Chapter IV: Tabooed Persons (3)

(M112) Among the Natchez of North America young braves who had taken their first scalps were obliged to observe certain rules of abstinence for six months. They might not sleep with their wives nor eat flesh; their only food was fish and hasty-pudding. If they broke these rules, they believed that the soul of the man they had killed would work their death by magic, that they would gain no more successes over the enemy, and that the least wound inflicted on them would prove mortal.(610) When a Choctaw had killed an enemy and taken his scalp, he went into mourning for a month, during which he might not comb his hair, and if his head itched he might not scratch it except with a little stick which he wore fastened to his wrist for the purpose.(611) This ceremonial mourning for the enemies they had slain was not uncommon among the North American Indians. Thus the Dacotas, when they had killed a foe, unbraided their hair, blackened themselves all over, and wore a small knot of swan’s down on the top of the head. “They dress as mourners yet rejoice.”(612) A Thompson River Indian of British Columbia, who had slain an enemy, used to blacken his own face, lest his victim’s ghost should blind him.(613) When the Osages have mourned over their own dead, “they will mourn for the foe just as if he was a friend.”(614) From observing the great respect paid by the Indians to the scalps they had taken, and listening to the mournful songs which they howled to the shades of their victims, Catlin was convinced that “they have a superstitious dread of the spirits of their slain enemies, and many conciliatory offices to perform, to ensure their own peace.”(615) When a Pima Indian has killed an Apache, he must undergo purification. Sixteen days he fasts, and only after the fourth day is he allowed to drink a little pinole. During the whole time he may not touch meat nor salt, nor look on a blazing fire, nor speak to a human being. He lives alone in the woods, waited on by an old woman, who brings him his scanty dole of food. He bathes often in a river, and keeps his head covered almost the whole time with a plaster of mud. On the seventeenth day a large space is cleared near the village and a fire lit in the middle of it. The men of the tribe form a circle round the fire, and outside of it sit all the warriors who have just been purified, each in a small excavation. Some of the old men then take the weapons of the purified and dance with them in the circle, after which both the slayer and his weapon are considered clean; but not until four days later is the man allowed to return to his family.(616) No doubt the peace enforced by the government of the United States has, along with tribal warfare, abolished also these quaint customs. A fuller account of them has been given by a recent writer, and it deserves to be quoted at length. “There was no law among the Pimas,” he says, “observed with greater strictness than that which required purification and expiation for the deed that was at the same time the most lauded—the killing of an enemy. For sixteen days the warrior fasted in seclusion and observed meanwhile a number of tabus.... Attended by an old man, the warrior who had to expiate the crime of blood guilt retired to the groves along the river bottom at some distance from the villages or wandered about the adjoining hills. During the period of sixteen days he was not allowed to touch his head with his fingers or his hair would turn white. If he touched his face it would become wrinkled. He kept a stick to scratch his head with, and at the end of every four days this stick was buried at the root and on the west side of a cat’s claw tree and a new stick was made of greasewood, arrow bush, or any other convenient shrub. He then bathed in the river, no matter how cold the temperature. The feast of victory which his friends were observing in the meantime at the village lasted eight days. At the end of that time, or when his period of retirement was half-completed, the warrior might go to his home to get a fetish made from the hair of the Apache whom he had killed. The hair was wrapped in eagle down and tied with a cotton string and kept in a long medicine basket. He drank no water for the first two days and fasted for the first four. After that time he was supplied with pinole by his attendant, who also instructed him as to his future conduct, telling him that he must henceforth stand back until all others were served when partaking of food and drink. If he was a married man his wife was not allowed to eat salt during his retirement, else she would suffer from the owl disease which causes stiff limbs. The explanation offered for the observance of this law of lustration is that if it is not obeyed the warrior’s limbs will become stiffened or paralyzed.”(617) The Apaches, the enemies of the Pimas, purify themselves for the slaughter of their foes by means of baths in the sweat-house, singing, and other rites. These ceremonies they perform for all the dead simultaneously after their return home; but the Pimas, more punctilious on this point, resort to their elaborate ceremonies of purification the moment a single one of their own band or of the enemy has been laid low.(618) How heavily these religious scruples must have told against the Pimas in their wars with their ferocious enemies is obvious enough. “This long period of retirement immediately after a battle,” says an American writer, “greatly diminished the value of the Pimas as scouts and allies for the United States troops operating against the Apaches. The bravery of the Pimas was praised by all army officers having any experience with them, but Captain Bourke and others have complained of their unreliability, due solely to their rigid observance of this religious law.”(619) In nothing, perhaps, is the penalty which superstition sooner or later entails on its devotees more prompt and crushing than in the operations of war.

(M113) Far away from the torrid home of the Pima and Apaches, an old traveller witnessed ceremonies of the same sort practised near the Arctic Circle by some Indians who had surprised and brutally massacred an unoffending and helpless party of Esquimaux. His description is so interesting that I will quote it in full. “Among the various superstitious customs of those people, it is worth remarking, and ought to have been mentioned in its proper place, that immediately after my companions had killed the Esquimaux at the Copper River, they considered themselves in a state of uncleanness, which induced them to practise some very curious and unusual ceremonies. In the first place, all who were absolutely concerned in the murder were prohibited from cooking any kind of victuals, either for themselves or others. As luckily there were two in company who had not shed blood, they were employed always as cooks till we joined the women. This circumstance was exceedingly favourable on my side; for had there been no persons of the above description in company, that task, I was told, would have fallen on me; which would have been no less fatiguing and troublesome, than humiliating and vexatious. When the victuals were cooked, all the murderers took a kind of red earth, or oker, and painted all the space between the nose and chin, as well as the greater part of their cheeks, almost to the ears, before they would taste a bit, and would not drink out of any other dish, or smoke out of any other pipe, but their own; and none of the others seemed willing to drink or smoke out of theirs. We had no sooner joined the women, at our return from the expedition, than there seemed to be an universal spirit of emulation among them, vying who should first make a suit of ornaments for their husbands, which consisted of bracelets for the wrists, and a band for the forehead, composed of porcupine quills and moose-hair, curiously wrought on leather. The custom of painting the mouth and part of the cheeks before each meal, and drinking and smoking out of their own utensils, was strictly and invariably observed, till the winter began to set in; and during the whole of that time they would never kiss any of their wives or children. They refrained also from eating many parts of the deer and other animals, particularly the head, entrails, and blood; and during their uncleanness, their victuals were never sodden in water, but dried in the sun, eaten quite raw, or broiled, when a fire fit for the purpose could be procured. When the time arrived that was to put an end to these ceremonies, the men, without a female being present, made a fire at some distance from the tents, into which they threw all their ornaments, pipe-stems, and dishes, which were soon consumed to ashes; after which a feast was prepared, consisting of such articles as they had long been prohibited from eating; and when all was over, each man was at liberty to eat, drink, and smoke as he pleased; and also to kiss his wives and children at discretion, which they seemed to do with more raptures than I had ever known them do it either before or since.”(620)

(M114) Thus we see that warriors who have taken the life of a foe in battle are temporarily cut off from free intercourse with their fellows, and especially with their wives, and must undergo certain rites of purification before they are readmitted to society. Now if the purpose of their seclusion and of the expiatory rites which they have to perform is, as we have been led to believe, no other than to shake off, frighten, or appease the angry spirit of the slain man, we may safely conjecture that the similar purification of homicides and murderers, who have imbrued their hands in the blood of a fellow-tribesman, had at first the same significance, and that the idea of a moral or spiritual regeneration symbolised by the washing, the fasting, and so on, was merely a later interpretation put upon the old custom by men who had outgrown the primitive modes of thought in which the custom originated. The conjecture will be confirmed if we can shew that savages have actually imposed certain restrictions on the murderer of a fellow-tribesman from a definite fear that he is haunted by the ghost of his victim. This we can do with regard to the Omahas, a tribe of the Siouan stock in North America. Among these Indians the kinsmen of a murdered man had the right to put the murderer to death, but sometimes they waived their right in consideration of presents which they consented to accept. When the life of the murderer was spared, he had to observe certain stringent rules for a period which varied from two to four years. He must walk barefoot, and he might eat no warm food, nor raise his voice, nor look around. He was compelled to pull his robe about him and to have it tied at the neck even in hot weather; he might not let it hang loose or fly open. He might not move his hands about, but had to keep them close to his body. He might not comb his hair and it might not be blown about by the wind. When the tribe went out hunting, he was obliged to pitch his tent about a quarter of a mile from the rest of the people “lest the ghost of his victim should raise a high wind, which might cause damage.” Only one of his kindred was allowed to remain with him at his tent. No one wished to eat with him, for they said, “If we eat with him whom Wakanda hates Wakanda will hate us.” Sometimes he wandered at night crying and lamenting his offence. At the end of his long isolation the kinsmen of the murdered man heard his crying and said, “It is enough. Begone, and walk among the crowd. Put on moccasins and wear a good robe.”(621) Here the reason alleged for keeping the murderer at a considerable distance from the hunters gives the clue to all the other restrictions laid on him: he was haunted and therefore dangerous. The ancient Greeks believed that the soul of a man who had just been killed was wroth with his slayer and troubled him; wherefore it was needful even for the involuntary homicide to depart from his country for a year until the anger of the dead man had cooled down; nor might the slayer return until sacrifice had been offered and ceremonies of purification performed. If his victim chanced to be a foreigner, the homicide had to shun the native country of the dead man as well as his own.(622) The legend of the matricide Orestes, how he roamed from place to place pursued by the Furies of his murdered mother, and none would sit at meat with him, or take him in, till he had been purified,(623) reflects faithfully the real Greek dread of such as were still haunted by an angry ghost. When the turbulent people of Cynaetha, after perpetrating an atrocious massacre, sent an embassy to Sparta, every Arcadian town through which the envoys passed on their journey ordered them out of its walls at once; and the Mantineans, after the embassy had departed, even instituted a solemn purification of the city and its territory by carrying sacrificial victims round them both.(624)

(M115) Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia, men who have partaken of human flesh as a ceremonial rite are subject for a long time afterwards to many restrictions or taboos of the sort we have been dealing with. They may not touch their wives for a whole year; and during the same time they are forbidden to work or gamble. For four months they must live alone in their bedrooms, and when they are obliged to quit the house for a necessary purpose, they may not go out at the ordinary door, but must use only the secret door in the rear of the house. On such occasions each of them is attended by all the rest, carrying small sticks. They must all sit down together on a long log, then get up, then sit down again, repeating this three times before they are allowed to remain seated. Before they rise they must turn round four times. Then they go back to the house. Before entering they must raise their feet four times; with the fourth step they really pass the door, taking care to enter with the right foot foremost. In the doorway they turn four times and walk slowly into the house. They are not permitted to look back. During the four months of their seclusion each man in eating must use a spoon, dish, and kettle of his own, which are thrown away at the end of the period. Before he draws water from a bucket or a brook, he must dip his cup into it thrice; and he may not take more than four mouthfuls at one time. He must carry a wing-bone of an eagle and drink through it, for his lips may not touch the brim of his cup. Also he keeps a copper nail to scratch his head with, for were his own nails to touch his own skin they would drop off. For sixteen days after he has partaken of human flesh he may not eat any warm food, and for the whole of the four months he is forbidden to cool hot food by blowing on it with his breath. At the end of winter, when the season of ceremonies is over, he feigns to have forgotten the ordinary ways of men, and has to learn everything anew. The reason for these remarkable restrictions imposed on men who have eaten human flesh is not stated; but we may surmise that fear of the ghost of the man whose body was eaten has at least a good deal to do with them. We are confirmed in our conjecture by observing that though these cannibals sometimes content themselves with taking bites out of living people, the rules in question are especially obligatory on them after they have devoured a corpse. Moreover, the careful treatment of the bones of the victim points to the same conclusion; for during the four months of seclusion observed by the cannibals, the bones of the person on whom they feasted are kept alternately for four days at a time under rocks in the sea and in their bedrooms on the north side of the house, where the sun cannot shine on them. Finally the bones are taken out of the house, tied up, weighted with a stone, and thrown into deep water, “because it is believed that if they were buried they would come back and take their master’s soul.”(625) This seems to mean that if the bones of the victim were buried, his ghost would come back and fetch away the souls of the men who had eaten his body. The Gebars, a cannibal tribe in the north of New Guinea, are much afraid of the spirit of a slain man or woman. Among them persons who have partaken of human flesh for the first time reside for a month afterwards in a small hut and may not enter the dwelling-house.(626)

§ 6. Hunters and Fishers tabooed.

(M116) In savage society the hunter and the fisherman have often to observe rules of abstinence and to submit to ceremonies of purification of the same sort as those which are obligatory on the warrior and the manslayer; and though we cannot in all cases perceive the exact purpose which these rules and ceremonies are supposed to serve, we may with some probability assume that, just as the dread of the spirits of his enemies is the main motive for the seclusion and purification of the warrior who hopes to take or has already taken their lives, so the huntsman or fisherman who complies with similar customs is principally actuated by a fear of the spirits of the beasts, birds, or fish which he has killed or intends to kill. For the savage commonly conceives animals to be endowed with souls and intelligences like his own, and hence he naturally treats them with similar respect. Just as he attempts to appease the ghosts of the men he has slain, so he essays to propitiate the spirits of the animals he has killed. These ceremonies of propitiation will be described later on in this work;(627) here we have to deal, first, with the taboos observed by the hunter and the fisherman before or during the hunting and fishing seasons, and, second, with the ceremonies of purification which have to be practised by these men on returning with their booty from a successful chase.

(M117) While the savage respects, more or less, the souls of all animals, he treats with particular deference the spirits of such as are either especially useful to him or formidable on account of their size, strength, or ferocity. Accordingly the hunting and killing of these valuable or dangerous beasts are subject to more elaborate rules and ceremonies than the slaughter of comparatively useless and insignificant creatures. Thus the Indians of Nootka Sound prepared themselves for catching whales by observing a fast for a week, during which they ate very little, bathed in the water several times a day, sang, and rubbed their bodies, limbs, and faces with shells and bushes till they looked as if they had been severely torn with briars. They were likewise required to abstain from any commerce with their women for the like period, this last condition being considered indispensable to their success. A chief who failed to catch a whale has been known to attribute his failure to a breach of chastity on the part of his men.(628) It should be remarked that the conduct thus prescribed as a preparation for whaling is precisely that which in the same tribe of Indians was required of men about to go on the war-path.(629) Rules of the same sort are, or were formerly, observed by Malagasy whalers. For eight days before they went to sea the crew of a whaler used to fast, abstaining from women and liquor, and confessing their most secret faults to each other; and if any man was found to have sinned deeply he was forbidden to share in the expedition.(630) In the island of Kadiak, off the south coast of Alaska, whalers were reckoned unclean during the fishing season, and nobody would eat out of the same dish with them or even come near them. Yet we are told that great respect was paid to them, and that they were regarded as the purveyors of their country.(631) Though it is not expressly said it seems to be implied, and on the strength of analogy we may assume, that these Kadiak whalers had to remain chaste so long as the whaling season lasted. In the island of Mabuiag continence was imposed on the people both before they went to hunt the dugong and while the turtles were pairing. The turtle-season lasts during parts of October and November; and if at that time unmarried persons had sexual intercourse with each other, it was believed that when the canoe approached the floating turtle, the male would separate from the female and both would dive down in different directions.(632) So at Mowat in New Guinea men have no relation with women when the turtle are coupling, though there is considerable laxity of morals at other times.(633) Among the Motu of Port Moresby, in New Guinea, chastity is enjoined before fishing and wallaby-hunting; they believe that men who have been unchaste will be unable to catch the fish and the wallabies, which will turn round and jeer at their pursuers.(634) Among the tribes about the mouth of the Wanigela River in New Guinea the preparations for fishing turtle and dugong are most elaborate. They begin two months before the fishing. A headman is appointed who becomes holy. On his strict observance of the laws of the dugong net depends the success of the season. While the men of the village are making the nets, this sanctified leader lives entirely secluded from his family, and may only eat a roasted banana or two after the sun has gone down. Every evening at sundown he goes ashore and, stripping himself of all his ornaments, which he is never allowed to doff at other times, bathes near where the dugongs feed; as he does so he throws scraped coco-nut and scented herbs and gums into the water to charm the dugong.(635) Among the Roro-speaking tribes of British New Guinea the magician who performs ceremonies for the success of a wallaby hunt must abstain from intercourse with his wife for a month before the hunt takes place; and he may not eat food cooked by his wife or by any other woman.(636) In the island of Uap, one of the Caroline group, every fisherman plying his craft lies under a most strict taboo during the whole of the fishing season, which lasts for six or eight weeks. Whenever he is on shore he must spend all his time in the men’s clubhouse (_failu_), and under no pretext whatever may he visit his own house or so much as look upon the faces of his wife and womenkind. Were he but to steal a glance at them, they think that flying fish must inevitably bore out his eyes at night. If his wife, mother, or daughter brings any gift for him or wishes to talk with him, she must stand down towards the shore with her back turned to the men’s clubhouse. Then the fisherman may go out and speak to her, or with his back turned to her he may receive what she has brought him; after which he must return at once to his rigorous confinement. Indeed the fishermen may not even join in dance and song with the other men of the clubhouse in the evening; they must keep to themselves and be silent.(637) In the Pelew Islands, also, which belong to the Caroline group, fishermen are likewise debarred from intercourse with women, since it is believed that any such intercourse would infallibly have a prejudicial effect on the fishing. The same taboo is said to be observed in all the other islands of the South Sea.(638) In Mirzapur, when the seed of the silkworm is brought into the house, the Kol or Bhuiyar puts it in a place which has been carefully plastered with holy cow-dung to bring good luck. From that time the owner must be careful to avoid ceremonial impurity. He must give up cohabitation with his wife; he may not sleep on a bed, nor shave himself, nor cut his nails, nor anoint himself with oil, nor eat food cooked with butter, nor tell lies, nor do anything else that he deems wrong. He vows to Singarmati Devi that if the worms are duly born he will make her an offering. When the cocoons open and the worms appear, he assembles the women of the house and they sing the same song as at the birth of a baby, and red lead is smeared on the parting of the hair of all the married women of the neighbourhood. When the worms pair, rejoicings are made as at a marriage.(639) Thus the silkworms are treated as far as possible like human beings. Hence the custom which prohibits the commerce of the sexes while the worms are hatching may be only an extension, by analogy, of the rule which is observed by many races, that the husband may not cohabit with his wife during pregnancy and lactation.

(M118) On Lake Victoria Nyanza the Baganda fishermen use a long stout line which is supported on the surface of the water by wooden floats, while short lines with baited hooks attached to them depend from it at frequent intervals. The place where the fisherman makes his line, whether in his hut or his garden, is tabooed. People may not step over his cords or tools, and he himself has to observe a number of restrictions. He may not go near his wife or any other woman. He eats alone, works alone, sleeps alone. He may not wash, except in the lake. He may not eat salt or meat or butter. He may not smear any fat on his body. When the line is ready he goes to the god, asks his blessing on it, and offers him a pot of beer. In return he receives from the deity a stick or bit of wood to fasten to the line, and also some medicine of herbs to smoke and blow over the water in order that the fish may come to the line and be caught. Then he carries the line to the lake. If in going thither he should stumble over a stone or a tree-root, he takes it with him, and he does the same with any grass-seeds that may stick to his clothes. These stones, roots, and seeds he puts on the line, believing that just as he stumbled over them and they stuck to him, so the fish will also stumble over them and stick to the line. The taboo lasts till he has caught his first fish. If his wife has kept the taboo, he eats the fish with her; but if she has broken it, she may not partake of the fish. After that if he wishes to go in to his wife, he must take his line out of the water and place it in a tree or some other place of safety; he is then free to be with her. But so long as the line is in the water, he must keep apart from women, or the fish would at once leave the shore. Any breach of this taboo renders the line useless to him. He must sell it and make a new one and offer an expiatory offering to the god.(640) Again, in Uganda the fisherman offers fish to his canoe, believing that if he neglected to make this offering more than twice, his net would catch nothing. The fish thus offered to the canoe is eaten by the fishermen. But if at the time of emptying the traps there is any man in the canoe who has committed adultery, eaten flesh or salt, or rubbed his body with butter or fat, that man is not allowed to partake of the fish offered to the canoe. And if the sinner has not confessed his fault to the priest and been purified, the catch will be small. When the adulterer has confessed his sin, the priest calls the husband of the guilty woman and tells him of her crime. Her paramour has to wear a sign to shew that he is doing penance, and he makes a feast for the injured husband, which the latter is obliged to accept in token of reconciliation. After that the husband may not punish either of the erring couple; the sin is atoned for and they are able to catch fish again.(641) Among the Bangala of the Upper Congo, while fishermen are making their traps, they must observe strict continence, and the restriction lasts until the traps have caught fish and the fish have been eaten. Similarly Bangala hunters may have no sexual intercourse from the time they made their traps till they have caught game and eaten it; it is believed that any hunter who broke this rule of chastity would have bad luck in the chase.(642)

(M119) In the island of Nias the hunters sometimes dig pits, cover them lightly over with twigs, grass, and leaves, and then drive the game into them. While they are engaged in digging the pits, they have to observe a number of taboos. They may not spit, or the game would turn back in disgust from the pits. They may not laugh, or the sides of the pit would fall in. They may eat no salt, prepare no fodder for swine, and in the pit they may not scratch themselves, for if they did, the earth would be loosened and would collapse. And the night after digging the pit they may have no intercourse with a woman, or all their labour would be in vain.(643)

(M120) This practice of observing strict chastity as a condition of success in hunting and fishing is very common among rude races; and the instances of it which have been cited render it probable that the rule is always based on a superstition rather than on a consideration of the temporary weakness which a breach of the custom may entail on the hunter or fisherman. In general it appears to be supposed that the evil effect of incontinence is not so much that it weakens him, as that, for some reason or other, it offends the animals, who in consequence will not suffer themselves to be caught. In the Motumotu tribe of New Guinea a man will not see his wife the night before he starts on a great fishing or hunting expedition; if he did, he would have no luck. In the Motu tribe he is regarded as holy that night, and in the morning no one may speak to him or call out his name.(644) In German East Africa elephant hunters must refrain from women for several days before they set out for the chase.(645) We have seen that in the same region a wife’s infidelity during the hunter’s absence is believed to give the elephant power over him so as to kill or wound him.(646) As this belief is clearly a superstition, based on sympathetic magic, so doubtless is the practice of chastity before the hunt. The pygmies of the great African forest are also reported to observe strict continence the night before an important hunt. It is said that at this time they propitiate their ancestors by rubbing their skulls, which they keep in boxes, with palm oil and with water in which the ashes of the bark and leaves of a certain tree (_moduma_) have been mixed.(647)

(M121) The Huichol Indians of Mexico think that only the pure of heart should hunt the deer. The deer would never enter a snare put up by a man in love; it would only look at it, snort “Pooh, pooh,” and go back the way it came. Good luck in love means bad luck in deer-hunting. But even those who have been abstinent must invoke the aid of the fire to burn the last taint or blemish out of them. So the night before they set out for the chase they gather round the fire and pray aloud, all trying to get as near as they can to the flaming god, and turning every side of their bodies to his blessed influence. They hold out their open hands to it, warm the palms, spit on them, and then rub them quickly over their joints, legs, and shoulders, as the shamans do in curing a sick man, in order that their limbs and sinews may be as strong as their hearts are pure for the task of the morrow.(648) A Carrier Indian of British Columbia used to separate from his wife for a full month before he set traps for bears, and during this time he might not drink from the same vessel as his wife, but had to use a special cup made of birch bark. The neglect of these precautions would cause the game to escape after it had been snared. But when he was about to snare martens, the period of continence was cut down to ten days.(649) The Sia, a tribe of Pueblo Indians, observe chastity for four days before a hunt as well as the whole time that it lasts, even if the game be only rabbits.(650) Among the Tsetsaut Indians of British Columbia hunters who desire to secure good luck fast and wash their bodies with ginger-root for three or four days, and do not touch a woman for two or three months.(651) A Shuswap Indian, who intends to go out hunting must also keep away from his wife, or he would have no luck.(652) Among the Thompson Indians the grisly-bear hunter must abstain from sexual intercourse for some time before he went forth to hunt. These Indians believe that bears always hear what is said of them. Hence a man who intends to go bear-hunting must be very careful what he says about the beasts or about his preparations for killing them, or they will get wind of it and keep out of his way.(653) In the same tribe of Indians some trappers and hunters, who were very particular, would not eat with other people when they were engaged, or about to be engaged, in hunting or trapping; neither would they eat food cooked by any woman, unless she were old. They drank cold water in which mountain juniper or wild rhubarb had been soaked, using a cup of their own, which no one else might touch. Hunters seldom combed their hair when they were on an expedition, but waited to do so till their return.(654) The reason for this last rule is certainly not that at such seasons they have no time to attend to their persons; the custom is probably based on that superstitious objection to touch the heads of tabooed persons of which some examples have already been given, and of which more will be adduced shortly.

(M122) In the late autumn or early winter a few families of the Hidatsa Indians seek some quiet spot in the forest and pitch their camp there to catch eagles. After setting up their tents they build a small medicine-lodge, where the ceremonies supposed to be indispensable for trapping the eagles are performed. No woman may enter it. The traps are set on high places among the neighbouring hills. When some of the men wish to take part in the trapping, they fast and then go by day to the medicine-lodge. There they continue without food until about midnight, when they partake of a little nourishment and fall asleep. They get up just before dawn, or when the morning-star has risen, and go to their traps. There they sit all day without food or drink, watching for their prey, and struggling, it may be, from time to time with a captive eagle, for they always take the birds alive. They return to the camp at sunset. As they approach, every one rushes into his tent; for the hunter may neither see nor be seen by any of his fellow-hunters until he enters the medicine-lodge. They spend the night in the lodge, and about midnight eat and drink for the first time since the previous midnight; then they lie down to sleep, only to rise again before dawn and repair anew to the traps. If any one of them has caught nothing during the day, he may not sleep at night, but must spend his time in loud lamentation and prayer. This routine has to be observed by each hunter for four days and four nights, after which he returns to his own tent, hungry, thirsty, and tired, and follows his ordinary pursuits till he feels able to go again to the eagle-traps. During the four days of the trapping he sees none of his family, and speaks to none of his friends except those who are engaged in the trapping at the same time. They believe that if any hunter fails to perform all these rites, the captive eagle will get one of his claws loose and tear his captor’s hands. There are men in the tribe who have had their hands crippled for life in that way.(655) It is obvious that the severe fasting coupled with the short sleep, or even the total sleeplessness, of these eagle-hunters can only impair their physical vigour and so far tend to incapacitate them for capturing the eagles. The motive of their behaviour in these respects is purely superstitious, not rational, and so, we may safely conclude, is the custom which simultaneously cuts them off from all intercourse with their wives and families.

(M123) An examination of all the many cases in which the savage bridles his passions and remains chaste from motives of superstition, would be instructive, but I cannot attempt it now. I will only add a few miscellaneous examples of the custom before passing to the ceremonies of purification which are observed by the hunter and fisherman after the chase and the fishing are over. The workers in the salt-pans near Siphoum, in Laos, must abstain from all sexual relations at the place where they are at work; and they may not cover their heads nor shelter themselves under an umbrella from the burning rays of the sun.(656) Among the Kachins of Burma the ferment used in making beer is prepared by two women, chosen by lot, who during the three days that the process lasts may eat nothing acid and may have no conjugal relations with their husbands; otherwise it is supposed that the beer would be sour.(657) Among the Masai honey-wine is brewed by a man and a woman who live in a hut set apart for them till the wine is ready for drinking. But they are strictly forbidden to have sexual intercourse with each other during this time; it is deemed essential that they should be chaste for two days before they begin to brew and for the whole of the six days that the brewing lasts. The Masai believe that were the couple to commit a breach of chastity, not only would the wine be undrinkable but the bees which made the honey would fly away. Similarly they require that a man who is making poison should sleep alone and observe other taboos which render him almost an outcast.(658) The Wandorobbo, a tribe of the same region as the Masai, believe that the mere presence of a woman in the neighbourhood of a man who is brewing poison would deprive the poison of its venom, and that the same thing would happen if the wife of the poison-maker were to commit adultery while her husband was brewing the poison.(659) In this last case it is obvious that a rationalistic explanation of the taboo is impossible. How could the loss of virtue in the poison be a physical consequence of the loss of virtue in the poison-maker’s wife? Clearly the effect which the wife’s adultery is supposed to have on the poison is a case of sympathetic magic; her misconduct sympathetically affects her husband and his work at a distance. We may, accordingly, infer with some confidence that the rule of continence imposed on the poison-maker himself is also a simple case of sympathetic magic, and not, as a civilised reader might be disposed to conjecture, a wise precaution designed to prevent him from accidentally poisoning his wife. Again, to take other instances, in the East Indian island of Buru people smear their bodies with coco-nut oil as a protection against demons. But in order that the charm may be effective, the oil must have been made by young unmarried girls.(660) In the Seranglao and Gorong archipelagoes the same oil is regarded as an antidote to poison; but it only possesses this virtue if the nuts have been gathered on a Friday by a youth who has never known a woman, and if the oil has been extracted by a pure maiden, while a priest recited the appropriate spells.(661) So in the Marquesas Islands, when a woman was making coco-nut oil, she was tabooed for four or five or more days, during which she might have no intercourse with her husband. If she broke this rule, it was believed that she would obtain no oil.(662) In the same islands when a man had placed a dish of bananas and coco-nuts in an oven of hot stones to bake over night, he might not go in to his wife, or the food would not be found baked in the morning.(663) In ancient Mexico the men who distilled the wine known as _pulque_ from the sap of the great aloe, might not touch a woman for four days; if they were unchaste, they thought the wine would be sour and putrid.(664)

(M124) Among the Ba-Pedi and Ba-thonga tribes of South Africa, when the site of a new village has been chosen and the houses are building, all the married people are forbidden to have conjugal relations with each other. If it were discovered that any couple had broken this rule, the work of building would immediately be stopped, and another site chosen for the village. For they think that a breach of chastity would spoil the village which was growing up, that the chief would grow lean and perhaps die, and that the guilty woman would never bear another child.(665) Among the Chams of Cochin-China, when a dam is made or repaired on a river for the sake of irrigation, the chief who offers the traditional sacrifices and implores the protection of the deities on the work, has to stay all the time in a wretched hovel of straw, taking no part in the labour, and observing the strictest continence; for the people believe that a breach of his chastity would entail a breach of the dam.(666) Here, it is plain, there can be no idea of maintaining the mere bodily vigour of the chief for the accomplishment of a task in which he does not even bear a hand. In New Caledonia the wizard who performs certain superstitious ceremonies at the building and launching of a large canoe is bound to the most rigorous chastity the whole time that the vessel is on the stocks.(667) Among the natives of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain men who are engaged in making fish-traps avoid women and observe strict continence. They believe that if a woman were even to touch a fish-trap, it would catch nothing.(668) Here, therefore, the rule of continence probably springs from a fear of infecting sympathetically the traps with feminine weakness or perhaps with menstrual pollution. Every year at the end of September or the beginning of October, when the north-east monsoon is near an end, a fleet of large sailing canoes leaves Port Moresby and the neighbouring Motu villages of New Guinea on a trading voyage to the deltas of the rivers which flow into the Papuan Gulf. The canoes are laden with a cargo of earthenware pots, and after about three months they return, sailing before the north-west monsoon and bringing back a cargo of sago which they have obtained by barter for their crockery. It is about the beginning of the south-east monsoon, that is, in April or May, that the skippers, who are leading men in the villages, make up their minds to go on these trading voyages. When their resolution is taken they communicate it to their wives, and from about that time husband and wife cease to cohabit. The same custom of conjugal separation is observed by what we may call the mate or second in command of each vessel. But it is not till the month of August that the work of preparing the canoes for sea by overhauling and caulking them is taken seriously in hand. From that time both skipper and mate become particularly sacred or taboo (_helaga_), and consequently they keep apart from their wives more than ever. Husband and wife, indeed, sleep in the same house but on opposite sides of it. In speaking of his wife he calls her “maiden,” and she calls him “youth.” They have no direct conversation or dealings with each other. If he wishes to communicate with her, he does so through a third person, usually a relative of one of them. Both refrain from washing themselves, and he from combing his hair. “The wife’s position indeed becomes very much like that of a widow.” When the canoe has been launched, skipper, mate, and crew are all forbidden to touch their food with their fingers; they must always handle it and convey it to their mouths with a bone fork.(669) A briefer account of the custom and superstition had previously been given by a native pastor settled in the neighbourhood of Port Moresby. He says: “Here is a custom of trading-voyage parties:—If it is arranged to go westward, to procure arrowroot, the leader of the party sleeps apart from his wife for the time being, and on until the return from the expedition, which is sometimes a term of five months. They say if this is not done the canoe of the chief will be sunk on the return voyage, all the arrowroot lost in the sea, and he himself covered with shame. He, however, who observes the rule of self-denial, returns laden with arrowroot, has not a drop of salt water to injure his cargo, and so is praised by his companions and crew.”(670) The Akamba and Akikuyu of eastern Africa refrain from the commerce of the sexes on a journey, even if their wives are with them in the caravan; and they observe the same rule of chastity so long as the cattle are at pasture, that is, from the time the herds are driven out to graze in the morning till they come back in the evening.(671) Why the rule should be in force just while the cattle are at pasture is not said, but we may conjecture that any act of incontinence at that time is somehow supposed, on the principles of sympathetic magic, to affect the animals injuriously. The conjecture is confirmed by the observation that among the Akikuyu for eight days after the quarterly festivals, which they hold for the sake of securing God’s blessing on their flocks and herds, no commerce is permitted between the sexes. They think that any breach of continence in these eight days would be followed by a mortality among the flocks.(672)

(M125) If the taboos or abstinences observed by hunters and fishermen before and during the chase are dictated, as we have seen reason to believe, by superstitious motives, and chiefly by a dread of offending or frightening the spirits of the creatures whom it is proposed to kill, we may expect that the restraints imposed after the slaughter has been perpetrated will be at least as stringent, the slayer and his friends having now the added fear of the angry ghosts of his victims before their eyes. Whereas on the hypothesis that the abstinences in question, including those from food, drink, and sleep, are merely salutary precautions for maintaining the men in health and strength to do their work, it is obvious that the observance of these abstinences or taboos after the work is done, that is, when the game is killed and the fish caught, must be wholly superfluous, absurd, and inexplicable. But as I shall now shew, these taboos often continue to be enforced or even increased in stringency after the death of the animals, in other words, after the hunter or fisher has accomplished his object by making his bag or landing his fish. The rationalistic theory of them therefore breaks down entirely; the hypothesis of superstition is clearly the only one open to us.

(M126) Among the Inuit or Esquimaux of Bering Strait “the dead bodies of various animals must be treated very carefully by the hunter who obtains them, so that their shades may not be offended and bring bad luck or even death upon him or his people.” Hence the Unalit hunter who has had a hand in the killing of a white whale, or even has helped to take one from the net, is not allowed to do any work for the next four days, that being the time during which the shade or ghost of the whale is supposed to stay with its body. At the same time no one in the village may use any sharp or pointed instrument for fear of wounding the whale’s shade, which is believed to be hovering invisible in the neighbourhood; and no loud noise may be made lest it should frighten or offend the ghost. Whoever cuts a whale’s body with an iron axe will die. Indeed the use of all iron instruments is forbidden in the village during these four days. These Inuit have a special name (_nu-na hlukh-tuk_) “for a spot of ground where certain things are tabooed, or where there is to be feared any evil influence caused by the presence of offended shades of men or animals, or through the influence of other supernatural means. This ground is sometimes considered unclean, and to go upon it would bring misfortune to the offender, producing sickness, death, or lack of success in hunting or fishing. The same term is also applied to ground where certain animals have been killed or have died.” In the latter case the ground is thought to be dangerous only to him who there performs some forbidden act. For example, the shore where a dead white whale has been beached is so regarded. At such a place and time to chop wood with an iron axe is supposed to be fatal to the imprudent person who chops. Death, too, is supposed to result from cutting wood with an iron axe where salmon are being dressed. An old man at St. Michael told Mr. Nelson of a melancholy case of this kind which had fallen within the scope of his own observation. A man began to chop a log near a woman who was splitting salmon: both of them died soon afterwards. The reason of this disaster, as the old man explained, was that the shade or ghost (_inua_) of the salmon and the spirit or mystery (_yu-a_) of the ground were incensed at the proceeding. Such offences are indeed fatal to every person who may be present at the desecrated spot. Dogs are regarded as very unclean and offensive to the shades of game animals, and great care is taken that no dog shall get at the bones of a white whale. Should a dog touch one of them, the hunter might lose his luck; his nets would break or be shunned by the whales, and his spears would not strike. But in addition to the state of uncleanness or taboo which arises from the presence of the shades of men or animals, these Esquimaux believe in uncleanness of another sort which, though not so serious, nevertheless produces sickness or bad luck in hunting. It consists, we are told, of a kind of invisible, impalpable vapour, which may attach itself to a person from some contamination. A hunter infected by such a vapour is much more than usually visible to game, so that his luck in the chase is gone until he succeeds in cleansing himself once more. That is why hunters must avoid menstruous women; if they do not, they will be unable to catch game.(673)