Chapter II: Tabooed Days After a Death and on Related Occasions

Among the lower races perhaps the most common occasion for the suspension of ordinary occupations is after a death.[137] The prohibition of work at this time usually forms only one of a number of regulations, which also impose partial or complete abstinence from food and place a ban on loud talking, singing, and the wearing of ornaments and gay clothing. The taboos are often confined to the family or at most to the relatives of the deceased; in other cases they affect the entire community. The explanation of these rules must sometimes be sought in animistic conceptions. The soul of the dead man is supposed to remain for a time with the body in the grave or near the scenes of the earthly life. Until the funeral ceremonies are completed, when the ghost is finally “laid” or departs for the abode of the dead, prudence requires the survivors to avoid all conspicuous activity, if they would not attract the unwelcome attentions of the ghost. A similar period of quiescence may be considered necessary when the death is attributed to an evil spirit, which lurks about its quarry and seeks another victim.

But earlier, probably, in development, and certainly far more general, is the belief in the pollution of death.[138] Primitive peoples seldom recognize a death as due to what we should call natural causes. Sickness, and death following on sickness, when not attributed to the direct action of an evil spirit or of some malevolent person who has been practising nefarious magic, are thought to be due to the contaminating miasma of death. Death is a mysterious atmospherical poison which extends its defiling influence far and wide. Hence we have at least one motive for the very common custom of destroying the house and personal property of the deceased. Hence arise the taboos of the corpse, of persons who have anything to do with the corpse, of the relatives of the deceased, and of mourners, generally. An obvious application of such ideas requires that all activities should be abandoned by the survivors for some time after a death; and, where the sense of social solidarity is strong, the notion of abstinence at so critical a season may be extended to the entire community.[139]

Communal taboos following a death are not unknown in Polynesia, Micronesia, and New Guinea,[140] and may be traced elsewhere in the Oceanic area. In Timor, when a king dies, no work is done for seven days thereafter.[141] In Halmahera an entire village will be tabooed in consequence of the death of one of its members. Violations of the taboo (_pomali_) are severely punished.[142] The practice of intermitting work in a village until a corpse is buried prevails in many of the Molucca Islands.[143] Among all the non-Christian tribes of northern Luzon, “there is no field work in an _ato_ on the day when an adult person is buried.”[144] The inhabitants of Kar Nicobar exhibit great fear of ghostly influence before the funeral ceremonies have been completed. The corpse of any one who has died in the village is conveyed at once to the “dead house,” and the inhabitants proceed to barricade themselves in their houses and to keep fires burning before the doors. The houses, canoes, and ground about the village are covered with palm leaves to prevent the ghost from entering. Some of the dead man’s pigs are killed, a few cocoa palms are cut down, and on rare occasions his house is burnt, or unroofed and left deserted. “Shaving the head is sometimes indulged in as a sign of mourning, together with frequent bathing and abstinence from work.”[145] The Malay fishermen of the Patani States in the Malay Peninsula observe various restrictions and prohibitions, the transgression of which would bring sickness or misfortune. If a death occurs in a fishing village, no boat from that village must go to sea on the following day, and no one must set out on a land journey. The fisherman or the traveller who disregarded this injunction would have no luck and would probably meet with some disaster.[146]

Periods of abstinence after a death are observed by many of the tribes of Borneo, in close connection with the prevailing institution of taboo. When a death occurs in an Iban village, the inhabitants give up their outdoor occupations and remain at home, seven days in the case of a male, three days for a female, and one day for an infant. During this time the relatives of the deceased lay aside their ornaments and bright dresses, assume deep mourning, and abstain from music and jollity.[147] Another authority declares that after a death “it is tabooed to work on the farm: at busy times for three days; at other times for seven days.”[148] In the case of a chief’s death the natives refrain from work for a longer period than is usual when a commoner dies.[149] Similar restrictions are found among the Land Dyak,[150] the Dusun, or Sundyak, of British North Borneo,[151] and some other tribes. Members of a Kayan household observe various mourning ceremonies, and in particular avoid all music, feasts, and jollifications for a period which varies in length according to the social standing of the deceased.[152]

Among the Naga tribes of Manipur, with the notable exception of the Mao people by whom a village _genna_ is held whenever a villager dies, it is not necessary or usual to perform this communal rite in cases of regular and non-mysterious death. The _genna_ is then confined to the clan, that is, to the group of individuals who comprise the heirs of the deceased.[153] But all cases of death by sudden illness, by accident, by the hand of an enemy, and by wild animals or snakes necessitate general or village _genna_.[154] The same rule prevails when a woman has died in childbirth.[155] The purpose of these regulations seems to be that of separating the living as soon as possible from the dangerous spirits of the dead, or of avoiding the contagion of death. Among the Khasi of Assam, who do not observe general seasons of restriction, clan _genna_ are imposed after a death. The surviving clansmen are not allowed to work until three days have elapsed from the time of placing the bones of the deceased in the clan tomb.[156] In northern Arakan, Lower Burma, when any native has been killed by a tiger, crocodile, or other animal, when any woman resident in the village dies in childbed, or when the body of a person who died in such a manner is brought into the village, all intercourse with that village is cut off until the appearance of the next new moon.[157] Similar regulations exist among the Lao of northern Siam and among the savage inhabitants of Indo-China.[158]

Taboos following a death and imposing abstinence from work are found in various parts of India. Among the Muppan, a hill-tribe of Wynaad, Malabar, the relatives of the deceased do no work on the day after the funeral, and also partially abstain from food. At a subsequent date they perform a final ceremony to remove every trace of the death pollution and to give peace to the departed spirit.[159] In former times the Kataharayan, a fisher folk living on the Malabar coast, intermitted their fishing for three days after the death of a prince of Malabar.[160] Among the Kasuba, a forest tribe inhabiting the Nilgiri Hills in the Madras Presidency, fear of pollution requires the relatives of the deceased to abstain from all kinds of work for an entire day.[161] Far away to the north, among the Paharia of British Sikkim, the same ideas of pollution prevail. All persons belonging to the household of the deceased must observe strict silence during the period of mourning, and they may eat only one meal a day and that “half a bellyful.” Under such circumstances, we are told, work in the fields is impossible.[162] With these regulations may be compared those observed in Tibet, where rich and respectable men, when their parents die, abstain for a year from participating in marriage ceremonies and festivities, and undertake no lengthy journeys. Upon the demise of the Dalai Lama or of the Tashi Lama, all work ceases for seven days, public offices are closed, and markets are suspended. The people refrain from amusements and festivities and from going into groves for pleasure, sport, and love-making. For thirty days women are forbidden to put on their jewellery, and neither men nor women may wear new clothes. Thus the land of Tibet goes into mourning for the loss of one of its great hierarchs.[163]

Very similar customs are found within the African area. They seem to be generally observed by the Bantu peoples of South Africa. Among all the Zulu tribes it is the rule that no one labours in the fields on the day following a death, and that after the death of a chief work of every sort is suspended for six months.[164] “If a person is struck by lightning, the whole kraal fast and do not even drink water, until the mediciner has performed his office.”[165] The Basuto, who form the eastern branch of the widespread Bechuana people, abstain from all public work on the day when an influential person dies.[166] In Ussindja, a district of German East Africa, the Sultan Rwoma gave vent to his sorrow for the loss of a favourite son by forbidding all agricultural work for six years. Within a few months, however, famine stared his subjects in the face, and the grief-stricken father was compelled to rescind the prohibition.[167] Mourning regulations which impose abstinence from work have been described among various tribes of British East Africa occupying the territory to the east and north of Lake Victoria Nyanza. The Akikuyu, who observe many restrictions connected with the corpse, regard the day after a death as unlucky. “People will not travel, and goats and sheep will not bear, and all the inhabitants of the village shave their heads. The women will not go out for four days. On the next day the sons who have taken part in the burial do not work.”[168] The taboos enforced by the Nandi present some curious resemblances to those which we have met among Indonesian peoples. The Nandi, probably in former days a hunting tribe, have now taken to agriculture and raise large crops of eleusine grain and millet. Their superstitions invest the process of farming with many restrictions: no one while in a plantation may carry a spear or rest a spear on the earth; thigh-bells must not be worn; a hide must not be dragged along the ground; whistling is strictly forbidden. Work is prohibited for an entire day following an earthquake, a phenomenon which Nandi speculation, in common with other savage philosophies, attributes to the movement of underground spirits.[169] If a hailstorm occurs, if a hoe breaks, or if a beast of prey seizes a goat, no work must be done in the fields for the rest of the day and for twenty-four hours afterwards. It is believed that any sick person who eats the grain when harvested, or who drinks beer made from the grain, will die, and that pregnant women will abort. If the owner of a plantation dies while his crops are ripening, all the grain must be eaten and none reserved for sowing; otherwise the grain will rot in the ground.[170] The Nilotic Kavirondo do not cultivate their fields for three days after the death of any one of importance, and for ten days after the death of a chief.[171] Their neighbours, the Basoga, sometimes extended the days of mourning for a deceased chief to two months. It is said that the crops not infrequently suffered because of the strict abstention from work in the fields.[172] Certain Abyssinian tribes refrain from ploughing, sowing, and grinding grain until a corpse is buried.[173] Among the Arabs of Morocco, studied by Professor Westermarck, there is a prohibition of all work in the village until the funeral has taken place.[174]

The belief in the pollution of death is very strong among the Malagasy. On the decease of a sovereign many practices are tabooed (_fady_) to the common people, such prohibitions extending to various periods according to the will of the new ruler. Thus, to sing, to play music, to clap hands, to laugh boisterously, to dance, to wear ornaments or brightly coloured garments, to dress or anoint the hair, to wear a hat, to cut the nails, to clean the teeth, to bathe, to gaze in a mirror, and to carry the arms akimbo are all _fady_. Such tasks as pottery-making, spinning and weaving, plaiting of mats, carpentry, and metal-working are often suspended. Furthermore, no, one is allowed to lie on a bedstead or to ride in a palanquin or on horse-back, and every one is expected to shave the head and uncover the shoulders. Many of these regulations, it is to be noticed, are also enforced after the death of a near relative.[175]

In the New World the funeral ceremonies of the rulers of Mechoacan furnish another illustration of the superstition under discussion. We are told that when a king was buried all who had participated in the obsequies washed themselves and went to dinner in the yard of the king’s house, “and having dined they wiped their hands upon certain locks of cotton-wool, hanging down their heads, and not speaking a word, except it were to ask for drink.” These purificatory rites were accompanied by a season of communal abstinence which lasted five days, “and in all that time no fire was permitted to be kindled in the city, except in the king’s house and temples, nor yet any corn was ground, or market kept, nor durst any go out of their houses.”[176] Among the Seminoles of Florida on the day of a funeral, and for three days thereafter, the relatives of the deceased remained at home and abstained from work. During this time the dead man was supposed to remain in his grave. Subsequently he took his departure for an abode in the skies, and mourning then ceased.[177]

The restrictions following a death appear to be especially prominent among the Eskimo tribes, who possess a well-marked system of taboos. In Greenland we meet the practice of requiring not only the kindred of the deceased, but likewise all who have lived in the same house with him to abstain from certain articles of food and from work for some time after death.[178] Among the Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Strait after the death of any person it is forbidden “to scrape the frost from the window, to shake the beds or to disturb the shrubs under the bed, to remove oil-drippings from under the lamp, to scrape hair from skins, to cut snow for the purpose of melting it, to work on iron, wood, stone, or ivory. Furthermore, women are forbidden to comb their hair, to wash their faces, and to dry their boots and stockings.”[179] These Eskimo require the relatives of the deceased to shut themselves up in his hut and mourn his loss for three days. During this time the inhabitants of a village must not use their dogs, but must walk to the hunting-ground. For one day at least they are not allowed to go hunting, and the women refrain from all work whatsoever. Dr. Boas notes how in the winter a long space of bad weather occasions privation, since hunters cannot leave their huts. “If by chance some one should happen to die during this time, famine is inevitable, for a strict law forbids the performance of any kind of work during the days of mourning.” During these three days the soul of the deceased is supposed to be still with the body, not having yet gone to the home of the goddess Sedna in the underworld.[180] According to one account the Innuit, from the head of Bristol Bay to the Arctic, require the survivors to refrain from work for twenty days after a death in the family.[181] This is probably too broad a statement and does not allow for minor divergencies of custom throughout so extensive an area. On the lower Kuskokwim River the Alaskan villagers abstain from work on the day of a death, and, in many instances, on the day following such an event. None of the relatives of the deceased may perform any labour during the period, four or five days in length, when the shade is believed to remain with the body.[182] The rule requiring no work in a village on the day when a person dies prevails among the Bering Strait Eskimo. Relatives of the deceased must abstain from activity during the three following days.[183] One observer tells of a Point Barrow woman who declined to sew on clothing, even at his house, because there was a dead man in the village who had not yet been carried to the cemetery. She feared that “he would see her.” But after consultation with her husband she concluded that it was possible to protect herself from “him” by tracing with a snow-knife a circle about herself on the floor. Within this area she did the sewing required, being very careful to keep all her work inside it.[184]

Remarkably similar customs prevail among some of the Asiatic Eskimo, and incidentally reinforce the argument for the transmission of cultural elements between northwestern America and northeastern Asia. The Reindeer Chukchi forbid any kind of woman’s work with needle and scraper during the period of the funeral ceremonies. This rule refers to all the houses of the camp or village, and even to other settlements in the vicinity.[185] The Koryak stopped all work in the settlement before the last rites to the dead. No one went hunting or sealing, no one went to fetch wood, and the women did no sewing. At the present time this rule is so far abrogated as to apply only to those in the house where the body lies.[186] Among the Yakut, when a man dies, the members of his household may not execute any work until after the next full moon.[187]

Taboos of this nature are not confined to savage and barbarous communities, since the fear of the death pollution has been felt by various civilized peoples and has found expression in their funeral ceremonies. Thus, we learn that in Rabbinical times and among some modern Jews, during the _shib‘a_, or seven days of strict mourning, “the relatives abstain from work and remain at home, sitting on the floor or on a low bench, reading the _Book of Job_, and receiving visits of condolence. Bereaved children should abstain for a year from music and recreation.”[188] Outcroppings of the same belief occasionally manifest themselves among the folk of Europe. German peasants abstain from all work, except what is absolutely necessary, before the funeral,[189] and the Scotch think that “it is not right to spin if there be a corpse in the same township.”[190] This latter instance furnishes a close parallel to the Eskimo superstition.

Feasts of the dead, the primitive All Souls’ days, are sometimes occasions for abstinence from work. The same custom may be observed at times devoted to the public and ceremonial expulsion of ghosts and demons from the community.[191] Here, as elsewhere, we may well raise the query whether such proceedings have always existed with the particular meaning now assigned to them; or whether in many instances they may not hark back to a “pre-animistic” epoch when the evil influences, instead of being personified under the form of spirits, were more vaguely regarded as some mysterious and infectious contamination.

Rites for commemorating kindly spirits or for expelling those of evil intent were doubtless first performed at irregular intervals, as the supposed need for them arose. They tend, however, to be massed and assigned to particular times, thus meeting a demand for order and precision. Their celebration usually takes place at a period which coincides with well-marked changes of the seasons, or with one of the great epochs of the agricultural year, as sowing or harvest. They have a particular and appropriate association with the end of the old year or with the beginning of the new year, a time which, by many primitive peoples, is itself fixed with reference to seasonal changes or to agricultural operations.

Ceremonies of ghost-riddance and demon-riddance, accompanied by communal abstinence, have already been noted in Polynesia, Indonesia, and southeastern Asia.[192] They are not unknown in Africa. The Basuto, who do no work on the day when an influential man dies, also observe as holidays the times of sacrifice or of great purification. “Hence it is,” writes a French missionary, “that the law relative to the repose of the seventh day, so far from finding any objection in the minds of the natives, appears to them very natural, and perhaps even more fundamental, than it seems to certain Christians.”[193] The Bahima, a Bantu-speaking tribe of Ankole, a district which lies immediately to the west of Lake Victoria Nyanza, set apart one day each month for festival purposes. It is then that the Bahima seek to appease certain ghastly, shrivelled demons who, though they expend most of their fury on one another, frequent the kraals and occasionally take a native by the arm and shake him mercilessly. These demons are called _balubale_. Their placation is said to consist chiefly of drum-beating and beer-drinking. “There is no work on _balubale_ day.”[194] On the next-to-the-last day of the year the Swaheli of German East Africa observe an ancient custom, which probably antedates Mohammedan influence in this part of Africa. They parch some millet and pour it, together with ashes, on the corners of their houses as a prophylactic against the evil spirits supposed to be particularly troublesome at this time. Swaheli school-children enjoy a holiday on the last two days of the year and New Year’s Day.[195] The great national _fête_ of the _fandroana_, marking the commencement of the Malagasy year, occurs at the new moon of the month Alahamady, and the first days of this month are regarded as very unlucky for commoners, who therefore abstain from all activity.[196] We may conjecture that this festival, though traditionally established only about three centuries ago, in its present form incorporates observances connected with the new year as a critical season. Some of the Gold Coast tribes of west Africa hold a festival toward the end of August, called _affirah-bi_, when there is a general remembrance of the dead. No work may be done during this festival, which lasts eight days.[197] The Guinea negroes would seem also to perform annual rites for the expulsion of evil spirits. The ceremony of demon-riddance, formerly held at Cape Coast Castle, on the Gold Coast, was intended to drive the devil Abonsam out of the town by means of an unearthly uproar of shouts, screams, beating of sticks, rattling of pans, and firing of guns, in which all the inhabitants joined. “The custom is preceded by four weeks’ dead silence; no gun is allowed to be fired, no drum to be beaten, no palaver to be made between man and man. If, during these weeks, two natives should disagree and make a noise in the town, they are immediately taken before the king and fined heavily. If a dog or pig, sheep or goat be found at large in the street, it may be killed, or taken by any one, the former owner not being allowed to demand any compensation. This silence is designed to deceive Abonsam, that, being off his guard, he may be taken by surprise and frightened out of the place. If any one die during the silence, his relatives are not allowed to weep until the four weeks have been completed.”[198]

The Yoruba tribes of the Slave Coast celebrate every June an All Souls’ festival lasting seven days. It resembles the _affirah-bi_ rites, but the ceremony is held in honour of Egungun, who is supposed to have risen from the dead and after whom a powerful secret society has been named.[199] Since in west Africa, as in some other parts of the world, secret societies are intimately related to the cult of the dead,[200] it may be that the tabooed days, observed when these organizations hold their ceremonies, were once connected with feasts of the dead or expulsion of ghosts. The belief may also exist that the god of the secret society affects with his holiness the day of his public appearance, and so makes it unfit for business. However, the taboos seem now to be maintained chiefly as a means of securing the respectful attention of non-initiates, particularly women. The presence in Yoruba towns of the bugbear god Oro compels women to seclude themselves from seven o’clock in the evening until five o’clock in the morning.[201] On the great feast days of Oro women must remain indoors from daybreak till noon.[202] A native writer points out that these Oro confinements, as they may be called, are declared in times of political crisis, when a new law or other measure of importance is under consideration, and whenever a sacrifice is offered in behalf of the community. The streets are then cleared of all unseemly traffic and of women, in order to permit the god and his followers to appear abroad without danger of contamination.[203] Again, in Old Calabar, when the great _egbo_ society visits a community, all business is suspended, all doors are shut, and absolute silence prevails. On the departure of the god and his attendant mummers, the town-bell is rung in a peculiar way to indicate that normal occupations may be now resumed. The cessation of business on the occasion of these visits of _egbo_ may last a day, but frequently extends to two or three days. In the latter case, however, the strict rule of seclusion is relaxed for an hour or more to permit the holding of the daily market.[204] During an _egbo_ visitation it would be death for any one not a member of the order to venture forth; even members themselves, if their grade is lower than that which controls the proceedings for the day, would be severely whipped.[205]

The festivals of the dead, observed in classical antiquity, were marked by taboos. Among the Greeks the rites took place on the so-called ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι, unlucky days accompanied by complete idleness and cessation of business. “At such times no one would address any one else, friends avoided all intercourse with one another, and even sanctuaries were not used.”[206] Ancient authorities also refer to these days as times when magistrates suspended their functions, when courts were closed, when sacrifices were not offered and oracular responses were not delivered, and when people refrained from any business which it was hoped would have a prosperous outcome.[207] At Athens the festival of the Genesia, an annual commemoration of the dead, occurred on the fifth of Boëdromion, a day which was included among the ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι.[208] Three more unlucky days were the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth of Anthesterion, when the Athenians celebrated the festival of the Anthesteria. Though in outward semblance only a brilliant ceremony in honour of Dionysus, the Anthesteria had also a sombre significance as the time when the shades of the dead issued from the underworld and walked the streets.[209] Ropes were fastened round the temples to keep out the wandering ghosts, and the people smeared their houses with pitch to catch any rash intruders into the dwellings of living men. For the entertainment of the unseen guests during their short stay pots of boiled food were everywhere placed in the streets; but at the end of the festival the souls were roughly bidden to depart. The Anthesteria, in substance, thus formed one of those numerous ceremonies for the riddance of ghosts by means of feasting and placation which have so wide a diffusion in the lower culture.[210]

Corresponding to the Greek ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι were the Roman _dies religiosi_, true days of abstinence, when it was unlucky to begin a journey or to undertake any important business. During their continuance temples and law courts were, or ought to be, closed, magistrates laid aside the insignia of office, armies did not march, and no marriages took place.[211] Among the _dies religiosi_ were those on which the Romans celebrated two festivals of the dead, the so-called Parentalia in February, the last month of the old Roman year, and the Lemuria in May. The February celebration, from the thirteenth to the twenty-first of that month, has been taken to embody all that was least superstitious and fearful in the generally terrifying worship of the dead. The Lemuria (May 9, 11, 13), had rather an opposite character and probably represents the more ancient rite for the expulsion of the ghosts of the dead.[212] The three days in the Roman year, August 24, October 5, and November 8, when the door of the Lower World was unclosed for the spirits of the dead to come forth—_quibus mundus patet_—were also _religiosi_, or unlucky. “When the _mundus_ is open,” said Varro, “the gate of the doleful underworld gods is open; therefore, it is not proper on those days for a battle to be fought, troops to be levied, the army to march forth, a ship to set sail, or a man to marry.”[213]

To the Hebrews the Day of Atonement was a _shabbāth shabbāthôn_,[214] the holiest of rest days, “a Sabbath of solemn rest,” when “no manner of work” might be performed. The transgressor of this regulation was threatened with death: “Whoever doeth any work at all on that same day, I will destroy from among his people.”[215] A similar punishment was prescribed for one who did not fast on that day; the expression “to afflict your souls” (_‘innā nephesh_) was considered by late theologians to be a synonym for fasting, and as a matter of fact the Atonement fast was the only one enjoined by the Law. On the Day of Atonement a goat, laden with the sins of the people, was sent forth into the wilderness, where it was sacrificed to Azazel, a bad angel or demon. In the later centuries of Jewish history this rite took on a more spiritual character, as the ceremonial aspects of sin and atonement became increasingly prominent.

The Day of Atonement has been usually considered a very late institution, unknown in the time of Zechariah and even in the age of Nehemiah not employed for the special purpose of a national humiliation. What seems more probable is that the Day of Atonement was taken over and adopted into the Priestly Code of post-Exilic Judaism from a popular and primitive ceremony of sin-riddance, doubtless of high antiquity. It is to be observed that the fast was held on the tenth day of the seventh month, a day which appears to have marked, originally, the beginning of the new year.[216] This would have been an appropriate time for an annual ceremony of purification, since the new year is so frequently observed with ceremonies of a cathartic or apotropaic character. Even in late Old Testament ritual, New Year’s Day, celebrated as the Feast of Trumpets on the first day of the seventh month, was also a _shabbāth shabbāthôn_, a time of “solemn rest” and of “holy convocation.” No toilsome work might then be performed; trumpets were to be blown, perhaps to indicate its solemnity, and special sacrifices were to be offered.[217] Moreover, certain features of the Atonement ceremony, especially that of the sin-laden goat, which has so many parallels among the lower races,[218] strengthen the probability that the ritual for the day represents an elaboration of earlier and simpler customs familiar in pre-Exilic times. If this be true, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the “Sabbath of solemn rest” forms likewise a survival from a still ruder past, when sin was conceived so materially as a contaminating influence that common prudence dictated abstinence from work and other activities at a critical season devoted to the driving-out of evil.[219]

Ideas of this sort live long in the minds of men. The greatest of Mohammedan festivals, the so-called Feast of Sacrifices, is now celebrated as a means of securing moral purification and blessing. But the ceremony rests on a heathen basis, and its principal feature, an animal sacrifice, was borrowed by Islam from Arabian paganism. An eminent authority, who has noticed the striking prevalence of cathartic ceremonies at the Great Feast, suggests that its primary object may have been to expel evils which were supposed to threaten the people at the time of the year when the sacrifice occurred. “Throughout Morocco the first day of the feast is kept as a holiday, both by men and women, and so is generally the second day also, which in some places is regarded as a particularly dangerous time. I am told that anybody who should work on that day would have some grave misfortune—robbers would kill him at night, or some of his children or animals would die, or he would be struck with blindness—and travelling on that day is likewise supposed to be accompanied with danger. But labour is also suspended on other days of the feast, especially by the women.”[220]

The evidence presented in this chapter raises once more the perplexing and much-debated problem of the diffusion of culture. The custom of keeping tabooed days after a death may be properly described as world-wide, since it exists in all the continents. And the observance as Sabbaths of periods devoted to the propitiation or expulsion of spirits, though less common, has been also traced among many half-civilized tribes of Oceania, Asia, and Africa, as well as in classic Greece and Rome. Within contiguous areas, for example, in Borneo and the adjoining islands, or among related peoples, such as the American and Asiatic Eskimo, it is reasonable to ascribe the uniformity of custom to long-continued borrowing. Again, the close resemblance between the Greek and the Roman superstitions relating to unlucky days—the ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι and the _dies religiosi_—is satisfactorily accounted for by the hypothesis of a common inheritance from prehistoric antiquity. But where tabooed days are observed for the same reasons by unrelated peoples, who, as far as our knowledge reaches, have never been in cultural contact, the student is obliged to conclude that the beliefs underlying the custom in question have not been narrowly limited but belong to the general stock of primitive ideas. In such cases the doctrine of the fundamental unity of the human mind seems alone to be capable of explaining the astonishing similarity of its products at different times and in different parts of the world.