Chapter IV: The Sacæa as a Period of Licence (3)

In Australia members of each totem decipher the marks, purely conventional, as representative of the totem, and of adventures in the Alcheringa time. For example, a mark like two croquet hoops, or horseshoes, is 'an old woman gathering frogs.' The concentric circles are frogs; the dots round them are tracks of women; dull, often dirty, stories are told about the adventures of the Alcheringites commemorated by the patterns. At the sacred pattern-painted rocks, magic ceremonies, extremely puerile, are performed to ensure a supply of the edible totem which the pattern represents. Some event occurred there in the Alcheringa; the rite repeats what, in myth, was then done, and the stomachs of the men are rubbed with the churinga 'for luck.' Such are the uses of the churinga. Did they once exist wherever the similarly decorated fixed rocks exist? Did the makers of the decorations in Scotland decipher the churinga as the Central Australians do now? Were the dwellers by Clyde (much more advanced in culture than the Australians) totemists, looking on their small decorated stones as associated with the spirits of Alcheringa ancestors? Do women in Argyll slide down a cup-marked rock, in hope of offspring, because totemistic ghosts once hovered round it, eager to be reincarnated? The fact of the sliding is attested by a chief of Clan Diarmid.

Nobody can answer! I have shown these decorated rocks and small stones to have a living significance, a vital legendary symbolism, in Central Australia. I cannot prove that they had the same significance in County Meath or Dumbartonshire. The Australians may have begun with mere decoration, and later added a symbolism suited to their amazing theory of life. In our country the decorations may have quite a different symbolical sense, but probably they had some sense. Otherwise, why engrave them, not only on rocks, but on small stones pierced for suspension? Perhaps men believed in an Alcheringa time on the Clyde; perhaps they multiplied salmon and deer by magical mummeries at the engraved rocks; perhaps these were sacred places, tabooed to women. Or quite a different set of fables and customs may have crystallised in Scotland round marked rocks and inscribed small stones. I cannot prove that, as in Australia, Clydesdale boys of old, when initiated in the mysteries, were painted with the pattern on their sacred totem rock and stone or wood churinga. But, if not these rites, other rites were, I conceive, connected with the decorative patterns found in so many still savage countries.

One piece of evidence rather points in this direction. The Australian stone churinga are shaped like the wooden churinga, and these are shaped like the _tundun_, or 'bull-roarer.' Now the bull-roarer (which occurs in Australia where stone churinga do not) is a sacred oval piece of wood, not to be seen by women, which is whirled at the mysteries, and makes a windy, roaring noise. The same object is used, for the same purpose, at the mysteries in America, Africa, and, of old, in Greece.[16] The roaring noise is taken to be the voice of Tundun, son of Mungan-ngaur, 'Our Father' in the heavens, among the Kurnai, and of gods or culture heroes of other names in other tribes. Now, in Celtic Scotland (as also in England) this instrument, the tundun, occurs as a mere toy, in Gaelic named _strannam._ Does it descend from a sacred object of savage mysteries, and are the Australian stone churinga--in shape like the tundun, and like the tundun tabooed to women--mere lapidary modifications of the wooden tundun? However this may be, the _strannam_ looks like a link in the long chain which binds us to the prehistoric past.

While correcting the proof-sheets of this article I read, in the _Glasgow Herald_ (January 7, 1899), an article on Dumbuck and Dunbuie, by Dr. Munro, the eminent authority on crannogs, or pile-dwellings, and, generally on prehistoric Scotland. Dr. Munro, as I understand him, does not regard Dumbuck as an older than mediæval site, nor as a true crannog. The incised stones he looks on either as of most singular character (if genuine) or as forgeries of to-day, the opinion which he seems to prefer. He was then unacquainted with similar objects in any part of the world. I have here provided references to similar objects from Central Australia, and I suggest examination of the _apparently_ similar Irish objects, figured in 'Proceedings of Scottish Society of Antiquaries,' 1893, p. 299, figs. 6 and 7. Not having seen these stones I can only offer the hint suggested by the illustrations in 'Proceedings.' Why a forger should forge such unknown objects, and place them at Dunbuie, in 1895, before the Central Australian stones had been described, I cannot guess. Nor can I enough deplore the stupidity of the same hypothetical forger in not 'salting' Dunbuie and Dumbuck with neolithic implements, whether antique or made by some Flint Jack of to-day. Both his sins of omission and of commission _donnent furieusement à penser_. Dr. Munro, however, as I gather from his article on Dumbuck in 'The Reliquary' (April 1901), still declines to recognise the Dumbuck decorated portable stones as of genuine antiquity.

[1] For India see _Archaic-logical Notes on Ancient Sculpturings on Rocks in Kumaon, India_, by Mr. J. H. Bivett-Carnac, Calcutta, 1883. The form of the Jew's harp is common to India and Scotland.

[2] _Proceedings S.A.S_., June 1875. 'Ohio Rock Markings.'

[3] _Ancient Sculpturings of Cups, Circles, &c_. Edinburgh, 1871.

[4] _Proceedings S.A.S_. vol. xxx. 1896, pp. 291-316.

[5] Spencer and Gillen, p. 632, Nos. 14-23. 'Ilkinia and Plum Tree Totem.'

[6] The evidence for Australian slate spear-heads is not strong. Capt. King acquired a bundle of bark in a raid on natives. It contained 'several, spear-heads, most ingeniously and curiously made of stone ... the stone was covered with red pigment, and appeared to be _of a flinty slate_.'--See _The Picture of Australia_, p. 243. London, 1829.

[7] Simpson, pp. 182-184.

[8] Both, _Natives of N. W. Queensland_, p. 129, pi. xvii.

[9] _Journal Anthrop. Institute_, May 1895, p. 410, pi. 21, fig. 7.

[10] Some wooden churinga are engraved, as 'Australian Magic Sticks,' in Ratzel's popular _History of Mankind_, i. 379. They exactly answer to the churinga of the Arunta.

[11] Royal Irish Academy, _Cunningham Memoirs_, No. x. 1894.

[12] For cups, see Spencer and Gillen, p. 129; for concentric circles, see p. 131.

[13] The tribal stores of churinga are _not_ the same as the places where churinga were dropped in the Alcheringa.

[14] _Proceedings S.A.S_. vol. xxix. p. 193. Spencer and Gillen, fig. 132, No. 6.

[15] _S.A.S_. 1884-5, vol. vii. pp. 388-394. Compare, for County Meath, the same work, 1892-93, pp. 297-338.

[16] See the author's _Custom and Myth: The Bull Roarer_. Prof. Haddon has discovered many other instances; see also _The Golden Bough_, iii. 423 _et seq._

XIV

_FIRST-FRUITS AND TABOOS_

Taboo is one of the few savage words which have struck root in England. Introduced from New Zealand (_tapu_) and other Polynesian islands, it is used in English to denote a prohibition. This, that, or the other thing, or person, or book is 'tabooed.' Many of the Ten Commandments are, in this sense, taboos. But, in anthropological language, 'taboo' generally denotes something more than a prohibition. It commonly means a prohibition for which, to the civilised mind, there is no very obvious meaning. In this way the prohibitive Commandments are not precisely taboos; it is pretty obvious why we ought not to steal or kill, though the _raison d'être_ of the Seventh Commandment is obscure to some advanced intelligences. But the reasons why a Sinclair must not cross the Ord on a certain 'lawful day,' or why on another 'lawful day' the fishermen of St. Andrews might not go a-fishing, resemble many savage taboos in the lack of a manifest reason why. Secondly, the infraction of the savage taboo generally, unlike that of the decalogue, carries its own punishment. Forbidden food is poison, tabooed land is dangerous to tread upon, to handle tabooed property may mean death; nobody knows what awful cosmic catastrophe might occur if a tabooed woman saw the sun; many words and names are taboo, and no luck will come of using them--for instance, you must not name 'salmon,' 'pigs,' or the minister when out fishing in some parts of Scotland.

In many cases the reason of this or that taboo is easily discovered. A day is unlucky because all the fishers, as at St. Andrews, were lost on that day in a past century through a storm; or the Sinclairs on another day were cut off in an expedition. Most of us have our lucky or unlucky days, clothes, and other vanities. Again, things are taboo for some reason in that kind of faith which holds that things connected in the association of ideas are mystically connected in fact. You must not mention salmon, lest they hear you and escape; or tin in Malay tin mining, lest the tin should literally 'make itself scarce.' You may not name the fairies, a jealous folk. Therefore you say 'the people of peace,' and so on. But many other taboos have good practical reasons. If women, among ourselves, were tabooed from salmon-fishing, eating oysters, or entering smoking-rooms (all of which things are greatly to be desired), the reason would be the convenience of the men, who wish a sanctuary or asylum in the smoking-room, and want to keep oysters and fishing to themselves. It is pretty plain why the sight of the royal treasury is tabooed to a West African king: to speak colloquially, if admitted to see the hoards he 'would blue the lot.' A taboo often protects by a supernatural sanction the property and persons of the privileged classes. If the umbrella of a bishop or a baronet were taboo, it would not be taken away from the club by accident.

This simple explanation covers the case of many taboos.

Brother and sister may scarcely ever see each other, still less speak to or name each other, where the law against brother and sister marriage or amour is the one most definite law of the community. 'It is not, therefore, surprising,' says Mr. Jevons, 'that the earlier students of the custom' (of taboo) 'regarded it as an artificial invention, a piece of statecraft, cunningly devised in the interests of the nobility and the priests. This view is, however, now generally abandoned,' because taboo 'is most at home in communities which have no state organisation, and flourishes where there are no priests or no priesthood. Above all the belief is not artificial and imposed, but spontaneous and natural.'[1]

I hesitate about this theory. Taboo can hardly flourish more than it does in Polynesia and West Africa, where there are kings and priests. Moreover, though there are human societies without kings or priests (as in Australia), there are no societies in which artificial rules are not propagated, instituted, and enforced by the adult males meeting in councils. The Arunta of Central Australia are, of course, far from 'primitive.' They have institutions, ceremonies, weapons, rules, and a complete system of philosophy, which must have needed unknown ages to develop. They have local head-men, or Alatunjas, whose office passes always in the male line: from father to son, if the son be of age to succeed, or, if he is not, to the brother, on whose death it reverts to the son. An Alatunja dying without a son nominates a brother or nephew to succeed him. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen know no equivalent to this law among other Australian tribes, and it indicates, among the so-called 'primitive' Arunta, a marked advance beyond other tribes in social evolution. The Alatunja is hereditary Convener of Council, and if an able man has considerable power. He is guardian of the Sacra of the group, determines the date of the cessation of close-time for certain sorts of game, the date of the magical ceremonies for fostering the game or edible plants, and directs the ceremonies. In the councils called by the Alatunja it appears that changes in stereo-typed custom may be introduced. Men learned in the customs and skilled in magic 'settle everything.' Definite proof of fundamental innovations thus introduced Messrs. Spencer and Gillen do not possess; but tradition indicates alterations of custom, and it is quite possible that a strong Alatunja, well backed, might bring in even a radical reform.[2] There are also recognised grades of skill among the medicine-men and the dealers with spirits, who must have their own share of social influence.

In brief, though without priests or kings these backward tribes have councils, and conveners, and directors whose office is hereditary in the male line. These persons, through unknown ages, have moulded customs and taboos, which are just as much sanctioned by tradition and authority just as little 'spontaneous and universal,' as if kings and priests had invented them for purposes of statecraft. Mr. Jevons next argues that taboo 'cannot have been derived from experience. It is prior to and even contradictory of experience. In fine, it is an inherent tendency of the human mind.' In the same way Gibbon's ancestor, Blue Gown herald, when among North American Indians, declared that heraldry is an inherent tendency of the human mind, an innate idea.

An opinion is not necessarily erroneous because it is obsolete, nor a view wrong because 'it is generally abandoned.' I am here supporting the 'generally abandoned' hypothesis that many taboos, at least, are artificial and imposed, against Mr. Jevons's idea that the taboo, like armorial bearings, results from 'an inherent tendency of the human mind' 'prior to and even contradictory of experience.'[3] That 'a new-born baby is dangerous,' or that 'the water in which a holy person has washed is dangerous,' my private experience does not tell me; in fact, I never made either experiment: never tubbed in the water previously used by a bishop. But I am prepared to admit that neither babies nor bishops are proved by our experience to be dangerous. That is not the question. The savage argued, not from unbiassed and impartial scientific experiment, but from _fancied_ experience. Thus Mr. Jevons mentions a Maori who died after rinding out that he had eaten, unawares, the remains of the luncheon of a holy person, a chief. There was experience produced by suggestion. The suggestion was suggested in the interests of holy chiefs; they were 'tabooed an inch thick,' as Mr. Manning writes. As to the baby, the Dyaks, as in our own fairy belief, hold that 'new-born children are the especial prey of evil spirits,' just as corpses were in--Scotland, where, if the door was left ajar, the corpse sat up, and mopped and mowed. If the watchers left it, and dined in the 'but,' an awful _vacarme_ arose in the 'ben.' The minister entered, stilled the tumult, asked for the tongs, and came back holding in the tongs _a bloody glove_! This he dropped into the fire.

This kind of thing is contradictory to the experience of Mr. Jevons, but not to the _fancied_ experience of Dyaks, Scots, and other races. Opinion therefore makes taboos in accordance with experience, or what is believed to be experience, and the belief is fortified by suggestion, which produces death or disease when the taboo is broken. On the analogy of infectious diseases, the mischief of the tabooed thing is held to be contagious.

Thus I cannot hold with Mr. Jevons that the human mind is provided with an _a priori_ categorical imperative that there are some things which must not be done,' 'a feeling' 'independent of sense experience.'[4] If the choice of what things are 'not to be done' seems to us 'irrational,' that is merely because our reason is more enlightened than that of the savage. He prohibited just such things as his philosophy, and what he believed to be his experience, showed him to be dangerous for obscure reasons. Any fool could see that it was dangerous to eat poison berries or frolic with a bear. But it took reflection to discover that a baby or a corpse was dangerous by reason of evil spirits, _Iruntarinia_, whom the _Alkna Buma,_ or clairvoyant, could see, and describe, though Mr. Jevons and I could not discern them.[5] These Iruntarinia notoriously carry off women, and probably, like the fairies, have their best chance in the hour of child-birth: at all events, the fairies have.[6] The belief is socially useful: it prevents young Arunta women from wandering off alone, and philandering out of bounds.

Thus these taboos are sanctioned by the tribal counsellors as the results of experience, not their own perhaps, but that of the _Alkna Buma_, or clairvoyant, or 'sensitive,' or 'medium,' or habitually hallucinated person. Other taboos, as to women, are imposed for very good reasons, though not for the reasons alleged, and broken taboos are not (in actual ordinary experience) attended by the penalties which, however, suggestion may produce.

Taboo, then, is not imposed irrationally, nor in deference to 'an inherent tendency of the human mind' (that Mrs. Harris of philosophy), but for a very good reason, as savage reasoning goes, and in accordance with what is believed to be experience, and, by dint of suggestion, really does become experience.

It was 'irrational' in Dr. Johnson to touch certain posts, and avoid certain stones, and enter a door twice, if he first entered it with the wrong foot. All my life I have had similar private taboos, though nobody knows better that they are nonsense. But some solitary experience in childhood probably suggested a relation of cause and effect, where there was only a fortuitous sequence of antecedent and consequent, and so Dr. Johnson and I (though not so conspicuously as the Doctor) imposed taboos on ourselves in deference to (fancied) experience. Early man has acted in the same way on a large scale, obeying no categorical _a priori_ imperative, but merely acting on his philosophy and experience which is real to him, though not to civilised men. They usually do not understand it, but educated persons with a survival of savagery in their mental constitutions find the affair intelligible.

But the reason in actual practical experience for some taboos must be plain to the most civilised minds, except those of Badical voters for the Border Boroughs. Man, in the hunter stage, _must_ have game laws and a close-time for edible animals and plants. The Border Badical will not permit a close-time for trout, preferring to destroy them, and with them their offspring, when gravid and unfit for human food, or before they recover condition.

The 'primitive' Arunta are not so irrational, and have a close-time, protected by taboo, or, at least, by ceremonies of a nature more or less magical. In these ceremonies of a people not pastoral or agricultural, we seem to see the germs of the offerings of first-fruits to gods or spirits, though the Australian produce is offered neither to spirits nor to gods. These tribes recognise a great spirit, indeed, Twanyirika, but that he plays any other part in religion or society than presiding over the tribal mysteries we have at present no evidence to prove. Similar figures, associated with the mysteries, are, in other parts of Australia, provided with an ample mythology, and are subject to a being more august and remote. But either the Arunta are advanced thinkers who have passed beyond such ideas, or they have not yet attained to them, or our witnesses are uninformed on the subject.[7] In any case, the first-fruits of the game, grubs, and plants of the Arunta are not offered to Twanyirika, or to the minor sprites, _Iruntarinia_.

The ceremonies, partly intended to make the creatures used for food prolific, and partly, I think, to indicate that the close-time is over and that the creatures may be taken and eaten, are called Intichiuma. On the mummeries expected to make animals and plants plentiful we need not dwell. In each case the men who belong to the totem of the beast, grub, or plant perform the ceremonies. There is believed to be a close and essential connection between a man of the kangaroo totem and all kangaroos, between a man of the grub totem and all grubs, so each totem group does the magic to propagate its ally among beasts or plants. How these ideas arose we do not know. But if a local group was originally called kangaroos or grubs (and some name it must have), the association of names would inevitably lead, by association of ideas, to the notion that a mysterious connection existed between the men of a totem name and the plant, animal, or what not which gave the name. These men, therefore, would work the magic for propagating their kindred in the animal and vegetable world. But the existence of this connection would also suggest that, in common decency, a man should not kill and eat his animal or vegetable relations. In most parts of the world he abstains from this uncousinly behaviour: among the Arunta he may eat sparingly of his totem, and must do so at the end of the close-time or beginning of the season.

He thus, as a near relation of the actual kangaroos or grubs, declares the season open, and gives his neighbours of other totems a lead. Now they may begin to eat grubs or kangaroos; the taboo is off. Thus, in 1745, Gask tabooed the corn of his tenants; they must not reap it, because they refused 'to rise and follow Charlie.' Prince Charles, hearing of this, cut a few ears with his claymore, thus removing the taboo. In the same way the grub or kangaroo men publicly eat a little of their own totem, after which the tribesmen and other totems may fall to and devour. When the grub or whatever it is becomes plentiful, after the magic doings for its propagation, it is collected and placed before some members of the grub totem. The _Alatunja_, or convener, grinds up some of the grub, he and his fellow totemists eat a little, and hand the mass back to the members of other totems. They eat a little of their own totem, partly, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say, to strengthen their mystic connection with the creature. This, in a way, is a 'sacramental' idea, though no religious regard is paid to the plants and animals. But the men also partake, to remove the taboo, and to let the rest of the community gorge themselves legally.[8]

The rite has thus a practical purpose. The grubs or other creatures are not prematurely destroyed, like trout on the Border. In fact, trout themselves are sensible enough not to begin feeding on May fly prematurely. 'Throughout the previous week,' says Sir Herbert Maxwell, 'a few May flies had been seen ... but not a trout would point his nose at one.... This hesitation on the part of the trout to begin their annual banquet is one of the best known and, at the same time, least explicable features of the May fly fortnight.'[9] The Arunta also let the grub come on to its full rise before feeding. When a certain bulb is ripe, the men of its totem rub off and blow away the husks, then the general public may begin feeding. There is nothing sacramental in _this_ ceremony, which merely opens the season for tuber eating. The taboo is off. And so in other cases: the kangaroo men are smeared with the fat of the kangaroo, and eat a little of the animal.[10] The non-kangaroo tribesmen may then eat kangaroo. The traditions of the Arunta represent their mythical ancestors as in some cases feeding _solely_ on their totems. But this cannot possibly be true. A grub man would die, when grubs were out, of starvation, and so with the rest. 'When fruits is in, cats is out,' and a man of the gooseberry totem, who only ate gooseberries, would perish miserably.

The Arunta eating of the totem has nothing to do with consecrating the first-fruits of grubs or kangaroos to a god or with absorbing the qualities of a spirit. When Swedish peasants bake a cake shaped like a girl, from the last sheaf of the new corn, they perhaps originally ate the cake 'as the body of the corn spirit.'[11] But when the Lithuanian farmer takes the first swig of the new beer--'the second brew was for the servants'--perhaps he is only declaring his ownership, and opening the beer season.[12] In an unnamed part of Yorkshire the parson cuts the first corn; he is the _Alatunja_, and opens the harvest. In the Celebes the priest opens the rice harvest; all eat of it; 'after this every one is free to get in his rice.' At St. Andrews on the Medal Day (which is in harvest time) the Alatunja (that is the new captain) drives a ball from the first tee; after this every one is free to drive off in his turn--but not before. In some places, as in Indo-China, the first-fruits are offered to a god; in Zululand the king pops a little into the mouth of every man present, who 'may immediately get in his crops.' If he began harvest before he would die, or, if detected, would be speared, or forfeited. Sometimes the first-fruits are offered to 'the holy spirit of fire.' There are all sorts of ways and ceremonies of opening the season and taking off the taboo. I really don't think it follows that the first fruits are dangerous to eat, before the ceremony, _because_ 'they are regarded as instinct with a divine virtue, and consequently the eating of them is a sacrament or communion.[13] I It is dangerous to eat them, as it would be dangerous to steal a tabooed umbrella. They are tabooed because it is close-time.

The other ideas may come to be entertained, an automatic punishment may be thought to follow the breach of the taboo, though we do not learn that this is the case among the Arunta. But the origin of the taboo on the immature food, I think, is the perfectly practical idea of a close-time; plants are not to be gathered, nor animals killed, prematurely. The more or less supreme being of the Fuegians is angry--if you shoot flappers. 'Very bad to shoot little duck, come rain, come wind, blow, very much blow.'[14] The 'great black man, who cannot be escaped, and who influences the weather according to men's conduct,' is right about the flappers. He sanctions a necessary game law. The _How_ (king), in Tonga, used to wait till the yams were ripe, then he fixed a day for gathering them, and had a religious function. The sort of function depends on the stage at which local religion has arrived; but a close-time--no premature killing or gathering--is the practical idea at the base of all these affairs of first-fruits. Any other superstition, sacrificial or sacramental, may crystallise round the practical primitive prohibition, especially when it was sanctioned by the good old device of automatic punishment, following on infringement of taboo.

If Sir Herbert Maxwell could persuade Mr. Thomas Shaw, M.P., that the proverbially execrable weather on the Border is the direct result of fishing, especially with salmon-roe, out of season; if there was to be no fishing till Mr. Shaw, after tasting of the first trout, declared the season open; if the clergy of all denominations lent their presence to the imposing ceremony, then I believe that Tweed, Ettrick, Teviot, Yarrow, Ail, and Kale would be worth fishing in again.

Taboo, as Mr. Frazer and Mr. Jevons agree, has had its uses in the evolution of morality; but remark that strictly moral offences are nowhere under taboo. You may steal (as long as the object stolen is not tabooed and does not belong to a chief or priest), you may kill, you may interfere with the domestic bliss of your neighbour, you may lie, but the automatic punishment of taboo-breaking nowhere follows. Baiame or Pundjel may punish you; but there is no instant mechanical penalty, as under taboo.

After writing this paper, I found that Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson's experience of _tapu_, in the Pacific, led him to form the same opinions as are here expressed. 'The devil-fish, it seems, were growing scarce upon the reef; it was judged fit to interpose what we should call a close season ... a tapu had to be declared.' The tapus described 'are for thoroughly sensible ends.' There are tapus which, to us, appear absurd, 'but the tapu is more often the instrument of wise and needful restrictions.'[15]

These taboos are imposed from above, by Government. In other cases, where the taboo expresses an inference from savage superstition (say that a baby or a corpse is dangerous), the taboo is not imposed except by public opinion. That opinion is sanctioned (as in the case of first-fruits) by the action of the Alatunja, or headman: in more advanced societies, by the king. In many cases, taboos are imposed on the king himself by the priestly colleges. But the greatest authority is tradition, resting on fancied experience.

[1] _Introduction to the History of Religion_, p. 82.

[2] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 10-16.

[3] Jevons, p. 85.

[4] Jevons, pp. 85-87.

[5] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 15, 515.

[6] _Ibid._ p. 517.

[7] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 222, 246.

[8] The Arunta eating of the totem, at the magic ceremony, is not religious. Mr. Jevons, however, adduces it as proof of 'the existence of the totem-sacrament,' surviving 'in an etiolated form.' But what proof have we that the totems were once 'totem gods,' or in any way divine, among the Arunta? Jevons, 'The Science of Religion,' _International Monthly_, p. 489, April 1901.

[9] _Memories of the Months_, 1900, pp. 132, 133.

[10] Spencer and Gillen, chapter vi.

[11] _G. B_. ii. 318.

[12] _Ibid._

[13] _G. B_. ii. 335.

[14] Fitzroy, _Cruise of the Beagle_, ii. 180.

[15] _In the South Seas_, pp. 47-50.

XV

_WALKING THROUGH FIRE_

Perhaps the topic of this paper may be ranged under the head of 'Magic,' though in many cases the rite of passing through fire is sanctioned by religion, and the immunity of the performers is explained by the protection of gods. The immunity is really the curious feature. Mr. Frazer describes the Chinese vernal festival of fire in spring, connected as it is with the widespread custom of 'renewing the fire' at a certain season. The chief performers are labourers, who must fast for three days and observe chastity for a week; while they are taught in the temple how to discharge the difficult and dangerous duty which is to be laid upon them. 'The fire is made in an enormous brazier of charcoal, sometimes twenty feet wide.' The fire is gratified with salt and rice, thrown on it by a Taoist priest. Further, 'two exorcists, barefooted, and followed by two peasants, traverse the fire again and again till it is somewhat beaten down.' The procession of performers then walks through amidst much excitement. Their immunity is ascribed to the horny consistency of the soles of their feet, and they suffer if the fire touches their ankles.[1] Various Indian examples are given by Mr. Frazer. Captain Mackenzie found the performance remote from the 'sensational,' and thought that only girls with tender soles were likely to suffer. A case is also quoted from Strabo, women being the performers, and the instance of the Hirpi of Soracte is well known.[2] Mr. Frazer is interested mainly in the religious, magical, or ritual significance of the rite, which varies in different places. To me, on the other hand, the immunity of the performers appears a subject worthy of physiological inquiry.

The subject occurs everywhere in history, legend, folklore, law, and early religion, and yet nobody has thought it worth while to collect the ancient reports and to compare them with well-authenticated modern examples. In Mr. Tylor's celebrated work, 'Primitive Culture,' only one or two casual allusions are made to the theme. 'They built the high places of Baal, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and daughters to pass through to Moloch,' that is to pass through the fire, 'whether in ritual or symbolical sacrifice.'[3] As a supposed rite of purification the ceremony is again touched upon lightly.[4] Again: 'The ancient ceremony of passing through a fire, or leaping over burning brands, has been kept up vigorously in the British Isles,'[5] namely, at the midsummer ceremonies, when it is, or was, the custom to jump over, or run through, light fires. Nobody would guess that a rite of passing deliberately, and unscathed, through ovens or furnaces yet exists in Japan, Bulgaria, the Society Islands, Fiji, Southern India, Trinidad, the Straits Settlements, the Isle of Mauritius, and, no doubt, in other regions.

We must distinguish between such sportive playing with fire as prevailed recently in our isles and the more serious Fire Ceremony of Central Australia, which tests endurance on the one hand, and the apparent contravention of a natural law on the other. Again, we must discount the popular reply that the hand can be rapidly plunged into molten metal and withdrawn without injury, for we do not happen to be concerned with such a brief exposure to heat. Once more, the theory of the application of some unknown chemical substance must be rejected, because, as we shall prove, there are certainly cases in which nothing of the kind is done. Moreover, science is acquainted with no substance--alum or diluted sulphuric acid, or the like--which will produce the result of preventing cauterisation.[6] Sir William Crookes, at least, is not familiar with any such resources of science. His evidence as to fire-handling by D. D. Home is familiar, and I understand that Mr. Podmore can only explain it away by an hypothesis of a trick played in a bad light, by means of an asbestos glove or some such transparent trick.[7] Perhaps he adds a little 'hallucination' on the part of the spectators. But asbestos and hallucination are out of the question in the cases which I am about to quote.

Home was, or feigned to be, in a state of trance when he performed with fire. The seeress of Lourdes, Bernadette, was also in religious contemplation when she permitted the flame of a candle to play through her clasped fingers (which were unscathed) for a timed quarter of an hour.[8] Some Indian devotees, again, aver that they 'meditate' on some divine being while passing over the glowing embers, and the Nistinares of Bulgaria, who dance in the fire, are described as being in a more or less abnormal mental condition. But even this condition is absent in the well-attested Raiatean and Fijian examples, in which also no kind of chemical preparation is employed. Finally, where savages are concerned, the hardness of the skins of their feet is dwelt upon, as in the Chinese case already quoted. But, first, the sole of the boot would be scorched in the circumstances, while their feet are not affected; next, the savages' feet were _not_ leathery (so Dr. Hocken avers); thirdly, one of the Europeans who walked through the fire at Rarotonga declares that the soles of his own feet are peculiarly tender. Thus every known physical or conjectured psychical condition of immunity fails to meet the case, and we are left wholly without an ascertained, or a good conjectural, 'reason why' for the phenomena.

I shall begin with the most recent and the best authenticated cases, and work back in time, and in civilisation. Mr. Tregear, the well-known lexicographer of the Maori and the allied Mangarova languages, lately sent me the twenty-ninth number of 'The Journal of the Polynesian Society,' March 1899, Wellington, N.Z. Professors Max Müller and Sayce were Honorary Members of the Society, which studies Polynesian languages, customs, and conditions. Mr. Tregear attests the upright, truth-telling character of the British official, who is the narrator of his own experiment. As the journal is not widely circulated in England, I quote the whole of the brief report.

THE UMU-TI, OR FIRE-WALKING CEREMONY

BY COLONEL GUDGEON, BRITISH RESIDENT, RAROTONGA

[In this Journal, vol. ii p. 105, Miss Teuira Henry
describes this ceremony as practised in Raiatea, of the
Society group. We have lately received from Colonel
Gudgeon the following account of his experiences in
walking barefooted across the glowing hot stones of a
native oven, made in Rarotonga by a man from Raiatea.
Since the date of the paper quoted, it has come to
light that the Maoris of New Zealand were equally
acquainted with this ceremony, which was performed by
their ancestors. On reading Colonel Gudgeon's account
to some old chiefs of the Urewera tribe, they expressed
no surprise, and said that their ancestors could also
perform the ceremony, though it has long gone out of
practice.--EDITORS.]

I must tell you that I have seen and gone through the fire
ceremony of the _Umu-ti_.

The oven was lit at about dawn on the 20th of January,
and I noticed that the stones were very large, as also
were the logs that had been used in the oven for heating
purposes.

About 2 P.M. we went to the oven and there found the
_tohunga_ (a Raiatea man) getting matters ready, and I
told him that, as my feet were naturally tender, the
stones should be levelled down a bit. He assented to this,
and evidently he had intended to do so, for shortly after,
the men with very long poles, that had hooks, began to
level the stones flat in the oven, which was some 12 ft.
in diameter. He then went with his disciple and pointed
to two stones that were not hot, and instructed him the
reason was that they had been taken from a _marae_, or
sacred place.

He then unwound two bundles, which proved to be branches
of a large-leaved _Ti_ (or _Dracæna_) plucked, it is said,
from two of these trees standing close together, and it
is said that the initiated can on such occasions see the
shadow of a woman with long hair, called _te varua kino_
(evil spirit), standing between the trees. The right-hand
branch is the first plucked, and it is said that the
branches bend down to be plucked.

So much for the Shamanism, and now for the facts.

The _tohunga_ (priest) and his _tauira_ (pupil) walked
each to the oven, and then halting, the prophet spoke a
few words, and then each struck the edge of the oven with
the _ti_ branches. This was three times repeated, and then
they walked slowly and deliberately over the two fathoms
of hot stones. When this was done, the _tohunga_ came
to us, and his disciple handed his _ti_ branch to Mr.
Goodwin, at whose place the ceremony came off, and they
went through the ceremony. Then the _tohunga_ said to Mr.
Goodwin, 'I hand my _mana_ (power) over to you; lead your
friends across.' Now, there were four Europeans--Dr. W.
Craig, Dr. George Craig, Mr. Goodwin, and myself--and I
can only say that we stepped out boldly. I got across
unscathed, and only one of the party was badly burned;
and he, it is said, was spoken to, but, like Lot's wife,
looked behind him--a thing against all rules.

I can hardly give you my sensations, but I can say this:
that I knew quite well I was walking on red-hot stones
and could feel the heat, yet I was not burned. I felt
something resembling slight electric shocks, both at the
time and afterwards, but that is all. I do not know that
I should recommend every one to try it. A man must have
_mana_ to do it; if he has not, it will be too late when
he is on the hot stone of Tama-ahi-roa.

I cannot say that I should have performed this wizard
trick had I not been one of the fathers of the Polynesian
Society, and bound to support the superiority of the New
Zealander all over Polynesia--indeed all over the world. I
would not have missed the performance for anything.

To show you the heat of the stones, quite half an hour
afterwards some one remarked to the priest that the stones
would not be hot enough to cook the _ti_. His only answer
was to throw his green branch on the oven, and in a
quarter of a minute it was blazing. As I have eaten a fair
share of the _ti_ cooked in the oven, I am in a position
to say that it was hot enough to cook it well.

I walked with bare feet, and after we had done so, about
200 Maoris followed. No one, so far as I saw, went through
with boots on. I did not walk quickly across the oven,
but with deliberation, because I feared that I should
tread on a sharp point of the stones and fall. My feet
also were very tender. I did not mention the fact, but
my impression as I crossed the oven was that the skin
would all peel off my feet. Yet all I really felt when
the task was accomplished was a tingling sensation not
unlike slight electric shocks on the soles of my feet, and
this continued for seven hours or more. The really funny
thing is that, though the stones were hot enough an hour
afterwards to burn up green branches of the _ti_, the very
tender skin of my feet was not even hardened by the fire.

Many of the Maoris thought they were burned, but they were
not--at any rate not severely.

Do not suppose that the man who directed this business was
an old _tohunga_. He is a young man, but of the Raiatea
family, who are hereditary fire-walkers.

I can only tell you it is _mana--mana tangata_ and _mana
atua_.

On this report a few remarks may be offered. (1) No preparation of any chemical, herbal, or other sort was applied to the Europeans, at least. (2) 'The handing over the _mana_' (or power) was practised by Home, sometimes successfully (it is alleged), as when Mr. S. C. Hall's scalp and white locks were unharmed by a red-hot coal; sometimes unsuccessfully. A clergyman of my acquaintance still bears the blister caused when he accepted a red-hot coal from the hand of Home, as he informs--me by letter. (3) The 'walk' was shorter than seems common: only 12 ft. (4 paces). (4) A friend of Colonel Gudgeon's was badly burned, and the reason assigned was a good folklore reason, since the days of Lot's wife, of Theocritus, and of Virgil: he looked behind. (5) The feeling as if of 'slight electric shocks' is worthy of notice. (6) Colonel Gudgeon clearly believes that a man without _mana_ had better not try, and by _mana_, here, he probably means 'nerve.' As we can hardly suppose, in spite of Home, that _mana_, in a supernormal sense, can be 'handed over' by one man to another, Colonel Gudgeon's experience seems equally to baffle every theory of 'how it is done.' Perhaps we can all do it. People may make their own experiments. Perhaps Colonel Gudgeon faced fire in a manner so unusual as a result of Dr. Hocken's description of the Fijian rite at Mbenga, an isle twenty miles south of Suva. This account was published in the 'Transactions of the New Zealand Institute,' vol. xxxi. 1898, having been read before the Otago Institute on May 10, 1898, and is here reprinted in full as follows:--

AN ACCOUNT OF THE FIJI FIRE CEREMONY

BY DR. T. M. HOCKEN, F.L.S.

Amongst the many incidents witnessed during a recent visit
to the tropical island of Fiji, probably none exceeded
in wonder and interest that of which I propose to give
some account this evening, and to which may be applied
the designation of 'fire ceremony.' It is called by the
natives '_vilavilairevo_.' In this remarkable ceremony a
number of almost nude Fijians walk quickly and unharmed
across and among white-hot stones, which form the pavement
of a huge native oven--termed '_lovo_'--in which shortly
afterwards are cooked the succulent sugary roots and pith
of the _Cordyline terminalis_, one of the cabbage trees,
known to the Maoris as the '_ti_,' and to the Fijians as
the '_masawe._' This wonderful power of fire-walking
is now not only very rarely exercised, but, at least as
regards Fiji, is confined to a small clan or family--the
_Na Ivilankata_--resident on Bega (= Mbenga), an island of
the group, lying somewhat south of Suva, and twenty miles
from that capital.

A small remnant of the priestly order at Raiatea, one of
the Society Islands, is yet able to utter the preparatory
incantation, and afterwards to walk through the fire.

It exists also in other parts of the world, as in parts
of India, the Straits Settlements, West India Islands,
and elsewhere. Very interesting accounts of the ceremony
as seen at Raiatea and at Mbenga are to be found in the
second and third volumes of the 'Journal of the Polynesian
Society,' and in Basil Thomson's charming 'South Sea
Yarns.' These descriptions filled our small party of
three--my wife, Dr. Colquhoun, and myself--with the desire
to witness it for ourselves, and, if possible, to give
some explanation of what was apparently an inexplicable
mystery. Our desires were perfectly realised.

The Hon. Mr. A. M. Duncan, a member of the Legislative
Council of Fiji, and agent at Suva of the Union Steamship
Company, to whom I carried a letter of introduction from
Mr. James Mills, the managing director of that Company,
was most courteous and obliging, and promised his best
efforts in the matter. His energy and ready response
succeeded, with the result that a large party from Suva
enjoyed such a day as each one must have marked with a red
letter.

It was necessary to give the natives three days in which
to make their preparations--constructing the oven and
paving it with stones, which then required heating for
thirty-six or forty-eight hours at least with fierce fires
fed with logs and branches. They had also to gather their
stores of food to form the foundation of the huge feast
whose preparation was to succeed the mystic ceremony.
During these three days we lost no opportunity of
collecting from former witnesses of the ceremony whatever
information or explanation they could afford, but with
no very satisfactory result: the facts were undisputed,
but the explanations quite insufficient. Some thought
that the chief actors rubbed their bodies with a secret
preparation which rendered them fireproof; others that
lifelong friction on the hard hot rocks, coral-reefs, and
sands had so thickened and indurated the foot-sole that it
could defy fire; but all agreed as to the _bona fides_ of
the exhibition. The incident recounted in the 'Polynesian
Journal' was also confirmed---where Lady Thurston threw
her handkerchief upon the shoulder of one of the actors,
and though it remained there but a few seconds before
being picked off by means of a long stick, it was greatly
scorched.[9]

The story or legend attached to this weird gift of
fire-walking was told us, with some variation, by two or
three different people, and it is mainly as follows: A
far-distant ancestor of the present inheritors of this
power was walking one day when he espied an eel, which
he caught, and was about to kill. The eel squeaked out
and said, 'Oh! Tui Na Galita (= Eng-Galita), do not kill
me; spare me. I am a god and I will make you so strong in
war that none shall withstand you.' 'Oh, but,' replied Na
Galita, 'I am already stronger in war than any one else,
and I fear no one.' 'Well, then,' said the eel. 'I will make
your canoe the fastest to sail on these seas, and none
shall come up with it.' 'But,' replied Na Galita, as it
is, none can pass my canoe.' 'Well, then,' rejoined the
eel. 'I will make you a great favourite among women, so
that all will fall in love with you.' 'Not so,' said Na
Galita, 'I have one wife, of whom I am very fond, and I
desire no other.' The poor eel then made other offers,
which were also rejected, and his chances of life were
fading fast when he made a final effort. 'Oh, Na Galita,
if you will spare me, I will so cause it that you and your
descendants shall henceforth walk through the _masawe_
oven unharmed.' 'Good,' said Na Galita, 'now I will let
you go.' This story varies somewhat from that told in the
'Polynesian Journal.'[10]

The eventful morning was blazingly hot and brilliant,
and the vivid-blue sky was without a cloud as we steamed
down towards Mbenga in the s.s. _Hauroto_. Mr. Vaughan,
an eminent inhabitant of Suva, who has charge of the
Meteorological Department there, was of our party, and
carried the thermometer. This was the most suitable for
our purpose procurable; it was in a strong japanned-tin
casing, and registered 400° Fahr. We had also three
amateur photographers.

Owing to the numerous coral-reefs and shallows, we finally
transhipped into the _Maori_, a steamer of much less
draught. Approaching the silent verdure-clad islet, with
its narrow beach of white coral sand, we saw a thin blue
haze of smoke curling above the lofty cocoanut trees at
a little distance in the interior, which sufficiently
localised the mysterious spot. We now took the ship's
boat, and soon, stepping ashore, made our way through a
narrow pathway in the dense bush until we came to an open
space cleared from the forest, in the midst of which was
the great _lovo_, or oven.

A remarkable and never-to-be-forgotten scene now presented
itself. There were hundreds of Fijians, dressed according
to the rules of nature and their own art--that is, they
were lightly garlanded here and there with their fantastic
_likulikus_ of grass, ornamented with brilliant scarlet
and yellow hibiscus flowers and streamers of the delicate
ribbonwood. These hung in airy profusion from their necks
and around their waists, showing off to advantage their
lovely brown glossy skins. In addition, many wore clean
white cotton _sulus_, or pendant loin-cloths. All were
excited, moving hither and thither in wild confusion, and
making the forest ring again with, their noisy hilarity.
Some climbed the lofty cocoa-palms, hand over hand, foot
over foot, with all the dexterity of monkeys. The top
reached, and shrouded amongst the feathery leaves, they
poured down a shower of nuts for the refreshment of their
guests.

The celerity with which they opened the nuts was something
astonishing, and afforded an example, too, as to the mode
of using stone implements. A stout strong stick, 3 ft.
long, and sharpened at both ends, was driven into the
ground, and a few smart strokes upon it soon tore from the
nut its outer thick covering. The upper part of the shell
was then broken off by means of a long sharp-edged stone
as cleanly and regularly as the lid of an egg is removed
with a knife, and then was disclosed a pint of delicious
milk--a most welcome beverage on that over-poweringly hot
day.

The great oven lay before us, pouring forth its torrents
of heat from huge embers which were still burning fiercely
on the underlying stones. These were indeed melting
moments for the spectators. The pitiless noontide sun,
and the no less pitiless oven-heat, both pent up in the
deep well-like forest clearing, reduced us to a state of
solution from which there was no escape. Despite this the
photographers took up their stations, and others of us
proceeded to make our observations. The _lovo_, or oven,
was circular, with a diameter of 25 ft. or 30 ft.; its
greatest depth was perhaps 8 ft., its general shape that
of a saucer, with sloping sides and a flattish bottom,
the latter being filled with the white-hot stones. Near
the margin of the oven, and on its windward side, the
thermometer marked 114°.