light on the singular deity whom the people of Kisser, an East Indian
a island, [pg 092] choose to guard their houses and villages. The god in
question is nothing more or less than the measuring-tape which was used to
measure the foundations of the house or of the village temple. After it has
served this useful purpose, the tape is wound about a stick shaped like a
paddle, and is then deposited in the thatch of the roof of the house, where

food is offered to it on all special occasions. The deified measuring-tape of
the whole village is that which was used to measure the foundations of the
first house or of the village temple. The handle of the paddle-like stick on
which it is wound is carved into the figure of a person squatting in the usual
posture; and the whole is kept in a rough wooden box along with one or two
figures to act as its guards.310 It is possible, though perhaps hardly probable,
that these tapes may be thought to contain the souls of men whose shadows
they measured at the foundation ceremony.

As some peoples believe a man's soul to be in his shadow, so other (or the
same) peoples believe it to be in his reflection in water or a mirror. Thus
l “the Andamanese do not regard their shadows but their reflections (in any
mirror) as their souls.”311 According to one account, some of the Fijians
thought that man has two souls, a light one and a dark one; the dark one
e goes to Hades, the light one is his reflection in water or a mirror.312 When
the Motumotu of New Guinea first saw their likenesses in a looking-glass
they thought that their reflections were their souls.313 In New Caledonia the
e old men are of opinion that a person's reflection in water or a mirror is his
soul; but the younger men, [pg 093] taught by the Catholic priests, maintain
that it is a reflection and nothing more, just like the reflection of palm-trees
in the water.314 The reflection-soul, being external to the man, is exposed to
much the same dangers as the shadow-soul. Among the Galelareese, half-
grown lads and girls may not look at themselves in a mirror; for they say
that the mirror takes away their bloom and leaves them ugly.315 And as the
shadow may be stabbed, so may the reflection. Hence an Aztec mode of
keeping sorcerers from the house was to leave a vessel of water with a knife
in it behind the door. When a sorcerer entered he was so much alarmed at
seeing his reflection in the water transfixed by a knife that he turned and
fled.316 In Corrèze, a district of the Auvergne, a cow's milk had dried up
through the maleficent spells of a neighbouring witch, so a sorcerer was
called in to help. He made the woman whose cow was bewitched sit in front
of a pail of water with a knife in her hand till she thought she saw the image
of the witch in the water, whereupon he made her stab the image with the
knife. They say that if the knife strikes the image fair in the eye, the person
whose likeness it is will suffer a corresponding injury in his or her eye. This
procedure, we are informed, has been successful in restoring milk to the
udders of a cow when even holy water had been tried in vain.317 The Zulus

will not look into a dark pool because they think there is a beast in it which
will take away their reflections, so that they die.318 The Basutos say that
crocodiles have the power of thus killing a man by dragging his reflection
under water. When one of them dies suddenly and from no apparent cause,
his relatives will allege that a crocodile must have taken his shadow some
time when he crossed a stream.319 In Saddle Island, [pg 094] Melanesia,
there is a pool “into which if any one looks he dies; the malignant spirit
takes hold upon his life by means of his reflection on the water.”320

We can now understand why it was a maxim both in ancient India and
ancient Greece not to look at one's reflection in water, and why the Greeks
f regarded it as an omen of death if a man dreamed of seeing himself so
t reflected.321 They feared that the water-spirits would drag the person's
reflection or soul under water, leaving him soulless to perish. This was
probably the origin of the classical story of the beautiful Narcissus, who
languished and died through seeing his reflection in the water. The
explanation that he died for love of his own fair image was probably
devised later, after the old meaning of the story was forgotten. The same
ancient belief lingers, in a faded form, in the English superstition that
whoever sees a water fairy must pine and die.

“Alas, the moon should ever beam
To show what man should never see!—
I saw a maiden on a stream,
And fair was she!

I staid to watch, a little space,
Her parted lips if she would sing;
The waters closed above her face
With many a ring.

I know my life will fade away,
I know that I must vainly pine,
For I am made of mortal clay,
But she's divine!”

Further, we can now explain the widespread custom of covering up mirrors
or turning them to the wall after a death has taken place in the house. It is
r feared that the soul, projected out of the person in the shape of his reflection
in the mirror, may be carried off by the ghost of the departed, [pg 095]
which is commonly supposed to linger about the house till the burial. The
g custom is thus exactly parallel to the Aru custom of not sleeping in a house
after a death for fear that the soul, projected out of the body in a dream,
l may meet the ghost and be carried off by it.322 In Oldenburg it is thought
a that if a person sees his image in a mirror after a death he will die himself.
So all the mirrors in the house are covered up with white cloth.323 In some
parts of Germany and Belgium after a death not only the mirrors but
everything that shines or glitters (windows, clocks, etc.) is covered up,324
doubtless because they might reflect a person's image. The same custom of
covering up mirrors or turning them to the wall after a death prevails in
England, Scotland, Madagascar,325 and among the Karaits, a Jewish sect in
the Crimea.326 The Suni Mohammedans of Bombay cover with a cloth the
mirror in the room of a dying man and do not remove it until the corpse is
carried out for burial. They also cover the looking-glasses in their bedrooms
before retiring to rest at night.327 The reason why sick people should not see
themselves in a mirror, and why the mirror in a sick-room is therefore
covered up,328 is also plain; in time of sickness, when the soul might take
flight so easily, it is particularly dangerous to project it out of the body by
means of the reflection in a mirror. The rule is therefore precisely parallel to
the rule observed by some peoples of not allowing sick people to sleep;329
for in sleep the soul is projected out of the body, [pg 096] and there is
always a risk that it may not return. “In the opinion of the Raskolniks a
mirror is an accursed thing, invented by the devil,”330 perhaps on account of
the mirror's supposed power of drawing out the soul in the reflection and so
facilitating its capture.

As with shadows and reflections, so with portraits; they are often believed
to contain the soul of the person portrayed. People who hold this belief are
l naturally loth to have their likenesses taken; for if the portrait is the soul, or
at least a vital part of the person portrayed, whoever possesses the portrait
will be able to exercise a fatal influence over the original of it. Thus the
e Esquimaux of Bering Strait believe that persons dealing in witchcraft have
the power of stealing a person's inua or shade, so that without it he will pine

f away and die. Once at a village on the lower Yukon River an explorer had
e set up his camera to get a picture of the people as they were moving about
among their houses. While he was focusing the instrument, the headman of
d the village came up and insisted on peeping under the cloth. Being allowed
to do so, he gazed intently for a minute at the moving figures on the ground
glass, then suddenly withdrew his head and bawled at the top of his voice to
the people, “He has all of your shades in this box.” A panic ensued among
the group, and in an instant they disappeared helter-skelter into their
houses.331 The Dacotas hold that every man has several wanagi or
“apparitions,” of which after death one remains at the grave, while another
goes to the place of the departed. For many years no Yankton Dacota would
consent to have his picture taken lest one of his “apparitions” should remain
after death in the picture instead of going to the spirit-land.332 An Indian
whose portrait the Prince of Wied [pg 097] wished to get, refused to let
himself be drawn, because he believed it would cause his death.333 The
Mandan Indians also thought that they would soon die if their portraits were
in the hands of another; they wished at least to have the artist's picture as a
kind of hostage.334 The Tepehuanes of Mexico stood in mortal terror of the
camera, and five days' persuasion was necessary to induce them to pose for
it. When at last they consented, they looked like criminals about to be
executed. They believed that by photographing people the artist could carry
off their souls and devour them at his leisure moments. They said that when
the pictures reached his country they would die or some other evil would
befall them.335 The Canelos Indians of Ecuador think that their soul is
carried away in their picture. Two of them, who had been photographed,
were so alarmed that they came back next day on purpose to ask if it were
really true that their souls had been taken away.336 Similar notions are
entertained by the Aymara Indians of Peru and Bolivia.337 The Araucanians
of Chili are unwilling to have their portraits drawn, for they fancy that he
who has their portraits in his possession could, by means of magic, injure or
destroy themselves.338

The Yaos, a tribe of British Central Africa in the neighbourhood of Lake
Nyassa, believe that every human being has a lisoka, a soul, shade, or spirit,
e which they appear to associate with the shadow or picture of the person.
n Some of them have been known to refuse to enter a room where pictures
were hung on the walls, “because of the masoka, souls, in them.” The

camera was at first an object of dread to them, and when it was turned on a
group of natives they scattered in all directions with shrieks of terror. They
said that the European was about to take away their shadows and that they
would die; the transference of the shadow or portrait (for the Yao word for
the two is the same, to wit [pg 098] chiwilili) to the photographic plate
would involve the disease or death of the shadeless body. A Yao chief, after
much difficulty, allowed himself to be photographed on condition that the
picture should be shewn to none of his subjects, but sent out of the country
as soon as possible. He feared lest some ill-wisher might use it to bewitch
him. Some time afterwards he fell ill, and his attendants attributed the
illness to some accident which had befallen the photographic plate in
England.339 The Ngoni of the same region entertain a similar belief, and
formerly exhibited a similar dread of sitting to a photographer, lest by so
doing they should yield up their shades or spirits to him and they should
die.340 When Joseph Thomson attempted to photograph some of the Wa-teita
in eastern Africa, they imagined that he was a magician trying to obtain
possession of their souls, and that if he got their likenesses they themselves
would be entirely at his mercy.341 When Dr. Catat and some companions
were exploring the Bara country on the west coast of Madagascar, the
people suddenly became hostile. The day before the travellers, not without
difficulty, had photographed the royal family, and now found themselves
accused of taking the souls of the natives for the purpose of selling them
when they returned to France. Denial was vain; in compliance with the
custom of the country they were obliged to catch the souls, which were then
put into a basket and ordered by Dr. Catat to return to their respective
owners.342

Some villagers in Sikhim betrayed a lively horror and hid away whenever
the lens of a camera, or “the evil eye of the box” as they called it, was
e turned on them. They thought it took away their souls with their pictures,
n and so put it in the power of the owner of the pictures to cast spells on
d them, and they alleged that a photograph of the scenery blighted the
t landscape.343 Until the reign of the late King of Siam no Siamese coins were
ever stamped with the image [pg 099] of the king, “for at that time there
was a strong prejudice against the making of portraits in any medium.
Europeans who travel into the jungle have, even at the present time, only to
point a camera at a crowd to procure its instant dispersion. When a copy of

the face of a person is made and taken away from him, a portion of his life
goes with the picture. Unless the sovereign had been blessed with the years
of a Methusaleh he could scarcely have permitted his life to be distributed
in small pieces together with the coins of the realm.”344 Similarly, in Corea,
“the effigy of the king is not struck on the coins; only a few Chinese
characters are put on them. They would deem it an insult to the king to put
his sacred face on objects which pass into the most vulgar hands and often
roll on the ground in the dust or the mud. When the French ships arrived for
the first time in Corea, the mandarin who was sent on board to
communicate with them was dreadfully shocked to see the levity with
which these western barbarians treated the face of their sovereign,
reproduced on the coins, and the recklessness with which they put it in the
hands of the first comer, without troubling themselves in the least whether
or not he would shew it due respect.”345 In Minahassa, a district of Celebes,
many chiefs are reluctant to be photographed, believing that if that were
done they would soon die. For they imagine that, were the photograph lost
by its owner and found by somebody else, whatever injury the finder chose
to do to the portrait would equally affect the person whom it represented.346
Mortal terror was depicted on the faces of the Battas upon whom von
Brenner turned the lens of his camera; they thought he wished to carry off
their shadows or spirits in a little box.347 When Dr. Nieuwenhuis attempted
to photograph the Kayans or Bahaus of central Borneo, they were much
alarmed, fearing that their souls would follow their photographs [pg 100]
into the far country and that their deserted bodies would fall sick. Further,
they imagined that possessing their likenesses the explorer would be able by
magic art to work on the originals at a distance.348

Beliefs of the same sort still linger in various parts of Europe. Not very
many years ago some old women in the Greek island of Carpathus were
e very angry at having their likenesses drawn, thinking that in consequence
n they would pine and die.349 It is a German superstition that if you have your
portrait painted, you will die.350 Some people in Russia object to having
their silhouettes taken, fearing that if this is done they will die before the
year is out.351 In Albania Miss Durham sketched an old man who boasted of
being a hundred and ten years old. When every one recognised the likeness,
a look of great anxiety came over the patriarch's face, and most earnestly he
besought the artist never to destroy the sketch, for he was certain that the

moment the sketch was torn he would drop down dead.352 An artist in
England once vainly attempted to sketch a gypsy girl. “I won't have her
drawed out,” said the girl's aunt. “I told her I'd make her scrawl the earth
before me, if ever she let herself be drawed out again.” “Why, what harm
can there be?” “I know there's a fiz (a charm) in it. There was my youngest,
that the gorja drawed out on Newmarket Heath, she never held her head up
after, but wasted away, and died, and she's buried in March churchyard.”353
There are persons in the West of Scotland “who refuse to have their
likenesses taken lest it prove unlucky; and give as instances the cases of
several of their friends who never had a day's health after being
photographed.”354

[pg 101]

Chapter III. Tabooed Acts.

§ 1. Taboos on Intercourse with Strangers.

So much for the primitive conceptions of the soul and the dangers to which
it is exposed. These conceptions are not limited to one people or country;
with variations of detail they are found all over the world, and survive, as
we have seen, in modern Europe. Beliefs so deep-seated and so widespread
e must necessarily have contributed to shape the mould in which the early
kingship was cast. For if every person was at such pains to save his own
soul from the perils which threatened it on so many sides, how much more
carefully must he have been guarded upon whose life hung the welfare and
even the existence of the whole people, and whom therefore it was the
common interest of all to preserve? Therefore we should expect to find the
king's life protected by a system of precautions or safeguards still more
numerous and minute than those which in primitive society every man
e adopts for the safety of his own soul. Now in point of fact the life of the
early kings is regulated, as we have seen and shall see more fully presently,
e by a very exact code of rules. May we not then conjecture that these rules
r are in fact the very safeguards which we should expect to find adopted for
the protection of the king's life? An examination of the rules themselves
confirms this conjecture. For from this it appears that some of the rules
observed by the kings are identical with those observed by private persons
out of regard for the safety of their souls; and even of those which seem
peculiar to the king, many, if not all, are most readily [pg 102] explained on
the hypothesis that they are nothing but safeguards or lifeguards of the king.
I will now enumerate some of these royal rules or taboos, offering on each
of them such comments and explanations as may serve to set the original
intention of the rule in its proper light.

As the object of the royal taboos is to isolate the king from all sources of
danger, their general effect is to compel him to live in a state of seclusion,
more or less complete, according to the number and stringency of the rules
he observes. Now of all sources of danger none are more dreaded by the
f savage than magic and witchcraft, and he suspects all strangers of practising

these black arts. To guard against the baneful influence exerted voluntarily
or involuntarily by strangers is therefore an elementary dictate of savage
e prudence. Hence before strangers are allowed to enter a district, or at least
before they are permitted to mingle freely with the inhabitants, certain
ceremonies are often performed by the natives of the country for the
purpose of disarming the strangers of their magical powers, of
counteracting the baneful influence which is believed to emanate from
them, or of disinfecting, so to speak, the tainted atmosphere by which they
are supposed to be surrounded. Thus, when the ambassadors sent by Justin
e II., Emperor of the East, to conclude a peace with the Turks had reached
s their destination, they were received by shamans, who subjected them to a
ceremonial purification for the purpose of exorcising all harmful influence.
Having deposited the goods brought by the ambassadors in an open place,
e these wizards carried burning branches of incense round them, while they
rang a bell and beat on a tambourine, snorting and falling into a state of
frenzy in their efforts to dispel the powers of evil. Afterwards they purified
the ambassadors themselves by leading them through the flames.355 In the
island of Nanumea (South Pacific) strangers from ships or from other
islands were not allowed to communicate with the people until they all, or a
f few as representatives of the rest, had been taken to each of the four temples
in the [pg 103] island, and prayers offered that the god would avert any
disease or treachery which these strangers might have brought with them.
Meat offerings were also laid upon the altars, accompanied by songs and
dances in honour of the god. While these ceremonies were going on, all the
people except the priests and their attendants kept out of sight.356 On
returning from an attempted ascent of the great African mountain
Kilimanjaro, which is believed by the neighbouring tribes to be tenanted by
dangerous demons, Mr. New and his party, as soon as they reached the
border of the inhabited country, were disenchanted by the inhabitants, being
sprinkled with “a professionally prepared liquor, supposed to possess the
potency of neutralising evil influences, and removing the spell of wicked
spirits.”357 In the interior of Yoruba (West Africa) the sentinels at the gates
of towns often oblige European travellers to wait till nightfall before they
admit them, fearing that if the strangers were admitted by day the devil
would enter behind them.358 The whole Mahafaly country in Madagascar
used to be tabooed to strangers of the white race, the natives imagining that
the intrusion of a white man would immediately cause the death of their

king. The traveller Bastard had the greatest difficulty in overcoming the
reluctance of the natives to allow him to enter their land and especially to
visit their holy city.359 Amongst the Ot Danoms of Borneo it is the custom
that strangers entering the territory should pay to the natives a certain sum,
which is spent in the sacrifice of buffaloes or pigs to the spirits of the land
and water, in order to reconcile them to the presence of the strangers, and to
induce them not to withdraw their favour from the people of the country,
but to bless the rice-harvest, and so forth.360 The men of a certain district in
Borneo, fearing to look upon a European traveller lest he should make them
ill, warned their wives and children not [pg 104] to go near him. Those who
could not restrain their curiosity killed fowls to appease the evil spirits and
smeared themselves with the blood.361 “More dreaded,” says a traveller in
central Borneo, “than the evil spirits of the neighbourhood are the evil
spirits from a distance which accompany travellers. When a company from
the middle Mahakam river visited me among the Blu-u Kayans in the year
1897, no woman shewed herself outside her house without a burning bundle
of plehiding bark, the stinking smoke of which drives away evil spirits.”362
In Laos, before a stranger can be accorded hospitality, the master of the
house must offer sacrifice to the ancestral spirits; otherwise the spirits
would be offended and would send disease on the inmates.363 When
Madame Pfeiffer arrived at the village of Hali-Bonar, among the Battas of
Sumatra, a buffalo was killed and the liver offered to her. Then a ceremony
was performed to propitiate the evil spirits. Two young men danced, and
one of them in dancing sprinkled water from a buffalo's horn on the visitor
and the spectators.364 In the Mentawei Islands, when a stranger enters a
house where there are children, the father or other member of the family
takes the ornament which the children wear in their hair and hands it to the
stranger, who holds it in his hands for a while and then gives it back to him.
This is thought to protect the children from the evil effect which the sight of
a stranger might have upon them.365 When a Dutch steamship was
approaching their villages, the people of Biak, an island off the north coast
of New Guinea, shook and knocked their idols about in order to ward off
ill-luck.366 At Shepherd's Isle Captain Moresby had to be disenchanted
before he was allowed to land his boat's crew. When he leaped ashore, a
devil-man seized his right hand and waved a bunch of palm leaves over the
captain's head. Then “he placed the leaves in my left hand, putting a small
green twig into his mouth, still [pg 105] holding me fast, and then, as if

with great effort, drew the twig from his mouth—this was extracting the
evil spirit—after which he blew violently, as if to speed it away. I now held
a twig between my teeth, and he went through the same process.” Then the
two raced round a couple of sticks fixed in the ground and bent to an angle
at the top, which had leaves tied to it. After some more ceremonies the
devil-man concluded by leaping to the level of Captain Moresby's shoulders
(his hands resting on the captain's shoulders) several times, “as if to show
that he had conquered the devil, and was now trampling him into the
earth.”367 North American Indians “have an idea that strangers, particularly
white strangers, are ofttimes accompanied by evil spirits. Of these they have
great dread, as creating and delighting in mischief. One of the duties of the
medicine chief is to exorcise these spirits. I have sometimes ridden into or
through a camp where I was unknown or unexpected, to be confronted by a
tall, half-naked savage, standing in the middle of the circle of lodges, and
yelling in a sing-song, nasal tone, a string of unintelligible words.”368

When Crevaux was travelling in South America he entered a village of the
Apalai Indians. A few moments after his arrival some of the Indians brought
him a number of large black ants, of a species whose bite is painful,
fastened on palm leaves. Then all the people of the village, without
y distinction of age or sex, presented themselves to him, and he had to sting
f them all with the ants on their faces, thighs, and other parts of their bodies.
Sometimes when he applied the ants too tenderly they called out “More!
d more!” and were not satisfied till their skin was thickly studded with tiny
swellings like what might have been produced by whipping them with
nettles.369 The object of this ceremony is made plain by the custom observed
in Amboyna and Uliase of sprinkling sick people with pungent spices, such
as ginger and cloves, chewed fine, in order by the prickling sensation to
y drive away the demon of disease [pg 106] which may be clinging to their
h persons.370 In Java a popular cure for gout or rheumatism is to rub Spanish
pepper into the nails of the fingers and toes of the sufferer; the pungency of
the pepper is supposed to be too much for the gout or rheumatism, who
accordingly departs in haste.371 So on the Slave Coast of Africa the mother
of a sick child sometimes believes that an evil spirit has taken possession of
the child's body, and in order to drive him out, she makes small cuts in the
body of the little sufferer and inserts green peppers or spices in the wounds,
believing that she will thereby hurt the evil spirit and force him to be gone.

The poor child naturally screams with pain, but the mother hardens her
heart in the belief that the demon is suffering equally.372 In Hawaii a patient
is sometimes pricked with bamboo needles for the sake of hurting and
expelling a refractory demon who is lurking in the sufferer's body and
making him ill.373 Dyak sorceresses in south-eastern Borneo will sometimes
slash the body of a sick man with sharp knives in order, it is said, to allow
the demon of disease to escape through the cuts;374 but perhaps the notion
rather is to make the present quarters of the spirit too hot for him. With a
similar intention some of the natives of Borneo and Celebes sprinkle rice
upon the head or body of a person supposed to be infested by dangerous
spirits; a fowl is then brought, which, by picking up the rice from the
person's head or body, removes along with it the spirit or ghost which is
clinging like a burr to his skin. This is done, for example, to persons who
have attended a funeral, and who may therefore be supposed to be infested
by the ghost [pg 107] of the deceased.375 Similarly Basutos, who have
carried a corpse to the grave, have their hands scratched with a knife from
the tip of the thumb to the tip of the forefinger, and magic stuff is rubbed
into the wound,376 for the purpose, no doubt, of removing the ghost which
may be adhering to their skin. Among the Barotse of south-eastern Africa a
few days after a funeral the sorcerer makes an incision in the forehead of
each surviving member of the family and fills it with medicine, “in order to
ward off contagion and the effect of the sorcery which caused the death.”377
When elephant-hunters in East Africa have killed an elephant they get upon
its carcase, make little cuts in their toes, and rub gunpowder into the cuts.
This is done with the double intention of counteracting any evil influence
that may emanate from the dead elephant, and of acquiring thereby the
fleetness of foot possessed by the animal in its life.378 The people of Nias
carefully scrub and scour the weapons and clothes which they buy, in order
to efface all connexion between the things and the persons from whom they
bought them.379

It is probable that the same dread of strangers, rather than any desire to do
them honour, is the motive of certain ceremonies which are sometimes
observed at their reception, but of which the intention is not directly stated.
d In the Ongtong Java Islands, which are inhabited by Polynesians, and lie a
e little to the north of the Solomon Islands, the priests or sorcerers seem to
wield great influence. Their main business is to summon or exorcise spirits

for the purpose of averting or dispelling sickness, and of procuring
favourable winds, a good catch of fish, and so on. When strangers land on
the islands, they are first of all received by the sorcerers, sprinkled with
water, anointed with oil, and girt [pg 108] with dried pandanus leaves. At
the same time sand and water are freely thrown about in all directions, and
the newcomer and his boat are wiped with green leaves. After this
ceremony the strangers are introduced by the sorcerers to the chief.380 In
Afghanistan and in some parts of Persia the traveller, before he enters a
village, is frequently received with a sacrifice of animal life or food, or of
fire and incense. The Afghan Boundary Mission, in passing by villages in
Afghanistan, was often met with fire and incense.381 Sometimes a tray of
lighted embers is thrown under the hoofs of the traveller's horse, with the
words, “You are welcome.”382 On entering a village in central Africa Emin
Pasha was received with the sacrifice of two goats; their blood was
sprinkled on the path and the chief stepped over the blood to greet Emin.383
Before strangers entered the country or city of Benin, custom compelled
them to have their feet washed; sometimes the ceremony was performed in
a sacred place.384 Amongst the Esquimaux of Cumberland Inlet, when a
stranger arrives at an encampment, the sorcerer goes out to meet him. The
stranger folds his arms and inclines his head to one side, so as to expose his
cheek, upon which the magician deals a terrible blow, sometimes felling
him to the ground. Next the sorcerer in his turn presents his cheek to the
smiter and receives a buffet from the stranger. Then they kiss each other, the
ceremony is over, and the stranger is hospitably received by all.385
Sometimes the dread of strangers and their magic is too great to allow of
their reception on any terms. Thus when Speke arrived at a certain village,
the natives shut their doors against him, “because they had never before
seen a white man nor the tin boxes that the men were carrying: [pg 109]
‘Who knows,’ they said, ‘but that these very boxes are the plundering
Watuta transformed and come to kill us? You cannot be admitted.’ No
persuasion could avail with them, and the party had to proceed to the next
village.”386

The fear thus entertained of alien visitors is often mutual. Entering a strange
land the savage feels that he is treading enchanted ground, and he takes
steps to guard against the demons that haunt it and the magical arts of its
d inhabitants. Thus on going to a strange land the Maoris performed certain

g ceremonies to make it noa (common), lest it might have been previously
387
e tapu (sacred). When Baron Miklucho-Maclay was approaching a village
on the Maclay Coast of New Guinea, one of the natives who accompanied
him broke a branch from a tree and going aside whispered to it for a while;
then stepping up to each member of the party, one after another, he spat
something upon his back and gave him some blows with the branch. Lastly,
t he went into the forest and buried the branch under withered leaves in the
a thickest part of the jungle. This ceremony was believed to protect the party
against all treachery and danger in the village they were approaching.388 The
idea probably was that the malignant influences were drawn off from the
persons into the branch and buried with it in the depths of the forest. Before
Stuhlmann and his companions entered the territory of the Wanyamwesi in
central Africa, one of his men killed a white cock and buried it in a pot just
389
l at the boundary. In Australia, when a strange tribe has been invited into a
district and is approaching the encampment of the tribe which owns the
land, “the strangers carry lighted bark or burning sticks in their hands, for
the purpose, they say, of clearing and purifying the air.”390 On the coast of
Victoria there is a tract of country between the La Trobe River and the Yarra
River, which some of the aborigines called the Bad Country. It was
supposed to act injuriously [pg 110] on strangers. Hence when a man of
another clan entered it he needed some one of the natives to look after him;
and if his guardian went away from the camp, he deputed another to take
his place. During his first visit, before he became as it were acclimatised,
the visitor did nothing for himself as to food, drinking-water, or lodging. He
was painted with a band of white pipe-clay across the face below the eyes,
and had to learn the Nulit language before going further. He slept on a thick
layer of leaves so that he should not touch the ground; and he was fed with
flesh-meat from the point of a burnt stick, which he removed with his teeth,
not with his lips. His drinking-water was drawn from a small hole in the
ground by his entertainers, and they made it muddy by stirring it with a
stick. He might only take three mouthfuls at a time, each of which he had to
let slowly trickle down his throat. If he did otherwise, his throat would close
up.391 The Kayans and Kenyahs of Borneo think it well to conciliate the
spirit of the land when they enter a strange country. “The old men, indeed,
trusting to the protection afforded by omens, are in little need of further aid,
but when young boys are brought into a new river of importance, the
hospitality of the local demons is invoked. The Kayans make an offering of

fowls' eggs, which must not be bought on the spot, but are carried from the
house, sometimes for distances so long that the devotion of the travellers is
more apparent than their presents to the spirits of the land. Each boy takes
an egg and puts it in a bamboo split at the end into four, while one of the
older men calls upon the hills, rocks, trees, and streams to hear him and to
witness the offering. Careful to disguise the true nature of the gift, he
speaks of it as ovē, a yam, using a form of words fixed by usage. ‘Omen
bird,’ he shouts into the air, ‘we have brought you these boys. It is on their
account only that we have prepared this feast. Harm them not; make things
go pleasantly; and they give you the usual offering of a yam. I give this to
the country.’ The little ceremony is performed behind the hut where the
night is spent, and the boys wait about for the charm to take effect. The
custom of the Kenyahs shows the same [pg 111] feeling for the unknown
and unseen spirits that are supposed to abound. A fowl's feathers, one for
each boy, are held by an old man, while the youngsters touch his arm. The
invocation is quite a powerful example of native rhetoric: ‘Smooth away
trouble, ye mystic mountains, hills, valleys, soil, rocks, trees. Shield the
lives of the children who have come hither.’ ”392 When the Toradjas of
central Celebes are on a head-hunting expedition and have entered the
enemy's country, they may not eat any fruits which the foe has planted nor
any animal which he has reared until they have first committed an act of
hostility, as by burning a house or killing a man. They think that if they
broke this rule they would receive something of the soul or spiritual essence
of the enemy into themselves, which would destroy the mystic virtue of
their talismans.393 It is said that just before Greek armies advanced to the
shock of battle, a man bearing a lighted torch stepped out from either side
and threw his torch into the space between the hosts. Then they retired
unmolested, for they were thought to be sacred to Ares and inviolable.394
Now some peoples fancy that when they advance to battle the spirits of
their fathers hover in the van.395 Hence fire thrown out in front of the line of
battle may be meant to disperse these shadowy combatants, leaving the
issue of the fight to be determined by more substantial weapons than ghosts
can wield. Similarly the fire which is sometimes borne at the head of an
army396 is perhaps in some cases intended to dissipate the evil influences,
whether magical or spiritual, with which the air of the enemy's country may
be conceived to teem.

Again, it is thought that a man who has been on a journey may have
contracted some magic evil from the strangers with whom he has been
brought into contact. Hence, on returning home, before he is readmitted to
the [pg 112] society of his tribe and friends, he has to undergo certain
purificatory ceremonies. Thus the Bechuanas “cleanse or purify themselves
d after journeys by shaving their heads, etc., lest they should have contracted
e from strangers some evil by witchcraft or sorcery.”397 In some parts of
western Africa when a man returns home after a long absence, before he is
a allowed to visit his wife, he must wash his person with a particular fluid,
and receive from the sorcerer a certain mark on his forehead, in order to
counteract any magic spell which a stranger woman may have cast on him
in his absence, and which might be communicated through him to the
women of his village.398 Every year about one-third of the men of the
Wanyamwesi tribe make journeys to the east coast of Africa either as
porters or as traffickers. Before he sets out, the husband smears his cheeks
with a sort of meal-porridge, and during his absence his wife may eat no
flesh and must keep for him the sediment of the porridge in the pot. On
their return from the coast the men sprinkle meal every day on all the paths
leading to the camp, for the purpose, it is supposed, of keeping evil spirits
off; and when they reach their homes the men again smear porridge on their
faces, while the women who have stayed at home strew ashes on their
heads.399 In Uganda, when a man returns from a journey, his wife takes
some of the bark cloths from the bed of one of his children and lays them
on her husband's bed; and as he enters the house, he jumps over one of his
wives who has children by him, or over one of his children. If he neglects to
do this, one of his children or one of his wives will die.400 When Damaras
return home after a long absence, they are given a small portion of the fat of
particular animals, which is supposed to possess certain virtues.401 A story is
told of a Navajo Indian who, after long wanderings, returned to his own
people. When he came within sight of his house, his people [pg 113] made
him stop and told him not to approach nearer till they had summoned a
shaman. When the shaman was come “ceremonies were performed over the
returned wanderer, and he was washed from head to foot, and dried with
corn-meal; for thus do the Navajo treat all who return to their homes from
captivity with another tribe, in order that all alien substances and influences
may be removed from them. When he had been thus purified he entered the
house, and his people embraced him and wept over him.”402 Two Hindoo

ambassadors, who had been sent to England by a native prince and had
returned to India, were considered to have so polluted themselves by
contact with strangers that nothing but being born again could restore them
to purity. “For the purpose of regeneration it is directed to make an image of
pure gold of the female power of nature, in the shape either of a woman or
of a cow. In this statue the person to be regenerated is enclosed, and
dragged through the usual channel. As a statue of pure gold and of proper
dimensions would be too expensive, it is sufficient to make an image of the
sacred Yoni, through which the person to be regenerated is to pass.” Such an
image of pure gold was made at the prince's command, and his ambassadors
were born again by being dragged through it.403 In some of the Moluccas,
when a brother or young blood-relation returns from a long journey, a
young girl awaits him at the door with a caladi leaf in her hand and water in
the leaf. She throws the water over his face and bids him welcome.404
Among the Kayans of Borneo, men who have been absent on a long
journey are secluded for four days in a small hut made specially for the
purpose before they are allowed to enter their own house.405 The natives of
Savage Island (South Pacific) invariably killed, not only all strangers in
distress who were drifted to their shores, but also any of their own people
who had gone away in a ship and returned home. This was done out of
dread of disease. Long after they began to venture out to ships they [pg 114]
would not immediately use the things they obtained from them, but hung
them up in quarantine for weeks in the bush.406

When precautions like these are taken on behalf of the people in general
against the malignant influence supposed to be exercised by strangers, it is
no wonder that special measures are adopted to protect the king from the
same insidious danger. In the middle ages the envoys who visited a Tartar
Khan were obliged to pass between two fires before they were admitted to
e 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
e magic influence which the strangers might mean to exercise over the
f Khan.407 When subject chiefs come with their retinues to visit Kalamba (the
most powerful chief of the Bashilange in the Congo Basin) for the first time
or after being rebellious, they have to bathe, men and women together, in
two brooks on two successive days, passing the nights under the open sky
in the market-place. After the second bath they proceed, entirely naked, to

the house of Kalamba, who makes a long white mark on the breast and
forehead of each of them. Then they return to the market-place and dress,
after which they undergo the pepper ordeal. Pepper is dropped into the eyes
of each of them, and while this is being done the sufferer has to make a
confession of all his sins, to answer all questions that may be put to him,
and to take certain vows. This ends the ceremony, and the strangers are now
free to take up their quarters in the town for as long as they choose to
remain.408 Before strangers were admitted to the presence of Lobengula,
king of the Matebeles, they had to be treated with a sticky green medicine,
which was profusely sprinkled over them by means of a cow's tail.409 At
Kilema, in [pg 115] eastern Africa, when a stranger arrives, a medicine is
made out of a certain plant or a tree fetched from a distance, mixed with the
blood of a sheep or goat. With this mixture the stranger is besmeared or
besprinkled before he is admitted to the presence of the king.410 The king of
Monomotapa, in South-East Africa, might not wear any foreign stuffs for
fear of their being poisoned.411 The king of Cacongo, in West Africa, might
not possess or even touch European goods, except metals, arms, and articles
made of wood and ivory. Persons wearing foreign stuffs were very careful
to keep at a distance from his person, lest they should touch him.412 The
king of Loango might not look upon the house of a white man.413 We have
already seen how the native king of Fernando Po dwells secluded from all
contact with the whites in the depths of an extinct volcano, shunning the
very sight of a pale face, which, in the belief of his subjects, would be
instantly fatal to him.414 In a wild mountainous district of Java, to the south
of Bantam, there exists a small aboriginal race who have been described as
a living antiquity. These are the Baduwis, who about the year 1443 fled
from Bantam to escape conversion to Islam, and in their mountain
fastnesses, holding aloof from their neighbours, still cleave to the quaint
and primitive ways of their heathen forefathers. Their villages are perched
in spots which deep ravines, lofty precipices, raging torrents, and
impenetrable forests combine to render almost inaccessible. Their
hereditary ruler bears the title of Girang-Pu-un and unites in his hands the
temporal and spiritual power. He must never quit the capital, and none even
of his subjects who live outside the town are ever allowed to see him. Were
an alien to set foot in his dwelling, the place would be desecrated and
abandoned. In former times the representatives of the Dutch Government

and the Regent of Java [pg 116] once paid a visit to the capital of the
Baduwis. That very night all the people fled the place and never returned.415

§ 2. Taboos on Eating and Drinking.

In the opinion of savages the acts of eating and drinking are attended with
special danger; for at these times the soul may escape from the mouth, or be
extracted by the magic arts of an enemy present. Among the Ewe-speaking
f peoples of the Slave Coast “the common belief seems to be that the
d indwelling spirit leaves the body and returns to it through the mouth; hence,
should it have gone out, it behoves a man to be careful about opening his
mouth, lest a homeless spirit should take advantage of the opportunity and
enter his body. This, it appears, is considered most likely to take place while
n the man is eating.”416 Precautions are therefore taken to guard against these
dangers. Thus of the Battas of Sumatra it is said that “since the soul can
leave the body, they always take care to prevent their soul from straying on
occasions when they have most need of it. But it is only possible to prevent
the soul from straying when one is in the house. At feasts one may find the
whole house shut up, in order that the soul (tondi) may stay and enjoy the
good things set before it.”417 The Zafimanelo in Madagascar lock their doors
when they eat, and hardly any one ever sees them eating.418 In Shoa, one of
the southern provinces of Abyssinia, the doors of the house are scrupulously
barred at meals to exclude the evil eye, and a fire is invariably lighted, else
devils would enter and there would be no blessing on the meat.419 Every
time that an Abyssinian of rank drinks, a servant holds a cloth before his
master to [pg 117] guard him from the evil eye.420 The Warua will not allow
any one to see them eating and drinking, being doubly particular that no
person of the opposite sex shall see them doing so. “I had to pay a man to
let me see him drink; I could not make a man let a woman see him drink.”
When offered a drink of pombe they often ask that a cloth may be held up to
hide them whilst drinking. Further, every man and woman must cook for
themselves; each person must have his own fire.421 The Tuaregs of the
Sahara never eat or drink in presence of any one else.422 The Thompson
Indians of British Columbia thought that a shaman could bewitch them
most easily when they were eating, drinking, or smoking; hence they
avoided doing any of these things in presence of an unknown shaman.423 In

Fiji persons who suspected others of plotting against them avoided eating in
their presence, or were careful to leave no fragment of food behind.424

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
t 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.... [pg 118] His eating is much in the same style,
for which he has a house on purpose, where his victuals are set upon a
bensa or table: which he goes to, and shuts the door: when he has done, he
knocks and comes out. So that none ever see the king eat or drink. For it is
believed that if any one should, the king shall immediately die.” The
remnants of his food are buried, doubtless to prevent them from falling into
the hands of sorcerers, who by means of these fragments might cast a fatal
spell over the monarch.425 The rules observed by the neighbouring king of
Cacongo were similar; it was thought that the king would die if any of his
subjects were to see him drink.426 It is a capital offence to see the king of
Dahomey at his meals. When he drinks in public, as he does on
extraordinary occasions, he hides himself behind a curtain, or handkerchiefs
are held up round his head, and all the people throw themselves with their
faces to the earth.427 Any one who saw the Muata Jamwo (a great potentate
in the Congo Basin) eating or drinking would certainly be put to death.428
When the king (Muata) of Cazembe raises his glass to his mouth to drink,
all who are present prostrate themselves and avert their faces in such a
manner as not to see him drinking.429 At Asaba, on the Lower Niger, where
the kings or chiefs number fully four hundred, no one is allowed to prepare
the royal dishes. The chiefs act as their own cooks and eat in the strictest
privacy.430 The king and royal family of Walo, on the Senegal, never take
their meals in public; it is expressly forbidden to see them eating.431 Among

the Monbutto of central Africa the king invariably takes his meals in [pg
119] private; no one may see the contents of his dish, and all that he leaves
is carefully thrown into a pit set apart for that purpose. Everything that the
king has handled is held sacred and may not be touched.432 When the king
of Unyoro in central Africa went to drink milk in the dairy, every man must
leave the royal enclosure and all the women had to cover their heads till the
king returned. No one might see him drink. One wife accompanied him to
the dairy and handed him the milk-pot, but she turned away her face while
he drained it.433 The king of Susa, a region to the south of Abyssinia,
presides daily at the feast in the long banqueting-hall, but is hidden from the
gaze of his subjects by a curtain.434 Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the
Slave Coast the person of the king is sacred, and if he drinks in public every
one must turn away the head so as not to see him, while some of the women
of the court hold up a cloth before him as a screen. He never eats in public,
and the people pretend to believe that he neither eats nor sleeps. It is
criminal to say the contrary.435 When the king of Tonga ate, all the people
turned their backs to him.436 In the palace of the Persian kings there were
two dining-rooms opposite each other; in one of them the king dined, in the
other his guests. He could see them through a curtain on the door, but they
could not see him. Generally the king took his meals alone; but sometimes
his wife or some of his sons dined with him.437

[pg 120]

§ 3. Taboos on shewing the Face.

In some of the preceding cases the intention of eating and drinking in strict
seclusion may perhaps be to hinder evil influences from entering the body
rather than to prevent the escape of the soul. This certainly is the motive of
some drinking customs observed by natives of the Congo region. Thus we
l are told of these people that “there is hardly a native who would dare to
swallow a liquid without first conjuring the spirits. One of them rings a bell
t all the time he is drinking; another crouches down and places his left hand
n on the earth; another veils his head; another puts a stalk of grass or a leaf in
r his hair, or marks his forehead with a line of clay. This fetish custom
assumes very varied forms. To explain them, the black is satisfied to say
that they are an energetic mode of conjuring spirits.” In this part of the
world a chief will commonly ring a bell at each draught of beer which he
swallows, and at the same moment a lad stationed in front of him
brandishes a spear “to keep at bay the spirits which might try to sneak into
the old chief's body by the same road as the massanga (beer).”438 The same
motive of warding off evil spirits probably explains the custom observed by
some African sultans of veiling their faces. The Sultan of Darfur wraps up
his face with a piece of white muslin, which goes round his head several
times, covering his mouth and nose first, and then his forehead, so that only
his eyes are visible. The same custom of veiling the face as a mark of
sovereignty is said to be observed in other parts of central Africa.439 The
Sultan of Wadai always speaks from behind a curtain; no one sees his face
except his intimates and a few favoured persons.440 Similarly the Sultan of
Bornu never shewed himself to his people and [pg 121] only spoke to them
from behind a curtain.441 The king of Chonga, a town on the right bank of
the Niger above Egga, may not be seen by his subjects nor by strangers. At
an interview he sits in his palace concealed by a mat which hangs like a
curtain, and from behind it he converses with his visitor.442 The Muysca
Indians of Colombia had such a respect for their chiefs that they dared not
lift their eyes on them, but always turned their backs when they had to
address them. If a thief, after repeated punishments, proved incorrigible,

they took him to the chief, and one of the nobles, turning the culprit round,
said to him, “Since you think yourself so great a lord that you have the right
to break the laws, you have the right to look at the chief.” From that
moment the criminal was regarded as infamous. Nobody would have
anything to do with him or even speak to him, and he died an outcast.443
Montezuma was revered by his subjects as a god, and he set so much store
on their reverence that if on going out of the city he saw a man lift up his
eyes on him, he had the rash gazer put to death. He generally lived in the
retirement of his palace, seldom shewing himself. On the days when he
went to visit his gardens, he was carried in a litter through a street which
was enclosed by walls; none but his bearers had the right to pass along that
street.444 It was a law of the Medes that their king should be seen by
nobody.445 The king of Jebu, on the Slave Coast of West Africa, is
surrounded by a great deal of mystery. Until lately his face might not be
seen even by his own subjects, and if circumstances compelled him to
communicate with them he did so through a screen which concealed him
from view. Now, though his face may be seen, it is customary to hide his
body; and at audiences a cloth is held before him so as to conceal him from
the neck downwards, and it is raised so as to cover him altogether whenever
he coughs, sneezes, spits, or takes snuff. His face [pg 122] is partially
hidden by a conical cap with hanging strings of beads.446 Amongst the
Tuaregs of the Sahara all the men (but not the women) keep the lower part
of their face, especially the mouth, veiled constantly; the veil is never put
off, not even in eating or sleeping.447 Among the Arabs men remarkable for
their good looks have been known to veil their faces, especially at festivals
and markets, in order to protect themselves against the evil eye.448 The same
reason may explain the custom of muffling their faces which has been
observed by Arab women from the earliest times449 and by the women of
Boeotian Thebes in antiquity.450 In Samoa a man whose family god was the
turtle might not eat a turtle, and if he helped a neighbour to cut up and cook
one he had to wear a bandage tied over his mouth lest an embryo turtle
should slip down his throat, grow up, and be his death.451 In West Timor a
speaker holds his right hand before his mouth in speaking lest a demon
should enter his body, and lest the person with whom he converses should
harm the speaker's soul by magic.452 In New South Wales for some time
after his initiation into the tribal mysteries, a young blackfellow (whose
soul at this time is in a critical state) must always cover his mouth with a

rug when a woman is present.453 We have already seen how common is the
notion that the life or soul may escape by the mouth or nostrils.454

§ 4. Taboos on quitting the House.

By an extension of the like precaution kings are sometimes forbidden ever
to leave their palaces; or, if they are [pg 123] 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,
e in which he is obliged to sleep sitting; and that the king of Fernando Po,
whom no white man may see, is reported to be confined to his house with
r shackles on his legs.455 The fetish king of Benin, who was worshipped as a
n deity by his subjects, might not quit his palace.456 After his coronation the
y king of Loango is confined to his palace, which he may not leave.457 The
king of Onitsha, on the Niger, “does not step out of his house into the town
unless a human sacrifice is made to propitiate the gods: on this account he
never goes out beyond the precincts of his premises.”458 Indeed we are told
that he may not quit his palace under pain of death or of giving up one or
more slaves to be executed in his presence. As the wealth of the country is
measured in slaves, the king takes good care not to infringe the law. One
day the monarch, charmed by some presents which he had received from a
French officer, politely attended his visitor to the gate, and in a moment of
forgetfulness was about to break bounds, when his chamberlain, seizing his
majesty by his legs, and his wives, friends, and servants rushing up,
prevented him from taking so fatal a step. Yet once a year at the Feast of
Yams the king is allowed, and even required by custom, to dance before his
people outside the high mud wall of the palace. In dancing he carries a great
weight, generally a sack of earth, on his back to prove that he is still able to
support the burden and cares of state. Were he unable to discharge this duty,
he would be immediately deposed and perhaps stoned.459 The [pg 124]
Tomas or Habes, a hardy race of mountaineers who inhabit Mount
Bandiagara in Nigeria, revere a great fetish doctor called the Ogom, who is
not suffered to quit his house on any pretext.460 Among the natives of the
Cross River in Southern Nigeria the sacred chiefs of certain villages are
confined to their compounds, that is, to the enclosures in which their houses
are built. Such chiefs may be confined for years within these narrow

bounds. “Among these primitive people, the head chief is often looked upon
as half divine, the human representative of their ancestral god. He regulates
their religious rites, and is by some tribes believed to have the power of
making rain fall when they require it, and of bringing them good harvests.
So, being of such value to the community, he is not permitted, except on
very rare occasions, to go outside his compound, lest evil should befall him,
and the whole town have to suffer.”461 The kings of Ethiopia were
worshipped as gods, but were mostly kept shut up in their palaces.462 On the
mountainous coast of Pontus there dwelt in antiquity a rude and warlike
people named the Mosyni or Mosynoeci, through whose rugged country the
Ten Thousand marched on their famous retreat from Asia to Europe. These
barbarians kept their king in close custody at the top of a high tower, from
which after his election he was never more allowed to descend. Here he
dispensed justice to his people; but if he offended them, they punished him
by stopping his rations for a whole day, or even starving him to death.463
The kings of Sabaea or Sheba, the spice country of Arabia, were not
allowed to go out of their palaces; if they did so, the mob stoned them to
death.464 But at the top of [pg 125] the palace there was a window with a
chain attached to it. If any man deemed he had suffered wrong, he pulled
the chain, and the king perceived him and called him in and gave
judgment.465 So down to recent times the kings of Corea, whose persons
were sacred and received “honours almost divine,” were shut up in their
palace from the age of twelve or fifteen; and if a suitor wished to obtain
justice of the king he sometimes lit a great bonfire on a mountain facing the
palace; the king saw the fire and informed himself of the case.466 The
Emperor of China seldom quits his palace, and when he does so, no one
may look at him; even the guards who line the road must turn their backs.467
The king of Tonquin was permitted to appear abroad twice or thrice a year
for the performance of certain religious ceremonies; but the people were not
allowed to look at him. The day before he came forth notice was given to all
the inhabitants of the city and country to keep from the way the king was to
go; the women were obliged to remain in their houses and durst not shew
themselves under pain of death, a penalty which was carried out on the spot
if any one disobeyed the order, even through ignorance. Thus the king was
invisible to all but his troops and the officers of his suite.468 In Mandalay a
stout lattice-paling, six feet high and carefully kept in repair, lined every
street in the walled [pg 126] city and all those streets in the suburbs through

which the king was likely at any time to pass. Behind this paling, which
stood two feet or so from the houses, all the people had to stay when the
king or any of the queens went out. Any one who was caught outside it by
the beadles after the procession had started was severely handled, and might
think himself lucky if he got off with a beating. Nobody was supposed to
peep through the holes in the lattice-work, which were besides partly
stopped up with flowering shrubs.469

§ 5. Taboos on leaving Food over.

Again, magic mischief may be wrought upon a man through the remains of
the food he has partaken of, or the dishes out of which he has eaten. On the
principles of sympathetic magic a real connexion continues to subsist
e between the food which a man has in his stomach and the refuse of it which
n he has left untouched, and hence by injuring the refuse you can
simultaneously injure the eater. Among the Narrinyeri of South Australia
every adult is constantly on the look-out for bones of beasts, birds, or fish,
f of which the flesh has been eaten by somebody, in order to construct a
r deadly charm out of them. Every one is therefore careful to burn the bones
s of the animals which he has eaten lest they should fall into the hands of a
s sorcerer. Too often, however, the sorcerer succeeds in getting hold of such a
t bone, and when he does so he believes that he has the power of life and
death over the man, woman, or child who ate the flesh of the animal. To put
the charm in operation he makes a paste of red ochre and fish oil, inserts in
f it the eye of a cod and a small piece of the flesh of a corpse, and having
rolled the compound into a ball sticks it on the top of the bone. After being
left for some time in the bosom of a dead body, in order that it may derive a
h deadly potency by contact with corruption, the magical implement is set up
in the ground near the fire, and as the ball melts, so the person against
whom the charm is directed wastes with disease; if the ball is melted quite
away, the victim will die. [pg 127] When the bewitched man learns of the
spell that is being cast upon him, he endeavours to buy the bone from the
sorcerer, and if he obtains it he breaks the charm by throwing the bone into
a river or lake.470 Further, the Narrinyeri think that if a man eats of the totem
animal of his tribe, and an enemy obtains a portion of the flesh, the latter
can make it grow in the inside of the eater, and so cause his death.
Therefore when a man partakes of his totem he is careful either to eat it all
or else to conceal or destroy the refuse.471 In the Encounter Bay tribe of
South Australia, when a man cannot get the bone of an animal which his
enemy has eaten, he cooks a bird, beast, or fish, and keeping back one of
the creature's bones, offers the rest under the guise of friendship to his

enemy. If the man is simple enough to partake of the proffered food, he is at
the mercy of his perfidious foe, who can kill him by placing the abstracted
bone near the fire.472

Ideas and practices of the same sort prevail, or used to prevail, in
Melanesia; all that was needed to injure a man was to bring the leavings of
d his food into contact with a malignant ghost or spirit. Hence in the island of
Florida when a scrap of an enemy's dinner was secreted and thrown into a
e haunted place, the man was supposed to fall ill; and in the New Hebrides if
f a snake of a certain sort carried away a fragment of food to a spot sacred to
n a spirit, the man who had eaten the food would sicken as the fragment
decayed. In Aurora the refuse is made up by the wizard with certain leaves;
w as these rot and stink, the man dies. Hence it is, or was, a constant care with
the Melanesians to prevent the remains of their meals from falling into the
hands of persons who bore them a grudge; for this reason they regularly
gave the refuse of food to the pigs.473 In Tana, one of the New Hebrides,
people bury [pg 128] or throw into the sea the leavings of their food, lest
these should fall into the hands of the disease-makers. For if a disease-
maker finds the remnants of a meal, say the skin of a banana, he picks it up
and burns it slowly in the fire. As it burns, the person who ate the banana
falls ill and sends to the disease-maker, offering him presents if he will stop
burning the banana skin.474 In German New Guinea the natives take the
utmost care to destroy or conceal the husks and other remains of their food,
lest these should be found by their enemies and used by them for the injury
or destruction of the eaters. Hence they burn their leavings, throw them into
the sea, or otherwise put them out of harm's way. To such an extent does
this fear influence them that many people dare not stir beyond the territory
of their own village, lest they should leave behind them on the land of their
neighbours something by means of which a hostile sorcerer might do them
a mischief.475 Similar fears have led to similar customs in New Britain and
the other islands of what is now called the Bismarck Archipelago, off the
north coast of New Guinea. There also the natives bury, burn, or throw into
the sea the remains of their meals to prevent them from falling into the
hands of magicians; there also the more superstitious of them will not eat in
another village because they dread the use which a sorcerer might make of
their leavings when their back is turned. This theory has led to an odd
practical result; all the cats in the islands of the Archipelago go about with

stumpy tails. The reason of the peculiarity is this. The natives sometimes
roast and eat their cats; and unscrupulous persons might be tempted to steal
a neighbour's cat in order to furnish a meal. Accordingly, in the interests of
the higher morality people remove this stumbling-block from the path of
their weaker brothers by docking their cats of a piece of their tails and
keeping the severed portions in a secret place. If [pg 129] now a cat is
stolen and eaten, the lawful owner of the animal has it in his power to
avenge the crime: he need only bury the piece of tail with certain spells in
the ground, and the thief will fall ill. Hence a man will hardly dare to steal
and eat a cat with a stumpy tail, knowing the righteous retribution that
would sooner or later overtake him for so doing.476

From a like fear, no doubt, of sorcery, no one may touch the food which the
king of Loango leaves upon his plate; it is buried in a hole in the ground.
d And no one may drink out of the king's vessel.477 Similarly, no man may
drink out of the same cup or glass with the king of Fida (Whydah) in
e Guinea; “he hath always one kept particularly for himself; and that which
f hath but once touched another's lips he never uses more, though it be made
n of metal that may be cleansed by fire.”478 Amongst the Alfoors of Celebes
there is a priest called the Leleen, whose duty appears to be to make the rice
grow. His functions begin about a month before the rice is sown, and end
d after the crop is housed. During this time he has to observe certain taboos;
amongst others he may not eat or drink with any one else, and he may drink
out of no vessel but his own.479 An ancient Indian way of injuring an enemy
was to offer him a meal of rice and afterwards throw the remains of the rice
into a fishpond; if the fish swam up in large numbers to devour the grains,
the man's fate was sealed.480 In antiquity the Romans used immediately to
break the shells of eggs and of snails which they had eaten in order to
prevent enemies from making magic with them.481 The common practice,
[pg 130] still observed among us, of breaking egg-shells after the eggs have
been eaten may very well have originated in the same superstition.

The superstitious fear of the magic that may be wrought on a man through
the leavings of his food has had the beneficial effect of inducing many
f savages to destroy refuse which, if left to rot, might through its corruption
have proved a real, not a merely imaginary, source of disease and death.
Nor is it only the sanitary condition of a tribe which has benefited by this
h

e superstition; curiously enough the same baseless dread, the same false
a notion of causation, has indirectly strengthened the moral bonds of
hospitality, honour, and good faith among men who entertain it. For it is
obvious that no one who intends to harm a man by working magic on the
d refuse of his food will himself partake of that food, because if he did so he
d would, on the principles of sympathetic magic, suffer equally with his
enemy from any injury done to the refuse. This is the idea which in
n primitive society lends sanctity to the bond produced by eating together; by
participation in the same food two men give, as it were, hostages for their
f good behaviour; each guarantees the other that he will devise no mischief
against him, since, being physically united with him by the common food in
n their stomachs, any harm he might do to his fellow would recoil on his own
head with precisely the same force with which it fell on the head of his
s victim. In strict logic, however, the sympathetic bond lasts only so long as
the food is in the stomach of each of the parties. Hence the covenant formed
by eating together is less solemn and durable than the covenant formed by
transfusing the blood of the covenanting parties into each other's veins, for
this transfusion seems to knit them together for life.482

[pg 131]

Chapter IV. Tabooed Persons.

§ 1. Chiefs and Kings tabooed.

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
w and inflamed. The same ill effect was thought to be experienced by any one
g who should wear the Mikado's clothes without his leave; he would have
s swellings and pains all over his body.483 In Fiji there is a special name (kana
e lama) for the disease supposed to be caused by eating out of a chief's dishes
r or wearing his clothes. “The throat and body swell, and the impious person
n dies. I had a fine mat given to me by a man who durst not use it because
Thakambau's eldest son had sat upon it. There was always a family or clan
of commoners who were exempt from this danger. I was talking about this
once to Thakambau. ‘Oh yes,’ said he. ‘Here, So-and-so! come and scratch
a my back.’ The man scratched; he was one of those who could do it with
f impunity.” The name of the men thus highly privileged was Na nduka ni, or
the dirt of the chief.484

In the evil effects thus supposed to follow upon the use [pg 132] of the
vessels or clothes of the Mikado and a Fijian chief we see that other side of
e the god-man's character to which attention has been already called. The
st 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, as it were, electrically charged
with a powerful magical or spiritual force which may discharge itself with
d fatal effect on whatever comes in contact with it. Accordingly the isolation
e of the man-god is quite as necessary for the safety of others as for his own.
His magical virtue is in the strictest sense of the word contagious: 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. The Nubas, for example, who inhabit the
wooded and fertile range of Jebel Nuba in eastern Africa, believe that they
would die if they entered the house of their priestly king; however they can
evade the penalty of their intrusion by baring the left shoulder and getting
the king to lay his hand on it. And were any man to sit on a stone which the
king has consecrated to his own use, the transgressor would die within the
year.485 The Cazembes, in the interior of Angola, regard their king (the
Muata or Mambo) as so holy that no one can touch him without being killed
by the magical power which pervades his sacred person. But since contact
with him is sometimes unavoidable, they have devised a means whereby the
sinner can escape with his life. Kneeling down before the king he touches
the back of the royal hand [pg 133] with the back of his own, then snaps his
fingers; afterwards he lays the palm of his hand on the palm of the king's
hand, then snaps his fingers again. This ceremony is repeated four or five
times, and averts the imminent danger of death.486 In Tonga it was believed
that if any one fed himself with his own hands after touching the sacred
person of a superior chief or anything that belonged to him, he would swell
up and die; the sanctity of the chief, like a virulent poison, infected the
hands of his inferior, and, being communicated through them to the food,
proved fatal to the eater. A commoner who had incurred this danger could
disinfect himself by performing a certain ceremony, which consisted in
touching the sole of a chief's foot with the palm and back of each of his
hands, and afterwards rinsing his hands in water. If there was no water near,
he rubbed his hands with the juicy stem of a plantain or banana. After that
he was free to feed himself with his own hands without danger of being
attacked by the malady which would otherwise follow from eating with
tabooed or sanctified hands. But until the ceremony of expiation or
disinfection had been performed, if he wished to eat, he had either to get
some one to feed him, or else to go down on his knees and pick up the food
from the ground with his mouth like a beast. He might not even use a
toothpick himself, but might guide the hand of another person holding the
toothpick. The Tongans were subject to induration of the liver and certain
forms of scrofula, which they often attributed to a failure to perform the
requisite expiation after having inadvertently touched a chief or his
belongings. Hence they often went through the ceremony as a precaution,
without knowing that they had done anything to call for it. The king of

Tonga could not refuse to play his part in the rite by presenting his foot to
such as desired to touch it, even when they applied to him at an
inconvenient time. A fat unwieldy king, who perceived his subjects
approaching with this intention, while he chanced to be taking his walks
abroad, [pg 134] has been sometimes seen to waddle as fast as his legs
could carry him out of their way, in order to escape the importunate and not
wholly disinterested expression of their homage. If any one fancied he
might have already unwittingly eaten with tabooed hands, he sat down
before the chief, and, taking the chief's foot, pressed it against his own
stomach, that the food in his belly might not injure him, and that he might
not swell up and die.487 Since scrofula was regarded by the Tongans as a
result of eating with tabooed hands, we may conjecture that persons who
suffered from it among them often resorted to the touch or pressure of the
king's foot as a cure for their malady. The analogy of the custom with the
old English practice of bringing scrofulous patients to the king to be healed
by his touch is sufficiently obvious, and suggests, as I have already pointed
out elsewhere, that among our own remote ancestors scrofula may have
obtained its name of the King's Evil, from a belief, like that of the Tongans,
that it was caused as well as cured by contact with the divine majesty of
kings.488

In New Zealand the dread of the sanctity of chiefs was at least as great as in
Tonga. Their ghostly power, derived from an ancestral spirit or atua,
diffused itself by contagion over everything they touched, and could strike
f dead all who rashly or unwittingly meddled with it.489 For instance, it once
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
n without asking questions. Hardly had he finished when [pg 135] 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,” but “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 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.”490
This is not a solitary case. A Maori woman having eaten of some fruit, and
being afterwards told that the fruit had been 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.491 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.”492 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” (that is, his spiritual power communicated by contact to the blanket
and through the blanket to the man) “would [pg 136] kill the person.”493 For
a similar reason a Maori chief would not blow a fire with his mouth; for his
sacred breath would communicate its sanctity to the fire, which would pass
it on to the pot on the fire, which would pass it on to the meat in the pot,
which would pass it on to the man who ate the meat, which was in the pot,
which stood on the fire, which was breathed on by the chief; so that the
eater, infected by the chief's breath conveyed through these intermediaries,
would surely die.494

Thus in the Polynesian race, to which the Maoris belong, superstition
erected round the persons of sacred chiefs a real, though at the same time
purely imaginary barrier, to transgress which actually entailed the death of
l the transgressor whenever he became aware of what he had done. This fatal
f power of the imagination working through superstitious terrors is by no
means confined to one race; it appears to be common among savages. For
r example, among the aborigines of Australia a native will die after the
f infliction of even the most superficial wound if only he believes that the
weapon which inflicted the wound had been sung over and thus endowed

with magical virtue. He simply lies down, refuses food, and pines away.495
Similarly among some of the Indian tribes of Brazil, if the medicine-man
predicted the death of any one who had offended him, “the wretch took to
his hammock instantly in such full expectation of dying, that he would
neither eat nor drink, and the prediction was a sentence which faith
effectually executed.”496 Speaking of certain African races Major Leonard
observes: “I have seen more than one hardened old Haussa soldier dying
steadily and by inches, because he believed himself to be bewitched; so that
no nourishment or medicines that were given to him had the slightest effect
either to check the mischief or to improve his condition in any way, and
nothing was able to divert him from a fate which he considered inevitable.
In the same way, and under very similar conditions, I have seen Kru-men
and others die, in spite of every effort that was made to save them, simply
because they had made [pg 137] up their minds, not (as we thought at the
time) to die, but that being in the clutch of malignant demons they were
bound to die.”497 The Capuchin missionary Merolla da Sorrento, who
travelled in the West African kingdom of Congo in the latter part of the
seventeenth century, has described a remarkable case of death wrought
purely by superstitious fear. He says: “It is a custom that either the parents
or the wizards give certain rules to be inviolably observed by the young
people, and which they call chegilla: these are to abstain from eating either
some sorts of poultry, the flesh of some kinds of wild beasts, such and such
fruits, roots either raw or boiled after this or another manner, with several
other ridiculous injunctions of the like nature, too many to be enumerated
here. You would wonder with what religious observance these commands
are obeyed. These young people would sooner chuse to fast several days
together, than to taste the least bit of what has been forbidden them; and if it
sometimes happen that the chegilla has been neglected to have been given
them by their parents, they think they shall presently die unless they go
immediately to receive it from the wizards. A certain young negro, being
upon a journey, lodged in a friend's house by the way: his friend, before he
went out the next morning, had got a wild hen ready for his breakfast, they
being much better than the tame ones. The negro hereupon demanded, ‘If it
were a wild hen?’ His host answered, ‘No’: then he fell on heartily, and
afterwards proceeded on his journey. About four years after these two met
together again, and the aforesaid negro being not yet married, his old friend
asked him, ‘If he would eat a wild hen?’ To which he answered, ‘That he

had received the chegilla, and therefore could not.’ Hereat the host began
immediately to laugh, enquiring of him, ‘What made him refuse it now,
when he had eaten one at his table about four years ago?’ At the hearing of
this the negro immediately fell a trembling, and suffered himself to be so far
possessed with the effects of imagination, that he died in less than twenty-
four hours after.”498

[pg 138]

§ 2. Mourners tabooed.

Thus regarding his sacred chiefs and kings as charged with a mysterious
spiritual force which so to say explodes at contact, the savage naturally
s ranks them among the dangerous classes of society, and imposes upon them
the same sort of restraints that he lays on manslayers, menstruous women,
d and other persons whom he looks upon with a certain fear and horror. For
example, sacred kings and priests in Polynesia were not allowed to touch
food with their hands, and had therefore to be fed by others;499 and as we
have just seen, their vessels, garments, and other property might not be used
by others on pain of disease and death. Now precisely the same observances
s are exacted by some savages from girls at their first menstruation, women
e after childbirth, homicides, mourners, and all persons who have come into
contact with the dead. Thus, for example, to begin with the last class of
persons, among the Maoris any one who had handled a corpse, helped to
convey it to the grave, or touched a dead man's bones, was cut off from all
intercourse and almost all communication with mankind. He could not enter
any house, or come into contact with any person or thing, without utterly
bedevilling them. He might not even touch food with his hands, which had
become so frightfully tabooed or unclean as to be quite useless. Food would
be set for him on the ground, and he [pg 139] would then sit or kneel down,
and, with his hands carefully held behind his back, would gnaw at it as best
he could. In some cases he would be fed by another person, who with
n outstretched arm contrived to do it without touching the tabooed man; but
the feeder was himself subjected to many severe restrictions, little less
e onerous than those which were imposed upon the other. In almost every
n populous village there lived a degraded wretch, the lowest of the low, who
earned a sorry pittance by thus waiting upon the defiled. Clad in rags,
e daubed from head to foot with red ochre and stinking shark oil, always
n solitary and silent, generally old, haggard, and wizened, often half crazed,
he might be seen sitting motionless all day apart from the common path or
thoroughfare of the village, gazing with lack-lustre eyes on the busy doings
in which he might never take a part. Twice a day a dole of food would be

thrown on the ground before him to munch as well as he could without the
use of his hands; and at night, huddling his greasy tatters about him, he
would crawl into some miserable lair of leaves and refuse, where, dirty,
cold, and hungry, he passed, in broken ghost-haunted slumbers, a wretched
night as a prelude to another wretched day. Such was the only human being
deemed fit to associate at arm's length with one who had paid the last
offices of respect and friendship to the dead. And when, the dismal term of
his seclusion being over, the mourner was about to mix with his fellows
once more, all the dishes he had used in his seclusion were diligently
smashed, and all the garments he had worn were carefully thrown away, lest
they should spread the contagion of his defilement among others,500 just as
the vessels and clothes of sacred kings and chiefs are destroyed or cast
away for a similar reason. So complete in these respects is the analogy
which the savage traces between the spiritual influences that emanate from
divinities and from the dead, between the odour of sanctity and the stench
of corruption.

[pg 140]

The rule which forbids persons who have been in contact with the dead to
touch food with their hands would seem to have been universal in
e Polynesia. Thus in Samoa “those who attended the deceased were most
careful not to handle food, and for days were fed by others as if they were
helpless infants. Baldness and the loss of teeth were supposed to be the
punishment inflicted by the household god if they violated the rule.”501
e Again, in Tonga, “no person can touch a dead chief without being taboo'd
n for ten lunar months, except chiefs, who are only taboo'd for three, four, or
five months, according to the superiority of the dead chief; except again it
a be the body of Tooitonga [the great divine chief], and then even the greatest
chief would be taboo'd ten months, as was the case with Finow's wife above
d mentioned. During the time a man is taboo'd he must not feed himself with
r his own hands, but must be fed by somebody else: he must not even use a
toothpick himself, but must guide another person's hand holding the
toothpick. If he is hungry and there is no one to feed him, he must go down
n upon his hands and knees, and pick up his victuals with his mouth: and if he
infringes upon any of these rules, it is firmly expected that he will swell up
and die: and this belief is so strong that Mr. Mariner thinks no native ever

f made an experiment to prove the contrary. They often saw him feed himself
e with his hands after having touched dead chiefs, and not observing his
health to decline, they attributed it to his being a foreigner, and being
governed by different gods.”502 Again, in Wallis Island “contact with a
corpse subjects the hands to the law of taboo till they are washed, which is
not done for several weeks. Until that purification has taken place, the
tabooed persons may not themselves put food to their mouths; other people
render them that service.”503 A rule [pg 141] of the same sort is or was
observed in various parts of Melanesia. Thus in Fiji the taboo for handling a
dead chief lasted from one to ten months according to his rank; for a
commoner it lasted not more than four days. It was commonly resorted to
by the lazy and idle; for during the time of their seclusion they were not
only provided with food, but were actually fed by attendants or ate their
food from the ground.504 Similarly in the Motu tribe of New Guinea a man
is tabooed, generally for three days, after handling a corpse, and while the
taboo lasts he may not touch food with his hands. At the end of the time he
bathes and the taboo is over.505 So in New Caledonia the two men who are
charged with the duty of burying and guarding a corpse have to remain in
seclusion and observe a number of rules of abstinence. They live apart from
their wives. They may not shave or cut their hair. Their food is laid for them
on leaves and they take it up with their mouth or a stick; but oftener an
attendant feeds them, just as he might feed a man whose limbs were
palsied.506 So among the Nandi of British East Africa persons who have
handled a corpse bathe in a river, anoint their bodies with fat, partially
shave their heads, and live in the hut of the deceased for four days. All these
days they may not be seen by boys or women: they may not drink milk; and
they may not touch food with their hands, but must eat it with the help of a
potsherd or chip of a gourd.507 Similarly in the Ba-Pedi and Ba-Thonga
tribes of South Africa men who have dug a grave may not touch food with
their fingers till the rites of their purification are accomplished; meantime
they eat with the help of special spoons. If they broke this rule, it is thought
that they would be consumptive.508 So in the Ngarigo tribe of New South
Wales a novice who has just passed through the ceremony [pg 142] of
initiation has to go away to the mountains and stay there for a while,
sometimes for more than six months, under the charge of one or more old
men; and all the time of his absence among the mountains he may not touch

cooked food with his hands; the food is put into his mouth by the man who
looks after him.509

Among the Shuswap of British Columbia widows and widowers in
mourning are secluded and forbidden to touch their own head or body; the
cups and cooking-vessels which they use may be used by no one else. They
n must build a sweat-house beside a creek, sweat there all night and bathe
regularly, after which they must rub their bodies with branches of spruce.
e The branches may not be used more than once, and when they have served
their purpose they are stuck into the ground all round the hut. No hunter
f would come near such mourners, for their presence is unlucky. If their
shadow were to fall on any one, he would be taken ill at once. They employ
thorn bushes for bed and pillow, in order to keep away the ghost of the
deceased; and thorn bushes are also laid all around their beds.510 This last
precaution shews clearly what the spiritual danger is which leads to the
exclusion of such persons from ordinary society; it is simply a fear of the
ghost who is supposed to be hovering near them. Among the Thompson
Indians of British Columbia the persons who handled a corpse and dug the
grave were secluded for four days. They fasted until the body was buried,
after which they were given food apart from the other people. They would
not touch the food with their hands, but must put it into their mouths with
sharp-pointed sticks. They ate off a small mat, and drank out of birch-bark
cups, which, together with the mat, were thrown away at the end of the four
days. The first four mouthfuls of food, as well as of water, had to be spit
into the fire. During their seclusion they bathed in a stream and might not
sleep with their wives. Widows and widowers were obliged to observe rules
of a similar kind. Immediately after the death they went out and passed
through a patch of [pg 143] rose-bushes four times, probably in order to rid
themselves of the ghost, who might be supposed to stick on a thorn. For a
year they had to sleep on a bed of fir-boughs, on which sticks of rose-
bushes were laid; many wore twigs of rose-bush and juniper in a piece of
buckskin on their persons. The first four days they might not touch their
food, but ate with sharp-pointed sticks and spat out the first four mouthfuls
of each meal, and the first four of water, into the fire. A widower might not
fish at another man's fishing-place or with another man's net; if he did, it
would make the place and the net useless for the season. If he transplanted a
trout into another lake, before releasing it he blew on the head of the fish,

and after chewing deer-fat, he spat some of the grease on its head in order to
remove the baneful effect of his touch. Then he let the trout go, bidding it
farewell, and asking it to propagate its kind in plenty. Any grass or branches
that a widow or widower sat or lay down on withered up. If a widow should
break sticks or boughs, her hands or arms would also break. She might not
pick berries for a year, else the whole crop of berries would fall off the
bushes or wither up. She might not cook food or fetch water for her
children, nor let them lie down on her bed, nor should she lie or sit where
they slept. Sometimes a widow would wear a breech-cloth made of dry
bunch-grass for several days to prevent her husband's ghost from having
intercourse with her.511 Among the Tinneh or Déné Indians of North-West
America all who have handled a corpse are subject to many restrictions and
taboos. They are debarred for a certain period from eating any fresh meat:
they may never use a knife to cut their food but must tear it with their teeth:
they may not drink out of a vessel in common use, but must employ a gourd
which they carry about for the purpose; and they wear peeled willow wands
about their arms and necks or carry them in their hands as disinfectants to
annul the evil consequences which are supposed to follow from handling
the dead.512 Among the [pg 144] Indian tribes of Queen Charlotte Sound a
widow or widower goes into special mourning for a month; among the
Koskimos the period of mourning is four months. During this time he or she
lives apart in a very small hut behind the house, eating and drinking alone,
and using for that purpose dishes which are not employed by other
members of the tribe.513

Among the Agutainos, who inhabit Palawan, one of the Philippine Islands,
a widow may not leave her hut for seven or eight days after the death; and
even then she may only go out at an hour when she is not likely to meet
anybody, for whoever looks upon her dies a sudden death. To prevent this
fatal catastrophe, the widow knocks with a wooden peg on the trees as she
goes along, thus warning people of her dangerous proximity; and the very
e trees on which she knocks soon die.514 So poisonous is the atmosphere of
death that surrounds those to whom the ghost of the departed may be
w thought to cleave. In the Mekeo district of British New Guinea a widower
loses all his civil rights and becomes a social outcast, an object of fear and
horror, shunned by all. He may not cultivate a garden, nor shew himself in
public, nor traverse the village, nor walk on the roads and paths. Like a wild

beast he must skulk in the long grass and the bushes; and if he sees or hears
any one coming, especially a woman, he must hide behind a tree or a
thicket. If he wishes to fish or hunt, he must do it alone and at night. If he
would consult any one, even the missionary, he does so by stealth and at
night; he seems to have lost his voice and speaks only in whispers. Were he
to join a party of fishers or hunters, his presence would bring misfortune on
them; the ghost of his dead wife would frighten away the fish or the game.
He goes about everywhere and at all times armed with a tomahawk to
defend himself, not only against wild boars in the jungle, but against the
dreaded spirit of his departed spouse, who would do him an ill turn if she
[pg 145] could; for all the souls of the dead are malignant and their only
delight is to harm the living.515

§ 3. Women tabooed at Menstruation and Childbirth.

In general, we may say that the prohibition to use the vessels, garments, and
so on 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
n 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.516 Hence Australian women at these times are forbidden under
pain of death to touch anything that men use, or even to walk on a path that
any man frequents. They are also secluded at childbirth, and all vessels used
by them during their seclusion are burned.517 In Uganda the pots which a
woman touches while the impurity of childbirth or of menstruation is on her
should be destroyed; spears and shields defiled by her touch are not
destroyed but only purified.518 No Esquimaux of Alaska 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.519 Amongst some of the Indians of North America, 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.520 For instance, in some of the Tinneh [pg 146] or
Déné tribes girls verging on maturity take care that the dishes out of which
they eat are used by no one else. When their first periodical sickness comes
on, they are fed by their mothers or nearest kinswomen, and will on no
account touch their food with their own hands. At the same time they
abstain from touching their heads with their hands, and keep a small stick to
scratch their heads with when they itch. They remain outside the house in a
hut built for the purpose, and wear a skull-cap made of skin to fit very tight,
which they never lay aside till the first monthly infirmity is over. A fringe of
shells, bones, and so on hangs down from their forehead so as to cover their
eyes, lest any malicious sorcerer should harm them during this critical

period.521 “Among all the Déné and most other American tribes, hardly any
other being was the object of so much dread as a menstruating woman. As
soon as signs of that condition made themselves apparent in a young girl
she was carefully segregated from all but female company, and had to live
by herself in a small hut away from the gaze of the villagers or of the male
members of the roving band. While in that awful state, she had to abstain
from touching anything belonging to man, or the spoils of any venison or
other animal, lest she would thereby pollute the same, and condemn the
hunters to failure, owing to the anger of the game thus slighted. Dried fish
formed her diet, and cold water, absorbed through a drinking tube, was her
only beverage. Moreover, as the very sight of her was dangerous to society,
a special skin bonnet, with fringes falling over her face down to her breast,
hid her from the public gaze, even some time [pg 147] after she had
recovered her normal state.”522 Among the Bribri Indians of Costa Rica a
menstruous woman is regarded as unclean (bukuru). The only plates she
may use for her food are banana leaves, which, when she has done with
them, she throws away in some sequestered spot; for were a cow to find
them and eat them, the animal would waste away and perish. And she
drinks out of a special vessel for a like reason; because if any one drank out
of the same cup after her, he would surely die.523 In the islands of Mabuiag
and Saibai, in Torres Straits, girls at their first menstruation are strictly
secluded from the sight of men. In Mabuiag the seclusion lasts three
months, in Saibai about a fortnight. During the time of her separation the
girl is forbidden to feed herself or to handle food, which is put into her
mouth by women or girls told off to wait on her.524

Among many peoples similar restrictions are imposed on women in
childbed and apparently for similar reasons; at such periods women are
supposed to be in a dangerous condition which would infect any person or
thing they might touch; hence they are put into quarantine until, with the
n recovery of their health and strength, the imaginary danger has passed
away. Thus, in Tahiti a woman after childbirth was secluded for a fortnight
or three weeks in a temporary hut erected on sacred ground; during the time
of her seclusion she was debarred from touching provisions, and had to be
fed by another. Further, if any one else touched the child at this period, he
was subjected to the same restrictions as the mother until the ceremony of
her purification had been performed.525 Similarly in Manahiki, an island of

the Southern Pacific, for ten days after her delivery a woman was not
allowed to handle food, and had to be fed by some other person.526 In the
Sinaugolo tribe of British New Guinea, for about a month after her
confinement [pg 148] a woman may not prepare or handle food; she may
not even cook for herself, and when she is eating the food made ready for
her by her friends she must use a sharpened stick to transfer it to her
mouth.527 Similarly in the Roro and Mekeo districts of British New Guinea
a woman after childbirth becomes for a time taboo (opu), and any person or
thing she may chance to touch becomes taboo also. Accordingly during this
time she abstains from cooking; for were she to cook food, not only the
victuals themselves but the pot and the fire would be tabooed, so that
nobody could eat the victuals, or use the pot, or warm himself at the fire.
Further at meals she may not dip her hand into the dish and help herself, as
the natives commonly do; she must use for the purpose a long fork, with
which she takes up the bananas, sweet potatoes, yams, and so forth, in order
not to contaminate the rest of the food in the vessel by the touch of her
fingers. If she wishes to drink, a gourd is set before her, and wrapping up
her hands in a cloth or coco-nut fibre she pours the water into a small
calabash for her use; or she may pour the water directly into her mouth
without letting the gourd touch her lips. If anything has to be handed to her,
it is not given from hand to hand but reached to her at the end of a long
stick.528 Similarly in the island of Kadiak, off Alaska, a woman about to be
delivered retires to a miserable low hovel built of reeds, where she must
remain for twenty days after the birth of her child, whatever the season may
be, and she is considered so unclean that no one will touch her, and food is
reached to her on sticks.529 In the Ba-Pedi and Ba-Thonga tribes of South
Africa a woman in childbed may not touch her food with her hands all the
time of her seclusion; she must eat with the help of a wooden spoon. [pg
149] They think that if she touched her victuals she might infect them with
her bloody flux, and that having partaken of such tainted food she would
fall into a consumption.530 The Bribri Indians regard the pollution of
childbed as much more dangerous even than that of menstruation. When a
woman feels her time approaching, she informs her husband, who makes
haste to build a hut for her in a lonely spot. There she must live alone,
holding no converse with anybody save her mother or another woman.
After her delivery the medicine-man purifies her by breathing on her and
laying an animal, it matters not what, upon her. But even this ceremony

only mitigates her uncleanness into a state considered to be equivalent to
that of a menstruous woman; and for a full lunar month she must live apart
from her housemates, observing the same rules with regard to eating and
drinking as at her monthly periods. The case is still worse, the pollution is
still more deadly, if she has had a miscarriage or has been delivered of a
stillborn child. In that case she may not go near a living soul: the mere
contact with things she has used is exceedingly dangerous: her food is
handed to her at the end of a long stick. This lasts generally for three weeks,
after which she may go home subject only to the restrictions incident to an
ordinary confinement.531 Among the Adivi or forest Gollas of Southern
India, when a woman feels the first pains of labour, she is turned clean out
of the village and must take up her quarters in a little hut made of leaves or
mats about two hundred yards away. In this hut she must bring forth her
offspring unaided, unless a midwife can be fetched in time to be with her
before the child is born; if the midwife arrives after the birth has taken place
she may not go near the woman. For ninety days the mother lives in the hut
by herself. If any one touches her, he or she becomes, like the mother
herself, an outcast and is expelled from the village for three months, The
woman's husband generally makes a little hut about fifty yards from hers
and stays in it sometimes to watch over her, but he may not go near her on
pain of being an [pg 150] outcast for three months. Food is placed on the
ground near the woman's hut and she takes it. On the fourth day after the
birth a woman of the village goes to her and pours water on her, but may
not come into contact with her. On the fifth day the villagers clear away the
stones and thorny bushes from a patch of ground about ten yards on the
village side of the hut, and to this clearing the woman removes her hut
unaided; no one may help her to do so. On the ninth, fifteenth, and thirtieth
days she again shifts her hut nearer and nearer to the village; and again once
in each of the two following months she brings her hut still nearer. On the
ninetieth day of her seclusion the woman is called out from her hut, washed,
clad in clean clothes, and after being taken to the village temple is
conducted to her own house by a man of the caste, who performs
purificatory ceremonies.532

These customs shew that in the opinion of some primitive peoples a woman
at and after childbirth is pervaded by a certain dangerous influence which
can infect anything and anybody she touches; so that in the interest of the

community it becomes necessary to seclude her from society for a while
until the virulence of the infection has passed away, when, after submitting
to certain rites of purification, she is again free to mingle with her fellows.
This dread of lying-in women appears to be widespread, for the practice of
m shutting them up at such times in lonely huts away from the rest of the
n people is very common. Sometimes the nature of the danger which is
apprehended from them is explicitly stated. Thus in the island of Tumleo,
off German New Guinea, after the birth of her first child a woman is shut up
with her infant for five to eight days, during which no man, not even her
husband, may see her; for the men think that were they to see her, their
bodies would swell up and they would die.533 Apparently their notion is that
the sight of a woman who has just been big with child will, on [pg 151] the
principles of homoeopathic magic, make their bodies big also to bursting.
The Sulka of New Britain imagine that, when a woman has been delivered
of a child, the men become cowardly, weapons lose their force, and the slips
which are to be planted out are deprived of their power of germinating.
Hence they perform a ceremony which is intended to counteract this
mysterious influence on men and plants. As soon as it is known that a
woman has been brought to bed, all the male population of the village
assembles in the men's clubhouse. Branches of a strong-smelling tree are
fetched, the twigs are broken off, the leaves stripped off and put on the fire.
All the men present then seize branches with young buds. One of them
holds ginger in his hand, which, after reciting a spell over it, he distributes
to the others. They chew it and spit it out on the twigs, and these twigs are
afterwards laid on the shields and other weapons in the house, and also on
the slips which are to be planted; moreover they are fastened on the roofs
and over the doorways of the houses. In this way they seek to annul the
noxious infection of childbirth.534 Among the Yabim of German New
Guinea, when a birth has taken place in the village, all the inhabitants
remain at home next morning “in order that the fruits of the field may not
be spoiled.”535 Apparently they fear that if they went out to their fields and
gardens immediately after a woman had been brought to bed, they would
carry with them a dangerous contagion which might blight the crops. When
a Herero woman has given birth to a child, her female companions hastily
construct a special hut for her to which she is transferred. Both the hut and
the woman are sacred and “for this reason, the men are not allowed to see
the lying-in woman until the navel string has separated from the child,

otherwise they would become weaklings, and when later they yumbana,
that is, go to war with spear and bow, they would be shot.”536 Thus the
Herero like the Sulka appear to imagine that the [pg 152] weakness of a
lying-in woman can, on the principles of homoeopathic magic, infect any
men who may chance to see her.

Among the Saragacos Indians of eastern Ecuador, as soon as a woman feels
the travail-pangs beginning, she retires into the forest to a distance of three
or four leagues from her home, where she takes up her abode in a hut of
leaves which has been already prepared for her. “This banishment,” we are
m told, “is the fruit of the superstition of these Indians, who are persuaded that
n the spirit of evil would attach himself to their house if the women were
brought to bed in it.”537 The Esquimaux of Baffin Land think that the body
of a lying-in woman exhales a vapour which would adhere to the souls of
seals if she ate the flesh of any seals except such as have been caught by her
husband, by a boy, or by an aged man. “Cases of premature birth require
particularly careful treatment. The event must be announced publicly, else
dire results will follow. If a woman should conceal from the other people
that she has had a premature birth, they might come near her, or even eat in
her hut of the seals procured by her husband. The vapor arising from her
would thus affect them, and they would be avoided by the seals. The
transgression would also become attached to the soul of the seal, which
would take it down to Sedna,” the mythical mother of the sea-mammals,
who lives in the lower world and controls the destinies of mankind.538

Some Bantu tribes of South Africa entertain even more exaggerated notions
of the virulent infection spread by a woman who has had a miscarriage and
has concealed it. An experienced observer of these people tells us that the
blood of childbirth “appears to the eyes of the South Africans to be tainted
m with a pollution still more dangerous than that of the menstrual fluid. The
n husband is excluded from the hut for eight days of the lying-in period,
chiefly from fear that he might be contaminated by this secretion. [pg 153]
u He dare not take his child in his arms for the three first months after the
f birth. But the secretion of childbed is particularly terrible when it is the
product of a miscarriage, especially a concealed miscarriage. In this case it
is not merely the man who is threatened or killed, it is the whole country, it
is the sky itself which suffers. By a curious association of ideas a

539
a physiological fact causes cosmic troubles!” Thus, for example, the Ba-
Pedi believe that a woman who has procured abortion can kill a man merely
by lying with him; her victim is poisoned, shrivels up, and dies within a
week. As for the disastrous effect which a miscarriage may have on the
whole country I will quote the words of a medicine-man and rain-maker of
the Ba-Pedi tribe: “When a woman has had a miscarriage, when she has
allowed her blood to flow, and has hidden the child, it is enough to cause
the burning winds to blow and to parch the country with heat. The rain no
longer falls, for the country is no longer in order. When the rain approaches
the place where the blood is, it will not dare to approach. It will fear and
remain at a distance. That woman has committed a great fault. She has
spoiled the country of the chief, for she has hidden blood which had not yet
been well congealed to fashion a man. That blood is taboo (yila). It should
never drip on the road! The chief will assemble his men and say to them,
‘Are you in order in your villages?’ Some one will answer, ‘Such and such a
woman was pregnant and we have not yet seen the child which she has
given birth to.’ Then they go and arrest the woman. They say to her, ‘Shew
us where you have hidden it.’ They go and dig at the spot, they sprinkle the
hole with a decoction of mbendoula and nyangale (two sorts of roots)
prepared in a special pot. They take a little of the earth of this grave, they
throw it into the river, then they bring back water from the river and
sprinkle it where she shed her blood. She herself must wash every day with
the medicine. Then the country will be moistened again (by rain). Further,
we (medicine-men) summon the women of the country; we tell them to
prepare a ball of the earth which [pg 154] contains the blood. They bring it
to us one morning. If we wish to prepare medicine with which to sprinkle
the whole country, we crumble this earth to powder; at the end of five days
we send little boys and little girls, girls that yet know nothing of women's
affairs and have not yet had relations with men. We put the medicine in the
horns of oxen, and these children go to all the fords, to all the entrances of
the country. A little girl turns up the soil with her mattock, the others dip a
branch in the horn and sprinkle the inside of the hole saying, ‘Rain! rain!’
So we remove the misfortune which the women have brought on the roads;
the rain will be able to come. The country is purified!”540

Similarly the Ba-Thonga, another Bantu tribe of South Africa in the valley
of the Limpopo river, attribute severe droughts to the concealment of

miscarriages by women, and they perform the following rites to remove the
pollution and procure rain. A small clearing is made in a thick and thorny
f wood, and here a pot is buried in the ground so that its mouth is flush with
- the surface. From the pot four channels run in the form of a cross to the four
cardinal points of the horizon. Then a black ox or a black ram, without a
e speck of white on it, is killed and the pot is stuffed with the half-digested
grass found in the animal's stomach. Next, little girls, still in the age of
m innocence, are sent to draw water, which they pour into the pot till it
overflows into the four channels. After that the women assemble, strip off
their clothes, and covering their nakedness only with a scanty petticoat of
f grass they dance, leap, and sing, “Rain, fall!” Then they go and dig up the
remains of the prematurely born infants and of twins buried in dry ground
y on a hill. These they collect in one place. No man may approach the spot.
The women would beat any male who might be so indiscreet as to intrude
on their privacy, and they would put riddles to him which he would have to
answer in the most filthy language borrowed from the circumcision
ceremonies; for obscene words, which are usually forbidden, are customary
and legitimate on these occasions. The women pour water on the graves of
the [pg 155] infants and of twins in order to “extinguish” (timula) them, as
the natives phrase it; which seems to imply that the graves are thought to be
the source of the scorching heat which is blasting the country. At the fall of
evening they bury all the remains they have discovered, poking them away
in the mud near a stream. Then the rain will be free to fall.541 In these
ceremonies the pouring of water into channels which run in the direction of
the four quarters of the heaven is clearly a charm based on the principles of
homoeopathic magic to procure rain. The supposed influence of twins over
the waters of heaven and the use of foul language at rain-making
ceremonies have been illustrated in another part of this work.542

Among the natives of the Nguôn So'n valley in Annam, during the first
month after a woman has been delivered of a child, all the persons of the
house are supposed to be affected with an evil destiny or ill luck called
phong long. If a member of such a household enters another house, the
m inmates never fail to say to him, “You bring me the phong long!” Should a
n member of a family in which somebody is seriously ill have to enter a
house infected by the phong long, on returning home he always fumigates
e himself with tea leaves or some other plant in order to rid himself of the

f infection which he has contracted; for they fear that the blood of the woman
who has been brought to bed may harm the patient. All the time a house is
tainted with the phong long, a branch of cactus (Euphorbia antiquorum) or
pandanus is hung at the door. The same thing is done to a house infected by
small-pox: it is a danger signal to warn people off. The phong long only
disappears when the woman has gone to market for the first time after her
delivery.543 A trace of a similar belief in the dangerous infection of
childbirth may be seen in the rule of ancient Greek religion, which forbade
persons who had handled a corpse or been in contact with a lying-in woman
to enter a temple or approach an altar for a certain time, sometimes for two
days.544

[pg 156]

Restrictions and taboos like those laid on menstruous and lying-in women
are imposed by some savages on lads at the initiatory rites which celebrate
the attainment of puberty; hence we may infer that at such times young men
are supposed to be in a state like that of women at menstruation and in
t childbed. Thus, among the Creek Indians a lad at initiation had to abstain
for twelve moons from picking his ears or scratching his head with his
fingers; he had to use a small stick for these purposes. For four moons he
must have a fire of his own to cook his food at; and a little girl, a virgin,
might cook for him. During the fifth moon any person might cook for him,
but he must serve himself first, and use one spoon and pan. On the fifth day
of the twelfth moon he gathered corn cobs, burned them to ashes, and with
the ashes rubbed his body all over. At the end of the twelfth moon he
sweated under blankets, and then bathed in water, which ended the
ceremony. While the ceremonies lasted, he might touch no one but lads who
were undergoing a like course of initiation.545 Caffre boys at circumcision
live secluded in a special hut; they are smeared from head to foot with
white clay; they wear tall head-dresses with horn-like projections and short
skirts like those of ballet-dancers. When their wounds are healed, all the
vessels which they had used during their seclusion and the boyish mantles
which they had hitherto worn are burned, [pg 157] together with the hut,
and the boys rush away from the burning hut without looking back, “lest a
fearful curse should cling to them.” After that they are bathed, anointed, and
clad in new garments.546

§ 4. Warriors tabooed.

Once more, warriors are conceived by the savage to move, so to say, in an
atmosphere of spiritual danger which constrains them to practise a variety
of superstitious observances quite different in their nature from those
n rational precautions which, as a matter of course, they adopt against foes of
flesh and blood. The general effect of these observances is to place the
y warrior, both before and after victory, in the same state of seclusion or
spiritual quarantine in which, for his own safety, primitive man puts his
human gods and other dangerous characters. Thus when the Maoris went
out on the war-path they were sacred or taboo in the highest degree, and
they and their friends at home had to observe strictly many curious customs
over and above the numerous taboos of ordinary life. They became, in the
irreverent language of Europeans who knew them in the old fighting days,
“tabooed an inch thick”; and as for the leader of the expedition, he was
quite unapproachable.547 Similarly, when the Israelites marched forth to war
they were bound by certain rules of ceremonial purity identical with rules
observed by Maoris and Australian blackfellows on the war-path. The
vessels they used were sacred, and they had to practise continence and a
custom of personal cleanliness of which the original motive, if we may
judge from the avowed motive of savages who conform to the same custom,
was a fear lest the enemy should obtain [pg 158] the refuse of their persons,
and thus be enabled to work their destruction by magic.548 Among some
Indian tribes of North America a young warrior in his first campaign had to
conform to certain customs, of which two were identical with the
observances imposed by the same Indians on girls at their first
menstruation: the vessels he ate and drank out of might be touched by no
other person, and he was forbidden to scratch his head or any other part of
his body with his fingers; if he could not help scratching himself, he had to
do it with a stick.549 The latter rule, like the one which forbids a tabooed
person to feed himself with his own fingers, seems to rest on the supposed
sanctity or pollution, whichever we choose to call it, of the tabooed
hands.550 Moreover [pg 159] among these Indian tribes the men on the war-

path had always to sleep at night with their faces turned towards their own
country; however uneasy the posture they might not change it. They might
not sit upon the bare ground, nor wet their feet, nor walk on a beaten path if
they could help it; when they had no choice but to walk on a path, they
sought to counteract the ill effect of doing so by doctoring their legs with
certain medicines or charms which they carried with them for the purpose.
No member of the party was permitted to step over the legs, hands, or body
of any other member who chanced to be sitting or lying on the [pg 160]
ground; and it was equally forbidden to step over his blanket, gun,
tomahawk, or anything that belonged to him. If this rule was inadvertently
broken, it became the duty of the member whose person or property had
been stepped over to knock the other member down, and it was similarly
the duty of that other to be knocked down peaceably and without resistance.
The vessels out of which the warriors ate their food were commonly small
bowls of wood or birch bark, with marks to distinguish the two sides; in
marching from home the Indians invariably drank out of one side of the
bowl, and in returning they drank out of the other. When on their way home
they came within a day's march of the village, they hung up all their bowls
on trees, or threw them away on the prairie,551 doubtless to prevent their
sanctity or defilement from being communicated with disastrous effects to
their friends, just as we have seen that the vessels and clothes of the sacred
Mikado, of women at childbirth and menstruation, of boys at circumcision,
and of persons defiled by contact with the dead are destroyed or laid aside
for a similar reason. The first four times that an Apache Indian goes out on
the war-path, he is bound to refrain from scratching his head with his
fingers and from letting water touch his lips. Hence he scratches his head
with a stick, and drinks through a hollow reed or cane. Stick and reed are
attached to the warrior's belt and to each other by a leathern thong.552 The
rule not to scratch their heads with their fingers, but to use a stick for the
purpose instead, was regularly observed by Ojebways on the war-path.553

For three or four weeks before they went on a warlike expedition, the
Nootka Indians made it an invariable rule to go into the water five or six
times a day, when they washed and scrubbed themselves from head to foot
d with bushes intermixed with briars, so that their bodies and faces were often
entirely covered with blood. During this severe exercise they continually
exclaimed, “Good or great God, let me live, [pg 161] not be sick, find the

enemy, not fear him, find him asleep, and kill a great many of them.” All
this time they had no intercourse with their women, and for a week before
t setting out abstained from feasting and every kind of merriment. For the last
e three days they were almost constantly in the water, scrubbing and
lacerating themselves in a terrible manner. They believed that this hardened
their skin, so that the weapons of the enemy could not pierce them.554
Before they went out on the war-path the Arikaras and the Big Belly Indians
(“Gros Ventres”) “observe a rigorous fast, or rather abstain from every kind
of food for four days. In this interval their imagination is exalted to
delirium; whether it be through bodily weakness or the natural effect of the
warlike plans they cherish, they pretend to have strange visions. The elders
and sages of the tribe, being called upon to interpret these dreams, draw
from them omens more or less favourable to the success of the enterprise;
and their explanations are received as oracles by which the expedition will
be faithfully regulated. So long as the preparatory fast continues, the
warriors make incisions in their bodies, insert pieces of wood in the flesh,
and having fastened leather thongs to them cause themselves to be hung
from a beam which is fixed horizontally above an abyss a hundred and fifty
feet deep. Often indeed they cut off one or two fingers which they offer in
sacrifice to the Great Spirit in order that they may come back laden with
scalps.”555 It is hard to conceive any course of training which could more
effectually incapacitate men for the business of war than that which these
foolish Indians actually adopted. With regard to the Creek Indians and
kindred tribes we are told they “will not cohabit with women while they are
out at war; they religiously abstain from every kind of intercourse even with
their own wives, for the space of three days and nights before they go to
war, and so after they return home, because they are to sanctify
themselves.”556 And as a [pg 162] preparation for attacking the enemy they
“go to the aforesaid winter house, and there drink a warm decoction of their
supposed holy consecrated herbs and roots for three days and nights,
sometimes without any other refreshment. This is to induce the deity to
guard and prosper them, amidst their impending dangers. In the most
promising appearance of things, they are not to take the least nourishment
of food, nor so much as to sit down, during that time of sanctifying
themselves, till after sunset. While on their expedition, they are not allowed
to lean themselves against a tree, though they may be exceedingly fatigued,
after a sharp day's march; nor must they lie by, a whole day to refresh

themselves, or kill and barbicue deer and bear for their war journey. The
more virtuous they are, they reckon the greater will be their success against
the enemy, by the bountiful smiles of the deity. To gain that favourite point,
some of the aged warriors narrowly watch the young men who are newly
initiated, lest they should prove irreligious, and prophane the holy fast, and
bring misfortunes on the out-standing camp. A gentleman of my
acquaintance, in his youthful days observed one of their religious fasts, but
under the greatest suspicion of his virtue in this respect, though he had often
headed them against the common enemy: during their three days'
purification, he was not allowed to go out of the sanctified ground, without
a trusty guard, lest hunger should have tempted him to violate their old
martial law, and by that means have raised the burning wrath of the holy
fire against the whole camp.” “Every war captain chuses a noted warrior, to
attend on him and the company. He is called Etissû, or ‘the waiter.’
Everything they eat or drink during their journey, he gives them out of his
hand, by a rigid abstemious rule,—though each carries on his back all his
travelling conveniencies, wrapt in a deer skin, yet they are so bigoted in
their religious customs in war that none, though prompted by sharp hunger
or burning thirst, dares relieve himself. They are contented with such
trifling allowance as the religious waiter distributes to them, even with a
scanty hand. Such a regimen would be too mortifying to any of the white
people, let their opinion of its violation be ever so dangerous. When I roved
the [pg 163] woods in a war party with the Indians, though I carried no
scrip, nor bottle, nor staff, I kept a large hollow cane well corked at each
end, and used to sheer off now and then to drink, while they suffered greatly
by thirst. The constancy of the savages in mortifying their bodies, to gain
the divine favour, is astonishing, from the very time they beat to arms, till
they return from their campaign. All the while they are out, they are
prohibited by ancient custom, the leaning against a tree, either sitting or
standing; nor are they allowed to sit in the day-time, under the shade of
trees, if it can be avoided; nor on the ground, during the whole journey, but
on such rocks, stones, or fallen wood, as their ark of war rests upon. By the
attention they invariably pay to those severe rules of living, they weaken
themselves much more than by the unavoidable fatigues of war; but it is
fruitless to endeavour to dissuade them from those things which they have
by tradition, as the appointed means to move the deity, to grant them
success against the enemy, and a safe return home.”557 “An Indian,

intending to go to war, will commence by blacking his face, permitting his
hair to grow long, and neglecting his personal appearance, and also will
frequently fast, sometimes for two or three days together, and refrain from
all intercourse with the other sex. If his dreams are favorable, he thinks that
the Great Spirit will give him success.”558 Among the Ba-Pedi and Ba-
Thonga tribes of south Africa not only have the warriors to abstain from
women, but the people left behind in the villages are also bound to
continence; they think that any incontinence on their part would cause
thorns to grow on the ground traversed by the warriors, and that success
would not attend the expedition.559

When we observe what pains these misguided savages took to unfit
themselves for the business of war by abstaining from food, denying
f themselves rest, and lacerating [pg 164] their bodies, we shall probably not
be disposed to attribute their practice of continence in war to a rational fear
of dissipating their bodily energies by indulgence in the lusts of the flesh.
e On the contrary, we can scarcely doubt that the motive which impelled them
to observe chastity on a campaign was just as frivolous as the motive which
led them simultaneously to fritter away their strength by severe fasts,
a gratuitous fatigue, and voluntary wounds at the very moment when
f prudence called most loudly for a precisely opposite regimen. Why exactly
so many savages have made it a rule to refrain from women in time of
war,560 we cannot say for certain, but we may conjecture that their motive
was a superstitious fear lest, on the principles of sympathetic magic, close
h contact with women should infect them with feminine weakness and
cowardice. Similarly some savages imagine that contact with a woman in
childbed enervates warriors and enfeebles their weapons.561 Indeed the
Kayans of central Borneo go so far as to hold that to touch a loom or
women's clothes would so weaken a man that he [pg 165] would have no
success in hunting, fishing, and war.562 Hence it is not merely sexual
intercourse with women that the savage warrior sometimes shuns; he is
careful to avoid the sex altogether. Thus among the hill tribes of Assam, not
only are men forbidden to cohabit with their wives during or after a raid,
but they may not eat food cooked by a woman; nay they should not address
a word even to their own wives. Once a woman, who unwittingly broke the
rule by speaking to her husband while he was under the war taboo, sickened
and died when she learned the awful crime she had committed.563

§ 5. Manslayers tabooed.

If the reader still doubts whether the rules of conduct which we have just
been considering are based on superstitious fears or dictated by a rational
prudence, his doubts will probably be dissipated when he learns that rules
n of the same sort are often imposed even more stringently on warriors after
the victory has been won and when all fear of the living corporeal foe is at
an end. In such cases one motive for the inconvenient restrictions laid on
the victors in their hour of triumph is probably a dread of the angry ghosts
of the slain; and that the fear of the vengeful ghosts does influence the
t behaviour of the slayers is often expressly affirmed. The general effect of
e the taboos laid on sacred chiefs, mourners, women at childbirth, men on the
s war-path, and so on, is to seclude or isolate the tabooed persons from
e ordinary society, this effect being attained by a variety of rules, which
oblige the men or women to live in separate huts or in the open air, to shun
the commerce of the sexes, to avoid the use of vessels employed by others,
and so forth. Now the same effect is produced by similar means in the case
of victorious warriors, particularly such as have actually shed the blood of
their enemies. In the island of Timor, when a warlike expedition has
returned in triumph bringing the heads of the vanquished foe, the leader of
the expedition is [pg 166] forbidden by religion and custom to return at
once to his own house. A special hut is prepared for him, in which he has to
reside for two months, undergoing bodily and spiritual purification. During
e this time he may not go to his wife nor feed himself; the food must be put
into his mouth by another person.564 That these observances are dictated by
fear of the ghosts of the slain seems certain; for from another account of the
ceremonies performed on the return of a successful head-hunter in the same
island we learn that sacrifices are offered on this occasion to appease the
soul of the man whose head has been taken; the people think that some
misfortune would befall the victor were such offerings omitted. Moreover, a
part of the ceremony consists of a dance accompanied by a song, in which
the death of the slain man is lamented and his forgiveness is entreated. “Be
not angry,” they say, “because your head is here with us; had we been less

lucky, our heads might now have been exposed in your village. We have
offered the sacrifice to appease you. Your spirit may now rest and leave us
at peace. Why were you our enemy? Would it not have been better that we
should remain friends? Then your blood would not have been spilt and your
head would not have been cut off.”565 The people of Paloo, in central
Celebes, take the heads of their enemies in war and afterwards propitiate the
souls of the slain in the temple.566 In some Dyak tribes men on returning
from an expedition in which they have taken human heads are obliged to
keep by themselves and abstain from a variety [pg 167] of things for several
days; they may not touch iron nor eat salt or fish with bones, and they may
have no intercourse with women.567

In Logea, an island off the south-eastern extremity of New Guinea, men
who have killed or assisted in killing enemies shut themselves up for about
a week in their houses. They must avoid all intercourse with their wives and
friends, and they may not touch food with their hands. They may eat
vegetable food only, which is brought to them cooked in special pots. The
w intention of these restrictions is to guard the men against the smell of the
blood of the slain; for it is believed that if they smelt the blood, they would
fall ill and die.568 In the Toaripi or Motumotu tribe of south-eastern New
Guinea a man who has killed another may not go near his wife, and may not
touch food with his fingers. He is fed by others, and only with certain kinds
of food. These observances last till the new moon.569 Among the tribes at
the mouth of the Wanigela River, in New Guinea, “a man who has taken life
is considered to be impure until he has undergone certain ceremonies: as
soon as possible after the deed he cleanses himself and his weapon. This
satisfactorily accomplished, he repairs to his village and seats himself on
the logs of sacrificial staging. No one approaches him or takes any notice
whatever of him. A house is prepared for him which is put in charge of two
or three small boys as servants. He may eat only toasted bananas, and only
the centre portion of them—the ends being thrown away. On the third day
of his seclusion a small feast is prepared by his friends, who also fashion
some new perineal bands for him. This is called ivi poro. The next day the
man dons all his best ornaments and badges for taking life, and sallies forth
fully armed and parades the village. The next day a hunt is organised, and a
kangaroo selected from the game captured. It is cut open and the spleen and
liver rubbed [pg 168] over the back of the man. He then walks solemnly

down to the nearest water, and standing straddle-legs in it washes himself.
All the young untried warriors swim between his legs. This is supposed to
impart courage and strength to them. The following day, at early dawn, he
dashes out of his house, fully armed, and calls aloud the name of his victim.
Having satisfied himself that he has thoroughly scared the ghost of the dead
man, he returns to his house. The beating of flooring-boards and the lighting
of fires is also a certain method of scaring the ghost. A day later his
purification is finished. He can then enter his wife's house.”570 Among the
Roro-speaking tribes of British New Guinea homicides were secluded in the
warriors' clubhouse. They had to pass the night in the building, but during
the day they might paint and decorate themselves and dance in front of it.
For some time they might not eat much food nor touch it with their hands,
but were obliged to pick it up on a bone fork, the heft of which was
wrapped in a banana leaf. After a while they bathed in the sea and thence
forward for a period of about a month, though they had still to sleep in the
warriors' clubhouse, they were free to eat as much food as they pleased and
to pick it up with their bare hands. Finally, those warriors who had never
killed a man before assumed a beautiful ornament made of fretted turtle
shell, which none but homicides were allowed to flaunt in their head-
dresses. Then came a dance, and that same night the men who wore the
honourable badge of homicide for the first time were chased about the
village; embers were thrown at them and firebrands waved in order,
apparently, to drive away the souls of the dead enemies, who seem to be
conceived as immanent in some way in the headgear of their slayers.571
Again, among the Koita of British New Guinea, when a man had killed
another, whether the victim were male or female, he did not wash the blood
off the spear or club, but carefully allowed it to dry on the weapon. On his
way home he bathed in fresh or salt water, and [pg 169] on reaching his
village went straight to his own house, where he remained in seclusion for
about a week. He was taboo (aina): he might not approach women, and he
lifted his food to his mouth with a bone fork. His women-folk were not
obliged to leave the house, but they might not come near him. At the end of
a week he built a rough shelter in the forest, where he lived for a few days.
During this time he made a new waist-band, which he wore on his return to
the village. A man who has slain another is supposed to grow thin and
emaciated, because he had been splashed with the blood of his victim, and
as the corpse rotted he wasted away.572 Among the Southern Massim of

British New Guinea a warrior who has taken a prisoner or slain a man
remains secluded in his house for six days. During the first three days he
may eat only roasted food and must cook it for himself. Then he bathes and
blackens his face for the remaining three days.573

Among the Monumbos of German New Guinea any one who has slain a foe
in war becomes thereby “unclean” (bolobolo), and they apply the same term
“unclean” to menstruous and lying-in women and also to everything that
has come into contact with a corpse, which shews that all these classes of
persons and things are closely associated in their minds. The “unclean” man
who has killed an enemy in battle must remain a long time in the men's
e clubhouse, while the villagers gather round him and celebrate his victory
f with dance and song. He may touch nobody, not even his own wife and
children; if he were to touch them it is believed that they would be covered
with sores. He becomes clean again by washing and using other modes of
purification.574 In Windessi, Dutch New Guinea, when a party of head-
hunters has been successful, and they are nearing home, they announce their
approach and success by blowing on triton shells. Their canoes are also
decked with branches. The faces of the men who have taken a head are
blackened with charcoal. If several have taken part in [pg 170] killing the
same victim, his head is divided among them. They always time their
arrival so as to reach home in the early morning. They come rowing to the
village with a great noise, and the women stand ready to dance in the
verandahs of the houses. The canoes row past the room sram or house
where the young men live; and as they pass, the murderers throw as many
pointed sticks or bamboos at the wall or the roof as there were enemies
killed. The day is spent very quietly. Now and then they drum or blow on
the conch; at other times they beat the walls of the houses with loud shouts
to drive away the ghosts of the slain.575 Similarly in the Doreh district of
Dutch New Guinea, if a murder has taken place in the village, the
inhabitants assemble for several evenings in succession and utter frightful
yells to drive away the ghost of the victim in case he should be minded to
hang about the village.576 So the Yabim of German New Guinea believe that
the spirit of a murdered man pursues his murderer and seeks to do him a
mischief. Hence they drive away the spirit with shouts and the beating of
drums.577 When the Fijians had buried a man alive, as they often did, they
used at nightfall to make a great uproar by means of bamboos, trumpet-

shells, and so forth, for the purpose of frightening away his ghost, lest he
should attempt to return to his old home. And to render his house
unattractive to him they dismantled it and clothed it with everything that to
their ideas seemed most repulsive.578 On the evening of the day on which
they had tortured a prisoner to death, the American Indians were wont to
run through the village with hideous yells, beating with sticks on the
furniture, the walls, and the roofs of the huts to prevent the angry ghost of
their victim from settling there and taking vengeance for the torments that
his body had endured at their hands.579 “Once,” says a traveller, “on [pg
171] approaching in the night a village of Ottawas, I found all the
inhabitants in confusion: they were all busily engaged in raising noises of
the loudest and most inharmonious kind. Upon inquiry, I found that a battle
had been lately fought between the Ottawas and the Kickapoos, and that the
object of all this noise was to prevent the ghosts of the departed combatants
from entering the village.”580

The executioner at Porto Novo, on the coast of Guinea, used to decorate his
walls with the jawbones of the persons on whom he had operated in the
course of business. But for this simple precaution their ghosts would
y unquestionably have come at night to knock with sobs and groans, in an
insufferable manner, at the door of the room where he slept the sleep of the
t just.581 The temper of a man who has just been executed is naturally
s somewhat short, and in a burst of vexation his ghost is apt to fall foul of the
r first person he comes across, without discriminating between the objects of
his wrath with that nicety of judgment which in calmer moments he may be
expected to display. Hence in China it is, or used to be, customary for the
spectators of an execution to shew a clean pair of heels to the ghosts as soon
as the last head was off.582 The same fear of the spirits of his victims leads
the executioner sometimes to live in seclusion for some time after he has
discharged his office. Thus an old writer, speaking of Issini on the Gold
Coast of West Africa, tells us that the “executioners, being reckoned impure
for three days, they build them a separate hut at a distance from the village.
Meantime these fellows run like madmen through the place, seizing all they
can lay hands on; poultry, sheep, bread, and oil; everything they can touch
is theirs; being deemed so polluted that the owners willingly give it up.
They continue three days confined to their hut, their friends bringing them
victuals. This time expired, they take their hut in pieces, which they [pg

172] bundle up, not leaving so much as the ashes of their fire. The first
executioner, having a pot on his head, leads them to the place where the
criminal suffered. There they all call him thrice by his name. The first
executioner breaks his pot, and leaving their old rags and bundles they all
scamper home.”583 Here the thrice-repeated invocation of the victim by
name gives the clue to the rest of the observances; all of them are probably
intended to ward off the angry ghost of the slain man or to give him the slip.

Among the Basutos “ablution is specially performed on return from battle.
It is absolutely necessary that the warriors should rid themselves, as soon as
possible, of the blood they have shed, or the shades of their victims would
f pursue them incessantly, and disturb their slumbers. They go in a
procession, and in full armour, to the nearest stream. At the moment they
g enter the water a diviner, placed higher up, throws some purifying
substances into the current. This is, however, not strictly necessary. The
javelins and battle-axes also undergo the process of washing.”584 According
to another account of the Basuto custom, “warriors who have killed an
d enemy are purified. The chief has to wash them, sacrificing an ox in
presence of the whole army. They are also anointed with the gall of the
animal, which prevents the ghost of the enemy from pursuing them any
e further.”585 Among the Bechuanas a man who has killed another, whether in
f war or in single combat, is not allowed to enter the village until he has been
n purified. [pg 173] The ceremony takes place in the evening. An ox is
e slaughtered, and a hole having been made through the middle of the carcase
with a spear, the manslayer has to force himself through the animal, while
two men hold its stomach open.586 Sometimes instead of being obliged to
squeeze through the carcase of an ox the manslayer is merely smeared with
the contents of its stomach. The ceremony has been described as follows:
“In the purification of warriors, too, the ox takes a conspicuous part. The
warrior who has slain a man in the battle is unclean, and must on no
account enter his own courtyard, for it would be a serious thing if even his
shadow were to fall upon his children. He studiously keeps himself apart
from the civil life of the town until he is purified. The purification
ceremony is significant. Having bathed himself in running water, or, if that
is not convenient, in water that has been appropriately medicated, he is
smeared by the doctor with the contents of the stomach of an ox, into which
certain powdered roots have been already mixed, and then the doctor strikes

him on the back, sides, and belly with the large bowel of an ox.... A doctor
takes a piece of roasted beef and cuts it into small lumps of about the size of
a walnut, laying them carefully on a large wooden trencher. He has already
prepared charcoal, by roasting the root of certain trees in an old cracked pot,
and this he grinds down and sprinkles on the lumps of meat on the trencher.
Then the army surrounds the trencher, and every one who has slain a foe in
the battle steps forth, kneels down before the trencher, and takes out a piece
of meat with his mouth, taking care not to touch it or the trencher with his
hands. As he takes the meat, the doctor gives him a smart cut with a switch.
And when he has eaten that lump of meat his purification is complete. This
ceremony is called Go alafsha dintèè, or ‘the purification of the strikers.’ ”
The writer to whom we owe this description adds: “This taking of meat
from the trencher without using the hands is evidently a matter of ritual.”587
The [pg 174] observation is correct. Here as in so many cases persons
ceremonially unclean are forbidden to touch food with defiled hands until
their uncleanness has been purged away. The same taboo is laid on the
manslayer by the Bageshu of British East Africa. Among them a man who
has killed another may not return to his own house on the same day, though
he may enter the village and spend the night in a friend's house. He kills a
sheep and smears his chest, his right arm, and his head with the contents of
the animal's stomach. His children are brought to him and he smears them
in like manner. Then he smears each side of the doorway with the tripe and
entrails, and finally throws the rest of the stomach on the roof of his house.
For a whole day he may not touch food with his hands, but picks it up with
two sticks and so conveys it to his mouth. His wife is not under any such
restrictions. She may even go to mourn for the man whom her husband has
killed, if she wishes to do so.588 In some Bechuana tribes the victorious
warrior is obliged to eat a piece of the skin of the man he killed; the skin is
taken from about the navel of his victim, and without it he may not enter the
cattle pen. Moreover, the medicine-man makes a gash with a spear in the
warrior's thigh for every man he has killed.589 Among the Angoni, a Zulu
tribe settled to the north of the Zambesi, warriors who have slain foes on an
expedition smear their bodies and faces with ashes, hang garments of their
victims on their persons, and tie bark ropes round their necks, so that the
ends hang down over their shoulders or breasts. This costume they wear for
three days after their return, and rising at break of day they run through the
village uttering frightful yells to drive away the ghosts of the slain, which, if

they were not thus banished from the houses, might bring sickness and
misfortune on the inmates.590 In some Caffre tribes of South Africa men
who have been wounded or killed an enemy in fight may not see the king
nor drink [pg 175] milk till they have been purified. An ox is killed, and its
gall, intestines, and other parts are boiled with roots. Of this decoction the
men have to take three gulps, and the rest is sprinkled on their bodies. The
wounded man has then to take a stick, spit on it thrice, point it thrice at the
enemy, and then throw it in his direction. After that he takes an emetic and
is declared clean.591

In some of these accounts nothing is said of an enforced seclusion, at least
after the ceremonial cleansing, but some South African tribes certainly
require the slayer of a very gallant foe in war to keep apart from his wife
and family for ten days after he has washed his body in running water. He
also receives from the tribal doctor a medicine which he chews with his
f food.592 When a Nandi of British East Africa has killed a member of another
tribe, he paints one side of his body, spear, and sword red, and the other side
white. For four days after the slaughter he is considered unclean and may
not go home. He has to build a small shelter by a river and live there; he
may not associate with his wife or sweetheart, and he may eat nothing but
porridge, beef, and goat's flesh. At the end of the fourth day he must purify
himself by taking a strong purge made from the bark of the segetet tree and
by drinking goat's milk mixed with blood.593 Among the Akikuya of British
East Africa all who have shed human blood must be purified. The elders
assemble and one of them cuts a strip of hair from above both ears of each
manslayer. After that the warriors rub themselves with the dung taken from
the stomach of a sheep which has been slaughtered for the occasion. Finally
their bodies are cleansed with water. All the hair remaining on their heads is
subsequently shaved off by their wives. For a month after the shedding of
blood they may have no contact with [pg 176] women.594 On the contrary,
when a Ketosh warrior of British East Africa, who has killed a foe in battle,
returns home “it is considered essential that he should have connection with
his wife as soon as convenient; this is believed to prevent the spirit of his
dead enemy from haunting and bewitching him.”595 An Angoni who has
killed a man in battle is obliged to perform certain purificatory ceremonies
before he may return to ordinary life. Amongst other things, he must be sure
to make an incision in the corpse of his slain foe, in order to let the gases

escape and so prevent the body from swelling. If he fails to do so, his own
body will swell in proportion as the corpse becomes inflated.596 Among the
Ovambos of southern Africa, when the warriors return to their villages,
those who have killed an enemy pass the first night in the open fields, and
may not enter their houses until they have been cleansed of the guilt of
blood by an older man, who smears them for this purpose with a kind of
porridge.597 Herero warriors on their return from battle may not approach
the sacred hearth until they have been purified from the guilt of bloodshed.
They crouch in a circle round the hearth, but at some distance from it, while
the chief besprinkles their brows and temples with water in which branches
of a holy bush have been placed.598 Again, ancient Herero custom requires
that he who has killed a man or a lion should have blood drawn from his
breast and upper arm so as to trickle on the ground: a special name (outoni)
is given to the cuts thus made; they must be made with a flint, not with an
iron tool.599 Among the Bantu tribes of Kavirondo, in eastern Africa, when a
man has [pg 177] killed an enemy in warfare he shaves his head on his
return home, and his friends rub a medicine, which generally consists of
goat's dung, over his body to prevent the spirit of the slain man from
troubling him.600 Exactly the same custom is practised for the same reason
by the Wageia of German East Africa.601 With the Ja-Luo of Kavirondo the
custom is somewhat different. Three days after his return from the fight the
warrior shaves his head. But before he may enter his village he has to hang
a live fowl, head uppermost, round his neck; then the bird is decapitated and
its head left hanging round his neck. Soon after his return a feast is made
for the slain man, in order that his ghost may not haunt his slayer.602 After
the slaughter of the Midianites the Israelitish warriors were obliged to
remain outside the camp for seven days: whoever had killed a man or
touched the slain had to purify himself and his captive. The spoil taken from
the enemy had also to be purified, according to its nature, either by fire or
water.603 Similarly among the Basutos cattle taken from the enemy are
fumigated with bundles of lighted branches before they are allowed to
mingle with the herds of the tribe.604

The Arunta of central Australia believe that when a party of men has been
out against the enemy and taken a life, the spirit of the slain man follows
the party on its return and is constantly on the watch to do a mischief to
n those of the band who actually shed the blood. It takes the form of a little

bird called the chichurkna, and may be heard crying like a child in the
distance as it flies. If any of the slayers should fail to hear its cry, he would
become paralysed in his right arm and shoulder. At night-time especially,
e when the bird is flying over the camp, the slayers have to lie awake and
f keep the right arm and shoulder carefully hidden, lest the bird should look
down upon and harm them. When once they have [pg 178] heard its cry
their minds are at ease, because the spirit of the dead then recognises that he
has been detected, and can therefore do no mischief. On their return to their
friends, as soon as they come in sight of the main camp, they begin to
perform an excited war-dance, approaching in the form of a square and
moving their shields as if to ward off something which was being thrown at
them. This action is intended to repel the angry spirit of the dead man, who
is striving to attack them. Next the men who did the deed of blood separate
themselves from the others, and forming a line, with spears at rest and
shields held out in front, stand silent and motionless like statues. A number
of old women now approach with a sort of exulting skip and strike the
shields of the manslayers with fighting-clubs till they ring again. They are
followed by men who smite the shields with boomerangs. This striking of
the shields is supposed to be a very effective way of frightening away the
spirit of the dead man. The natives listen anxiously to the sounds emitted by
the shields when they are struck; for if any man's shield gives forth a hollow
sound under the blow, that man will not live long, but if it rings sharp and
clear, he is safe. For some days after their return the slayers will not speak
of what they have done, and continue to paint themselves all over with
powdered charcoal, and to decorate their foreheads and noses with green
twigs. Finally, they paint their bodies and faces with bright colours, and
become free to talk about the affair; but still of nights they must lie awake
listening for the plaintive cry of the bird in which they fancy they hear the
voice of their victim.605

In the Washington group of the Marquesas Islands, the man who has slain
an enemy in battle becomes tabooed for ten days, during which he may hold
no intercourse with his wife, and may not meddle with fire. Hence another
has to make fire and to cook for him. Nevertheless he is treated with
marked distinction and receives presents of pigs.606 In [pg 179] Fiji any one
n who had clubbed a human being to death in war was consecrated or
tabooed. He was smeared red by the king with turmeric from the roots of

his hair to his heels. A hut was built, and in it he had to pass the next three
nights, during which he might not lie down, but must sleep as he sat. Till
the three nights had elapsed he might not change his garment, nor remove
the turmeric, nor enter a house in which there was a woman.607 In the Pelew
Islands, when the men return from a warlike expedition in which they have
taken a life, the young warriors who have been out fighting for the first
time, and all who handled the slain, are shut up in the large council-house
and become tabooed. They may not quit the edifice, nor bathe, nor touch a
woman, nor eat fish; their food is limited to coco-nuts and syrup. They rub
themselves with charmed leaves and chew charmed betel. After three days
they go together to bathe as near as possible to the spot where the man was
killed.608

When the Tupi Indians of Brazil had made a prisoner in war, they used to
bring him home amid great rejoicings, decked with the gorgeous plumage
of tropical birds. In the village he was well treated: he received a house and
furniture and was married to a wife. When he was thus comfortably
installed, the relations and friends of his captor, who had the first pick,
f came and examined him and decided which of his limbs and joints they
proposed to eat; and according to their choice they were bound to provide
g him with victuals. Thus he might live for months or years, treated like a
i king, supplied with all the delicacies of the country, and rearing a family of
f children who, when they were big, might or might not be eaten with their
father. While he was thus being fattened like a capon for the slaughter, he
wore a necklace of fruit or of fish-bones strung on a cotton thread. This was
the measure of his life. For every fruit or every bone on the string he had a
month to live; and as each moon waned and vanished they took a fruit or a
bone from the necklace. [pg 180] When only one remained, they sent out
invitations to friends and neighbours far and near, who flocked in,
sometimes to the number of ten or twelve thousand, to witness the spectacle
and partake of the feast; for often a number of prisoners were to die the
same day, father, mother, and children all together. As a rule they shewed a
remarkable stolidity and indifference to death. The club with which they
were to be despatched was elaborately prepared by the women, who
adorned it with tassels of feathers, smeared it with the pounded shells of a
macaw's eggs, and traced lines on the egg-shell powder. Then they hung it
to a pole, above the ground, in an empty hut, and sang around it all night.

The executioner, who was painted grey with ashes and his whole body
covered with the beautiful feathers of parrots and other birds of gay
plumage, performed his office by striking the victim on the head from
behind and dashing out his brains. No sooner had he despatched the
prisoner than he retired to his house, where he had to stay all that day
without eating or drinking, while the rest of the people feasted on the body
of the victim or victims. And for three days he was obliged to fast and
remain in seclusion. All this time he lay in his hammock and might not set
foot on the ground; if he had to go anywhere, he was carried by bearers.
They thought that, were he to break this rule, some disaster would befall
him or he would die. Meantime he was given a small bow and passed his
time in shooting arrows into wax. This he did in order to keep his hand and
aim steady. In some of the tribes they rubbed the pulse of the executioner
with one of the eyes of his victim, and hung the mouth of the murdered man
like a bracelet on his arm. Afterwards he made incisions in his breast, arms,
and legs, and other parts of his body with a saw made of the teeth of an
animal. An ointment and a black powder were then rubbed into the wounds,
which left ineffaceable scars so artistically arranged that they presented the
appearance of a tightly-fitting garment. It was believed that he would die if
he did not thus draw blood from his own body after slaughtering the
captive.609 We [pg 181] may conjecture that the original intention of these
customs was to guard the executioner against the angry and dangerous
ghosts of his victims.

Among the Natchez of North America young braves who had taken their
first scalps were obliged to observe certain rules of abstinence for six
months. They might not sleep with their wives nor eat flesh; their only food
was fish and hasty-pudding. If they broke these rules, they believed that the
soul of the man they had killed would work their death by magic, that they
f would gain no more successes over the enemy, and that the least wound
inflicted on them would prove mortal.610 When a Choctaw had killed an
g enemy and taken his scalp, he went into mourning for a month, during
h which he might not comb his hair, and if his head itched he might not
scratch it except with a little stick which he wore fastened to his wrist for
the purpose.611 This ceremonial mourning for the enemies they had slain
was not uncommon among the North American Indians. Thus the Dacotas,
when they had killed a foe, unbraided their hair, blackened themselves all

over, and wore a small knot of swan's down on the top of the head. “They
dress as mourners yet rejoice.”612 A Thompson River Indian of British
Columbia, who had slain an enemy, used to blacken his own face, lest his
victim's ghost should blind him.613 When the Osages have mourned over
their own dead, “they will mourn for the foe just as if he was a friend.”614
From observing the great respect paid by [pg 182] the Indians to the scalps
they had taken, and listening to the mournful songs which they howled to
the shades of their victims, Catlin was convinced that “they have a
superstitious dread of the spirits of their slain enemies, and many
conciliatory offices to perform, to ensure their own peace.”615 When a Pima
Indian has killed an Apache, he must undergo purification. Sixteen days he
fasts, and only after the fourth day is he allowed to drink a little pinole.
During the whole time he may not touch meat nor salt, nor look on a
blazing fire, nor speak to a human being. He lives alone in the woods,
waited on by an old woman, who brings him his scanty dole of food. He
bathes often in a river, and keeps his head covered almost the whole time
with a plaster of mud. On the seventeenth day a large space is cleared near
the village and a fire lit in the middle of it. The men of the tribe form a
circle round the fire, and outside of it sit all the warriors who have just been
purified, each in a small excavation. Some of the old men then take the
weapons of the purified and dance with them in the circle, after which both
the slayer and his weapon are considered clean; but not until four days later
is the man allowed to return to his family.616 No doubt the peace enforced
by the [pg 183] government of the United States has, along with tribal
warfare, abolished also these quaint customs. A fuller account of them has
been given by a recent writer, and it deserves to be quoted at length. “There
was no law among the Pimas,” he says, “observed with greater strictness
than that which required purification and expiation for the deed that was at
the same time the most lauded—the killing of an enemy. For sixteen days
the warrior fasted in seclusion and observed meanwhile a number of
tabus.... Attended by an old man, the warrior who had to expiate the crime
of blood guilt retired to the groves along the river bottom at some distance
from the villages or wandered about the adjoining hills. During the period
of sixteen days he was not allowed to touch his head with his fingers or his
hair would turn white. If he touched his face it would become wrinkled. He
kept a stick to scratch his head with, and at the end of every four days this
stick was buried at the root and on the west side of a cat's claw tree and a

new stick was made of greasewood, arrow bush, or any other convenient
shrub. He then bathed in the river, no matter how cold the temperature. The
feast of victory which his friends were observing in the meantime at the
village lasted eight days. At the end of that time, or when his period of
retirement was half-completed, the warrior might go to his home to get a
fetish made from the hair of the Apache whom he had killed. The hair was
wrapped in eagle down and tied with a cotton string and kept in a long
medicine basket. He drank no water for the first two days and fasted for the
first four. After that time he was supplied with pinole by his attendant, who
also instructed him as to his future conduct, telling him that he must
henceforth stand back until [pg 184] all others were served when partaking
of food and drink. If he was a married man his wife was not allowed to eat
salt during his retirement, else she would suffer from the owl disease which
causes stiff limbs. The explanation offered for the observance of this law of
lustration is that if it is not obeyed the warrior's limbs will become stiffened
or paralyzed.”617 The Apaches, the enemies of the Pimas, purify themselves
for the slaughter of their foes by means of baths in the sweat-house, singing,
and other rites. These ceremonies they perform for all the dead
simultaneously after their return home; but the Pimas, more punctilious on
this point, resort to their elaborate ceremonies of purification the moment a
single one of their own band or of the enemy has been laid low.618 How
heavily these religious scruples must have told against the Pimas in their
wars with their ferocious enemies is obvious enough. “This long period of
retirement immediately after a battle,” says an American writer, “greatly
diminished the value of the Pimas as scouts and allies for the United States
troops operating against the Apaches. The bravery of the Pimas was praised
by all army officers having any experience with them, but Captain Bourke
and others have complained of their unreliability, due solely to their rigid
observance of this religious law.”619 In nothing, perhaps, is the penalty
which superstition sooner or later entails on its devotees more prompt and
crushing than in the operations of war.

Far away from the torrid home of the Pima and Apaches, an old traveller
witnessed ceremonies of the same sort practised near the Arctic Circle by
some Indians who had surprised and brutally massacred an unoffending and
helpless party of Esquimaux. His description is so interesting that I will
quote it in full. “Among the various superstitious customs of those people,

d it is worth remarking, and ought to have been mentioned in its proper place,
that immediately after my companions had killed the Esquimaux at the
Copper River, they considered themselves in a state of uncleanness, which
induced [pg 185] them to practise some very curious and unusual
ceremonies. In the first place, all who were absolutely concerned in the
murder were prohibited from cooking any kind of victuals, either for
themselves or others. As luckily there were two in company who had not
shed blood, they were employed always as cooks till we joined the women.
This circumstance was exceedingly favourable on my side; for had there
been no persons of the above description in company, that task, I was told,
would have fallen on me; which would have been no less fatiguing and
troublesome, than humiliating and vexatious. When the victuals were
cooked, all the murderers took a kind of red earth, or oker, and painted all
the space between the nose and chin, as well as the greater part of their
cheeks, almost to the ears, before they would taste a bit, and would not
drink out of any other dish, or smoke out of any other pipe, but their own;
and none of the others seemed willing to drink or smoke out of theirs. We
had no sooner joined the women, at our return from the expedition, than
there seemed to be an universal spirit of emulation among them, vying who
should first make a suit of ornaments for their husbands, which consisted of
bracelets for the wrists, and a band for the forehead, composed of porcupine
quills and moose-hair, curiously wrought on leather. The custom of painting
the mouth and part of the cheeks before each meal, and drinking and
smoking out of their own utensils, was strictly and invariably observed, till
the winter began to set in; and during the whole of that time they would
never kiss any of their wives or children. They refrained also from eating
many parts of the deer and other animals, particularly the head, entrails, and
blood; and during their uncleanness, their victuals were never sodden in
water, but dried in the sun, eaten quite raw, or broiled, when a fire fit for the
purpose could be procured. When the time arrived that was to put an end to
these ceremonies, the men, without a female being present, made a fire at
some distance from the tents, into which they threw all their ornaments,
pipe-stems, and dishes, which were soon consumed to ashes; after which a
feast was prepared, consisting of such articles as they had long been
prohibited from eating; and when all was over, each man was at [pg 186]
liberty to eat, drink, and smoke as he pleased; and also to kiss his wives and

children at discretion, which they seemed to do with more raptures than I
had ever known them do it either before or since.”620

Thus we see that warriors who have taken the life of a foe in battle are
temporarily cut off from free intercourse with their fellows, and especially
with their wives, and must undergo certain rites of purification before they
are readmitted to society. Now if the purpose of their seclusion and of the
f expiatory rites which they have to perform is, as we have been led to
believe, no other than to shake off, frighten, or appease the angry spirit of
f the slain man, [pg 187] we may safely conjecture that the similar
purification of homicides and murderers, who have imbrued their hands in
e the blood of a fellow-tribesman, had at first the same significance, and that
the idea of a moral or spiritual regeneration symbolised by the washing, the
fasting, and so on, was merely a later interpretation put upon the old custom
by men who had outgrown the primitive modes of thought in which the
custom originated. The conjecture will be confirmed if we can shew that
savages have actually imposed certain restrictions on the murderer of a
r fellow-tribesman from a definite fear that he is haunted by the ghost of his
victim. This we can do with regard to the Omahas, a tribe of the Siouan
s stock in North America. Among these Indians the kinsmen of a murdered
e man had the right to put the murderer to death, but sometimes they waived
their right in consideration of presents which they consented to accept.
When the life of the murderer was spared, he had to observe certain
stringent rules for a period which varied from two to four years. He must
f walk barefoot, and he might eat no warm food, nor raise his voice, nor look
s around. He was compelled to pull his robe about him and to have it tied at
e the neck even in hot weather; he might not let it hang loose or fly open. He
might not move his hands about, but had to keep them close to his body. He
might not comb his hair and it might not be blown about by the wind. When
the tribe went out hunting, he was obliged to pitch his tent about a quarter
of a mile from the rest of the people “lest the ghost of his victim should
raise a high wind, which might cause damage.” Only one of his kindred was
allowed to remain with him at his tent. No one wished to eat with him, for
they said, “If we eat with him whom Wakanda hates Wakanda will hate us.”
Sometimes he wandered at night crying and lamenting his offence. At the
end of his long isolation the kinsmen of the murdered man heard his crying
and said, “It is enough. Begone, and walk among the crowd. Put on

moccasins and wear a good robe.”621 Here the reason alleged for keeping
the murderer at a considerable distance from the hunters gives the clue to all
the other restrictions [pg 188] laid on him: he was haunted and therefore
dangerous. The ancient Greeks believed that the soul of a man who had just
been killed was wroth with his slayer and troubled him; wherefore it was
needful even for the involuntary homicide to depart from his country for a
year until the anger of the dead man had cooled down; nor might the slayer
return until sacrifice had been offered and ceremonies of purification
performed. If his victim chanced to be a foreigner, the homicide had to shun
the native country of the dead man as well as his own.622 The legend of the
matricide Orestes, how he roamed from place to place pursued by the Furies
of his murdered mother, and none would sit at meat with him, or take him
in, till he had been purified,623 reflects faithfully the real Greek dread of
such as were still haunted by an angry ghost. When the turbulent people of
Cynaetha, after perpetrating an atrocious massacre, sent an embassy to
Sparta, every Arcadian town through which the envoys passed on their
journey ordered them out of its walls at once; and the Mantineans, after the
embassy had departed, even instituted a solemn purification of the city and
its territory by carrying sacrificial victims round them both.624

Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia, men who have partaken
of human flesh as a ceremonial rite are subject for a long time afterwards to
many restrictions or taboos of the sort we have been dealing with. They
may not touch their wives for a whole year; and during the same time they
n are forbidden to work or gamble. For four months they must live alone in
e their bedrooms, and when they are obliged to quit the house for a necessary
purpose, they may not go out at the ordinary door, but must use only the
n secret door in the rear of the house. On such occasions each of them is
attended by all the rest, carrying small sticks. They must all sit down
together on a long log, then get up, then sit down again, repeating this three
[pg 189] times before they are allowed to remain seated. Before they rise
they must turn round four times. Then they go back to the house. Before
entering they must raise their feet four times; with the fourth step they
really pass the door, taking care to enter with the right foot foremost. In the
doorway they turn four times and walk slowly into the house. They are not
permitted to look back. During the four months of their seclusion each man
in eating must use a spoon, dish, and kettle of his own, which are thrown

away at the end of the period. Before he draws water from a bucket or a
brook, he must dip his cup into it thrice; and he may not take more than four
mouthfuls at one time. He must carry a wing-bone of an eagle and drink
through it, for his lips may not touch the brim of his cup. Also he keeps a
copper nail to scratch his head with, for were his own nails to touch his own
skin they would drop off. For sixteen days after he has partaken of human
flesh he may not eat any warm food, and for the whole of the four months
he is forbidden to cool hot food by blowing on it with his breath. At the end
of winter, when the season of ceremonies is over, he feigns to have
forgotten the ordinary ways of men, and has to learn everything anew. The
reason for these remarkable restrictions imposed on men who have eaten
human flesh is not stated; but we may surmise that fear of the ghost of the
man whose body was eaten has at least a good deal to do with them. We are
confirmed in our conjecture by observing that though these cannibals
sometimes content themselves with taking bites out of living people, the
rules in question are especially obligatory on them after they have devoured
a corpse. Moreover, the careful treatment of the bones of the victim points
to the same conclusion; for during the four months of seclusion observed by
the cannibals, the bones of the person on whom they feasted are kept
alternately for four days at a time under rocks in the sea and in their
bedrooms on the north side of the house, where the sun cannot shine on
them. Finally the bones are taken out of the house, tied up, weighted with a
stone, and thrown into deep water, “because it is believed that if they were
buried they would come back and take [pg 190] their master's soul.”625 This
seems to mean that if the bones of the victim were buried, his ghost would
come back and fetch away the souls of the men who had eaten his body.
The Gebars, a cannibal tribe in the north of New Guinea, are much afraid of
the spirit of a slain man or woman. Among them persons who have partaken
of human flesh for the first time reside for a month afterwards in a small hut
and may not enter the dwelling-house.626

§ 6. Hunters and Fishers tabooed.

In savage society the hunter and the fisherman have often to observe rules
of abstinence and to submit to ceremonies of purification of the same sort as
those which are obligatory on the warrior and the manslayer; and though we
cannot in all cases perceive the exact purpose which these rules and
ceremonies are supposed to serve, we may with some probability assume
that, just as the dread of the spirits of his enemies is the main motive for the
d seclusion and purification of the warrior who hopes to take or has already
taken their lives, so the huntsman or fisherman who complies with similar
f customs is principally actuated by a fear of the spirits of the beasts, birds, or
fish which he has killed or intends to kill. For the savage commonly
h conceives animals to be endowed with souls and intelligences like his own,
and hence he naturally treats them with similar respect. Just as he attempts
to appease the ghosts of the men he has slain, so he essays to propitiate the
y spirits of the animals he has killed. These ceremonies of propitiation will be
f described later on in this work;627 here we have to deal, first, with the taboos
s observed by the hunter and the [pg 191] fisherman before or during the
e hunting and fishing seasons, and, second, with the ceremonies of
r purification which have to be practised by these men on returning with their
h booty from a successful chase.
e
r While the savage respects, more or less, the souls of all animals, he treats
with particular deference the spirits of such as are either especially useful to
him or formidable on account of their size, strength, or ferocity.
Accordingly the hunting and killing of these valuable or dangerous beasts
are subject to more elaborate rules and ceremonies than the slaughter of
d comparatively useless and insignificant creatures. Thus the Indians of
Nootka Sound prepared themselves for catching whales by observing a fast
for a week, during which they ate very little, bathed in the water several
times a day, sang, and rubbed their bodies, limbs, and faces with shells and
bushes till they looked as if they had been severely torn with briars. They
were likewise required to abstain from any commerce with their women for

a the like period, this last condition being considered indispensable to their
success. A chief who failed to catch a whale has been known to attribute his
628
r failure to a breach of chastity on the part of his men. It should be
remarked that the conduct thus prescribed as a preparation for whaling is
precisely that which in the same tribe of Indians was required of men about
to go on the war-path.629 Rules of the same sort are, or were formerly,
observed by Malagasy whalers. For eight days before they went to sea the
crew of a whaler used to fast, abstaining from women and liquor, and
a confessing their most secret faults to each other; and if any man was found
to have sinned deeply he was forbidden to share in the expedition.630 In the
r island of Kadiak, off the south coast of Alaska, whalers were reckoned
unclean during the fishing season, and nobody would eat out of the same
dish with them or even come near them. Yet we are told that great respect
was paid to them, and that they were regarded as [pg 192] the purveyors of
their country.631 Though it is not expressly said it seems to be implied, and
on the strength of analogy we may assume, that these Kadiak whalers had
to remain chaste so long as the whaling season lasted. In the island of
d Mabuiag continence was imposed on the people both before they went to
e hunt the dugong and while the turtles were pairing. The turtle-season lasts
during parts of October and November; and if at that time unmarried
persons had sexual intercourse with each other, it was believed that when
f the canoe approached the floating turtle, the male would separate from the
female and both would dive down in different directions.632 So at Mowat in
New Guinea men have no relation with women when the turtle are
coupling, though there is considerable laxity of morals at other times.633
Among the Motu of Port Moresby, in New Guinea, chastity is enjoined
before fishing and wallaby-hunting; they believe that men who have been
unchaste will be unable to catch the fish and the wallabies, which will turn
round and jeer at their pursuers.634 Among the tribes about the mouth of the
Wanigela River in New Guinea the preparations for fishing turtle and
dugong are most elaborate. They begin two months before the fishing. A
headman is appointed who becomes holy. On his strict observance of the
laws of the dugong net depends the success of the season. While the men of
the village are making the nets, this sanctified leader lives entirely secluded
from his family, and may only eat a roasted banana or two after the sun has
gone down. Every evening at sundown he goes ashore and, stripping
himself of all his ornaments, which he is never allowed to doff at other

times, bathes near where the dugongs feed; as he does so he throws scraped
coco-nut and scented herbs and gums into the water to charm the dugong.635
[pg 193] Among the Roro-speaking tribes of British New Guinea the
magician who performs ceremonies for the success of a wallaby hunt must
abstain from intercourse with his wife for a month before the hunt takes
place; and he may not eat food cooked by his wife or by any other
woman.636 In the island of Uap, one of the Caroline group, every fisherman
plying his craft lies under a most strict taboo during the whole of the fishing
season, which lasts for six or eight weeks. Whenever he is on shore he must
spend all his time in the men's clubhouse (failu), and under no pretext
whatever may he visit his own house or so much as look upon the faces of
his wife and womenkind. Were he but to steal a glance at them, they think
that flying fish must inevitably bore out his eyes at night. If his wife,
mother, or daughter brings any gift for him or wishes to talk with him, she
must stand down towards the shore with her back turned to the men's
clubhouse. Then the fisherman may go out and speak to her, or with his
back turned to her he may receive what she has brought him; after which he
must return at once to his rigorous confinement. Indeed the fishermen may
not even join in dance and song with the other men of the clubhouse in the
evening; they must keep to themselves and be silent.637 In the Pelew Islands,
also, which belong to the Caroline group, fishermen are likewise debarred
from intercourse with women, since it is believed that any such intercourse
would infallibly have a prejudicial effect on the fishing. The same taboo is
said to be observed in all the other islands of the South Sea.638 In [pg 194]
Mirzapur, when the seed of the silkworm is brought into the house, the Kol
or Bhuiyar puts it in a place which has been carefully plastered with holy
cow-dung to bring good luck. From that time the owner must be careful to
avoid ceremonial impurity. He must give up cohabitation with his wife; he
may not sleep on a bed, nor shave himself, nor cut his nails, nor anoint
himself with oil, nor eat food cooked with butter, nor tell lies, nor do
anything else that he deems wrong. He vows to Singarmati Devi that if the
worms are duly born he will make her an offering. When the cocoons open
and the worms appear, he assembles the women of the house and they sing
the same song as at the birth of a baby, and red lead is smeared on the
parting of the hair of all the married women of the neighbourhood. When
the worms pair, rejoicings are made as at a marriage.639 Thus the silkworms
are treated as far as possible like human beings. Hence the custom which

prohibits the commerce of the sexes while the worms are hatching may be
only an extension, by analogy, of the rule which is observed by many races,
that the husband may not cohabit with his wife during pregnancy and
lactation.

On Lake Victoria Nyanza the Baganda fishermen use a long stout line
which is supported on the surface of the water by wooden floats, while
short lines with baited hooks attached to them depend from it at frequent
intervals. The place where the fisherman makes his line, whether in his hut
or his garden, is tabooed. People may not step over his cords or tools, and
he himself has to observe a number of restrictions. He may not go near his
wife or any other woman. He eats alone, works alone, sleeps alone. He may
not wash, except in the lake. He may not eat salt or meat or butter. He may
d not smear any fat on his body. When the line is ready he goes to the god,
asks his blessing on it, and offers him a pot of beer. In return he receives
from [pg 195] the deity a stick or bit of wood to fasten to the line, and also
some medicine of herbs to smoke and blow over the water in order that the
fish may come to the line and be caught. Then he carries the line to the lake.
If in going thither he should stumble over a stone or a tree-root, he takes it
with him, and he does the same with any grass-seeds that may stick to his
clothes. These stones, roots, and seeds he puts on the line, believing that
just as he stumbled over them and they stuck to him, so the fish will also
stumble over them and stick to the line. The taboo lasts till he has caught his
first fish. If his wife has kept the taboo, he eats the fish with her; but if she
has broken it, she may not partake of the fish. After that if he wishes to go
in to his wife, he must take his line out of the water and place it in a tree or
some other place of safety; he is then free to be with her. But so long as the
line is in the water, he must keep apart from women, or the fish would at
once leave the shore. Any breach of this taboo renders the line useless to
him. He must sell it and make a new one and offer an expiatory offering to
the god.640 Again, in Uganda the fisherman offers fish to his canoe,
believing that if he neglected to make this offering more than twice, his net
would catch nothing. The fish thus offered to the canoe is eaten by the
fishermen. But if at the time of emptying the traps there is any man in the
canoe who has committed adultery, eaten flesh or salt, or rubbed his body
with butter or fat, that man is not allowed to partake of the fish offered to
the canoe. And if the sinner has not confessed his fault to the priest and

been purified, the catch will be small. When the adulterer has confessed his
sin, the priest calls the husband of the guilty woman and tells him of her
crime. Her paramour has to wear a sign to shew that he is doing penance,
and he makes a feast for the injured husband, which the latter is obliged to
accept in token of reconciliation. After that the husband may not punish
either of the erring couple; the sin is atoned for and they are able to catch
fish again.641 Among the Bangala of the Upper Congo, [pg 196] while
fishermen are making their traps, they must observe strict continence, and
the restriction lasts until the traps have caught fish and the fish have been
eaten. Similarly Bangala hunters may have no sexual intercourse from the
time they made their traps till they have caught game and eaten it; it is
believed that any hunter who broke this rule of chastity would have bad
luck in the chase.642

In the island of Nias the hunters sometimes dig pits, cover them lightly over
with twigs, grass, and leaves, and then drive the game into them. While they
are engaged in digging the pits, they have to observe a number of taboos.
They may not spit, or the game would turn back in disgust from the pits.
They may not laugh, or the sides of the pit would fall in. They may eat no
salt, prepare no fodder for swine, and in the pit they may not scratch
themselves, for if they did, the earth would be loosened and would collapse.
And the night after digging the pit they may have no intercourse with a
woman, or all their labour would be in vain.643

This practice of observing strict chastity as a condition of success in
hunting and fishing is very common among rude races; and the instances of
it which have been cited render it probable that the rule is always based on a
f superstition rather than on a consideration of the temporary weakness which
a breach of the custom may entail on the hunter or fisherman. In general it
appears to be supposed that the evil effect of incontinence is not so much
that it weakens him, as that, for some reason or other, it offends the animals,
who in consequence will not suffer themselves to be caught. In the
Motumotu tribe of New Guinea a man will not see his wife the night before
d he starts on a great fishing or hunting expedition; if he did, he would have
a no luck. In the Motu tribe he is regarded as holy that night, and in the
t morning no one may speak to him or call out his name.644 In German East
Africa elephant hunters must refrain from women for several days before
s

645
h they set out [pg 197] for the chase. We have seen that in the same region a
e wife's infidelity during the hunter's absence is believed to give the elephant
power over him so as to kill or wound him.646 As this belief is clearly a
superstition, based on sympathetic magic, so doubtless is the practice of
chastity before the hunt. The pygmies of the great African forest are also
reported to observe strict continence the night before an important hunt. It is
said that at this time they propitiate their ancestors by rubbing their skulls,
which they keep in boxes, with palm oil and with water in which the ashes
of the bark and leaves of a certain tree (moduma) have been mixed.647

The Huichol Indians of Mexico think that only the pure of heart should hunt
the deer. The deer would never enter a snare put up by a man in love; it
would only look at it, snort “Pooh, pooh,” and go back the way it came.
Good luck in love means bad luck in deer-hunting. But even those who
have been abstinent must invoke the aid of the fire to burn the last taint or
blemish out of them. So the night before they set out for the chase they
gather round the fire and pray aloud, all trying to get as near as they can to
the flaming god, and turning every side of their bodies to his blessed
influence. They hold out their open hands to it, warm the palms, spit on
them, and then rub them quickly over their joints, legs, and shoulders, as the
shamans do in curing a sick man, in order that their limbs and sinews may
be as strong as their hearts are pure for the task of the morrow.648 A Carrier
Indian of British Columbia used to separate from his wife for a full month
before he set traps for bears, and during this time he might not drink from
the same vessel as his wife, but had to use a special cup made of birch bark.
The neglect of these precautions would cause the game to escape after it
had been snared. But when he was about to snare martens, the period of
continence was cut down to ten days.649 The Sia, [pg 198] a tribe of Pueblo
Indians, observe chastity for four days before a hunt as well as the whole
time that it lasts, even if the game be only rabbits.650 Among the Tsetsaut
Indians of British Columbia hunters who desire to secure good luck fast and
wash their bodies with ginger-root for three or four days, and do not touch a
woman for two or three months.651 A Shuswap Indian, who intends to go out
hunting must also keep away from his wife, or he would have no luck.652
Among the Thompson Indians the grisly-bear hunter must abstain from
sexual intercourse for some time before he went forth to hunt. These
Indians believe that bears always hear what is said of them. Hence a man

who intends to go bear-hunting must be very careful what he says about the
beasts or about his preparations for killing them, or they will get wind of it
and keep out of his way.653 In the same tribe of Indians some trappers and
hunters, who were very particular, would not eat with other people when
they were engaged, or about to be engaged, in hunting or trapping; neither
would they eat food cooked by any woman, unless she were old. They
drank cold water in which mountain juniper or wild rhubarb had been
soaked, using a cup of their own, which no one else might touch. Hunters
seldom combed their hair when they were on an expedition, but waited to
do so till their return.654 The reason for this last rule is certainly not that at
such seasons they have no time to attend to their persons; the custom is
probably based on that superstitious objection to touch the heads of tabooed
persons of which some examples have already been given, and of which
more will be adduced shortly.

In the late autumn or early winter a few families of the Hidatsa Indians seek
some quiet spot in the forest and pitch their camp there to catch eagles.
After setting up their [pg 199] tents they build a small medicine-lodge,
where the ceremonies supposed to be indispensable for trapping the eagles
a are performed. No woman may enter it. The traps are set on high places
t among the neighbouring hills. When some of the men wish to take part in
the trapping, they fast and then go by day to the medicine-lodge. There they
continue without food until about midnight, when they partake of a little
nourishment and fall asleep. They get up just before dawn, or when the
morning-star has risen, and go to their traps. There they sit all day without
food or drink, watching for their prey, and struggling, it may be, from time
to time with a captive eagle, for they always take the birds alive. They
return to the camp at sunset. As they approach, every one rushes into his
tent; for the hunter may neither see nor be seen by any of his fellow-hunters
until he enters the medicine-lodge. They spend the night in the lodge, and
about midnight eat and drink for the first time since the previous midnight;
then they lie down to sleep, only to rise again before dawn and repair anew
to the traps. If any one of them has caught nothing during the day, he may
not sleep at night, but must spend his time in loud lamentation and prayer.
This routine has to be observed by each hunter for four days and four
nights, after which he returns to his own tent, hungry, thirsty, and tired, and
follows his ordinary pursuits till he feels able to go again to the eagle-traps.

During the four days of the trapping he sees none of his family, and speaks
to none of his friends except those who are engaged in the trapping at the
same time. They believe that if any hunter fails to perform all these rites,
the captive eagle will get one of his claws loose and tear his captor's hands.
There are men in the tribe who have had their hands crippled for life in that
way.655 It is obvious that the severe fasting coupled with the short sleep, or
even the total sleeplessness, of these eagle-hunters can only impair their
physical vigour and so far tend to incapacitate them for capturing the
eagles. The motive of their behaviour in [pg 200] these respects is purely
superstitious, not rational, and so, we may safely conclude, is the custom
which simultaneously cuts them off from all intercourse with their wives
and families.

An examination of all the many cases in which the savage bridles his
passions and remains chaste from motives of superstition, would be
instructive, but I cannot attempt it now. I will only add a few miscellaneous
examples of the custom before passing to the ceremonies of purification
which are observed by the hunter and fisherman after the chase and the
y fishing are over. The workers in the salt-pans near Siphoum, in Laos, must
abstain from all sexual relations at the place where they are at work; and
they may not cover their heads nor shelter themselves under an umbrella
from the burning rays of the sun.656 Among the Kachins of Burma the
ferment used in making beer is prepared by two women, chosen by lot, who
during the three days that the process lasts may eat nothing acid and may
have no conjugal relations with their husbands; otherwise it is supposed that
the beer would be sour.657 Among the Masai honey-wine is brewed by a man
and a woman who live in a hut set apart for them till the wine is ready for
drinking. But they are strictly forbidden to have sexual intercourse with
each other during this time; it is deemed essential that they should be chaste
for two days before they begin to brew and for the whole of the six days
that the brewing lasts. The Masai believe that were the couple to commit a
breach of chastity, not only would the wine be undrinkable but the bees
which made the honey would fly away. Similarly they require that a man
who is making poison should sleep alone and observe other taboos which
render him almost an outcast.658 The Wandorobbo, a tribe of the same region
as the Masai, believe that the mere presence of a woman in the
neighbourhood of a man who is brewing poison would deprive the poison

of its venom, and [pg 201] that the same thing would happen if the wife of
the poison-maker were to commit adultery while her husband was brewing
the poison.659 In this last case it is obvious that a rationalistic explanation of
the taboo is impossible. How could the loss of virtue in the poison be a
physical consequence of the loss of virtue in the poison-maker's wife?
Clearly the effect which the wife's adultery is supposed to have on the
poison is a case of sympathetic magic; her misconduct sympathetically
affects her husband and his work at a distance. We may, accordingly, infer
with some confidence that the rule of continence imposed on the poison-
maker himself is also a simple case of sympathetic magic, and not, as a
civilised reader might be disposed to conjecture, a wise precaution designed
to prevent him from accidentally poisoning his wife. Again, to take other
instances, in the East Indian island of Buru people smear their bodies with
coco-nut oil as a protection against demons. But in order that the charm
may be effective, the oil must have been made by young unmarried girls.660
In the Seranglao and Gorong archipelagoes the same oil is regarded as an
antidote to poison; but it only possesses this virtue if the nuts have been
gathered on a Friday by a youth who has never known a woman, and if the
oil has been extracted by a pure maiden, while a priest recited the
appropriate spells.661 So in the Marquesas Islands, when a woman was
making coco-nut oil, she was tabooed for four or five or more days, during
which she might have no intercourse with her husband. If she broke this
rule, it was believed that she would obtain no oil.662 In the same islands
when a man had placed a dish of bananas and coco-nuts in an oven of hot
stones to bake over night, he might not go in to his wife, or the food would
not be found baked in the morning.663 In ancient Mexico the men who
distilled the wine known as pulque from the [pg 202] sap of the great aloe,
might not touch a woman for four days; if they were unchaste, they thought
the wine would be sour and putrid.664

Among the Ba-Pedi and Ba-thonga tribes of South Africa, when the site of a
new village has been chosen and the houses are building, all the married
people are forbidden to have conjugal relations with each other. If it were
discovered that any couple had broken this rule, the work of building would
immediately be stopped, and another site chosen for the village. For they
think that a breach of chastity would spoil the village which was growing
up, that the chief would grow lean and perhaps die, and that the guilty

woman would never bear another child.665 Among the Chams of Cochin-
China, when a dam is made or repaired on a river for the sake of irrigation,
the chief who offers the traditional sacrifices and implores the protection of
the deities on the work, has to stay all the time in a wretched hovel of straw,
taking no part in the labour, and observing the strictest continence; for the
people believe that a breach of his chastity would entail a breach of the
666
d dam. Here, it is plain, there can be no idea of maintaining the mere bodily
e vigour of the chief for the accomplishment of a task in which he does not
f even bear a hand. In New Caledonia the wizard who performs certain
superstitious ceremonies at the building and launching of a large canoe is
bound to the most rigorous chastity the whole time that the vessel is on the
667
d stocks. Among the natives of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain men
a who are engaged in making fish-traps avoid women and observe strict
continence. They believe that if a woman were even to touch a fish-trap, it
would catch nothing.668 Here, therefore, the rule of continence probably
springs from a fear of infecting sympathetically the traps [pg 203] with
d feminine weakness or perhaps with menstrual pollution. Every year at the
e end of September or the beginning of October, when the north-east
monsoon is near an end, a fleet of large sailing canoes leaves Port Moresby
and the neighbouring Motu villages of New Guinea on a trading voyage to
the deltas of the rivers which flow into the Papuan Gulf. The canoes are
a laden with a cargo of earthenware pots, and after about three months they
return, sailing before the north-west monsoon and bringing back a cargo of
r sago which they have obtained by barter for their crockery. It is about the
beginning of the south-east monsoon, that is, in April or May, that the
skippers, who are leading men in the villages, make up their minds to go on
these trading voyages. When their resolution is taken they communicate it
to their wives, and from about that time husband and wife cease to cohabit.
The same custom of conjugal separation is observed by what we may call
the mate or second in command of each vessel. But it is not till the month of
August that the work of preparing the canoes for sea by overhauling and
caulking them is taken seriously in hand. From that time both skipper and
mate become particularly sacred or taboo (helaga), and consequently they
keep apart from their wives more than ever. Husband and wife, indeed,
sleep in the same house but on opposite sides of it. In speaking of his wife
he calls her “maiden,” and she calls him “youth.” They have no direct
conversation or dealings with each other. If he wishes to communicate with

her, he does so through a third person, usually a relative of one of them.
Both refrain from washing themselves, and he from combing his hair. “The
wife's position indeed becomes very much like that of a widow.” When the
canoe has been launched, skipper, mate, and crew are all forbidden to touch
their food with their fingers; they must always handle it and convey it to
their mouths with a bone fork.669 A briefer account of the custom and
superstition had previously been given by a native pastor settled in the
neighbourhood of Port Moresby. [pg 204] He says: “Here is a custom of
trading-voyage parties:—If it is arranged to go westward, to procure
arrowroot, the leader of the party sleeps apart from his wife for the time
being, and on until the return from the expedition, which is sometimes a
term of five months. They say if this is not done the canoe of the chief will
be sunk on the return voyage, all the arrowroot lost in the sea, and he
himself covered with shame. He, however, who observes the rule of self-
denial, returns laden with arrowroot, has not a drop of salt water to injure
his cargo, and so is praised by his companions and crew.”670 The Akamba
and Akikuyu of eastern Africa refrain from the commerce of the sexes on a
journey, even if their wives are with them in the caravan; and they observe
the same rule of chastity so long as the cattle are at pasture, that is, from the
time the herds are driven out to graze in the morning till they come back in
the evening.671 Why the rule should be in force just while the cattle are at
pasture is not said, but we may conjecture that any act of incontinence at
that time is somehow supposed, on the principles of sympathetic magic, to
affect the animals injuriously. The conjecture is confirmed by the
observation that among the Akikuyu for eight days after the quarterly
festivals, which they hold for the sake of securing God's blessing on their
flocks and herds, no commerce is permitted between the sexes. They think
that any breach of continence in these eight days would be followed by a
mortality among the flocks.672

If the taboos or abstinences observed by hunters and fishermen before and
during the chase are dictated, as we have seen reason to believe, by
s superstitious motives, and chiefly by a dread of offending or frightening the
spirits of the creatures whom it is proposed to kill, we may expect that the
restraints imposed after the slaughter has been perpetrated will be at least as
stringent, the slayer and his [pg 205] friends having now the added fear of
n the angry ghosts of his victims before their eyes. Whereas on the hypothesis

that the abstinences in question, including those from food, drink, and sleep,
n are merely salutary precautions for maintaining the men in health and
strength to do their work, it is obvious that the observance of these
abstinences or taboos after the work is done, that is, when the game is killed
and the fish caught, must be wholly superfluous, absurd, and inexplicable.
e But as I shall now shew, these taboos often continue to be enforced or even
increased in stringency after the death of the animals, in other words, after
d the hunter or fisher has accomplished his object by making his bag or
e landing his fish. The rationalistic theory of them therefore breaks down
entirely; the hypothesis of superstition is clearly the only one open to us.

Among the Inuit or Esquimaux of Bering Strait “the dead bodies of various
r animals must be treated very carefully by the hunter who obtains them, so
that their shades may not be offended and bring bad luck or even death
upon him or his people.” Hence the Unalit hunter who has had a hand in the
e killing of a white whale, or even has helped to take one from the net, is not
y
allowed to do any work for the next four days, that being the time during
which the shade or ghost of the whale is supposed to stay with its body. At
the same time no one in the village may use any sharp or pointed instrument
r for fear of wounding the whale's shade, which is believed to be hovering
invisible in the neighbourhood; and no loud noise may be made lest it
r should frighten or offend the ghost. Whoever cuts a whale's body with an
iron axe will die. Indeed the use of all iron instruments is forbidden in the
village during these four days. These Inuit have a special name (nu-na
hlukh-tuk) “for a spot of ground where certain things are tabooed, or where
there is to be feared any evil influence caused by the presence of offended
shades of men or animals, or through the influence of other supernatural
means. This ground is sometimes considered unclean, and to go upon it
would bring misfortune to the offender, producing sickness, death, or lack
of success in hunting or fishing. The same term is also applied to ground
where certain animals have been killed or have died.” In [pg 206] the latter
case the ground is thought to be dangerous only to him who there performs
some forbidden act. For example, the shore where a dead white whale has
been beached is so regarded. At such a place and time to chop wood with an
iron axe is supposed to be fatal to the imprudent person who chops. Death,
too, is supposed to result from cutting wood with an iron axe where salmon
are being dressed. An old man at St. Michael told Mr. Nelson of a

melancholy case of this kind which had fallen within the scope of his own
observation. A man began to chop a log near a woman who was splitting
salmon: both of them died soon afterwards. The reason of this disaster, as
the old man explained, was that the shade or ghost (inua) of the salmon and
the spirit or mystery (yu-a) of the ground were incensed at the proceeding.
Such offences are indeed fatal to every person who may be present at the
desecrated spot. Dogs are regarded as very unclean and offensive to the
shades of game animals, and great care is taken that no dog shall get at the
bones of a white whale. Should a dog touch one of them, the hunter might
lose his luck; his nets would break or be shunned by the whales, and his
spears would not strike. But in addition to the state of uncleanness or taboo
which arises from the presence of the shades of men or animals, these
Esquimaux believe in uncleanness of another sort which, though not so
serious, nevertheless produces sickness or bad luck in hunting. It consists,
we are told, of a kind of invisible, impalpable vapour, which may attach
itself to a person from some contamination. A hunter infected by such a
vapour is much more than usually visible to game, so that his luck in the
chase is gone until he succeeds in cleansing himself once more. That is why
hunters must avoid menstruous women; if they do not, they will be unable
to catch game.673

These same Esquimaux of Bering Strait celebrate a great annual festival in
December, when the bladders of all the seals, whales, walrus, and white
bears that have been killed in the year are taken into the assembly-house of
the village. [pg 207] They remain there for several days, and so long as they
e do so the hunters avoid all intercourse with women, saying that if they
failed in that respect the shades of the dead animals would be offended.674
Similarly among the Aleuts of Alaska the hunter who had struck a whale
with a charmed spear would not throw again, but returned at once to his
e home and separated himself from his people in a hut specially constructed
f for the purpose, where he stayed for three days without food or drink, and
t without touching or looking upon a woman. During this time of seclusion
d he snorted occasionally in imitation of the wounded and dying whale, in
e order to prevent the whale which he had struck from leaving the coast. On
the fourth day he emerged from his seclusion and bathed in the sea,
e shrieking in a hoarse voice and beating the water with his hands. Then,
taking with him a companion, he repaired to that part of the shore where he

expected to find the whale stranded. If the beast was dead he at once cut out
the place where the death-wound had been inflicted. If the whale was not
dead, he again returned to his home and continued washing himself until the
whale died.675 Here the hunter's imitation of the wounded whale is probably
intended by means of homoeopathic magic to make the beast die in earnest.
Among the Kaniagmuts of Alaska the men who attacked the whale were
considered by their countrymen as unclean during the fishing season,
though otherwise they were held in high honour.676

The central Esquimaux of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay think that whales,
ground seals, and common seals originated in the severed fingers of the
goddess Sedna. Hence an Esquimau of these regions must make atonement
for each of these animals that he kills, and must observe strictly certain
e taboos after their slaughter. Some of the rules of conduct thus enjoined are
identical with those which are in force after the death of a human being.
Thus after the killing of one of these sea-mammals, as after the decease of a
r person, it is forbidden to scrape the frost from the window, [pg 208] to
shake the bed or to disturb the shrubs under the bed, to remove the
drippings of oil from under the lamp, to scrape hair from skins, to cut snow
- for the purpose of melting it, to work on iron, wood, stone, or ivory.
Furthermore, women are forbidden to comb their hair, to wash their faces,
e and to dry their boots and stockings. All these regulations must be kept with
the greatest care after a ground seal has been killed, because the
transgression of taboos that refer to this animal makes the hands of Sedna
very sore. When a seal is brought into the hut, the women must stop
working until it is cut up. After the capture of a ground seal, walrus, or
whale, they must rest for three days. Not all kinds of work, however, are
forbidden; they may mend articles made of sealskin, but they may not make
anything new. Working on the new skins of caribou, the American reindeer,
is strictly prohibited; for a series of rules forbids all contact between that
animal and the sea-mammals. Thus reindeer-skins obtained in summer may
not be prepared before the ice has formed and the first seal is caught with
the harpoon. Later, as soon as the first walrus has been killed, the work
must stop again until the next autumn. Hence everybody is eager to have his
reindeer-skins ready as quickly as possible, for until that is done the walrus
season will not begin. When the first walrus has been killed a messenger
goes from village to village and announces the news, whereupon all work

on reindeer-skins immediately ceases. On the other hand, when the season
for hunting the reindeer begins, all the winter clothing and the winter tents
that had been in use during the walrus hunting season become tabooed and
are buried under stones; they may not be used again till the next walrus
hunting season comes round. No walrus-hide or thongs made of such hide
may be taken inland, where the reindeer live. Venison may not be put in the
same boat with walrus-meat, nor yet with salmon. If venison or the antlers
of the reindeer were in a boat which goes walrus-hunting, the boat would be
liable to be broken by the walrus. The Esquimaux are not allowed to eat
venison and walrus on the same day, unless they first strip naked or put on
clothing of reindeer-skin that has never been worn in hunting walrus. The
transgression of these taboos gives umbrage to the souls of walrus; and a
[pg 209] myth is told to account for the mutual aversion of the walrus and
the reindeer. And in general the Esquimaux say that Sedna dislikes the
reindeer, wherefore they may not bring the beast into contact with her
favourites, the sea-mammals. Hence the meat of the whale and the seal, as
well as of the walrus, may not be eaten on the same day with venison. It is
not permitted that both sorts of meat lie on the floor of the hut or behind the
lamps at the same time. If a man who has eaten venison in the morning
happens to enter a hut in which seal meat is being cooked, he is allowed to
eat venison on the bed, but it must be wrapped up before it is carried into
the hut, and he must take care to keep clear of the floor. Before they change
from one food to the other the Esquimaux must wash themselves.

But even among the sea-beasts themselves there are rules of mutual
avoidance which these central Esquimaux must observe. Thus a person who
has been eating or hunting walrus must strip naked or change his clothes
e before he eats seal; otherwise the transgression will become fastened to the
soul of the walrus in a manner which will be explained presently. Again, the
soul of a salmon is very powerful, and its body may not be eaten on the
e same day with walrus or venison. Salmon may not be cooked in a pot that
f has been used to boil any other kind of meat; and it must always be cooked
at some distance from the hut. The salmon-fisher is not allowed to wear
boots that have been used in hunting walrus; and no work may be done on
e boot-legs till the first salmon has been caught and put on a boot-leg. Once
more the soul of the grim polar bear is offended if the taboos which concern
him are not observed. His soul tarries for three days near the spot where it

t left his body, and during these days the Esquimaux are particularly careful
to conform rigidly to the laws of taboo, because they believe that
punishment overtakes the transgressor who sins against the soul of a bear
far more speedily than him who sins against the souls of the sea-beasts.677

The native explanation of the taboos thus enjoined on [pg 210] hunters
among the central Esquimaux has been given us by the eminent American
ethnologist Dr. Franz Boas. As it sets what may be called the spiritual basis
of taboo in the clearest light, it deserves to be studied with attention.
e
The goddess Sedna, he tells us, the mother of the sea-mammals, may be
considered to be the chief deity of the central Esquimaux. She is supposed
t to bear supreme sway over the destinies of mankind, and almost all the
e observances of these tribes have for their object to retain her good will or
appease her anger. Her home is in the lower world, where she dwells in a
house built of stone and whale-ribs. “The souls of seals, ground seals, and
whales are believed to proceed from her house. After one of these animals
has been killed, its soul stays with the body for three days. Then it goes
back to Sedna's abode, to be sent forth again by her. If, during the three
e days that the soul stays with the body, any taboo or proscribed custom is
f violated, the violation (pitssēte) becomes attached to the animal's soul, and
n causes it pain. The soul strives in vain to free itself of these attachments, but
is compelled to take them down to Sedna. The attachments, in some manner
not explained, make her hands sore, and she punishes the people who are
the cause of her pains by sending to them sickness, bad weather, and
n starvation. If, on the other hand, all taboos have been observed, the sea-
animals will allow themselves to be caught; they will even come to meet the
h hunter. The object of the innumerable taboos that are in force after the
t killing of these sea-animals, therefore, is to keep their souls free from
y attachments that would hurt their souls as well as Sedna.
t
e “The souls of the sea-animals are endowed with greater powers than those
of ordinary human beings. They can see the effect of contact with a corpse,
which causes objects touched by it to appear dark in colour; and they can
n- see the effect of flowing human blood, from which a vapour rises that
surrounds the bleeding person and is communicated to [pg 211] every one
ae and every thing that comes in contact with such a person. This vapour and

f the dark colour of death are exceedingly unpleasant to the souls of the sea-
k animals, that will not come near a hunter thus affected. The hunter must
f therefore avoid contact with people who have touched a body, or with those
d who are bleeding, more particularly with menstruating women or with those
e who have recently given birth. The hands of menstruating women appear
red to the sea-animals. If any one who has touched a body or who is
bleeding should allow others to come in contact with him, he would cause
them to become distasteful to the seals, and therefore to Sedna as well. For
this reason custom demands that every person must at once announce if he
d has touched a body, and that women must make known when they are
d menstruating or when they have had a miscarriage. If they do not do so,
they will bring ill-luck to all the hunters.
e
y “These ideas have given rise to the belief that it is necessary to announce
the transgression of any taboo. The transgressor of a custom is distasteful to
Sedna and to the animals, and those who abide with him will become
equally distasteful through contact with him. For this reason it has come to
a be an act required by custom and morals to confess any and every
t transgression of a taboo, in order to protect the community from the evil
influence of contact with the evil-doer. The descriptions of Eskimo life
given by many observers contain records of starvation, which, according to
the belief of the natives, was brought about by some one transgressing a
n law, and not announcing what he had done.
t
“I presume the importance of the confession of a transgression, with a view
to warning others to keep at a distance from the transgressor, has gradually
ne led to the idea that a transgression, or, we might say, a sin can be atoned for
by confession. This is one of the most remarkable traits among the religious
beliefs of the central Eskimo. There are innumerable tales of starvation
e brought about by the transgression of a taboo. In vain the hunters try to
supply their families with food; gales and drifting snow make their
t endeavours fruitless. Finally the help of the angakok678 is invoked, and he
e discovers that the cause of the [pg 212] misfortune of the people is due to
r the transgression of a taboo. Then the guilty one is searched for. If he
confesses, all is well; the weather moderates, and the seals allow themselves
to be caught; but if he obstinately maintains his innocence, his death alone
will soothe the wrath of the offended deity....

“The transgressions of taboos do not affect the souls of game alone. It has
already been stated that the sea-mammals see their effect upon man also,
who appears to them of a dark colour, or surrounded by a vapour which is
invisible to ordinary man. This means, of course, that the transgression also
f affects the soul of the evil-doer. It becomes attached to it, and makes him
sick. The angakok679 is able to see these attachments with the help of his
e guardian spirit, and is able to free the soul from them. If this is not done, the
e person must die. In many cases the transgressions become fastened also to
persons who come in contact with the evil-doer. This is especially true of
children, to whose souls the sins of their parents, and particularly of their
mothers, become readily attached. Therefore, when a child is sick, the
angakok first of all, asks its mother if she has transgressed any taboos. The
d attachment seems to have a different appearance, according to the taboo that
has been violated. A black attachment is due to removing oil-drippings from
under the lamp, a piece of caribou-skin represents the scrapings removed
e from a caribou-skin at a time when such work was forbidden. As soon as
the mother acknowledges the transgression of a taboo, the attachment
t leaves the child's soul, and the child recovers.

e “A number of customs may be explained by the endeavours of the natives to
e keep the sea-mammals free from contaminating influences. All the clothing
l of a dead person, the tent in which he died, and the skins obtained by him,
must be discarded; for if a hunter should wear clothing made of skins that
had been in contact with the deceased, these would appear dark, and the
e seal would avoid him. Neither would a seal allow itself to be taken into a
hut darkened by a dead body; and all those who entered such a hut would
m appear dark to it, and would be avoided.

[pg 213]
“While it is customary for a successful hunter to invite all the men of the
village to eat of the seal that he has caught, they must not take any of the
seal-meat out of the hut, because it might come in contact with persons who
are under taboo, and thus the hunter might incur the displeasure of the seal
and of Sedna. This is particularly strictly forbidden in the case of the first
seal of the season.
h

e “A woman who has a new-born child, and who has not quite recovered,
must eat only of seals caught by her husband, by a boy, or by an aged man;
else the vapour arising from her body would become attached to the souls
of other seals, which would take the transgression down to Sedna, thus
making her hands sore.

“Cases of premature birth require particularly careful treatment. The event
must be announced publicly, else dire results will follow. If a woman should
conceal from the other people that she has had a premature birth, they might
come near her, or even eat in her hut of the seals procured by her husband.
The vapour arising from her would thus affect them, and they would be
avoided by the seals. The transgression would also become attached to the
soul of the seal, which would take it down to Sedna.”680

In these elaborate taboos so well described by Dr. Boas we seem to see a
system of animism in the act of passing into religion. The rules themselves
e bear the clearest traces of having originated in a doctrine of souls, and of
f being determined by the supposed likes and dislikes, sympathies and
f antipathies of the various classes of spirits toward each other. But above and
l behind the souls of men and animals has grown up the overshadowing
conception of a powerful goddess who rules them all, so that the taboos
e come more and more to be viewed as a means of propitiating her rather than
as merely adapted to suit the tastes of the souls themselves. Thus the
standard of conduct is shifted from a natural to a supernatural basis: the
supposed wish of the deity or, as we commonly put it, the will of God, tends
to supersede [pg 214] the wishes, real or imaginative, of purely natural
s beings as the measure of right and wrong. The old savage taboos, resting on
a theory of the direct relations of living creatures to each other, remain in
a substance unchanged, but they are outwardly transformed into ethical
precepts with a religious or supernatural sanction. In this gradual passage of
a rude philosophy into an elementary religion the place occupied by
e confession as a moral purgative is particularly interesting. I can hardly
e agree with Dr. Boas that among these Esquimaux the confession of sins was
in its origin no more than a means of warning others against the dangerous
n contagion of the sinner; in other words, that its saving efficacy consisted
merely in preventing the innocent from suffering with the guilty, and that it
had no healing virtue, no purifying influence, for the evil-doer himself. It
n

seems more probable that originally the violation of taboo, in other words,
f the sin, was conceived as something almost physical, a sort of morbid
substance lurking in the sinner's body, from which it could be expelled by
d confession as by a sort of spiritual purge or emetic. This is confirmed by the
t form of auricular confession which is practised by the Akikuyu of British
East Africa. Amongst them, we are told, “sin is essentially remissable; it
n suffices to confess it. Usually this is done to the sorcerer, who expels the sin
by a ceremony of which the principal rite is a pretended emetic: kotahikio,
681
a derived from tahika, ‘to vomit.’ ” Thus among these savages the
confession and absolution of sins is, so to say, a purely physical process of
r relieving a sufferer of a burden which sits heavy on his stomach rather than
y on his conscience. This view of the matter is again confirmed by the
observation that these same Akikuyu resort to another physical mode of
expelling sin from a sinner, and that is by the employment of a scapegoat,
f which by them, as by the Jews and many other people, has been employed
as a vehicle for carting away moral rubbish and dumping it somewhere else.
For example, if a Kikuyu man has committed incest, which would naturally
entail his death, he produces a substitute in the shape of a he-goat, to which
by an ignoble ceremony [pg 215] he transfers his guilt. Then the throat of
682
e the animal is cut, and the human culprit is thereby purged of his sin.
f
Hence we may suspect that the primary motive of the confession of sins
among savages was self-regarding; in other words, the intention was rather
e to benefit the sinner himself than to safeguard others by warning them of
the danger they would incur by coming into contact with him. This view is
s borne out by the observation that confession is sometimes used as a means
of healing the sick transgressor himself, who is supposed to recover as soon
f as he has made a clean breast of his transgression. Thus “when the Carriers
are severely sick, they often think that they shall not recover, unless they
e divulge to a priest or magician every crime which they may have
committed, which has hitherto been kept secret. In such a case they will
make a full confession, and then they expect that their lives will be spared
for a time longer. But should they keep back a single crime, they as firmly
believe that they shall suffer almost instant death.”683 Again, the Aurohuaca
Indians, who, under the tropical sun of South America, inhabit a chilly
s region bordering on the perpetual snows of the Sierra Nevada in Colombia,
believe that all sickness is a punishment for sin. So when one of their

medicine-men is summoned to a sick bed, he does not enquire after the
n patient's symptoms but makes strange passes over him and asks in a
d sepulchral voice whether he will confess his sins. If the sick man persists in
a drawing a veil of silence over his frailties, the doctor will not attempt to
f treat him, but will turn on his heel and leave the house. On the other hand if
a satisfactory confession has been made, the leech directs the patient's
r friends to procure certain odd-looking bits of stone or shell to which the
sins of the sufferer may be transferred, for when that is done he will be
e made whole. For this purpose the sin-laden stones or shells are carried high
up into the mountains and laid in some spot [pg 216] where the first beams
of the sun, rising in clear or clouded majesty above the long white slopes or
a the towering crags of the Sierra Nevada, will strike down on them, driving
sin and sickness far away by their radiant influence.684 Here, again, we see
that sin is regarded as something almost material which by confession can
be removed from the body of the patient and laid on stones or shells.
e Further, the confession of sins has been resorted to by some people as a
means of accelerating the birth of a child when the mother was in hard
labour. Thus, “among the Indians of Guatemala, in the time of their idolatry
when a woman was in labour, the midwife ordered her to confess her sins;
and if she was not delivered, the husband was to confess his; and if that did
not do they took off his clouts and put them about his wife's loins; if still
she could not be delivered, the midwife drew blood from herself and
sprinkled it towards the four quarters of heaven with some invocations and
ceremonies.”685 In these attempts of the Indians to accelerate the birth of the
child it seems clear that the confession of sins on the part first of the wife
and afterwards of the husband is nothing but a magical ceremony like the
putting of the husband's clothes on the suffering woman686 or the sprinkling
of the midwife's blood towards the four quarters of the heaven. Amongst the
Antambahoaka, a savage tribe of Madagascar, when a woman is in hard
labour, a sorcerer is called in to her aid. After [pg 217] making some
magical signs and uttering some incantations, he generally declares that the
patient cannot be delivered until she has publicly confessed a secret fault
which she has committed. In such a case a woman has been known to
confess to incest with her brother; and immediately after her confession the
child was born.687 In these cases the confession of sins is clearly not a mode
of warning people to keep clear of the sinner; it is a magical ceremony
primarily intended to benefit the sinner himself or herself and no other. The

same thing may perhaps be said of a confession which was prescribed in a
certain case by ancient Hindoo ritual. At a great festival of Varuna, which
fell at the beginning of the rainy season, the priest asked the wife of the
sacrificer to name her paramour or paramours, and she had to mention their
names or at least to take up as many grass-stalks as she had lovers.688 “Now
when a woman who belongs to one man carries on intercourse with another,
she undoubtedly commits a sin against Varuna. He therefore thus asks her,
lest she should sacrifice with a secret pang in her mind; for when confessed
the sin becomes less, since it becomes truth; this is why he thus asks her.
And whatever connection she confesses not, that indeed will turn out
injurious to her relatives.”689 In this passage of the Satapatha Brahmana
confession of sin is said to diminish the sin, just as if the mere utterance of
the words ejected or expelled some morbid matter from the person of the
sinner, thereby relieving her of its burden and benefiting also her relatives,
who would suffer through any sin which she might not have confessed.

Thus at an early stage of culture the confession of sins wears the aspect of a
bodily rather than of a moral and spiritual purgation; it is a magical rather
e than a religious rite, and as such it resembles the ceremonies of washing,
scouring, fumigation, and so forth, which in like manner are applied by
s many primitive peoples to the purification of what we should regard as
t moral guilt, but what they [pg 218] consider rather as a corporeal pollution
a or infection, which can be removed by the physical agencies of fire, water,
fasts, purgatives, abrasion, scarification, and so forth. But when the guilt of
a sin ceases to be regarded as something material, a sort of clinging vapour of
death, and is conceived as the transgression of the will of a wise and good
God, it is obvious that the observance of these outward rites of purification
becomes superfluous and absurd, a vain show which cannot appease the
anger of the offended deity. The only means of turning away his wrath and
averting the fatal consequences of sin is now believed to be the humble
f confession and true repentance of the sinner. At this stage of ethical
evolution the practice of confession loses its old magical character as a
bodily purge and assumes the new aspect of a purely religious rite, the
propitiation of a great supernatural and moral being, who by a simple fiat
h can cancel the transgression and restore the transgressor to a state of
pristine innocence. This comfortable doctrine teaches us that in order to blot
out the effects of our misdeeds we have only to acknowledge and confess

y them with a lowly and penitent heart, whereupon a merciful God will
graciously pardon our sin and absolve us and ours from its consequences. It
r might indeed be well for the world if we could thus easily undo the past, if
we could recall the words that have been spoken amiss, if we could arrest
f the long train that follows, like a flight of avenging Furies, on every evil
action. But this we cannot do. Our words and acts, good and bad, have their
natural, their inevitable consequences. God may pardon sin, but Nature
cannot.

It seems not improbable that in our own rules of conduct, in what we call
the common decencies of life as well as in the weightier matters of
s morality, there may survive not a few old savage taboos which,
masquerading as an expression of the divine will or draped in the flowing
e robes of a false philosophy, have maintained their credit long after the crude
ideas out of which they sprang have been discarded by the progress of
thought and knowledge; while on the other hand many ethical precepts and
l social laws, which now rest firmly on a solid basis of utility, may at first
r have drawn some [pg 219] portion of their sanctity from the same ancient
system of superstition. For example, we can hardly doubt that in primitive
society the crime of murder derived much of its horror from a fear of the
e angry ghost of the murdered man. Thus superstition may serve as a
f convenient crutch to morality till she is strong enough to throw away the
crutch and walk alone. To judge by the legislation of the Pentateuch the
ancient Semites appear to have passed through a course of moral evolution
not unlike that which we can still detect in process among the Esquimaux of
Baffin Land. Some of the old laws of Israel are clearly savage taboos of a
familiar type thinly disguised as commands of the deity. This disguise is
indeed a good deal more perfect in Palestine than in Baffin Land, but in
substance it is the same. Among the Esquimaux it is the will of Sedna;
among the Israelites it is the will of Jehovah.690

But it is time to return to our immediate subject, to wit, the rules of conduct
observed by hunters after the slaughter of the game.

When the Kayans or Bahaus of central Borneo have shot one of the dreaded
Bornean panthers, they are very anxious about the safety of their souls, for
they think that the soul of a panther is almost more powerful than their own.
d

e Hence they step eight times over the carcase of the dead beast reciting the
spell, “Panther, thy soul under my soul.” On returning home they smear
themselves, their dogs, and their weapons with the blood of fowls in order
a to calm their souls and hinder them from fleeing away; for being
themselves fond of the flesh of fowls they ascribe the same taste to their
souls. For eight days afterwards they must bathe by day and by night before
691
f going out again to the chase. [pg 220] After killing an animal some Indian
hunters used to purify themselves in water as a religious rite.692 When a
d Damara hunter returns from a successful chase he takes water in his mouth
n and ejects it three times over his feet, and also into the fire on his own
hearth.693 Amongst the Caffres of South Africa “the slaughter of a lion,
however honourable it is esteemed, is nevertheless associated with an idea
of moral uncleanness, and is followed by a very strange ceremony. When
the hunters approach the village on their return, the man who gave the lion
the first wound is hidden from every eye by the shields which his comrades
hold up before him. One of the hunters steps forward and, leaping and
d bounding in a strange manner, praises the courage of the lion-killer. Then he
rejoins the band, and the same performance is repeated by another. All the
rest meanwhile keep up a ceaseless shouting, rattling with their clubs on
their shields. This goes on till they have reached the village. Then a mean
a hut is run up not far from the village; and in this hut the lion-killer, because
he is unclean, must remain four days, cut off from all association with the
tribe. There he dyes his body all over with white paint; and lads who have
not yet been circumcised, and are therefore, in respect to uncleanness, in the
same state as himself, bring him a calf to eat, and wait upon him. When the
four days are over, the unclean man washes himself, paints himself with red
paint in the usual manner, and is escorted back to the village by the head
chief, attended with a guard of honour. Lastly, a second calf is killed; and,
the uncleanness being now at an end, every one is free to eat of the calf with
him.”694 Among the Hottentots, when a man has killed a lion, leopard,
elephant, or rhinoceros he is esteemed a great hero, but he is deluged with
urine by the medicine-man and has to remain at home quite idle for three
days, during which his wife may not come near him; she is also enjoined to
restrict herself [pg 221] to a poor diet and to eat no more than is barely
necessary to keep her in health.695 Similarly the Lapps deem it the height of
glory to kill a bear, which they consider the king of beasts. Nevertheless, all
the men who take part in the slaughter are regarded as unclean, and must

live by themselves for three days in a hut or tent made specially for them,
where they cut up and cook the bear's carcase. The reindeer which brought
in the carcase on a sledge may not be driven by a woman for a whole year;
indeed, according to one account, it may not be used by anybody for that
period. Before the men go into the tent where they are to be secluded, they
strip themselves of the garments they had worn in killing the bear, and their
wives spit the red juice of alder bark in their faces. They enter the tent not
by the ordinary door but by an opening at the back. When the bear's flesh
has been cooked, a portion of it is sent by the hands of two men to the
women, who may not approach the men's tent while the cooking is going
on. The men who convey the flesh to the women pretend to be strangers
bringing presents from a foreign land; the women keep up the pretence and
promise to tie red threads round the legs of the strangers. The bear's flesh
may not be passed in to the women through the door of their tent, but must
be thrust in at a special opening made by lifting up the hem of the tent-
cover. When the three days' seclusion is over and the men are at liberty to
return to their wives, they run, one after the other, round the fire, holding
the chain by which pots are suspended over it. This is regarded as a form of
purification; they may now leave the tent by the ordinary door and rejoin
the women. But the leader of the party must still abstain from cohabitation
with his wife for two days more.696

Again, the Caffres are said to dread greatly the boa-constrictor or an
enormous serpent resembling it; “and being [pg 222] influenced by certain
superstitious notions they even fear to kill it. The man who happened to put
it to death, whether in self-defence or otherwise, was formerly required to
lie in a running stream of water during the day for several weeks together;
and no beast whatever was allowed to be slaughtered at the hamlet to which
e he belonged, until this duty had been fully performed. The body of the
snake was then taken and carefully buried in a trench, dug close to the
cattle-fold, where its remains, like those of a chief, were henceforward kept
perfectly undisturbed. The period of penance, as in the case of mourning for
the dead, is now happily reduced to a few days.”697 Amongst the Ewe-
speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, who worship the python, a native who
killed one of these serpents used to be burned alive. But for some time past,
though a semblance of carrying out the old penalty is preserved, the culprit
is allowed to escape with his life, but he has to pay a heavy fine. A small hut

of dry faggots and grass is set up, generally near the lagoon at Whydah, if
the crime has been perpetrated there; the guilty man is thrust inside, the
door of plaited grass is shut on him, and the hut is set on fire. Sometimes a
dog, a kid, and two fowls are enclosed along with him, and he is drenched
with palm-oil and yeast, probably to render him the more combustible. As
he is unbound, he easily breaks out of the frail hut before the flames
consume him; but he has to run the gauntlet of the angry serpent-
worshippers, who belabour the murderer of their god with sticks and pelt
him with clods until he reaches water and plunges into it, which is supposed
to wash away his sin. Thirteen days later a commemoration service is held
in honour of the deceased python.698 In Madras it is considered a great sin to
kill a cobra. When this has happened, the people generally burn the body of
the serpent just as they burn the bodies of human beings. The murderer
deems himself polluted for three days. On the second day milk is poured on
the remains of the cobra. On the third [pg 223] day the guilty wretch is free
from pollution.699 Under native rule, we may suspect, he would not get off
so lightly.

In these last cases the animal whose slaughter has to be atoned for is sacred,
that is, it is one whose life is commonly spared from motives of
h superstition. Yet the treatment of the sacrilegious slayer seems to resemble
so closely the treatment of hunters and fishermen who have killed animals
e for food in the ordinary course of business, that the ideas on which both sets
n of customs are based may be assumed to be substantially the same. Those
t ideas, if I am right, are the respect which the savage feels for the souls of
e beasts, especially valuable or formidable beasts, and the dread which he
entertains of their vengeful ghosts. Some confirmation of this view may be
r drawn from the ceremonies observed by fishermen of Annam when the
s carcase of a whale is washed ashore. These fisherfolk, we are told, worship
the whale on account of the benefits they derive from it. There is hardly a
village on the sea-shore which has not its small pagoda, containing the
bones, more or less authentic, of a whale. When a dead whale is washed
ashore, the people accord it a solemn burial. The man who first caught sight
of it acts as chief mourner, performing the rites which as chief mourner and
heir he would perform for a human kinsman. He puts on all the garb of woe,
the straw hat, the white robe with long sleeves turned inside out, and the
other paraphernalia of full mourning. As next of kin to the deceased he

presides over the funeral rites. Perfumes are burned, sticks of incense
kindled, leaves of gold and silver scattered, crackers let off. When the flesh
has been cut off and the oil extracted, the remains of the carcase are buried
in the sand. Afterwards a shed is set up and offerings are made in it. Usually
some time after the burial the spirit of the dead whale takes possession of
some person in the village and declares by his mouth whether he is a male
or a female.700

[pg 224]

Chapter V. Tabooed Things.

§ 1. The Meaning of Taboo.

Thus in primitive society the rules of ceremonial purity observed by divine
kings, chiefs, and priests agree in many respects with the rules observed by
f homicides, mourners, women in childbed, girls at puberty, hunters and
fishermen, and so on. To us these various classes of persons appear to differ
h totally in character and condition; some of them we should call holy, others
f we might pronounce unclean and polluted. But the savage makes no such
moral distinction between them; the conceptions of holiness and pollution
n are not yet differentiated in his mind. To him the common feature of all
e these persons is that they are dangerous and in danger, and the danger in
e which they stand and to which they expose others is what we should call
f spiritual or ghostly, and therefore imaginary. The danger, however, is not
less real because it is imaginary; imagination acts upon man as really as
does gravitation, and may kill him as certainly as a dose of prussic acid. To
seclude these persons from the rest of the world so that the dreaded spiritual
t danger shall neither reach them, nor spread from them, is the object of the
taboos which they have to observe. These taboos act, so to say, as electrical
insulators to preserve the spiritual force with which these persons are
charged from suffering or inflicting harm by contact with the outer world.701

[pg 225]
To the illustrations of these general principles which have been already
given I shall now add some more, drawing my examples, first, from the
class of tabooed things, and, second, from the class of tabooed words; for in
the opinion of the savage both things and words may, like persons, be
charged or electrified, either temporarily or permanently, with the
mysterious virtue of taboo, and may therefore require to be banished for a
longer or shorter time from the familiar usage of common life. And the
examples will be chosen with special reference to those sacred chiefs, kings
and priests, who, more than anybody else, live fenced about by taboo as by
a wall. Tabooed things will be illustrated in the present chapter, and tabooed
words in the next.

§ 2. Iron tabooed.

In the first place we may observe that the awful sanctity of kings naturally
leads to a prohibition to [pg 226] touch their sacred persons. Thus it was
y unlawful to lay hands on the person of a Spartan king;702 no one might
e touch the body of the king or queen of Tahiti;703 it is forbidden to touch the
person of the king of Siam under pain of death;704 and no one may touch the
f king of Cambodia, for any purpose whatever, without his express
command. In July 1874 the king was thrown from his carriage and lay
insensible on the ground, but not one of his suite dared to touch him; a
European coming to the spot carried the injured monarch to his palace.705
Formerly no one might touch the king of Corea; and if he deigned to touch
a subject, the spot touched became sacred, and the person thus honoured
f had to wear a visible mark (generally a cord of red silk) for the rest of his
life. Above all, no iron might touch the king's body. In 1800 King Tieng-
tsong-tai-oang died of a tumour in the back, no one dreaming of employing
the lancet, which would probably have saved his life. It is said that one king
suffered terribly from an abscess in the lip, till his physician called in a
jester, whose pranks made the king laugh heartily, and so the abscess
burst.706 Roman and Sabine priests might not be shaved with iron but only
with bronze razors or shears;707 and whenever an iron graving-tool was
e brought into the sacred grove of the Arval Brothers at Rome for the purpose
n of cutting an inscription in stone, an expiatory sacrifice of a lamb and a pig
must be offered, which was repeated when the graving-tool was removed
n from the grove.708 As a general rule iron might not be brought into Greek
d sanctuaries.709 In Crete sacrifices [pg 227] were offered to Menedemus
without the use of iron, because the legend ran that Menedemus had been
e killed by an iron weapon in the Trojan war.710 The Archon of Plataea might
not touch iron; but once a year, at the annual commemoration of the men
f who fell at the battle of Plataea, he was allowed to carry a sword wherewith
to sacrifice a bull.711 To this day a Hottentot priest never uses an iron knife,
but always a sharp splint of quartz, in sacrificing an animal or circumcising
n a lad.712 Among the Ovambo of south-west Africa custom requires that lads

should be circumcised with a sharp flint; if none is to hand, the operation
713
e may be performed with iron, but the iron must afterwards be buried. The
Antandroy and Tanala of Madagascar cut the navel-strings of their children
714
f with sharp wood or with a thread, but never with an iron knife. In Uap,
one of the Caroline Islands, wood of the hibiscus tree, which was used to
t make the fire-drill, must be cut with shell knives or shell [pg 228] axes,
715
n never with iron or steel. Amongst the Moquis of Arizona stone knives,
hatchets, and so on have passed out of common use, but are retained in
religious ceremonies.716 After the Pawnees had ceased to use stone arrow-
heads for ordinary purposes, they still employed them to slay the sacrifices,
whether human captives or buffalo and deer.717 We have seen that among
the Esquimaux of Bering Strait the use of iron implements is forbidden for
four days after the slaughter of a white whale, and that the use of an iron
axe at a place where salmon are being dressed is believed by these people to
be a fatal imprudence.718 They hold a festival in the assembly-house of the
village, while the bladders of the slain beasts are hanging there, and during
its celebration no wood may be cut with an iron axe. If it is necessary to
split firewood, this may be done with wedges of bone.719 At Kushunuk, near
Cape Vancouver, it happened that Mr. Nelson and his party entered an
assembly-house of these Esquimaux while the festival of the bladders was
in progress. “When our camping outfit was brought in from the sledges, two
men took drums, and as the clothing and goods of the traders who were
with me were brought in, the drums were beaten softly and a song was sung
in a low, humming tone, but when our guns and some steel traps were
brought in, with other articles of iron, the drums were beaten loudly and the
songs raised in proportion. This was done that the shades of the animals
present in the bladders might not be frightened.”720 The Esquimaux on the
western coast of Hudson Bay may not work on iron during the season for
hunting musk-oxen, which falls in March. And no such work may be done
by them until the seals have their pups.721 Negroes of the Gold Coast
remove all iron or steel from their person when they [pg 229] consult their
fetish.722 The men who made the need-fire in Scotland had to divest
themselves of all metal.723 There was hardly any belief, we are told, that had
a stronger hold on the mind of a Scottish Highlander than that on no
account whatever should iron be put in the ground on Good Friday. Hence
no grave was dug and no field ploughed on that day. It has been suggested
that the belief was based on that rooted aversion to iron which fairies are

known to feel. These touchy beings live underground, and might resent
having the roof pulled from over their heads on the hallowed day.724 Again,
in the Highlands of Scotland the shoulder-blades of sheep are employed in
divination, being consulted as to future marriages, births, deaths, and
funerals; but the forecasts thus made will not be accurate unless the flesh
has been removed from the bones without the use of any iron.725 In making
the clavie (a kind of Yule-tide fire-wheel) at [pg 230] Burghead, no hammer
may be used; the hammering must be done with a stone.726 Amongst the
Jews no iron tool was used in building the Temple at Jerusalem or in
making an altar.727 The old wooden bridge (Pons Sublicius) at Rome, which
was considered sacred, was made and had to be kept in repair without the
use of iron or bronze.728 It was expressly provided by law that the temple of
Jupiter Liber at Furfo might be repaired with iron tools.729 The council
chamber at Cyzicus was constructed of wood without any iron nails, the
beams being so arranged that they could be taken out and replaced.730 The
late Rajah Vijyanagram, a member of the Viceroy's Council, and described
as one of the most enlightened and estimable of Hindoo princes, would not
allow iron to be used in the construction of buildings within his territory,
believing that its use would inevitably be followed by small-pox and other
epidemics.731

This superstitious objection to iron perhaps dates from that early time in the
history of society when iron was still a novelty, and as such was viewed by
many with suspicion and dislike.732 For everything new is apt to excite the
awe and dread of the savage. “It is a curious superstition,” says a pioneer in
e Borneo, “this of the Dusuns, to attribute anything—whether good or bad,
d lucky or unlucky—that happens to them to something novel which has
e arrived in their country. For instance, my living in Kindram has caused the
intensely hot weather we have experienced of late.”733 Some years ago a
harmless naturalist was collecting plants among the high forest-clad
mountains on the borders of China and Tibet. From the summit of a pass he
gazed with delight down a long valley which, stretching away as far as eye
could reach to the south, resembled a sea of bloom, for everywhere the
forest was ablaze with the [pg 231] gorgeous hues of the rhododendron and
azalea in flower. In this earthly paradise the votary of science hastened to
install himself beside a lake. But hardly had he done so when, alas! the
weather changed. Though the season was early June, the cold became

intense, snow fell heavily, and the bloom of the rhododendrons was cut off.
The inhabitants of a neighbouring village at once set down the unusual
severity of the weather to the presence of a stranger in the forest; and a
round-robin, signed by them unanimously, was forwarded to the nearest
mandarin, setting forth that the snow which had blocked the road, and the
hail which was blasting their crops, were alike caused by the intruder, and
that all sorts of disturbances would follow if he were allowed to remain. In
these circumstances the naturalist, who had intended to spend most of the
summer among the mountains, was forced to decamp. “Collecting in this
country,” he adds pathetically, “is not an easy matter.”734 The unusually
heavy rains which happened to follow the English survey of the Nicobar
Islands in the winter of 1886-1887 were imputed by the alarmed natives to
the wrath of the spirits at the theodolites, dumpy-levellers, and other strange
instruments which had been set up in so many of their favourite haunts; and
some of them proposed to soothe the anger of the spirits by sacrificing a
pig.735 When the German Hans Stade was a captive in a cannibal tribe of
Brazilian Indians, it happened that, shortly before a prisoner was to be
eaten, a great wind arose and blew away part of the roofs of the huts. The
savages were angry with Stade, and said he had made the wind to come by
looking into his thunder-skins, by which they meant a book he had been
reading, in order to save the prisoner, who was a friend of his, from their
stomachs. So the pious German prayed to God, and God mercifully heard
his prayer; for next morning the weather was beautifully fine, and his friend
was butchered, carved, and eaten in the most perfect comfort.736 According
to the [pg 232] Orotchis of eastern Siberia, misfortunes have multiplied on
them with the coming of Europeans; “they even go so far as to lay the
appearance of new phenomena like thunder at the door of the Russians.”737
In the seventeenth century a succession of bad seasons excited a revolt
among the Esthonian peasantry, who traced the origin of the evil to a water-
mill, which put a stream to some inconvenience by checking its flow.738 The
first introduction of iron ploughshares into Poland having been followed by
a succession of bad harvests, the farmers attributed the badness of the crops
to the iron ploughshares, and discarded them for the old wooden ones.739 To
this day the primitive Baduwis of Java, who live chiefly by husbandry, will
use no iron tools in tilling their fields.740

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
e aversion to iron entertained by kings and priests and attributed by them to
s the gods; possibly this aversion may have been intensified in places by
n 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
e the gods and their ministers has another side. Their antipathy to the metal
l furnishes men with a weapon which may be turned against the spirits when
a 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
n dangerous spirits. And often it is so used. Thus in the Highlands of Scotland
a the great safeguard against the elfin race is iron, or, better yet, steel. The
metal in any form, whether as a sword, a knife, a gun-barrel, or what not, is
all-powerful for this purpose. Whenever you enter a fairy [pg 233] dwelling
n you should always remember to stick a piece of steel, such as a knife, a
needle, or a fish-hook, in the door; for then the elves will not be able to shut
the door till you come out again. So too when you have shot a deer and are
bringing it home at night, be sure to thrust a knife into the carcase, for that
keeps the fairies from laying their weight on it. A knife or a nail in your
d pocket is quite enough to prevent the fairies from lifting you up at night.
a Nails in the front of a bed ward off elves from women “in the straw” and
from their babes; but to make quite sure it is better to put the smoothing-
y iron under the bed, and the reaping-hook in the window. If a bull has fallen
over a rock and been killed, a nail stuck into it will preserve the flesh from
the fairies. Music discoursed on that melodious instrument, a Jew's harp,
keeps the elfin women away from the hunter, because the tongue of the
d instrument is of steel.741 Again, when Scotch fishermen were at sea, and one
a of them happened to take the name of God in vain, the first man who heard
him called out “Cauld airn,” at which every man of the crew grasped the
nearest bit of iron and held it between his hands for a while.742 So too when
he hears the unlucky word “pig” mentioned, a Scotch fisherman will feel
d for the nails in his boots and mutter “Cauld airn.”743 The same magic words
n are even whispered in the churches of Scotch fishing-villages when the
clergyman reads the passage about the Gadarene swine.744 In Morocco iron
is considered a great protection against demons; hence it is usual to place a
knife or dagger under a sick man's pillow.745 The Singhalese believe that

they are constantly surrounded by evil spirits, who lie in wait to do them
harm. A peasant would not dare to carry good food, such as cakes or roast
meat, from one place to another without putting an iron nail on it to prevent
a demon from taking possession of the viands and so making the eater ill.
No [pg 234] sick person, whether man or woman, would venture out of the
house without a bunch of keys or a knife in his hand, for without such a
talisman he would fear that some devil might take advantage of his weak
state to slip into his body. And if a man has a large sore on his body he tries
to keep a morsel of iron on it as a protection against demons.746 The
inhabitants of Salsette, an island near Bombay, dread a spirit called gîrâ,
which plays many pranks with a solitary traveller, leading him astray,
lowering him into an empty well, and so on. But a gîrâ dare not touch a
person who has on him anything made of iron or steel, particularly a knife
or a nail, of which the spirit stands in great fear. Nor will he meddle with a
woman, especially a married woman, because he is afraid of her bangles.747
Among the Majhwâr, an aboriginal tribe in the hill country of South
Mirzapur, an iron implement such as a sickle or a betel-cutter is constantly
kept near an infant's head during its first year for the purpose of warding off
the attacks of ghosts.748 Among the Maravars, an aboriginal race of southern
India, a knife or other iron object lies beside a woman after childbirth to
keep off the devil.749 When a Mala woman is in labour, a sickle and some
nïm leaves are always kept on the cot. In Malabar people who have to pass
by burning-grounds or other haunted places commonly carry with them iron
in some form, such as a knife or an iron rod used as a walking-stick. When
pregnant women go on a journey, they carry with them a few twigs or
leaves of the nïm tree, or iron in some shape, to scare evil spirits lurking in
groves or burial-grounds which they may pass.750 In Bilaspore people
attribute cholera to a goddess who visits the afflicted family. But they think
that she may be kept off by iron; hence during an epidemic of cholera
people go about with axes or sickles in their hands. “Their horses are not
shod, otherwise they might possibly nail horse-shoes to the door, [pg 235]
but their belief is more primitive; for with them iron does not bring good
luck, but it scares away the evil spirits, so when a man has had an epileptic
fit he will wear an iron bracelet to keep away the evil spirit which was
supposed to have possessed him.”751 The Annamites imagine that a new-
born child is exposed to the attacks of evil spirits. To protect the infant from
these malignant beings the parents sometimes sell the child to the village

smith, who makes a small ring or circlet of iron and puts it on the child's
foot, commonly adding a little chain of iron. When the infant has been sold
to the smith and firmly attached to him by the chain, the demons no longer
have any power over him. After the child has grown big and the danger is
over, the parents ask the smith to break the iron ring and thank him for his
services. No metal but iron will serve the purpose.752 On the Slave Coast of
Africa when a mother sees her child gradually wasting away, she concludes
that a demon has entered into the child and takes her measures accordingly.
To lure the demon out of the body of her offspring, she offers a sacrifice of
food; and while the devil is bolting it, she attaches iron rings and small bells
to her child's ankles and hangs iron chains round his neck. The jingling of
the iron and the tinkling of the bells are supposed to prevent the demon,
when he has concluded his repast, from entering again into the body of the
little sufferer. Hence many children may be seen in this part of Africa
weighed down with iron ornaments.753 The use of iron as a means to
exorcise demons was forbidden by the Coptic church.754 In India “the
mourner who performs the ceremony of putting fire into the dead person's
mouth carries with him a piece of iron: it may be a key or a knife, or a
simple piece of iron, and during the whole time of his separation (for he is
unclean for a certain time, and no one will either touch him or eat or drink
with him, neither can he change his [pg 236] clothes755) he carries the piece
of iron about with him to keep off the evil spirit. In Calcutta the Bengali
clerks in the Government Offices used to wear a small key on one of their
fingers when they had been chief mourners.”756 When a woman dies in
childbed in the island of Salsette, they put a nail or other piece of iron in the
folds of her dress; this is done especially if the child survives her. The
intention plainly is to prevent her spirit from coming back; for they believe
that a dead mother haunts the house and seeks to carry away her child.757 In
the north-east of Scotland immediately after a death had taken place, a piece
of iron, such as a nail or a knitting-wire, used to be stuck into all the meal,
butter, cheese, flesh, and whisky in the house, “to prevent death from
entering them.” The neglect of this salutary precaution is said to have been
closely followed by the corruption of the food and drink; the whisky has
been known to become as white as milk.758 When iron is used as a
protective charm after a death, as in these Hindoo and Scotch customs, the
spirit against which it is directed is the ghost of the deceased.759

[pg 237]

§ 3. Sharp Weapons tabooed.

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
f weapon or cutting instrument may be brought.760 This rule may perhaps be
explained by a custom observed by various peoples after a death; they
refrain from the use of sharp instruments so long as the ghost of the
deceased is supposed to be near, lest they should wound it. Thus among the
Esquimaux of Bering Strait “during the day on which a person dies in the
village no one is permitted to work, and the relatives must perform no
y labour during the three following days. It is especially forbidden during this
period to cut with any edged instrument, such as a knife or an axe; and the
use of pointed instruments, like needles or bodkins, is also forbidden. This
is said to be done to avoid cutting or injuring the shade, which may be
present at any time during this period, and, if accidentally injured by any of
these things, it would become very angry and bring sickness or death to the
people. The relatives must also be very careful at this time not to make any
loud or harsh noises that may startle or anger the shade.”761 We have seen
a that in like manner after killing a white whale these Esquimaux abstain
from the use of cutting or pointed instruments for four days, lest they
should unwittingly cut or stab the whale's ghost.762 The same taboo is
a sometimes observed by them when there is a sick person in the village,
probably from a fear of injuring [pg 238] his shade which may be hovering
outside of his body.763 After a death the Roumanians of Transylvania are
careful not to leave a knife lying with the sharp edge uppermost as long as
the corpse remains in the house, “or else the soul will be forced to ride on
the blade.”764 For seven days after a death, the corpse being still in the
house, the Chinese abstain from the use of knives and needles, and even of
chopsticks, eating their food with their fingers.765 On the third, sixth, ninth,
and fortieth days after the funeral the old Prussians and Lithuanians used to
prepare a meal, to which, standing at the door, they invited the soul of the
deceased. At these meals they sat silent round the table and used no knives,
and the women who served up the food were also without knives. If any

morsels fell from the table they were left lying there for the lonely souls
that had no living relations or friends to feed them. When the meal was over
the priest took a broom and swept the souls out of the house, saying, “Dear
souls, ye have eaten and drunk. Go forth, go forth.”766 In cutting the nails
and combing the hair of a dead prince in South Celebes only the back of the
knife and of the comb may be used.767 The Germans say that a knife should
not be left edge upwards, because God and the spirits dwell there, or
because it will cut the face of God and the angels.768 Among the Monumbos
of New Guinea a pregnant woman may not use sharp instruments; for
example, she may not sew. If she used such instruments, they think that she
would thereby stab the child in her womb.769 Among [pg 239] the Kayans of
Borneo, when the birth-pangs begin, all men leave the room, and all cutting
weapons and iron are also removed, “perhaps in order not to frighten the
child,” says the writer who reports the custom.770 The reason may rather be
a fear of injuring the flitting soul of mother or babe. In Uganda, when the
hour of a woman's delivery is at hand, her husband carries all spears and
weapons out of the house,771 doubtless in order that they may not hurt the
tender soul of the new-born child. Early in the period of the Ming dynasty a
professor of geomancy made the alarming discovery that the spiritual
atmosphere of Kü-yung, a city near Nanking, was in a truly deplorable
condition through the intrusion of an evil spirit. The Chinese emperor, with
paternal solicitude, directed that the north gate, by which the devil had
effected his entrance, should be built up solid, and that for the future the
population of the city should devote their energies to the pursuits of hair-
dressing, corn-cutting, and the shaving of bamboo-roots, because, as he
sagaciously perceived, all these professions call for the use of sharp-edged
instruments, which could not fail to keep the demon at bay.772 We can now
understand why no cutting instrument may be taken into the house of the
Burmese pontiff. Like so many priestly kings, he is probably regarded as
divine, and it is therefore right that his sacred spirit should not be exposed
to the risk of being cut or wounded whenever it quits his body to hover
invisible in the air or to fly on some distant mission.

§ 4. Blood tabooed.

We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was forbidden to touch or even name
raw flesh.773 At certain times a Brahman teacher is enjoined not to look on
t raw flesh, blood, or persons whose hands have been cut off.774 In Uganda
the father of [pg 240] twins is in a state of taboo for some time after the
birth; among other rules he is forbidden to kill anything or to see blood.775
r In the Pelew Islands when a raid has been made on a village and a head
n carried off, the relations of the slain man are tabooed and have to submit to
certain observances in order to escape the wrath of his ghost. They are shut
up in the house, touch no raw flesh, and chew betel over which an
incantation has been uttered by the exorcist. After this the ghost of the
slaughtered man goes away to the enemy's country in pursuit of his
murderer.776 The taboo is probably based on the common belief that the soul
or spirit of the animal is in the blood. As tabooed persons are believed to be
in a perilous state—for example, the relations of the slain man are liable to
the attacks of his indignant ghost—it is especially necessary to isolate them
from contact with spirits; hence the prohibition to touch raw meat. But as
usual the taboo is only the special enforcement of a general precept; in other
words, its observance is particularly enjoined in circumstances which seem
urgently to call for its application, but apart from such circumstances the
prohibition is also observed, though less strictly, as a common rule of life.
Thus some of the Esthonians will not taste blood because they believe that
it contains the animal's soul, which would enter the body of the person who
tasted the blood.777 Some Indian tribes of North America, “through a strong
principle of religion, abstain in the strictest manner from eating the blood of
any animal, as it contains the life and spirit of the beast.” These Indians
“commonly pull their new-killed venison (before they dress it) several
times through the smoke and flame of the fire, both by the way of a
sacrifice and to consume the blood, life, or animal spirits of the beast,
which with them would be a most horrid abomination to eat.”778 Among the
western Dénés or Tinneh Indians of British Columbia until lately no woman
[pg 241] would partake of blood, “and both men and women abhorred the

flesh of a beaver which had been caught and died in a trap, and of a bear
strangled to death in a snare, because the blood remained in the carcase.”779
Many of the Slave, Hare, and Dogrib Indians scruple to taste the blood of
game; hunters of the former tribes collect the blood in the animal's paunch
and bury it in the snow.780 The Malepa, a Bantu tribe in the north of the
Transvaal, will taste no blood. Hence they cut the throats of the cattle they
slaughter and let the blood drain out of the carcase before they will eat it.
And they do the same with game.781 Jewish hunters poured out the blood of
the game they had killed and covered it up with dust. They would not taste
the blood, believing that the soul or life of the animal was in the blood, or
actually was the blood.782 The same belief was held by the Romans,783 and is
shared by the Arabs,784 by Chinese medical writers,785 and by some of the
Papuan tribes of New Guinea.786

It is a common rule that royal blood may not be shed upon the ground.
Hence when a king or one of his family is to be put to death a mode of
execution is devised by which the royal blood shall not be spilt upon the
y earth. About the year 1688 the generalissimo of the army rebelled against
t the king of Siam and put him to death “after the manner of royal criminals,
e 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
d on the ground, it being, by their religion, thought great impiety to
e contaminate the divine blood by mixing it with earth.”787 [pg 242] Other
Siamese modes of executing a royal person are starvation, suffocation,
y stretching him on a scarlet cloth and thrusting a billet of fragrant sandal-
wood into his stomach,788 or lastly, sewing him up in a leather sack with a
large stone and throwing him into the river; sometimes the sufferer's neck is
broken with sandal-wood clubs before he is thrown into the water.789 When
Kublai Khan defeated and took his uncle Nayan, who had rebelled against
him, he caused Nayan to be put to death by being wrapt in a carpet and
tossed to and fro till he died, “because he would not have the blood of his
Line Imperial spilt upon the ground or exposed in the eye of Heaven and
before the Sun.”790 “Friar Ricold mentions the Tartar maxim: ‘One Khan
will put another to death to get possession of the throne, but he takes great
care that the blood be not spilt. For they say that it is highly improper that
the blood of the Great Khan should be spilt upon the ground; so they cause

the victim to be smothered somehow or other.’ The like feeling prevails at
the court of Burma, where a peculiar mode of execution without bloodshed
is reserved for princes of the blood.”791 Another writer on Burma observes
that “according to Mongolian tradition, it is considered improper to spill the
blood of any member of the royal race. Princes of the Blood are executed
by a blow, or blows, of a bludgeon, inflicted on the back of the neck. The
corpse is placed in a red velvet sack, which is fixed between two large
perforated jars, and then sunk in the river Irawadi. Princesses are executed
in a similar manner, with the exception that they are put to death by a blow
in front, instead of the back of the neck.”792 In 1878 the relations of
Theebaw, king of Burma, were despatched by being beaten across the throat
with a bamboo.793 In Tonquin the ordinary mode of execution is beheading,
but persons of the blood royal are strangled.794 In Ashantee the [pg 243]
blood of none of the royal family may be shed; if one of them is guilty of a
great crime he is drowned in the river Dah.795 As the blood royal of
Dahomey may not be spilled, offenders of the royal family are drowned or
strangled. Commonly they are bound hand and foot, carried out to sea in a
canoe, and thrown overboard.796 When a king of Benin came to the throne
he used to put his brothers to death; but as no one might lay hands on a
prince of the blood, the king commanded his brothers to hang themselves,
after which he buried their bodies with great pomp.797 In Madagascar the
blood of nobles might not be shed; hence when four Christians of that class
were to be executed they were burned alive.798 In Uganda “no one may shed
royal blood on any account, not even when ordered by the king to slay one
of the royal house; royalty may only be starved or burned to death.”799
Formerly when a young king of Uganda came of age all his brothers were
burnt except two or three, who were preserved to keep up the succession.800
Or a space of ground having been fenced in with a high paling and a deep
ditch, the doomed men were led into the enclosure and left there till they
died, while guards kept watch outside to prevent their escape.801 Among the
Bawenda of southern Africa dangerous princes are strangled, for their blood
may not be shed.802

The reluctance to spill royal blood seems to be only a particular case of a
general unwillingness to shed blood or at least to allow it to fall on the
ground. Marco Polo tells us that in his day persons caught in the streets of
d Cambaluc [pg 244] (Peking) at unseasonable hours were arrested, and if

n found guilty of a misdemeanour were beaten with a stick. “Under this
n punishment people sometimes die, but they adopt it in order to eschew
bloodshed, for their Bacsis say that it is an evil thing to shed man's
blood.”803 When Captain Christian was shot by the Manx Government at the
Restoration in 1660, the spot on which he stood was covered with white
804
w blankets, that his blood might not fall on the ground. In West Sussex
people believe that the ground on which human blood has been shed is
accursed and will remain barren for ever.805 Among some primitive peoples,
e when the blood of a tribesman has to be spilt it is not suffered to fall upon
the ground, but is received upon the bodies of his fellow-tribesmen. Thus in
some Australian tribes boys who are being circumcised are laid on a
platform, formed by the living bodies of the tribesmen;806 and when a boy's
tooth is knocked out as an initiatory ceremony, he is seated on the shoulders
of a man, on whose breast the blood flows and may not be wiped away.807
When Australian blacks bleed each other as a cure for headache and other
ailments, they are very careful not to spill any of the blood on the ground,
but sprinkle it on each other.808 We have already seen that in the Australian
ceremony for making rain the blood which is supposed to imitate the rain is
received upon the bodies of the tribesmen.809 “Also the Gauls used to drink
their enemies' blood and paint themselves therewith. So also they write that
the old Irish were wont; and so have I seen some of the Irish do, but not
their enemies' but friends' blood, as, namely, at the execution of a notable
traitor at Limerick, called Murrogh O'Brien, I saw an old woman, which
was his foster-mother, take up his head whilst he was quartered and suck
[pg 245] up all the blood that ran thereout, saying that the earth was not
worthy to drink it, and therewith also steeped her face and breast and tore
her hair, crying out and shrieking most terribly.”810 After a battle in Horne
Island, South Pacific, it was found that the brother of the vanquished king
was among the wounded. “It was sad to see his wife collect in her hands the
blood which had flowed from his wounds, and throw it on to her head,
while she uttered piercing cries. All the relatives of the wounded collected
in the same manner the blood which had flowed from them, down even to
the last drop, and they even applied their lips to the leaves of the shrubs and
licked it all up to the last drop.”811 In the Marquesas Islands the persons who
helped a woman at childbirth received on their heads the blood which
flowed at the cutting of the navel-string; for the blood might not touch
anything but a sacred object, and in Polynesia the head is sacred in a high

degree.812 In South Celebes at childbirth a female slave stands under the
house (the houses being raised on posts above the ground) and receives in a
basin on her head the blood which trickles through the bamboo floor.813
Among the Latuka of central Africa the earth on which a drop of blood has
fallen at childbirth is carefully scraped up with an iron shovel, put into a pot
along with the water used in washing the mother, and buried tolerably deep
outside the house on the left-hand side.814 In West Africa, if a drop of your
blood has fallen on the ground, you must carefully cover it up, rub and
stamp it into the soil; if it has fallen on the side of a canoe or a tree, the
place is cut out and the chip destroyed.815 The Caffres, we are told, have a
great horror of blood, and must purify themselves from the pollution if they
have shed it and been bespattered by it. Hence warriors on the return from
battle purge themselves with emetics, and that so violently that some of
them give up the ghost. A Caffre would [pg 246] never allow even a drop of
blood from his nose or a wound to lie uncovered, but huddles it over with
earth, that his feet may not be defiled by it.816 One motive of these African
customs may be a wish to prevent the blood from falling into the hands of
magicians, who might make an evil use of it. That is admittedly the reason
why people in West Africa stamp out any blood of theirs which has fallen
on the ground or cut out any wood that has been soaked with it.817 From a
like dread of sorcery natives of New Guinea are careful to burn any sticks,
leaves, or rags which are stained with their blood; and if the blood has
dripped on the ground they turn up the soil and if possible light a fire on the
spot.818 The same fear explains the curious duties discharged by a class of
men called ramanga or “blue blood” among the Betsileo of Madagascar. It
is their business to eat all the nail-parings and to lick up all the spilt blood
of the nobles. When the nobles pare their nails, the parings are collected to
the last scrap and swallowed by these ramanga. If the parings are too large,
they are minced small and so gulped down. Again, should a nobleman
wound himself, say in cutting his nails or treading on something, the
ramanga lick it up as fast as possible. Nobles of high rank hardly go
anywhere without these humble attendants; but if it should happen that
there are none of them present, the cut nails and the spilt blood are carefully
collected to be afterwards swallowed by the ramanga. There is scarcely a
nobleman of any pretensions who does not strictly observe this custom,819
the intention of which probably is to prevent these parts of his person from
falling into the hands of sorcerers, who on the principles of contagious

magic could work him harm thereby. The tribes of the White Nile are said
never to shed human blood in their villages because they think the [pg 247]
sight of it would render women barren or bring misfortune on their children.
Hence executions and murders commonly take place on the roads or in the
forest.820

The unwillingness to shed blood is extended by some peoples to the blood
of animals. Thus, when the Caffres offer an ox to the spirits, the blood of
the beast must be carefully caught in a calabash, and none of it may fall on
the ground.821 When the Wanika in eastern Africa kill their cattle for food,
e “they either stone or beat the animal to death, so as not to shed the
f blood.”822 Amongst the Damaras cattle killed for food are suffocated, but
when sacrificed they are speared to death.823 But like most pastoral tribes in
Africa, both the Wanika and Damaras very seldom kill their cattle, which
are indeed commonly invested with a kind of sanctity.824 Some of the Ewe-
speaking negroes of Togoland, in West Africa, celebrate a festival in honour
of the Earth at which it is unlawful to shed blood on the ground. Hence the
fowls which are sacrificed on these occasions have their necks wrung, not
their throats cut.825 In killing an animal for food the Easter Islanders do not
shed its blood, but stun it or suffocate it in smoke.826 When the natives of
San Cristoval, one of the Solomon Islands, sacrifice a pig to a ghost in a
sacred place, they take great care that the blood shall not fall on the ground;
so they place the animal in a large bowl and cut it up there.827 It is said that
in ancient India the sacrificial victims were not slaughtered but strangled.828

The general explanation of the reluctance to shed blood on the ground is
probably to be found in the belief that the soul is in the blood, and that
therefore any ground on which it [pg 248] may fall necessarily becomes
a taboo or sacred. In New Zealand anything upon which even a drop of a high
chief's blood chances to fall becomes taboo or sacred to him. For instance, a
party of natives having come to visit a chief in a fine new canoe, the chief
got into it, but in doing so a splinter entered his foot, and the blood trickled
on the canoe, which at once became sacred to him. The owner jumped out,
dragged the canoe ashore opposite the chief's house, and left it there. Again,
a chief in entering a missionary's house knocked his head against a beam,
and the blood flowed. The natives said that in former times the house would
have belonged to the chief.829 As usually happens with taboos of universal

application, the prohibition to spill the blood of a tribesman on the ground
applies with peculiar stringency to chiefs and kings, and is observed in their
case long after it has ceased to be observed in the case of others.

We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was not allowed to walk under a
trellised vine.830 The reason for this prohibition was perhaps as follows. It
has been shewn that plants are considered as animate beings which bleed
when cut, the red juice which exudes from some of them being regarded as
s the blood of the plant.831 The juice of the grape is therefore naturally
a conceived as the blood of the vine.832 And since, as we have just seen, the
soul is often believed to be in the blood, the juice of the grape is regarded as
the soul, or as containing the soul, of the vine. This belief is strengthened by
the intoxicating effects of wine. For, according to primitive notions, all
n abnormal mental states, such as intoxication or madness, are caused by the
a entrance of a spirit into the person; such mental states, in other words, are
e accounted forms of possession or inspiration. Wine, therefore, is considered
f on two distinct grounds as a spirit, or containing a spirit; first because, as a
e red juice, it is identified with the blood of the plant, and second because it
e intoxicates or inspires. Therefore if the Flamen Dialis had walked under a
r trellised vine, the spirit of the vine, embodied in the [pg 249] clusters of
f grapes, would have been immediately over his head and might have
touched it, which for a person like him in a state of permanent taboo833
would have been highly dangerous. This interpretation of the prohibition
s will be made probable if we can shew, first, that wine has been actually
viewed by some peoples as blood, and intoxication as inspiration produced
e 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
r their heads.

f 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
d intoxication was explained by the supposition that the drunken man was
filled with the blood of the enemies of the gods.834 The Aztecs regarded
pulque or the wine of the country as bad, on account of the wild deeds
which men did under its influence. But these wild deeds were believed to be

the acts, not of the drunken man, but of the wine-god by whom he was
possessed and inspired; and so seriously was this theory of inspiration held
that if any one spoke ill of or insulted a tipsy man, he was liable to be
punished for disrespect to the wine-god incarnate in his votary. Hence, says
Sahagun, it was believed, not without ground, that the Indians intoxicated
themselves on purpose to commit with impunity crimes for which they
would certainly have been punished if they had committed them [pg 250]
sober.835 Thus it appears that on the primitive view intoxication or the
inspiration produced by wine is exactly parallel to the inspiration produced
by drinking the blood of animals.836 The soul or life is in the blood, and
wine is the blood of the vine. Hence whoever drinks the blood of an animal
is inspired with the soul of the animal or of the god, who, as we have
seen,837 is often supposed to enter into the animal before it is slain; and
whoever drinks wine drinks the blood, and so receives into himself the soul
or spirit, of the god of the vine.

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
f passing under a leaning tree or even under the rails of a fence. The reason
they give is that a woman may have been upon the tree or fence, and some
blood from her may have fallen on it and might fall from it on them.838 In
Ugi, one of the Solomon Islands, a man will never, if he can help it, pass
under a tree which has fallen across the path, for the reason that a woman
may have stepped over it before him.839 Amongst the Karens of Burma
“going under a house, especially if there are females within, is avoided; as
is also the passing under trees of which the branches extend downwards in a
particular direction, and the butt-end of fallen trees, etc.”840 The Siamese
think it unlucky to pass under a rope on which women's clothes are hung,
and to avert evil consequences the person who has done so must build a
chapel to the earth-spirit.841

[pg 251]

Probably in all such cases the rule is based on a fear of being brought into
contact with blood, especially the blood of women. From a like fear a Maori
will never lean his back against the wall of a native house.842 For the blood
f of women is supposed to have disastrous effects upon males. The Arunta of

n central Australia believe that a draught of woman's blood would kill the
strongest man.843 In the Encounter Bay tribe of South Australia boys are
warned that if they see the blood of women they will early become grey-
headed and their strength will fail prematurely.844 Men of the Booandik tribe
in South Australia think that if they see the blood of their women they will
not be able to fight against their enemies and will be killed; if the sun
dazzles their eyes at a fight, the first woman they afterwards meet is sure to
get a blow from their club.845 In the island of Wetar it is thought that if a
man or a lad comes upon a woman's blood he will be unfortunate in war and
other undertakings, and that any precautions he may take to avoid the
misfortune will be vain.846 The people of Ceram also believe that men who
see women's blood will be wounded in battle.847 It is an Esthonian belief
that men who see women's blood will suffer from an eruption on the skin.848
A Fan negro told Miss Kingsley that a young man in his village, who was
so weak that he could hardly crawl about, had fallen into this state through
seeing the blood of a woman who had been killed by a falling tree. “The
underlying idea regarding blood is of course the old one that the blood is
the life. The life in Africa means a spirit, hence the liberated blood is the
liberated spirit, and liberated spirits are always whipping into people who
do not want them. In the case of the young Fan, the opinion held was that
the weak spirit of the woman had got into him.”849

[pg 252]

§ 5. The Head tabooed.

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
d among many peoples the head is peculiarly sacred. The special sanctity
attributed to it is sometimes explained by a belief that it is the seat of a
a spirit which is very sensitive to injury or disrespect. Thus the Yorubas of the
Slave Coast hold that every man has three spiritual inmates, of whom the
n first, called Olori, dwells in the head and is the man's protector, guardian,
and guide. Offerings are made to this spirit, chiefly of fowls, and some of
the blood mixed with palm-oil is rubbed on the forehead.850 The Karens of
Burma suppose that a being called the tso resides in the upper part of the
head, and while it retains its seat no harm can befall the person from the
efforts of the seven Kelahs, or personified passions. “But if the tso becomes
heedless or weak certain evil to the person is the result. Hence the head is
carefully attended to, and all possible pains are taken to provide such dress
and attire as will be pleasing to the tso.”851 The Siamese think that a spirit
called khuan or kwun dwells in the human head, of which it is the guardian
spirit. The spirit must be carefully protected from injury of every kind;
hence the act of shaving or cutting the hair is accompanied with many
ceremonies. The kwun is very sensitive on points of honour, and would feel
mortally insulted if the head in which he resides were touched by the hand
of a stranger. When Dr. Bastian, in conversation with a brother of the king
of Siam, raised his hand to touch the prince's skull in order to illustrate
some medical remarks he was making, a sullen and threatening murmur
bursting from the lips of the crouching [pg 253] courtiers warned him of the
breach of etiquette he had committed, for in Siam there is no greater insult
to a man of rank than to touch his head. If a Siamese touch the head of
another with his foot, both of them must build chapels to the earth-spirit to
avert the omen. Nor does the guardian spirit of the head like to have the hair
washed too often; it might injure or incommode him. It was a grand
solemnity when the king of Burma's head was washed with water drawn
from the middle of the river. Whenever the native professor, from whom Dr.

Bastian took lessons in Burmese at Mandalay, had his head washed, which
took place as a rule once a month, he was generally absent for three days
together, that time being consumed in preparing for, and recovering from,
the operation of head-washing. Dr. Bastian's custom of washing his head
daily gave rise to much remark.852 The head of the king of Persia was
cleaned only once a year, on his birthday.853 Roman women washed their
heads annually on the thirteenth of August, Diana's day.854 The Indians of
Peru fancied they could rid themselves of their sins by scrubbing their
heads with a small stone and then washing them in a stream.855

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
e whenever anything fell through the floor Dr. Bastian had always difficulty
e 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 [pg 254] by sailors walking over them on the deck.856
Formerly in Siam no person might cross a bridge while his superior in rank
was passing underneath, nor might he walk in a room above one in which
his superior was sitting or lying.857 The Cambodians esteem it a grave
offence to touch a man's head; some of them will not enter a place where
anything whatever is suspended over their heads; and the meanest
Cambodian would never consent to live under an inhabited room. Hence the
houses are built of one story only; and even the Government respects the
prejudice by never placing a prisoner in the stocks under the floor of a
house, though the houses are raised high above the ground.858 The same
superstition exists amongst the Malays; for an early traveller reports that in
Java people “wear nothing on their heads, and say that nothing must be on
their heads ... and if any person were to put his hand upon their head they
would kill him; and they do not build houses with storeys, in order that they
may not walk over each other's heads.”859 In Uganda no person belonging to
the king's totem clan was allowed to get on the top of the palace to roof it,
for that would have been regarded as equivalent to getting on the top of the

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

The same superstition as to the head is found in full force throughout
Polynesia. Thus of Gattanewa, a Marquesan chief, it is said that “to touch
f the top of his head, or anything which had been on his head, was sacrilege.
To pass over his head was an indignity never to be forgotten. Gattanewa,
nay, all his family, scorned to pass a gateway which is ever closed, or a
s house with a door; all must be [pg 255] as open and free as their
n unrestrained manners. He would pass under nothing that had been raised by
the hand of man, if there was a possibility of getting round or over it. Often
have I seen him walk the whole length of our barrier, in preference to
passing between our water-casks; and at the risk of his life scramble over
the loose stones of a wall, rather than go through the gateway.”861
Marquesan women have been known to refuse to go on the decks of ships
for fear of passing over the heads of chiefs who might be below.862 The son
of a Marquesan high priest has been seen to roll on the ground in an agony
of rage and despair, begging for death, because some one had desecrated his
head and deprived him of his divinity by sprinkling a few drops of water on
his hair.863 But it was not the Marquesan chiefs only whose heads were
sacred. The head of every Marquesan was taboo, and might neither be
touched nor stepped over by another; even a father might not step over the
head of his sleeping child;864 women were forbidden to carry or touch
anything that had been in contact with, or had merely hung over, the head of
their husband or father.865 No one was allowed to be over the head of the
king of Tonga.866 In Hawaii (the Sandwich Islands) if a man climbed upon a
chiefs house or upon the wall of his yard, he was put to death; if his shadow
fell on a chief, he was put to death; if he walked in the shadow of a chiefs
house with his head painted white or decked with a garland or wetted with
water, he was put to death.867 In Tahiti any one who stood over the king or
queen, or passed his hand over their heads, might be put to death.868 Until
certain rites were performed over it, a Tahitian infant was especially taboo;
whatever touched the child's head, while it was in this state, became sacred
and was deposited in a consecrated [pg 256] place railed in for the purpose
at the child's house. If a branch of a tree touched the child's head, the tree
was cut down; and if in its fall it injured another tree so as to penetrate the
bark, that tree also was cut down as unclean and unfit for use. After the rites

were performed these special taboos ceased; but the head of a Tahitian was
always sacred, he never carried anything on it, and to touch it was an
offence.869 In New Zealand “the heads of the chiefs were always tabooed
(tapu), hence they could not pass, or sit, under food hung up; or carry food,
as others, on their backs; neither would they eat a meal in a house, nor
touch a calabash of water in drinking. No one could touch their head, nor,
indeed, commonly speak of it, or allude to it; to do so offensively was one
of their heaviest curses, and grossest insults, only to be wiped out with
blood.”870 So sacred was the head of a Maori chief that “if he only touched
it with his fingers, he was obliged immediately to apply them to his nose,
and snuff up the sanctity which they had acquired by the touch, and thus
restore it to the part from whence it was taken.”871 On account of the
sacredness of his head a Maori chief “could not blow the fire with his
mouth, for the breath being sacred, communicated his sanctity to it, and a
brand might be taken by a slave, or a man of another tribe, or the fire might
be used for other purposes, such as cooking, and so cause his death.”872 It is
a crime for a sacred person in New Zealand to leave his comb, or anything
else which has touched his head, in a place where food has been cooked, or
to suffer another person to drink out of any vessel which has touched his
lips. Hence when a chief wishes to drink he never puts his lips to the vessel,
but holds his hands close to his mouth so as to form a hollow, into which
water is poured by another person, and thence is allowed to flow into his
mouth. If a light is needed for his pipe, the burning ember taken from [pg
257] the fire must be thrown away as soon as it is used; for the pipe
becomes sacred because it has touched his mouth; the coal becomes sacred
because it has touched the pipe; and if a particle of the sacred cinder were
replaced on the common fire, the fire would also become sacred and could
no longer be used for cooking.873 Some Maori chiefs, like other Polynesians,
object to go down into a ship's cabin from fear of people passing over their
heads.874 Dire misfortune was thought by the Maoris to await those who
entered a house where any article of animal food was suspended over their
heads. “A dead pigeon, or a piece of pork hung from the roof, was a better
protection from molestation than a sentinel.”875 If I am right, the reason for
the special objection to having animal food over the head is the fear of
bringing the sacred head into contact with the spirit of the animal; just as
the reason why the Flamen Dialis might not walk under a vine was the fear
of bringing his sacred head into contact with the spirit of the vine. Similarly

King Darius would not pass through a gate over which there was a tomb,
because in doing so he would have had a corpse above his head.876 Among
the Awuna tribes of the Gold Coast, West Africa, the worshippers of
Hebesio, the god of thunder, believe that their heads are sacred, being
associated in some mysterious way with the presence of the protective spirit
of their god, which has passed into them through this channel at baptism.
Hence they carefully guard their heads against injury, especially against any
wound that might draw blood, for they think that such a wound would entail
the loss of reason on the sufferer, and that it would bring down the wrath of
the thundering god and of his mouth-piece the fetish priest on the impious
smiter.877

[pg 258]

§ 6. Hair tabooed.

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
e 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
e danger of disturbing the spirit of the head, which may be injured in the
f process and may revenge itself upon the person who molests him. Secondly,
r there is the difficulty of disposing of the shorn locks. For the savage
a believes that the sympathetic connexion which exists between himself and
every part of his body continues to exist even after the physical connexion
has been broken, and that therefore he will suffer from any harm that may
befall the severed parts of his body, such as the clippings of his hair or the
parings of his nails. Accordingly he takes care that these severed portions of
f 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
r way of evading the peril is not to cut the hair at all; and this is the expedient
adopted where the risk is thought to be more than usually great. The
Frankish kings were never allowed to crop their hair; from their childhood
upwards they had to keep it unshorn.878 To poll the long locks that floated
[pg 259] on their shoulders would have been to renounce their right to the
throne. When the wicked brothers Clotaire and Childebert coveted the
t kingdom of their dead brother Clodomir, they inveigled into their power
n their little nephews, the two sons of Clodomir; and having done so, they
sent a messenger bearing scissors and a naked sword to the children's
grandmother, Queen Clotilde, at Paris. The envoy shewed the scissors and
a the sword to Clotilde, and bade her choose whether the children should be
shorn and live or remain unshorn and die. The proud queen replied that if
her grandchildren were not to come to the throne she would rather see them
dead than shorn. And murdered they were by their ruthless uncle Clotaire

with his own hand.879 The king of Ponape, one of the Caroline Islands, must
wear his hair long, and so must his grandees.880 The hair of the Aztec priests
hung down to their hams, so that the weight of it became very troublesome;
for they might never poll it so long as they lived, or at least until they had
been relieved of their office on the score of old age. They wore it braided in
great tresses, six fingers broad, and tied with cotton.881 A Haida medicine-
man may neither clip nor comb his tresses, so they are always long and
tangled.882 Among the Hos, a negro tribe of Togoland in West Africa, “there
are priests on whose head no razor may come during the whole of their
lives. The god who dwells in the man forbids the cutting of his hair on pain
of death. If the hair is at last too long, the owner must pray to his god to
allow him at least to clip the tips of it. The hair is in fact conceived as the
seat and lodging-place of his god, so that were it shorn the god would lose
his abode in the priest.”883 A rain-maker at Boroma, on the lower Zambesi,
used to give out that he was [pg 260] possessed by two spirits, one of a lion,
the other of a leopard, and in the assemblies of the people he mimicked the
roaring of these beasts. In order that their spirits might not leave him, he
never cut his hair nor drank alcohol.884 The Masai clan of the El Kiboron,
who are believed to possess the art of making rain, may not pluck out their
beards, because the loss of their beards would, it is supposed, entail the loss
of their rain-making powers. The head chief and the sorcerers of the Masai
observe the same rule for a like reason: they think that were they to pull out
their beards, their supernatural gifts would desert them.885 In central Borneo
the chiefs of a particular Kayan family never allow their hair to be shorn.886
Ancient Indian law required that when a new king had performed the
ceremony of consecration he might not shave his hair for a year, though he
was allowed to crop it. According to one account none of his subjects,
except a Brahman, might have his hair cut during this period, and even
horses were left unclipped.887 Amongst the Alfoors of Celebes the Leleen or
priest who looks after the rice-fields may not shear his hair during the time
that he exercises his special functions, that is from a month before the rice
is sown until it is housed.888 In Usukuma, a district to the south of Lake
Victoria Nyanza, the people are forbidden to shave their heads till the corn
has been sown.889 Men of the Tsetsaut tribe in British Columbia do not cut
their hair, believing that if they cut it they would quickly grow old.890 In
Ceram men do not crop their hair: if married men did so, they would lose
their wives; if young men did so, they would grow weak and enervated.891

In Timorlaut married men may not poll their hair for the same reason as in
Ceram, but widowers and men on a [pg 261] journey may do so after
offering a fowl or a pig in sacrifice.892 Malays of the Peninsula are
forbidden to clip their hair during their wife's pregnancy and for forty days
after the child has been born; and a similar abstention is said to have been
formerly incumbent on all persons prosecuting a journey or engaged in
war.893 Elsewhere men travelling abroad have been in the habit of leaving
their hair unshorn until their return. The reason for this custom is probably
the danger to which, as we have seen, a traveller is believed to be exposed
from the magic arts of the strangers amongst whom he sojourns; if they got
possession of his shorn hair, they might work his destruction through it. The
Egyptians on a journey kept their hair uncut till they returned home.894 “At
Tâif when a man returned from a journey his first duty was to visit the
Rabba and poll his hair.”895 Achilles kept unshorn his yellow hair, because
his father had vowed to offer it to the River Sperchius if ever his son came
home from the wars beyond the sea.896 Formerly when Dyak warriors
returned with the heads of their enemies, each man cut off a lock from the
front of his head and threw it into the river as a mode of ending the taboo to
which they had been subjected during the expedition.897 Bechuanas after a
battle had their hair shorn by their mothers “in order that new hair might
grow, and that all which was old and polluted might disappear and be no
more.”898

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
a of wearing the hair is only adopted by them [pg 262] when they have a
e solemn vow, as to revenge the death of some near relation, etc. In such case
f the lock is never cut off until they have fulfilled their promise.”899 A similar
custom was sometimes observed by the ancient Germans; among the Chatti
t the young warriors never clipped their hair or their beard till they had slain
an enemy.900 Six thousand Saxons once swore that they would not poll their
hair nor shave their beards until they had taken vengeance on their foes.901
t On one occasion a Hawaiian taboo is said to have lasted thirty years,
s “during which the men were not allowed to trim their beards, etc.”902 While
e his vow lasted, a Nazarite might not have his hair cut: “All the days of the

vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head.”903 Possibly
in this case there was a special objection to touching the tabooed man's head
with iron. The Roman priests, as we have seen, were shorn with bronze
knives. The same feeling perhaps gave rise to the European rule that a
child's nails should not be pared during the first year, but that if it is
absolutely necessary to shorten them they should be bitten off by the mother
or nurse.904 For in all parts of the world a young child is believed to be
especially exposed to supernatural dangers, and particular precautions are
taken to guard it against them; in other words, the child is under a number
of taboos, of which the rule just mentioned is one. “Among Hindus the
usual custom seems to be that the nails of a first-born child are cut at the
age of six months. With other children a year [pg 263] or two is allowed to
elapse.”905 The Slave, Hare, and Dogrib Indians of North-West America do
not pare the nails of female children till they are four years of age.906 In
Uganda a child's hair may not be cut until the child has received a name.
Should any of it be rubbed or plucked off accidentally, it is refastened to the
child's head with string or by being knotted to the other hair.907 Amongst the
Ewe negroes of the Slave Coast, a mother sometimes vows a sacrifice to the
fetish if her infant should live. She then leaves the child unshorn till its
fourth or sixth year, when she fulfils her vow and has the child's hair cut by
a priest.908 To this day a Syrian mother will sometimes, like Hannah, devote
her little one to God. When the child reaches a certain age, its hair is cut and
weighed, and money is paid in proportion to the weight. If the boy thus
dedicated is a Moslem, he becomes in time a dervish; if he is a Christian, he
becomes a monk.909 Among the Toradjas of central Celebes, when a child's
hair is cut to rid it of vermin, some locks are allowed to remain on the
crown of the head as a refuge for one of the child's souls. Otherwise the
soul would have no place in which to settle, and the child would sicken.910
The Karo-Bataks of Sumatra are much afraid of frightening away the soul
(tĕndi) of a child; hence when they cut its hair, they always leave a patch
unshorn, to which the soul can retreat before the shears. Usually this lock
remains unshorn all through life, or at least up till manhood.911 In some
parts of Germany it [pg 264] is thought that if a child's hair is combed in its
first year the child will be unlucky;912 or that if a boy's hair is cut before his
seventh year he will have no courage.913

§ 7. Ceremonies at Hair-cutting.

But when it becomes necessary to crop the hair, measures are taken to
lessen the dangers which are supposed to attend the operation. The chief of
Namosi in Fiji always ate a man by way of precaution when he had had his
hair cut. “There was a certain clan that had to provide the victim, and they
d used to sit in solemn council among themselves to choose him. It was a
- sacrificial feast to avert evil from the chief.”914 This remarkable custom has
been described more fully by another observer. The old heathen temple at
Namosi is called Rukunitambua, “and round about it are hundreds of stones,
each of which tells a fearful tale. A subject tribe, whose town was some
little distance from Namosi, had committed an unpardonable offence, and
were condemned to a frightful doom. The earth-mound on which their
temple had stood was planted with the mountain ndalo (arum), and when
the crop was ripe, the poor wretches had to carry it down to Namosi, and
give at least one of their number to be killed and eaten by the chief. He used
to take advantage of these occasions to have his hair cut, for the human
sacrifice was supposed to avert all danger of witchcraft if any ill-wisher got
hold of the cuttings of his hair, human hair being the most dangerous
channel for the deadliest spells of the sorcerers. The stones round
Rukunitambua represented these and other victims who had been killed and
eaten at Namosi. Each stone was the record of a murder succeeded by a
cannibal feast.”915 Amongst the Maoris many spells were uttered at hair-
cutting; one, for [pg 265] example, was spoken to consecrate the obsidian
knife with which the hair was cut; another was pronounced to avert the
thunder and lightning which hair-cutting was believed to cause.916 “He who
has had his hair cut is in immediate charge of the Atua (spirit); he is
removed from the contact and society of his family and his tribe; he dare
not touch his food himself; it is put into his mouth by another person; nor
can he for some days resume his accustomed occupations or associate with
his fellow-men.”917 The person who cuts the hair is also tabooed; his hands
having been in contact with a sacred head, he may not touch food with them
or engage in any other employment; he is fed by another person with food

cooked over a sacred fire. He cannot be released from the taboo before the
following day, when he rubs his hands with potato or fern root which has
been cooked on a sacred fire; and this food having been taken to the head of
the family in the female line and eaten by her, his hands are freed from the
taboo. In some parts of New Zealand the most sacred day of the year was
that appointed for hair-cutting; the people assembled in large numbers on
that day from all the neighbourhood.918 Sometimes a Maori chief's hair was
shorn by his wife, who was then tabooed for a week as a consequence of
having touched his sacred locks.919 It is an affair of state when the king of
Cambodia's hair is cropped. The priests place on the barber's fingers certain
old rings set with large stones, which are supposed to contain spirits
favourable to the kings, and during the operation the Brahmans keep up a
noisy music to drive away the evil spirits.920 The hair and nails of the
Mikado could only be cut while he was asleep,921 perhaps because his soul
being then absent from his body, there was less chance of injuring it with
the shears.

From their earliest days little Siamese children have the [pg 266] crown of
the head clean shorn with the exception of a single small tuft of hair, which
is daily combed, twisted, oiled, and tied in a little knot until the day when it
g is finally removed with great pomp and ceremony. The ceremony of
f shaving the top-knot takes place before the child has reached puberty, and
great anxiety is felt at this time lest the kwun, or guardian-spirit who
commonly resides in the body and especially the head of every Siamese,922
should be so disturbed by the tonsure as to depart and leave the child a
hopeless wreck for life. Great pains are therefore taken to recall this
mysterious being in case he should have fled, and to fix him securely in the
child. This is the object of an elaborate ceremony performed on the
afternoon of the day when the top-knot has been cut. A miniature pagoda is
erected, and on it are placed several kinds of food known to be favourites of
the spirit. When the kwun has arrived and is feasting on these dainties, he is
caught and held fast under a cloth thrown over the food. The child is now
placed near the pagoda, and all the family and friends form a circle, with
the child, the captured spirit, and the Brahman priests in the middle.
Hereupon the priests address the spirit, earnestly entreating him to enter
into the child. They amuse him with tales, and coax and wheedle him with
flattery, jest, and song; the gongs ring out their loudest; the people cheer

and only a kwun of the sourest and most obdurate disposition could resist
the combined appeal. The last sentences of the formal invocation run as
follows: “Benignant kwun! Thou fickle being who art wont to wander and
dally about! From the moment that the child was conceived in the womb,
thou hast enjoyed every pleasure, until ten (lunar) months having elapsed
and the time of delivery arrived, thou hast suffered and run the risk of
perishing by being born alive into the world. Gracious kwun! thou wast at
that time so tender, delicate, and wavering as to cause great anxiety
concerning thy fate; thou was exactly like a child, youthful, innocent, and
inexperienced. The least trifle frightened thee and made thee shudder. In thy
infantile playfulness thou wast wont to frolic and wander to no purpose. As
thou didst commence to learn to sit, and, [pg 267] unassisted, to crawl
totteringly on all fours, thou wast ever falling flat on thy face or on thy
back. As thou didst grow up in years and couldst move thy steps firmly,
thou didst begin to run and sport thoughtlessly and rashly all round the
rooms, the terrace, and bridging planks of travelling boat or floating house,
and at times thou didst fall into the stream, creek, or pond, among the
floating water-weeds, to the utter dismay of those to whom thy existence
was most dear. O gentle kwun, come into thy corporeal abode; do not delay
this auspicious rite. Thou art now full-grown and dost form everybody's
delight and admiration. Let all the tiny particles of kwun that have fallen on
land or water assemble and take permanent abode in this darling little child.
Let them all hurry to the site of this auspicious ceremony and admire the
magnificent preparations made for them in this hall.” The brocaded cloth
from the pagoda, under which lurks the captive spirit, is now rolled up
tightly and handed to the child, who is told to clasp it firmly to his breast
and not let the kwun escape. Further, the child drinks the milk of the coco-
nuts which had been offered to the spirit, and by thus absorbing the food of
the kwun ensures the presence of that precious spirit in his body. A magic
cord is tied round his wrist to keep off the wicked spirits who would lure
the kwun away from home; and for three nights he sleeps with the
embroidered cloth from the pagoda fast clasped in his arms.923

§ 8. Disposal of Cut Hair and Nails.

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
t suffer from any harm that may befall them. The notion that a man may be
bewitched by means of the clippings of his hair, the parings of his nails, or
e any other severed portion of his person is [pg 268] almost world-wide,924
and attested by evidence too ample, too familiar, and too tedious in its
uniformity to be here analysed at length. The general idea on which the
superstition rests is that of the sympathetic connexion supposed to persist
between a person and everything that has once been part of his body or in
r any way closely related to him. A very few examples must suffice. They
e belong to that branch of sympathetic magic which may be called
f contagious.925 Thus, when the Chilote Indians, inhabiting the wild, deeply
indented coasts and dark rain-beaten forests of southern Chili, get
r possession of the hair of an enemy, they drop it from a high tree or tie it to a
piece of seaweed and fling it into the surf; for they think that the shock of
f the fall, or the blows of the waves as the tress is tossed to and fro on the
heaving billows, will be transmitted through the hair to the person from
whose head it was cut.926 Dread of sorcery, we are told, formed one of the
most salient characteristics of the Marquesan islanders in the old days. The
sorcerer took some of the hair, spittle, or other bodily refuse of the man he
wished to injure, wrapped it up in a leaf, and placed the packet in a bag
woven of threads or fibres, which were knotted in an intricate way. The
whole was then buried with certain rites, and thereupon the victim wasted
away of a languishing sickness which lasted twenty days. His life, however,
might be saved by discovering and digging up the buried hair, spittle, or
what not; for as soon as this was done the power of the charm ceased.927 A
Marquesan chief told Lieutenant Gamble that he was extremely ill, the
Happah tribe having stolen a lock of his hair and buried it in a plantain leaf
for the purpose of taking his life. Lieutenant Gamble argued with him, but
in vain; die he must unless the hair and the plantain leaf were brought back
to him; and to obtain them he had offered the Happahs the greater part of

his property. He complained of excessive [pg 269] pain in the head, breast,
and sides.928 A Maori sorcerer intent on bewitching somebody sought to get
a tress of his victim's hair, the parings of his nails, some of his spittle, or a
shred of his garment. Having obtained the object, whatever it was, he
chanted certain spells and curses over it in a falsetto voice and buried it in
the ground. As the thing decayed, the person to whom it had belonged was
supposed to waste away.929 Again, an Australian girl, sick of a fever, laid the
blame of her illness on a young man who had come behind her and cut off a
lock of her hair; she was sure he had buried it and that it was rotting. “Her
hair,” she said, “was rotting somewhere, and her Marm-bu-la (kidney fat)
was wasting away, and when her hair had completely rotted, she would
die.”930 When an Australian blackfellow wishes to get rid of his wife, he
cuts off a lock of her hair in her sleep, ties it to his spear-thrower, and goes
with it to a neighbouring tribe, where he gives it to a friend. His friend
sticks the spear-thrower up every night before the camp fire, and when it
falls down it is a sign that the wife is dead.931 The way in which the charm
operates was explained to Dr. Howitt by a Wirajuri man. “You see,” he said,
“when a blackfellow doctor gets hold of something belonging to a man and
roasts it with things, and sings over it, the fire catches hold of the smell of
the man, and that settles the poor fellow.”932 A slightly different form of the
charm as practised in Australia is to fasten the enemy's hair with wax to the
pinion bone of a hawk, and set the bone in a small circle of fire. According
as the sorcerer desires the death or only the sickness of his victim he leaves
the bone in the midst of the fire or removes it and lays it in the sun. When
he thinks he has done his enemy enough harm, he places the bone in water,
which ends the enchantment.933 [pg 270] Lucian describes how a Syrian
witch professed to bring back a faithless lover to his forsaken fair one by
means of a lock of his hair, his shoes, his garments, or something of that
sort. She hung the hair, or whatever it was, on a peg and fumigated it with
brimstone, sprinkling salt on the fire and mentioning the names of the lover
and his lass. Then she drew a magic wheel from her bosom and set it
spinning, while she gabbled a spell full of barbarous and fearsome words.
This soon brought the false lover back to the feet of his charmer.934 Apuleius
tells how an amorous Thessalian witch essayed to win the affections of a
handsome Boeotian youth by similar means. As darkness fell she mounted
the roof, and there, surrounded by a hellish array of dead men's bones, she
knotted the severed tresses of auburn hair and threw them on the glowing

embers of a perfumed fire. But her cunning handmaid had outwitted her; the
hair was only goat's hair; and all her enchantments ended in dismal and
ludicrous failure.935

The Huzuls of the Carpathians imagine that if mice get a person's shorn hair
and make a nest of it, the person will suffer from headache or even become
idiotic.936 Similarly in Germany it is a common notion that if birds find a
y person's cut hair, and build their nests with it, the person will suffer from
headache;937 sometimes it is thought that he will have an eruption on the
head.938 The same superstition prevails, [pg 271] or used to prevail, in West
Sussex. “I knew how it would be,” exclaimed a maidservant one day, “when
I saw that bird fly off with a bit of my hair in its beak that blew out of the
window this morning when I was dressing; I knew I should have a clapping
headache, and so I have.”939 In like manner the Scottish Highlanders believe
that if cut or loose hair is allowed to blow away with the wind and it passes
over an empty nest, or a bird takes it to its nest, the head from which it
came will ache.940 The Todas of southern India hide their clipped hair in
bushes or hollows in the rocks, in order that it may not be found by crows,
and they bury the parings of their nails lest they should be eaten by
buffaloes, with whom, it is believed, they would disagree.941

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
r Zealand a spell was uttered at hair-cutting to avert thunder and lightning. In
e 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
t 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 [pg 272] 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

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
r 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 [pg 273]
e 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
d 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
e 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
e 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 [pg 274] 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.

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
r 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
d 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
m crevices. On asking the meaning of this, he was told that when any native of
t the place polled his hair he carefully [pg 275] gathered up the clippings and
d 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
960
r compass his destruction. 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
e 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 [pg 276] 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

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
r 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
e in the earth or under a stone.972 In Danzig it is buried in a [pg 277] bag
under the threshold.973 In Ugi, one of the Solomon Islands, men bury their
r hair lest it should fall into the hands of an enemy who would make magic
n with it and so bring sickness or calamity on them.974 The same fear seems to
t 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 [pg 278] 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 [pg 279] 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

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
r 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
e 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 [pg 280] 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
[pg 281] 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