Chapter I: Preface: {vii} (1)

The substance of the following discourse was lately read at an evening meeting of the Royal Institution in London, and most of it was afterwards delivered in the form of lectures to my class at Liverpool. It is now published in the hope that it may call attention to a neglected side of superstition and stimulate enquiry into the early history of those great institutions which still form the framework of modern society. If it should turn out that these institutions have sometimes been built on rotten foundations, it would be rash to conclude that they must all come down. Man is a very curious animal, and the more we know of his habits the more curious does he appear. He may be the most rational of the beasts, but certainly he is the most absurd. Even the saturnine wit of Swift, unaided by a knowledge of savages, fell far short of the reality in his attempt to set human folly in a strong light. Yet the odd thing is that in spite, or perhaps by virtue, of his absurdities man moves steadily upwards; the more we learn of his past history the more groundless does the old theory of his degeneracy prove to be. From false premises he often arrives at sound conclusions: from a chimerical theory he deduces a salutary practice. This discourse will have served a useful purpose if it illustrates a few {viii} of the ways in which folly mysteriously deviates into wisdom, and good comes out of evil. It is a mere sketch of a vast subject. Whether I shall ever fill in these bald outlines with finer strokes and deeper shadows must be left to the future to determine. The materials for such a picture exist in abundance; and if the colours are dark, they are yet illuminated, as I have tried in this essay to point out, by a ray of consolation and hope.

J. G. FRAZER.

Cambridge, _February_ 1909.

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

In this edition _Psyche’s Task_ has been enlarged by fresh illustrative examples and by the discussion of a curious point of savage etiquette, but the substance and the form of the discourse remain unchanged. I have added _The Scope of Social Anthropology_, an inaugural lecture intended to mark out roughly the boundaries of the general study of which _Psyche’s Task_ aims at setting forth some particular results. There is therefore a certain appropriateness in presenting the two discourses together to the reader.

J. G. F.

Cambridge, 6_th June_ 1913.

CONTENTS

{ix}

Preface

PSYCHE’S TASK

I. Introduction

The dark and the bright side of Superstition: a plea for the accused: four propositions to be proved by the defence 3-5

II. Government

Superstition has been a prop of Government by inculcating a deep veneration for governors: evidence of this veneration collected from Melanesia, Polynesia, Africa, the Malay region, and America: evidence of similar veneration among Aryan peoples from India to Scotland 6-19

III. Private Property

Superstition has been a prop of Private Property by inculcating a deep fear of its violation: evidence of this fear collected from Polynesia, Melanesia, the Malay Archipelago, Europe, Asia, Africa, and America 20-43

IV. Marriage

Superstition has been a prop of Marriage by inculcating a deep fear of disregarding the traditionary rules of sexual morality: evidence of this fear collected from South-Eastern Asia, the Malay Archipelago, Africa, the Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Irish: extreme severity with which breaches of the sexual code have been punished in India, Babylon, {x} Palestine, Africa, the East Indies, Australia, America, and Europe: the avoidance of the wife’s mother and of a man’s own mother, sisters, daughters, and female cousins, based on the fear of incest: the origin of the fear of incest unknown: belief that adultery and fornication inflict physical injury not only on the culprits but on their innocent relations: evidence of the belief collected from Africa, America, Sumatra, and New Britain 44-110

V. Respect for Human Life

Superstition has been a prop for the Security of Human Life by inculcating a deep fear of the ghosts of the murdered dead: evidence of the fear collected from ancient Greece, modern Africa, America, India, New Guinea, Celebes, the Bismarck Archipelago, and Fiji: deep fear of ghosts in general: evidence collected from America, Africa, India, Burma, the Indian Archipelago, Australia, New Guinea, and China: influence of the fear in restraining men from murder 111-153

VI. Conclusion

Summing up for the defence: by serving as a prop for government, private property, marriage, and human life, Superstition has rendered a great service to humanity: Superstition at the bar: sentence of death 154-156

THE SCOPE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Anthropology, or the Science of Man, a new study: Social Anthropology restricted to the rudimentary phases of human society: not concerned with the practical application of its results: all forms of human society either savage or evolved out of savagery: hence Social Anthropology deals primarily with savagery and secondarily with those survivals of savagery in civilization which are commonly known as folklore: importance of the study of savagery for an understanding of the evolution of the human mind: existing savages primitive only in a relative sense by comparison with civilized peoples: in reality the savages of the present day probably stand at a high level of culture compared with their remote predecessors: for example, the present systems of marriage and consanguinity among savages appear to have been preceded by a period, not necessarily primitive, of sexual communism: survivals of savagery in civilization due to the natural and ineradicable inequality of men: mankind {xi} ultimately led by an intellectual aristocracy: superstition the creed of the laggards in the march of intellect: the wide prevalence of superstition under the surface of society a standing menace to civilization: the lowest forms of superstition the most tenacious of life: function of the Comparative Method in reconstructing the early history of human thought and institutions: its legitimacy based on the ascertained similarity of the human mind in all races: the need of studying savages only of late years understood: urgent importance of the study in consequence of the rapid disappearance of savagery: the duty of our generation to preserve a record of it for posterity: the duty of the Universities and of the State 157-176

INDEX 177-186

ENDNOTES

PSYCHE’S TASK

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I. INTRODUCTION

[Sidenote: The dark side of superstition.] We are apt to think of superstition as an unmitigated evil, false in itself and pernicious in its consequences. That it has done much harm in the world, cannot be denied. It has sacrificed countless lives, wasted untold treasures, embroiled nations, severed friends, parted husbands and wives, parents and children, putting swords, and worse than swords between them: it has filled gaols and madhouses with its innocent or deluded victims: it has broken many hearts, embittered the whole of many a life, and not content with persecuting the living it has pursued the dead into the grave and beyond it, gloating over the horrors which its foul imagination has conjured up to appal and torture the survivors. It has done all this and more. [Sidenote: The brighter side of superstition.] Yet the case of superstition, like that of Mr. Pickwick after the revelations of poor Mr. Winkle in the witness-box, can perhaps afford to be placed in a rather better light; and without posing as the Devil’s Advocate or appearing before you in a blue flame and sulphureous fumes, I do profess to make out what the charitable might call a plausible plea for a very dubious client. For I propose to prove, or at least make probable, by examples that among certain races and at certain stages of evolution some social institutions which we all, or most of us, believe to be beneficial have partially rested on a basis of superstition. The institutions to which I refer are purely secular or civil. Of religious or ecclesiastical institutions I shall say nothing. It might perhaps be possible to shew that even religion has not wholly escaped the taint or {4} dispensed with the support of superstition; but I prefer for to-night to confine myself to those civil institutions which people commonly imagine to be bottomed on nothing but hard common sense and the nature of things. While the institutions with which I shall deal have all survived into civilized society and can no doubt be defended by solid and weighty arguments, it is practically certain that among savages, and even among peoples who have risen above the level of savagery, these very same institutions have derived much of their strength from beliefs which nowadays we should condemn unreservedly as superstitious and absurd. The institutions in regard to which I shall attempt to prove this are four, namely, government, private property, marriage, and the respect for human life. [Sidenote: Four propositions to be proved.] And what I have to say may be summed up in four propositions as follows:--

I. Among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for government, especially monarchical government, and has thereby contributed to the establishment and maintenance of civil order.

II. Among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for private property and has thereby contributed to the security of its enjoyment.

III. Among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for marriage and has thereby contributed to a stricter observance of the rules of sexual morality both among the married and the unmarried.

IV. Among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for human life and has thereby contributed to the security of its enjoyment.

[Sidenote: Preliminary remarks.] Before proceeding to deal with these four propositions separately, I wish to make two remarks, which I beg you will bear in mind. First, in what I have to say I shall confine myself to certain races of men and to certain ages of history, because neither my time nor my knowledge permits me to speak of all races of men and all ages of history. How far the limited conclusions which I shall draw for some races and for some ages are applicable to others must be left to future enquiries to determine. That is my first remark. My second is this. If it can be proved that in certain races and at certain times the institutions {5} in question have been based partly on superstition, it by no means follows that even among these races they have never been based on anything else. On the contrary, as all the institutions which I shall consider have proved themselves stable and permanent, there is a strong presumption that they rest mainly on something much more solid than superstition. No institution founded wholly on superstition, that is on falsehood, can be permanent. If it does not answer to some real human need, if its foundations are not laid broad and deep in the nature of things, it must perish, and the sooner the better. That is my second remark.

II. GOVERNMENT

{6}

[Sidenote: Superstition as a prop of government.] With these two cautions I address myself to my first proposition, which is, that among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for government, especially monarchical government, and has thereby contributed to the establishment and maintenance of civil order.

[Sidenote: Superstitious respect for chiefs in Melanesia.] Among many peoples the task of government has been greatly facilitated by a superstition that the governors belong to a superior order of beings and possess certain supernatural or magical powers to which the governed can make no claim and can offer no resistance. Thus Dr. Codrington tells us that among the Melanesians “the power of chiefs has hitherto rested upon the belief in their supernatural power derived from the spirits or ghosts with which they had intercourse. As this belief has failed, in the Banks’ Islands for example some time ago, the position of a chief has tended to become obscure; and as this belief is now being generally undermined a new kind of chief must needs arise, unless a time of anarchy is to begin.”[6.1] According to a native Melanesian account, the authority of chiefs rests entirely on the belief that they hold communication with mighty ghosts and possess that supernatural power or _mana_, as it is called, whereby they are able to bring the influence of the ghosts to bear on human life. If a chief imposed a fine, it was paid because the people firmly believed that he could inflict calamity and sickness upon such as resisted him. As soon as any considerable number of his {7} subjects began to disbelieve in his influence with the ghosts, his power to levy fines was shaken.[7.1] It is thus that in Melanesia religious scepticism tends to undermine the foundations of civil society.

[Sidenote: Superstitious respect for chiefs in Fiji.] Similarly Mr. Basil Thomson tells us that “the key to the Melanesian system of government is Ancestor-worship. Just as every act in a Fijian’s life was controlled by his fear of Unseen Powers, so was his conception of human authority based upon religion.” The dead chief was supposed still to watch jealously over his people and to punish them with dearth, storms, and floods, if they failed to bring their offerings to his tomb and to propitiate his spirit. And the person of his descendant, the living chief, was sacred; it was hedged in by a magic circle of taboo and might not even be touched without incurring the wrath of the Unseen. “The first blow at the power of the chiefs was struck unconsciously by the missionaries. Neither they nor the chiefs themselves realized how closely the government of the Fijians was bound up with their religion. No sooner had a missionary gained a foothold in a chief village than the tabu was doomed, and on the tabu depended half the people’s reverence for rank. The tabu died hard, as such institutions should do. The first-fruits were still presented to the chief, but they were no longer carried from him to the temple, since their excuse--as an offering to persuade the ancestors to grant abundant increase--had passed away. No longer supported by the priests, the Sacred Chief fell upon evil days”; for in Fiji, as in other places, the priest and the chief, when they were not one and the same person, had played into each other’s hands, both knowing that neither could stand firm without the aid of the other.[7.2]

[Sidenote: Superstitious respect for chiefs in Polynesia generally and in New Zealand particularly.] In Polynesia the state of things was similar. There, too, the power of chiefs depended largely on a belief in their supernatural powers, in their relation to ancestral spirits, and in the magical virtue of taboo, which pervaded their persons and interposed between them and common folk an invisible but formidable barrier, to pass which was death. In New Zealand the Maori chiefs were deemed to be living {8} _atuas_ or gods. Thus the Rev. Richard Taylor, who was for more than thirty years a missionary in New Zealand, tells us that in speaking a Maori chief “assumed a tone not natural to him, as a kind of court language; he kept himself distinct from his inferiors, eating separately; his person was sacred, he had the power of holding converse with the gods, in fact laid claim to being one himself, making the _tapu_ a powerful adjunct to obtain control over his people and their goods. Every means were used to acquire this dignity; a large person was thought to be of the highest importance; to acquire this extra size, the child of a chief was generally provided with many nurses, each contributing to his support by robbing their own offspring of their natural sustenance; thus, whilst they were half-starved, miserable-looking little creatures, the chief’s child was the contrary, and early became remarkable by its good appearance. Nor was this feeling confined to the body; the chief was an _atua_, but there were powerful and powerless gods; each naturally sought to make himself one of the former; the plan therefore adopted, was to incorporate the spirits of others with their own; thus, when a warrior slew a chief, he immediately gouged out his eyes and swallowed them, the _atua tonga_, or divinity, being supposed to reside in that organ; thus he not only killed the body, but also possessed himself of the soul of his enemy, and consequently the more chiefs he slew, the greater did his divinity become.… Another great sign of a chief was oratory--a good orator was compared to the _korimako_, the sweetest singing bird in New Zealand; to enable the young chief to become one, he was fed upon that bird, so that he might the better acquire its qualities, and the successful orator was termed a _korimako_.”[8.1] Again, another writer informs us that the opinions of Maori chiefs “were held in more estimation than those of others, simply because they were believed to give utterance to the thoughts of deified men. No dazzling pageantry hedged them round, but their persons were sacred.… Many of them believed themselves inspired; {9} thus Te Heu Heu, the great Taupo chief and priest, shortly before he was swallowed up by a landslip, said to a European missionary: ‘Think not that I am a man, that my origin is of the earth. I come from the heavens; my ancestors are all there; they are gods, and I shall return to them.’”[9.1] So sacred was the person of a Maori chief that it was not lawful to touch him, even to save his life. A chief has been seen at the point of suffocation and in great agony with a fish bone sticking in his throat, and yet not one of his people, who were lamenting around him, dared to touch or even approach him, for it would have been as much as their own life was worth to do so. A missionary, who was passing, came to the rescue and saved the chief’s life by extracting the bone. As soon as the rescued man recovered the power of speech, which he did not do for half an hour, the first use he made of it was to demand that the surgical instruments with which the bone had been extracted should be given to him as compensation for the injury done him by drawing his sacred blood and touching his sacred head.[9.2]

[Sidenote: Superstitious fear of contact with Maori chiefs.] Not only the person of a Maori chief but everything that had come into contact with it was sacred and would kill, so the Maoris thought, any sacrilegious person who dared to meddle with it. Cases have been known of Maoris dying of sheer fright on learning that they had unwittingly eaten the remains of a chief’s dinner or handled something that belonged to him. For example, a woman, having partaken of some fine peaches from a basket, was told that they had come from a tabooed place. Immediately the basket dropped from her hands and she cried out in agony that the _atua_ or godhead of the chief, whose divinity had been thus profaned, would kill her. That happened in the afternoon, and next day by twelve o’clock she was dead.[9.3] Similarly a chief’s tinder-box has proved fatal to several men; for having found it and lighted their pipes with it {10} they actually expired of terror on learning to whom it belonged.[10.1] Hence a considerate chief would throw away where it could not be found any garment or mat for which he had no further use, lest one of his subjects should find it and be struck dead by the shock of its inherent divinity. For the same reason he would never blow a fire with his mouth; for his sacred breath would communicate its sanctity to the fire, and the fire would pass it on to the meat that might be cooked on it, and the meat would carry it into the stomach of the eater, and he would die.[10.2] Thus the divinity which hedged a Maori chief was a devouring flame which shrivelled up and consumed whatever it touched. No wonder that such men were implicitly obeyed.

[Sidenote: Superstitious respect for chiefs and kings in Tonga and Tahiti.] In the rest of Polynesia the state of things was similar. For example, the natives of Tonga in like manner believed that if any one fed himself with his own hands after touching the sacred person of a superior chief, 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, unless he disinfected himself by touching the chief’s feet in a particular way.[10.3] When a king of Tahiti entered on office he was girded with a sacred girdle of red feathers, which not only raised him to the highest earthly station, but identified him with the gods.[10.4] Henceforth “every thing in the least degree connected with the king or queen--the cloth they wore, the houses in which they dwelt, the canoes in which they voyaged, the men by whom they were borne when they journeyed by land, became sacred--and even the sounds in the language, composing their names, could no longer be appropriated to ordinary significations. Hence, the original names of most of the objects with which they were familiar, have from time to time undergone considerable alterations. The ground on which they even accidentally trod, became sacred; and the dwelling under which they might enter, must for ever after be vacated {11} by its proprietors, and could be appropriated only to the use of these sacred personages. No individual was allowed to touch the body of the king or queen; and every one who should stand over them, or pass the hand over their heads, would be liable to pay for the sacrilegious act with the forfeiture of his life. It was on account of this supposed sacredness of person that they could never enter any dwellings, excepting those that were specially dedicated to their use, and prohibited to all others; nor might they tread on the ground in any part of the island but their own hereditary districts.”[11.1]

[Sidenote: Superstitious fear of contact with kings in Africa and the Malay region.] In like manner the Cazembes, in the interior of Angola, regarded their king as so holy that no one could touch him without being killed by the magical power which emanated from his sacred person; however, any one who had accidentally or necessarily come into personal contact with his Majesty could escape death by touching the king’s hands in a special manner.[11.2] Similar beliefs are current in the Malay region, where the theory of the king as the Divine Man is said to be held perhaps as strongly as in any other part of the world. “Not only is the king’s person considered sacred, but the sanctity of his body is believed to communicate itself to his regalia, and to slay those who break the royal taboos. Thus it is firmly believed that any one who seriously offends the royal person, who touches (even for a moment) or who imitates (even with the king’s permission) the chief objects of the regalia, or who wrongfully makes use of any of the insignia or privileges of royalty, will be _kĕna daulat_, _i.e._ struck dead, by a quasi-electric discharge of that Divine Power which the Malays suppose to reside in the king’s person, and which is called _daulat_ or Royal Sanctity.”[11.3] [Sidenote: Marvellous powers attributed to rajahs by Malays and Dyaks.] Further, the Malays firmly believe that the king possesses a personal influence over the works of nature, such as the growth of the crops and the bearing of fruit-trees.[11.4] Some of the Hill Dyaks of Sarawak {12} used to bring their seed-rice to Rajah Brooke to be fertilized by him; and once when the rice-crops of a tribe were thin, the chief remarked that it could not be otherwise, since they had not been visited by the Rajah.[12.1] [Sidenote: Superstitious veneration for the rajah of Loowoo.] Among the Toradjas of Central Celebes “the power of the rajah of Loowoo rested for the most part on superstition and on tradition. The ancestors had served the rajah in their day, and should the descendants fail to do so they would have to fear the wrath of the ancestors. Often Toradjas said to us, ‘The rajah of Loowoo is our god.’ They saw in him the complete embodiment of the old institutions. It used to be said that he had white blood, and the mysterious power that went forth from him was thought to be so great that a common Toradja could not see him without suffering from a swollen belly and dying.”[12.2]

[Sidenote: Magical powers attributed to kings in Africa.] Similarly in Africa kings are commonly supposed to be endowed with a magical power of making the rain to fall and the crops to grow: drought and famine are set down to the weakness or ill-will of the king, and accordingly he is punished, deposed, or put to death.[12.3] To take two or three instances out of many, a writer of the eighteenth century speaks as follows of the kingdom of Loango in West Africa: [Sidenote: The king of Loango.] “The government with these people is purely despotic. They say their lives and goods belong to the king; that he may dispose of and deprive them of them when he pleases, without form of process, and without their having anything to complain of. In his presence they pay marks of respect which resemble adoration. The individuals of the lower classes are persuaded that his power is not confined to the earth, and that he has credit enough to make rain fall from heaven: hence they fail not, when a continuance of drought makes them fearful about the harvest, to represent to him that if he does not take care to water the lands of his kingdom, they will die of hunger, and will find it impossible to make him the usual presents. The king, to satisfy the people, without however compromising himself with heaven, {13} devolves the affair on one of his ministers, to whom he gives orders to cause to fall without delay upon the plains as much rain as is wanted to fertilize them. When the minister sees a cloud which he presumes must shed rain, he shews himself in public, as if to exercise the orders of his prince. The women and children troop around him, crying with all their might, _Give us rain, give us rain_: and he promises them some.”[13.1] The king of Loango, says another old writer, “is honoured among them as though he were a God: and is called _Sambee_ and _Pango_, which mean God. They believe he can let them have rain when he likes; and once a year, in December, which is the time they want rain, the people come to beg of him to grant it to them, on this occasion they make him presents, and none come empty-handed.” On a day appointed, when the chiefs with their troops had assembled in warlike array, the drums used to beat and the horns to sound, and the king shot arrows into the air, which was believed to bring down the rain.[13.2] On the other side of Africa a similar state of things is reported by the old Portuguese historian Dos Santos. [Sidenote: The king of Sofala.] He says: “The king of all these lands of the interior and of the river of Sofala is a woolly-haired Kaffir, a heathen who adores nothing whatever, and has no knowledge of God; on the contrary, he esteems himself the god of all his lands, and is so looked upon and reverenced by his subjects.” “When they suffer necessity or scarcity they have recourse to the king, firmly believing that he can give them all that they desire or have need of, and can obtain anything from his dead predecessors, with whom they believe that he holds converse. For this reason they ask the king to give them rain when it is required, and other favourable weather for their harvest, and in coming to ask for any of these things they bring him valuable presents, which the king accepts, bidding them return to their homes and he will be careful to grant their petitions. They are such barbarians that though they see how often the king {14} does not give them what they ask for, they are not undeceived, but make him still greater offerings, and many days are spent in these comings and goings, until the weather turns to rain, and the Kaffirs are satisfied, believing that the king did not grant their request until he had been well bribed and importuned, as he himself affirms, in order to maintain them in their error.”[14.1] Nevertheless “it was formerly the custom of the kings of this land to commit suicide by taking poison when any disaster or natural physical defect fell upon them, such as impotence, infectious disease, the loss of their front teeth by which they were disfigured, or any other deformity or affliction. To put an end to such defects they killed themselves, saying that the king should be free from any blemish.” However, in the time of Dos Santos the king of Sofala, in defiance of all precedent, persisted in living and reigning after he had lost a front tooth; and he even went so far as to tax his royal predecessors with folly for having made away with themselves for such trifles as a decayed tooth or a little grey hair, declaring his firm resolution to live as long as he possibly could for the benefit of his loyal subjects.[14.2] [Sidenote: The chief medicine-man of the Nandi.] At the present day the principal medicine-man of the Nandi, a tribe in British East Africa, is also supreme chief of the whole people. He is a diviner, and foretells the future: he makes women and cattle fruitful; and in time of drought he obtains rain either directly or through the intervention of the rainmakers. The Nandi believe implicitly in these marvellous powers of their chief. His person is usually regarded as absolutely sacred. Nobody may approach him with weapons in his hand or speak in his presence unless he is first addressed; and it is deemed most important that nobody should touch the chief’s head, otherwise his powers of divination and so forth would depart from him.[14.3] This widespread African conception of the divinity of kings culminated long ago in ancient Egypt, where the kings were treated as gods both in life and in death, temples being dedicated to their worship {15} and priests appointed to conduct it.[15.1] And when the harvests failed, the ancient Egyptians, like the modern negroes, laid the blame of the failure on the reigning monarch.[15.2]

[Sidenote: Superstitious veneration of the Peruvians for the Yncas.] A halo of superstitious veneration also surrounded the Yncas or governing class in ancient Peru. Thus the old historian Garcilasso de la Vega, himself the son of an Ynca princess, tells us that “it does not appear that any Ynca of the blood royal has ever been punished, at least publicly, and the Indians deny that such a thing has ever taken place. They say that the Ynca never committed any fault that required correction; because the teaching of their parents, and the common opinion that they were children of the Sun, born to teach and to do good to the rest of mankind, kept them under such control, that they were rather an example than a scandal to the commonwealth. The Indians also said that the Yncas were free from the temptations which usually lead to crime, such as passion for women, envy and covetousness, or the thirst for vengeance; because if they desired beautiful women, it was lawful for them to have as many as they liked; and any pretty girl they might take a fancy to, not only was never denied to them, but was given up by her father with expressions of extreme thankfulness that an Ynca should have condescended to take her as his servant. The same thing might be said of their property; for, as they never could feel the want of anything, they had no reason to covet the goods of others; while as governors they had command over all the property of the Sun and of the Ynca; and those who were in charge, were bound to give them all that they required, as children of the Sun, and brethren of the Ynca. They likewise had no temptation to kill or wound any one either for revenge, or in passion; for no one ever offended them. On the contrary, they received adoration only second to that offered to the royal person; and if any one, how high soever his rank, had enraged any Ynca, it would have been looked upon as sacrilege, and very severely punished. But it may be affirmed that an Indian {16} was never punished for offending against the person, honour, or property of any Ynca, because no such offence was ever committed, as they held the Yncas to be like gods.”[16.1]

[Sidenote: Superstitious veneration for kings in ancient India.] Nor have such superstitions been confined to savages and other peoples of alien race in remote parts of the world. They seem to have been shared by the ancestors of all the Aryan peoples from India to Ireland. Thus in the ancient Indian law-book called the Laws of Manu, we read: “Because a king has been formed of particles of those lords of the gods, he therefore surpasses all created beings in lustre; and, like the sun, he burns eyes and hearts; nor can anybody on earth even gaze on him. Through his (supernatural) power he is Fire and Wind, he Sun and Moon, he the Lord of justice (Yama), he Kubera, he Varuna, he great Indra. Even an infant king must not be despised (from an idea) that he is a (mere) mortal; for he is a great deity in human form.”[16.2] And in the same law-book the effects of a good king’s reign are thus described: “In that (country) where the king avoids taking the property of (mortal) sinners, men are born in (due) time (and are) long-lived. And the crops of the husbandmen spring up, each as it was sown, and the children die not, and no misshaped (offspring) is born.”[16.3]

[Sidenote: Superstitious veneration for kings in ancient Europe.] Similarly in Homeric Greece, kings and chiefs were described as sacred or divine; their houses, too, were divine, and their chariots sacred;[16.4] and it was thought that the reign of a good king caused the black earth to bring forth wheat and barley, the trees to be loaded with fruit, the flocks to multiply, and the sea to yield fish.[16.5] When the crops failed, the Burgundians used to blame their kings and depose them.[16.6] Similarly the Swedes always ascribed the abundance or scantiness of the harvest to the goodness or badness of their kings, and in time of dearth they have been known {17} to sacrifice them to the gods for the sake of procuring good crops.[17.1] In ancient Ireland it was also believed that when kings observed the customs of their ancestors the seasons were mild, the crops plentiful, the cattle fruitful, the waters abounded with fish, and the fruit-trees had to be propped up on account of the weight of their produce. A canon ascribed to St. Patrick enumerates among the blessings that attend the reign of a just king “fine weather, calm seas, crops abundant, and trees laden with fruit.”[17.2] [Sidenote: Survivals of the superstition in Scotland.] Superstitions of the kind which were thus current among the Celts of Ireland centuries ago appear to have survived among the Celts of Scotland down to Dr. Johnson’s time; for when he travelled in Skye it was still held that the return of the chief of the Macleods to Dunvegan, after any considerable absence, produced a plentiful catch of herring;[17.3] and at a still later time, when the potato crop failed, the clan Macleod desired that a certain fairy banner in the possession of their chief might be unfurled,[17.4] apparently in the belief that the magical banner had only to be displayed to produce a fine crop of potatoes.

[Sidenote: Touching for the King’s Evil.] Perhaps the last relic of such superstitions which lingered about our English kings was the notion that they could heal scrofula by their touch. The disease was accordingly known as the King’s Evil;[17.5] and on the analogy of the Polynesian superstitions which I have cited, we may perhaps conjecture that the skin disease of scrofula was originally supposed to be caused as well as cured by the king’s touch. Certain it is that in Tonga some forms of scrofula, as well as indurations of the liver, to which the natives were very subject, were thought to be caused by touching a chief and {18} to be healed, on homœopathic principles, in the very same fashion.[18.1] Similarly in Loango palsy is called the king’s disease, because the negroes imagine it to be heaven’s own punishment for treason meditated against the king.[18.2] The belief in the king’s power to heal by touch is known to have been held both in France and England from the eleventh century onward. The first French king to touch the sick appears to have been Robert the Pious, the first English king Edward the Confessor.[18.3] In England the belief that the king could heal scrofula by his touch survived into the eighteenth century. Dr. Johnson was touched in his childhood for scrofula by Queen Anne.[18.4] It is curious that so typical a representative of robust common sense as Dr. Johnson should in his childhood and old age have thus been brought into contact with these ancient superstitions about royalty both in England and Scotland. In France the superstition lingered a good deal longer, for whereas Queen Anne was the last reigning monarch in England to touch for scrofula, both Louis XV. and Louis XVI. at their coronation touched thousands of patients, and as late as 1824 Charles X. at his coronation went through the same solemn farce. It is said that the sceptical wits of Louis XVI.’s time investigated all the cases of the persons on whom the king had laid hands at his coronation, with the result that out of two thousand four hundred who were touched only five were made whole.[18.5]

[Sidenote: Conclusion.] The foregoing evidence, summary as it is, may suffice to prove that many peoples have regarded their rulers, whether chiefs or kings, with superstitious awe as beings of a higher order and endowed with mightier powers than common folk. Imbued with such a profound veneration for their governors and with such an exaggerated conception of their power, they cannot but have yielded them a prompter and more implicit obedience than if they had {19} known them to be men of common mould just like themselves. If that is so, I may claim to have proved my first proposition, which is, that among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for government, especially monarchical government, and has thereby contributed to the establishment and maintenance of civil order.

III. PRIVATE PROPERTY

{20}

[Sidenote: Superstition as a prop of private property.] I pass now to my second proposition, which is, that among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for private property, and has thereby contributed to the security of its enjoyment.

[Sidenote: Taboo in Polynesia.] Nowhere, perhaps, does this appear more plainly than in Polynesia, where the system of taboo reached its highest development; for the effect of tabooing a thing was, in the opinion of the natives, to endow it with a supernatural or magical energy which rendered it practically unapproachable by any but the owner. Thus taboo became a powerful instrument for strengthening the ties, perhaps our socialist friends would say riveting the chains, of private property. Indeed, some good authorities who were personally acquainted with the working of taboo in Polynesia, have held that the system was originally devised for no other purpose. [Sidenote: Taboo among the Maoris of New Zealand.] For example, an Irishman who lived as a Maori with the Maoris for years, and knew them intimately, writes as follows: “The original object of the ordinary _tapu_ seems to have been the preservation of property. Of this nature in a great degree was the ordinary personal _tapu_. This form of the _tapu_ was permanent, and consisted in a certain sacred character which attached to the person of a chief and never left him. It was his birthright, a part in fact of himself, of which he could not be divested, and which was well understood and recognized at all times as a matter of course. The fighting men and petty chiefs, and every one indeed who could by any means claim the title of _rangatira_--which in the sense I now use it means gentleman--were all in {21} some degree more or less possessed of this mysterious quality. It extended or was communicated to all their moveable property, especially to their clothes, weapons, ornaments, and tools, and to everything in fact which they touched. This prevented their chattels from being stolen or mislaid, or spoiled by children, or used or handled in any way by others. And as in the old times, as I have before stated, every kind of property of this kind was precious in consequence of the great labour and time necessarily, for want of iron tools, expended in the manufacture, this form of the _tapu_ was of great real service. An infringement of it subjected the offender to various dreadful imaginary punishments, of which deadly sickness was one.” The culprit was also liable to what may be called a civil action, which consisted in being robbed and beaten; but the writer whom I have just quoted tells us that the worst part of the punishment for breaking taboo was the imaginary part, since even when the offence had been committed unwittingly the offender has been known to die of fright on learning what he had done.[21.1] Similarly, another writer, speaking of the Maoris, observes that “violators of the _tapu_ were punished by the gods and also by men. The former sent sickness and death; the latter inflicted death, loss of property, and expulsion from society. It was a dread of the gods, more than of men, which upheld the _tapu_. Human eyes might be deceived, but the eyes of the gods could never be deceived.”[21.2] “The chiefs, as might be expected, are fully aware of the advantages of the _tapu_, finding that it confers on them, to a certain extent, the power of making laws, and the superstition on which the _tapu_ is founded will ensure the observance of them. Were they to transgress the _tapu_, they believe that the _attua_ (God) would kill them, and so universal is this belief that it is, or rather was, a very rare occurrence to find any one daring enough to commit the {22} sacrilege. To have preserved this influence so completely among a people naturally so shrewd and intelligent, great care must, no doubt, have been taken not to apply it unless in the usual and recognised manner. To have done otherwise would have led to its being frequently transgressed; and consequently to the loss of its influence. Before the natives came into contact with the Europeans the _tapu_ seems to have acted with the most complete success; as the belief was general, that any disregard of it would infallibly subject the offender to the anger of the _attua_, and death would be the consequence. Independently, however, of the support which the _tapu_ derives from the superstitious fears of these people, it has, like most other laws, an appeal to physical force in case of necessity. A delinquent, if discovered, would be stripped of everything he possessed; and if a slave, would in all probability be put to death--many instances of which have actually occurred. So powerful is this superstitious feeling, that slaves will not venture to eat of the same food as their master; or even to cook at the same fire; believing that the _attua_ would kill them if they did so. Everything about, or belonging to, a chief is accounted sacred by the slaves. Fond as they are of tobacco, it would be perfectly secure though left exposed on the roof of a chief’s house; no one would venture to touch it. To try them, a friend of mine gave a fig of tobacco to a slave; who, after having used it, was informed that it had been on the roof of the chief’s house. The poor fellow, in the greatest consternation, went immediately to the chief telling him what had happened, and beseeching him to take off the _tapu_ from the tobacco to prevent the evil consequences.”[22.1]

[Sidenote: Taboo as a preserver of property.] Hence it has been truly said that “this form of _tapu_ was a great preserver of property. The most valuable articles might, in ordinary circumstances, be left to its protection, in the absence of the owners, for any length of time.”[22.2] If any one wished to preserve his crop, his house, his garments, or anything else, he had only to taboo the property, and it was safe. To shew that the thing was tabooed, he put a mark {23} to it. Thus, if he wished to use a particular tree in the forest to make a canoe, he tied a wisp of grass to the trunk; if he desired to appropriate a patch of bulrush in a swamp, he stuck up a pole in it with a bunch of grass at the top; if he left his house with all its valuables, to take care of itself, he secured the door with a bit of flax, and the place straightway became inviolable, nobody would meddle with it.[23.1]

Hence although the restrictions imposed by taboo were often vexatious and absurd, and the whole system has sometimes been denounced by Europeans as a degrading superstition, yet observers who looked a little deeper have rightly perceived that its enactments, enforced mainly by imaginary but still powerful sanctions, were often beneficial. “The New Zealanders,” says one writer, “could not have been governed without some code of laws analogous to the _tapu_. Warriors submitted to the supposed decrees of the gods who would have spurned with contempt the orders of men, and it was better the people should be ruled by superstition than by brute force.”[23.2] Again, an experienced missionary, who knew the Maoris well, writes that “the _tapu_ in many instances was beneficial; considering the state of society, absence of law, and fierce character of the people, it formed no bad substitute for a dictatorial form of government, and made the nearest approach to an organized state of society.”[23.3]

[Sidenote: Taboo in the Marquesas Islands.] In other parts of Polynesia the system of taboo with its attendant advantages and disadvantages, its uses and abuses, was practically the same, and everywhere, as in New Zealand, it tightened for good or evil the ties of private property. This indeed was perhaps the most obvious effect of the institution. In the Marquesas Islands, it is said, taboo was invested with a divine character as the expression of the will of the gods revealed to the priests; as such it set bounds to injurious excesses, prevented depredations, and united the people. Especially it converted the tabooed or privileged classes into landed proprietors; the land belonged to them alone and to their heirs; common {24} folk lived by industry and by fishing. Taboo was the bulwark of the landowners; it was that alone which elevated them by a sort of divine right into a position of affluence and luxury above the vulgar; it was that alone which ensured their safety and protected them from the encroachments of their poor and envious neighbours. “Without doubt,” say the writers from whom I borrow these observations, “the first mission of taboo was to establish property, the base of all society.”[24.1]

[Sidenote: Superstitious fear as a preserver of property in Samoa.] In Samoa also superstition played a great part in fostering a respect for private property. That it did so, we have the testimony of a missionary, Dr. George Turner, who lived for many years among the Samoans and has given us a very valuable account of their customs. He says: “I hasten to notice the second thing which I have already remarked was an auxiliary towards the maintenance of peace and order in Samoa, viz. _superstitious fear_. If the chief and heads of families, in their court of inquiry into any case of stealing, or other concealed matter, had a difficulty in finding out the culprit, they would make all involved swear that they were innocent. In swearing before the chiefs the suspected parties laid a handful of grass on the stone, or whatever it was, which was supposed to be the representative of the village god, and laying their hand on it, would say, ‘In the presence of our chiefs now assembled, I lay my hand on the stone. If I stole the thing may I speedily die.’ This was a common mode of swearing. The meaning of the grass was a silent additional imprecation that his family might all die, and that _grass_ might grow over their habitation. If all swore, and the culprit was still undiscovered, the chiefs then wound up the affair by committing the case to the village god, and solemnly invoking him to mark out for speedy destruction the guilty {25} mischief-maker. But, instead of appealing to the chiefs, and calling for an oath, many were contented with their own individual schemes and imprecations to frighten thieves and prevent stealing. When a man went to his plantation and saw that some cocoa-nuts, or a bunch of bananas, had been stolen, he would stand and shout at the top of his voice two or three times, ‘May fire blast the eyes of the person who has stolen my bananas! May fire burn down his eyes and the eyes of his god too!’ This rang throughout the adjacent plantations, and made the thief tremble. They dreaded such uttered imprecations.… But there was another and more extensive class of curses, which were also feared, and formed a powerful check on stealing, especially from plantations and fruit trees, viz. the silent hieroglyphic taboo, or _tapui_ (_tapooe_), as they call it. Of this there was a great variety.”[25.1]

[Sidenote: Samoan taboos.] Among the Samoan taboos which were employed for the protection of property were the following:--1. _The sea-pike taboo_. To prevent his bread-fruits from being stolen a man would plait some coco-nut leaflets in the form of a sea-pike and hang one or more such effigies from the trees which he wished to protect. Any ordinary thief would be afraid to touch a tree thus guarded, for he believed that if he stole the fruit a sea-pike would mortally wound him the next time he went to sea. 2. _The white-shark taboo_. A man would plait a coco-nut leaf in the shape of a shark and hang it on a tree. This was equivalent to an imprecation that the thief might be devoured by a shark the next time he went to fish. 3. _The cross-stick taboo_. This was a stick hung horizontally on the tree. It expressed a wish that whoever stole fruit from the tree might be afflicted with a sore running right across his body till he died. 4. _The ulcer taboo_. This was made by burying some pieces of clam-shell in the ground and setting up at the spot several reeds tied together at the top in a bunch like the head of a man. By this the owner signified his wish that the thief might be laid low with ulcerous sores all over his body. If the thief happened thereafter to be troubled with swellings or sores, he confessed his fault and sent a present to the {26} owner of the land, who in return sent to the culprit a herb both as a medicine and as a pledge of forgiveness. 5. _The thunder taboo_. A man would plait coco-nut leaflets in the form of a small square mat and suspend it from a tree, adding some white streamers of native cloth. A thief believed that for trespassing on such a tree he or his children might be struck by lightning, or perhaps that lightning might strike and blast his own trees. “From these few illustrations,” says Dr. Turner in conclusion, “it will be observed that Samoa formed no exception to the remarkably widespread system of superstitious taboo; and the extent to which it preserved honesty and order among a heathen people will be readily imagined.”[26.1]

[Sidenote: Taboo in Tonga.] In Tonga a man guilty of theft or of any other crime was said to have broken the taboo, and as such persons were supposed to be particularly liable to be bitten by sharks, all on whom suspicion fell were compelled to go into water frequented by sharks; if they were bitten or devoured, they were guilty; if they escaped, they were innocent.[26.2]