Chapter V: Tabooed Things (1)

§ 1. The Meaning of Taboo.

(M144) Thus in primitive society the rules of ceremonial purity observed by divine kings, chiefs, and priests agree in many respects with the rules observed by homicides, mourners, women in childbed, girls at puberty, hunters and fishermen, and so on. To us these various classes of persons appear to differ totally in character and condition; some of them we should call holy, others we might pronounce unclean and polluted. But the savage makes no such moral distinction between them; the conceptions of holiness and pollution are not yet differentiated in his mind. To him the common feature of all these persons is that they are dangerous and in danger, and the danger in which they stand and to which they expose others is what we should call spiritual or ghostly, and therefore imaginary. The danger, however, is not less real because it is imaginary; imagination acts upon man as really as does gravitation, and may kill him as certainly as a dose of prussic acid. To seclude these persons from the rest of the world so that the dreaded spiritual danger shall neither reach them, nor spread from them, is the object of the taboos which they have to observe. These taboos act, so to say, as electrical insulators to preserve the spiritual force with which these persons are charged from suffering or inflicting harm by contact with the outer world.(701)

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

§ 2. Iron tabooed.

(M145) In the first place we may observe that the awful sanctity of kings naturally leads to a prohibition to touch their sacred persons. Thus it was unlawful to lay hands on the person of a Spartan king;(702) no one might touch the body of the king or queen of Tahiti;(703) it is forbidden to touch the person of the king of Siam under pain of death;(704) and no one may touch the king of Cambodia, for any purpose whatever, without his express command. In July 1874 the king was thrown from his carriage and lay insensible on the ground, but not one of his suite dared to touch him; a European coming to the spot carried the injured monarch to his palace.(705) Formerly no one might touch the king of Corea; and if he deigned to touch a subject, the spot touched became sacred, and the person thus honoured had to wear a visible mark (generally a cord of red silk) for the rest of his life. Above all, no iron might touch the king’s body. In 1800 King Tieng-tsong-tai-oang died of a tumour in the back, no one dreaming of employing the lancet, which would probably have saved his life. It is said that one king suffered terribly from an abscess in the lip, till his physician called in a jester, whose pranks made the king laugh heartily, and so the abscess burst.(706) Roman and Sabine priests might not be shaved with iron but only with bronze razors or shears;(707) and whenever an iron graving-tool was brought into the sacred grove of the Arval Brothers at Rome for the purpose of cutting an inscription in stone, an expiatory sacrifice of a lamb and a pig must be offered, which was repeated when the graving-tool was removed from the grove.(708) As a general rule iron might not be brought into Greek sanctuaries.(709) In Crete sacrifices were offered to Menedemus without the use of iron, because the legend ran that Menedemus had been killed by an iron weapon in the Trojan war.(710) The Archon of Plataea might not touch iron; but once a year, at the annual commemoration of the men who fell at the battle of Plataea, he was allowed to carry a sword wherewith to sacrifice a bull.(711) To this day a Hottentot priest never uses an iron knife, but always a sharp splint of quartz, in sacrificing an animal or circumcising a lad.(712) Among the Ovambo of south-west Africa custom requires that lads should be circumcised with a sharp flint; if none is to hand, the operation may be performed with iron, but the iron must afterwards be buried.(713) The Antandroy and Tanala of Madagascar cut the navel-strings of their children with sharp wood or with a thread, but never with an iron knife.(714) In Uap, one of the Caroline Islands, wood of the hibiscus tree, which was used to make the fire-drill, must be cut with shell knives or shell axes, never with iron or steel.(715) Amongst the Moquis of Arizona stone knives, hatchets, and so on have passed out of common use, but are retained in religious ceremonies.(716) After the Pawnees had ceased to use stone arrow-heads for ordinary purposes, they still employed them to slay the sacrifices, whether human captives or buffalo and deer.(717) We have seen that among the Esquimaux of Bering Strait the use of iron implements is forbidden for four days after the slaughter of a white whale, and that the use of an iron axe at a place where salmon are being dressed is believed by these people to be a fatal imprudence.(718) They hold a festival in the assembly-house of the village, while the bladders of the slain beasts are hanging there, and during its celebration no wood may be cut with an iron axe. If it is necessary to split firewood, this may be done with wedges of bone.(719) At Kushunuk, near Cape Vancouver, it happened that Mr. Nelson and his party entered an assembly-house of these Esquimaux while the festival of the bladders was in progress. “When our camping outfit was brought in from the sledges, two men took drums, and as the clothing and goods of the traders who were with me were brought in, the drums were beaten softly and a song was sung in a low, humming tone, but when our guns and some steel traps were brought in, with other articles of iron, the drums were beaten loudly and the songs raised in proportion. This was done that the shades of the animals present in the bladders might not be frightened.”(720) The Esquimaux on the western coast of Hudson Bay may not work on iron during the season for hunting musk-oxen, which falls in March. And no such work may be done by them until the seals have their pups.(721) Negroes of the Gold Coast remove all iron or steel from their person when they consult their fetish.(722) The men who made the need-fire in Scotland had to divest themselves of all metal.(723) There was hardly any belief, we are told, that had a stronger hold on the mind of a Scottish Highlander than that on no account whatever should iron be put in the ground on Good Friday. Hence no grave was dug and no field ploughed on that day. It has been suggested that the belief was based on that rooted aversion to iron which fairies are known to feel. These touchy beings live underground, and might resent having the roof pulled from over their heads on the hallowed day.(724) Again, in the Highlands of Scotland the shoulder-blades of sheep are employed in divination, being consulted as to future marriages, births, deaths, and funerals; but the forecasts thus made will not be accurate unless the flesh has been removed from the bones without the use of any iron.(725) In making the _clavie_ (a kind of Yule-tide fire-wheel) at Burghead, no hammer may be used; the hammering must be done with a stone.(726) Amongst the Jews no iron tool was used in building the Temple at Jerusalem or in making an altar.(727) The old wooden bridge (_Pons Sublicius_) at Rome, which was considered sacred, was made and had to be kept in repair without the use of iron or bronze.(728) It was expressly provided by law that the temple of Jupiter Liber at Furfo might be repaired with iron tools.(729) The council chamber at Cyzicus was constructed of wood without any iron nails, the beams being so arranged that they could be taken out and replaced.(730) The late Rajah Vijyanagram, a member of the Viceroy’s Council, and described as one of the most enlightened and estimable of Hindoo princes, would not allow iron to be used in the construction of buildings within his territory, believing that its use would inevitably be followed by small-pox and other epidemics.(731)

(M146) This superstitious objection to iron perhaps dates from that early time in the history of society when iron was still a novelty, and as such was viewed by many with suspicion and dislike.(732) For everything new is apt to excite the awe and dread of the savage. “It is a curious superstition,” says a pioneer in Borneo, “this of the Dusuns, to attribute anything—whether good or bad, lucky or unlucky—that happens to them to something novel which has arrived in their country. For instance, my living in Kindram has caused the intensely hot weather we have experienced of late.”(733) Some years ago a harmless naturalist was collecting plants among the high forest-clad mountains on the borders of China and Tibet. From the summit of a pass he gazed with delight down a long valley which, stretching away as far as eye could reach to the south, resembled a sea of bloom, for everywhere the forest was ablaze with the gorgeous hues of the rhododendron and azalea in flower. In this earthly paradise the votary of science hastened to install himself beside a lake. But hardly had he done so when, alas! the weather changed. Though the season was early June, the cold became intense, snow fell heavily, and the bloom of the rhododendrons was cut off. The inhabitants of a neighbouring village at once set down the unusual severity of the weather to the presence of a stranger in the forest; and a round-robin, signed by them unanimously, was forwarded to the nearest mandarin, setting forth that the snow which had blocked the road, and the hail which was blasting their crops, were alike caused by the intruder, and that all sorts of disturbances would follow if he were allowed to remain. In these circumstances the naturalist, who had intended to spend most of the summer among the mountains, was forced to decamp. “Collecting in this country,” he adds pathetically, “is not an easy matter.”(734) The unusually heavy rains which happened to follow the English survey of the Nicobar Islands in the winter of 1886-1887 were imputed by the alarmed natives to the wrath of the spirits at the theodolites, dumpy-levellers, and other strange instruments which had been set up in so many of their favourite haunts; and some of them proposed to soothe the anger of the spirits by sacrificing a pig.(735) When the German Hans Stade was a captive in a cannibal tribe of Brazilian Indians, it happened that, shortly before a prisoner was to be eaten, a great wind arose and blew away part of the roofs of the huts. The savages were angry with Stade, and said he had made the wind to come by looking into his thunder-skins, by which they meant a book he had been reading, in order to save the prisoner, who was a friend of his, from their stomachs. So the pious German prayed to God, and God mercifully heard his prayer; for next morning the weather was beautifully fine, and his friend was butchered, carved, and eaten in the most perfect comfort.(736) According to the Orotchis of eastern Siberia, misfortunes have multiplied on them with the coming of Europeans; “they even go so far as to lay the appearance of _new_ phenomena like thunder at the door of the Russians.”(737) In the seventeenth century a succession of bad seasons excited a revolt among the Esthonian peasantry, who traced the origin of the evil to a water-mill, which put a stream to some inconvenience by checking its flow.(738) The first introduction of iron ploughshares into Poland having been followed by a succession of bad harvests, the farmers attributed the badness of the crops to the iron ploughshares, and discarded them for the old wooden ones.(739) To this day the primitive Baduwis of Java, who live chiefly by husbandry, will use no iron tools in tilling their fields.(740)

(M147) The general dislike of innovation, which always makes itself strongly felt in the sphere of religion, is sufficient by itself to account for the superstitious aversion to iron entertained by kings and priests and attributed by them to the gods; possibly this aversion may have been intensified in places by some such accidental cause as the series of bad seasons which cast discredit on iron ploughshares in Poland. But the disfavour in which iron is held by the gods and their ministers has another side. Their antipathy to the metal furnishes men with a weapon which may be turned against the spirits when occasion serves. As their dislike of iron is supposed to be so great that they will not approach persons and things protected by the obnoxious metal, iron may obviously be employed as a charm for banning ghosts and other dangerous spirits. And often it is so used. Thus in the Highlands of Scotland the great safeguard against the elfin race is iron, or, better yet, steel. The metal in any form, whether as a sword, a knife, a gun-barrel, or what not, is all-powerful for this purpose. Whenever you enter a fairy dwelling you should always remember to stick a piece of steel, such as a knife, a needle, or a fish-hook, in the door; for then the elves will not be able to shut the door till you come out again. So too when you have shot a deer and are bringing it home at night, be sure to thrust a knife into the carcase, for that keeps the fairies from laying their weight on it. A knife or a nail in your pocket is quite enough to prevent the fairies from lifting you up at night. Nails in the front of a bed ward off elves from women “in the straw” and from their babes; but to make quite sure it is better to put the smoothing-iron under the bed, and the reaping-hook in the window. If a bull has fallen over a rock and been killed, a nail stuck into it will preserve the flesh from the fairies. Music discoursed on that melodious instrument, a Jew’s harp, keeps the elfin women away from the hunter, because the tongue of the instrument is of steel.(741) Again, when Scotch fishermen were at sea, and one of them happened to take the name of God in vain, the first man who heard him called out “Cauld airn,” at which every man of the crew grasped the nearest bit of iron and held it between his hands for a while.(742) So too when he hears the unlucky word “pig” mentioned, a Scotch fisherman will feel for the nails in his boots and mutter “Cauld airn.”(743) The same magic words are even whispered in the churches of Scotch fishing-villages when the clergyman reads the passage about the Gadarene swine.(744) In Morocco iron is considered a great protection against demons; hence it is usual to place a knife or dagger under a sick man’s pillow.(745) The Singhalese believe that they are constantly surrounded by evil spirits, who lie in wait to do them harm. A peasant would not dare to carry good food, such as cakes or roast meat, from one place to another without putting an iron nail on it to prevent a demon from taking possession of the viands and so making the eater ill. No sick person, whether man or woman, would venture out of the house without a bunch of keys or a knife in his hand, for without such a talisman he would fear that some devil might take advantage of his weak state to slip into his body. And if a man has a large sore on his body he tries to keep a morsel of iron on it as a protection against demons.(746) The inhabitants of Salsette, an island near Bombay, dread a spirit called _gîrâ_, which plays many pranks with a solitary traveller, leading him astray, lowering him into an empty well, and so on. But a _gîrâ_ dare not touch a person who has on him anything made of iron or steel, particularly a knife or a nail, of which the spirit stands in great fear. Nor will he meddle with a woman, especially a married woman, because he is afraid of her bangles.(747) Among the Majhwâr, an aboriginal tribe in the hill country of South Mirzapur, an iron implement such as a sickle or a betel-cutter is constantly kept near an infant’s head during its first year for the purpose of warding off the attacks of ghosts.(748) Among the Maravars, an aboriginal race of southern India, a knife or other iron object lies beside a woman after childbirth to keep off the devil.(749) When a Mala woman is in labour, a sickle and some _nïm_ leaves are always kept on the cot. In Malabar people who have to pass by burning-grounds or other haunted places commonly carry with them iron in some form, such as a knife or an iron rod used as a walking-stick. When pregnant women go on a journey, they carry with them a few twigs or leaves of the _nïm_ tree, or iron in some shape, to scare evil spirits lurking in groves or burial-grounds which they may pass.(750) In Bilaspore people attribute cholera to a goddess who visits the afflicted family. But they think that she may be kept off by iron; hence during an epidemic of cholera people go about with axes or sickles in their hands. “Their horses are not shod, otherwise they might possibly nail horse-shoes to the door, but their belief is more primitive; for with them iron does not _bring_ good luck, but it _scares away_ the evil spirits, so when a man has had an epileptic fit he will wear an iron bracelet to keep away the evil spirit which was supposed to have possessed him.”(751) The Annamites imagine that a new-born child is exposed to the attacks of evil spirits. To protect the infant from these malignant beings the parents sometimes sell the child to the village smith, who makes a small ring or circlet of iron and puts it on the child’s foot, commonly adding a little chain of iron. When the infant has been sold to the smith and firmly attached to him by the chain, the demons no longer have any power over him. After the child has grown big and the danger is over, the parents ask the smith to break the iron ring and thank him for his services. No metal but iron will serve the purpose.(752) On the Slave Coast of Africa when a mother sees her child gradually wasting away, she concludes that a demon has entered into the child and takes her measures accordingly. To lure the demon out of the body of her offspring, she offers a sacrifice of food; and while the devil is bolting it, she attaches iron rings and small bells to her child’s ankles and hangs iron chains round his neck. The jingling of the iron and the tinkling of the bells are supposed to prevent the demon, when he has concluded his repast, from entering again into the body of the little sufferer. Hence many children may be seen in this part of Africa weighed down with iron ornaments.(753) The use of iron as a means to exorcise demons was forbidden by the Coptic church.(754) In India “the mourner who performs the ceremony of putting fire into the dead person’s mouth carries with him a piece of iron: it may be a key or a knife, or a simple piece of iron, and during the whole time of his separation (for he is unclean for a certain time, and no one will either touch him or eat or drink with him, neither can he change his clothes(755)) he carries the piece of iron about with him to keep off the evil spirit. In Calcutta the Bengali clerks in the Government Offices used to wear a small key on one of their fingers when they had been chief mourners.”(756) When a woman dies in childbed in the island of Salsette, they put a nail or other piece of iron in the folds of her dress; this is done especially if the child survives her. The intention plainly is to prevent her spirit from coming back; for they believe that a dead mother haunts the house and seeks to carry away her child.(757) In the north-east of Scotland immediately after a death had taken place, a piece of iron, such as a nail or a knitting-wire, used to be stuck into all the meal, butter, cheese, flesh, and whisky in the house, “to prevent death from entering them.” The neglect of this salutary precaution is said to have been closely followed by the corruption of the food and drink; the whisky has been known to become as white as milk.(758) When iron is used as a protective charm after a death, as in these Hindoo and Scotch customs, the spirit against which it is directed is the ghost of the deceased.(759)

§ 3. Sharp Weapons tabooed.

(M148) There is a priestly king to the north of Zengwih in Burma, revered by the Sotih as the highest spiritual and temporal authority, into whose house no weapon or cutting instrument may be brought.(760) This rule may perhaps be explained by a custom observed by various peoples after a death; they refrain from the use of sharp instruments so long as the ghost of the deceased is supposed to be near, lest they should wound it. Thus among the Esquimaux of Bering Strait “during the day on which a person dies in the village no one is permitted to work, and the relatives must perform no labour during the three following days. It is especially forbidden during this period to cut with any edged instrument, such as a knife or an axe; and the use of pointed instruments, like needles or bodkins, is also forbidden. This is said to be done to avoid cutting or injuring the shade, which may be present at any time during this period, and, if accidentally injured by any of these things, it would become very angry and bring sickness or death to the people. The relatives must also be very careful at this time not to make any loud or harsh noises that may startle or anger the shade.”(761) We have seen that in like manner after killing a white whale these Esquimaux abstain from the use of cutting or pointed instruments for four days, lest they should unwittingly cut or stab the whale’s ghost.(762) The same taboo is sometimes observed by them when there is a sick person in the village, probably from a fear of injuring his shade which may be hovering outside of his body.(763) After a death the Roumanians of Transylvania are careful not to leave a knife lying with the sharp edge uppermost as long as the corpse remains in the house, “or else the soul will be forced to ride on the blade.”(764) For seven days after a death, the corpse being still in the house, the Chinese abstain from the use of knives and needles, and even of chopsticks, eating their food with their fingers.(765) On the third, sixth, ninth, and fortieth days after the funeral the old Prussians and Lithuanians used to prepare a meal, to which, standing at the door, they invited the soul of the deceased. At these meals they sat silent round the table and used no knives, and the women who served up the food were also without knives. If any morsels fell from the table they were left lying there for the lonely souls that had no living relations or friends to feed them. When the meal was over the priest took a broom and swept the souls out of the house, saying, “Dear souls, ye have eaten and drunk. Go forth, go forth.”(766) In cutting the nails and combing the hair of a dead prince in South Celebes only the back of the knife and of the comb may be used.(767) The Germans say that a knife should not be left edge upwards, because God and the spirits dwell there, or because it will cut the face of God and the angels.(768) Among the Monumbos of New Guinea a pregnant woman may not use sharp instruments; for example, she may not sew. If she used such instruments, they think that she would thereby stab the child in her womb.(769) Among the Kayans of Borneo, when the birth-pangs begin, all men leave the room, and all cutting weapons and iron are also removed, “perhaps in order not to frighten the child,” says the writer who reports the custom.(770) The reason may rather be a fear of injuring the flitting soul of mother or babe. In Uganda, when the hour of a woman’s delivery is at hand, her husband carries all spears and weapons out of the house,(771) doubtless in order that they may not hurt the tender soul of the new-born child. Early in the period of the Ming dynasty a professor of geomancy made the alarming discovery that the spiritual atmosphere of Kü-yung, a city near Nanking, was in a truly deplorable condition through the intrusion of an evil spirit. The Chinese emperor, with paternal solicitude, directed that the north gate, by which the devil had effected his entrance, should be built up solid, and that for the future the population of the city should devote their energies to the pursuits of hair-dressing, corn-cutting, and the shaving of bamboo-roots, because, as he sagaciously perceived, all these professions call for the use of sharp-edged instruments, which could not fail to keep the demon at bay.(772) We can now understand why no cutting instrument may be taken into the house of the Burmese pontiff. Like so many priestly kings, he is probably regarded as divine, and it is therefore right that his sacred spirit should not be exposed to the risk of being cut or wounded whenever it quits his body to hover invisible in the air or to fly on some distant mission.

§ 4. Blood tabooed.

(M149) We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was forbidden to touch or even name raw flesh.(773) At certain times a Brahman teacher is enjoined not to look on raw flesh, blood, or persons whose hands have been cut off.(774) In Uganda the father of twins is in a state of taboo for some time after the birth; among other rules he is forbidden to kill anything or to see blood.(775) In the Pelew Islands when a raid has been made on a village and a head carried off, the relations of the slain man are tabooed and have to submit to certain observances in order to escape the wrath of his ghost. They are shut up in the house, touch no raw flesh, and chew betel over which an incantation has been uttered by the exorcist. After this the ghost of the slaughtered man goes away to the enemy’s country in pursuit of his murderer.(776) The taboo is probably based on the common belief that the soul or spirit of the animal is in the blood. As tabooed persons are believed to be in a perilous state—for example, the relations of the slain man are liable to the attacks of his indignant ghost—it is especially necessary to isolate them from contact with spirits; hence the prohibition to touch raw meat. But as usual the taboo is only the special enforcement of a general precept; in other words, its observance is particularly enjoined in circumstances which seem urgently to call for its application, but apart from such circumstances the prohibition is also observed, though less strictly, as a common rule of life. Thus some of the Esthonians will not taste blood because they believe that it contains the animal’s soul, which would enter the body of the person who tasted the blood.(777) Some Indian tribes of North America, “through a strong principle of religion, abstain in the strictest manner from eating the blood of any animal, as it contains the life and spirit of the beast.” These Indians “commonly pull their new-killed venison (before they dress it) several times through the smoke and flame of the fire, both by the way of a sacrifice and to consume the blood, life, or animal spirits of the beast, which with them would be a most horrid abomination to eat.”(778) Among the western Dénés or Tinneh Indians of British Columbia until lately no woman would partake of blood, “and both men and women abhorred the flesh of a beaver which had been caught and died in a trap, and of a bear strangled to death in a snare, because the blood remained in the carcase.”(779) Many of the Slave, Hare, and Dogrib Indians scruple to taste the blood of game; hunters of the former tribes collect the blood in the animal’s paunch and bury it in the snow.(780) The Malepa, a Bantu tribe in the north of the Transvaal, will taste no blood. Hence they cut the throats of the cattle they slaughter and let the blood drain out of the carcase before they will eat it. And they do the same with game.(781) Jewish hunters poured out the blood of the game they had killed and covered it up with dust. They would not taste the blood, believing that the soul or life of the animal was in the blood, or actually was the blood.(782) The same belief was held by the Romans,(783) and is shared by the Arabs,(784) by Chinese medical writers,(785) and by some of the Papuan tribes of New Guinea.(786)

(M150) It is a common rule that royal blood may not be shed upon the ground. Hence when a king or one of his family is to be put to death a mode of execution is devised by which the royal blood shall not be spilt upon the earth. About the year 1688 the generalissimo of the army rebelled against the king of Siam and put him to death “after the manner of royal criminals, or as princes of the blood are treated when convicted of capital crimes, which is by putting them into a large iron caldron, and pounding them to pieces with wooden pestles, because none of their royal blood must be spilt on the ground, it being, by their religion, thought great impiety to contaminate the divine blood by mixing it with earth.”(787) Other Siamese modes of executing a royal person are starvation, suffocation, stretching him on a scarlet cloth and thrusting a billet of fragrant sandal-wood into his stomach,(788) or lastly, sewing him up in a leather sack with a large stone and throwing him into the river; sometimes the sufferer’s neck is broken with sandal-wood clubs before he is thrown into the water.(789) When Kublai Khan defeated and took his uncle Nayan, who had rebelled against him, he caused Nayan to be put to death by being wrapt in a carpet and tossed to and fro till he died, “because he would not have the blood of his Line Imperial spilt upon the ground or exposed in the eye of Heaven and before the Sun.”(790) “Friar Ricold mentions the Tartar maxim: ‘One Khan will put another to death to get possession of the throne, but he takes great care that the blood be not spilt. For they say that it is highly improper that the blood of the Great Khan should be spilt upon the ground; so they cause the victim to be smothered somehow or other.’ The like feeling prevails at the court of Burma, where a peculiar mode of execution without bloodshed is reserved for princes of the blood.”(791) Another writer on Burma observes that “according to Mongolian tradition, it is considered improper to spill the blood of any member of the royal race. Princes of the Blood are executed by a blow, or blows, of a bludgeon, inflicted on the back of the neck. The corpse is placed in a red velvet sack, which is fixed between two large perforated jars, and then sunk in the river Irawadi. Princesses are executed in a similar manner, with the exception that they are put to death by a blow in front, instead of the back of the neck.”(792) In 1878 the relations of Theebaw, king of Burma, were despatched by being beaten across the throat with a bamboo.(793) In Tonquin the ordinary mode of execution is beheading, but persons of the blood royal are strangled.(794) In Ashantee the blood of none of the royal family may be shed; if one of them is guilty of a great crime he is drowned in the river Dah.(795) As the blood royal of Dahomey may not be spilled, offenders of the royal family are drowned or strangled. Commonly they are bound hand and foot, carried out to sea in a canoe, and thrown overboard.(796) When a king of Benin came to the throne he used to put his brothers to death; but as no one might lay hands on a prince of the blood, the king commanded his brothers to hang themselves, after which he buried their bodies with great pomp.(797) In Madagascar the blood of nobles might not be shed; hence when four Christians of that class were to be executed they were burned alive.(798) In Uganda “no one may shed royal blood on any account, not even when ordered by the king to slay one of the royal house; royalty may only be starved or burned to death.”(799) Formerly when a young king of Uganda came of age all his brothers were burnt except two or three, who were preserved to keep up the succession.(800) Or a space of ground having been fenced in with a high paling and a deep ditch, the doomed men were led into the enclosure and left there till they died, while guards kept watch outside to prevent their escape.(801) Among the Bawenda of southern Africa dangerous princes are strangled, for their blood may not be shed.(802)

(M151) The reluctance to spill royal blood seems to be only a particular case of a general unwillingness to shed blood or at least to allow it to fall on the ground. Marco Polo tells us that in his day persons caught in the streets of Cambaluc (Peking) at unseasonable hours were arrested, and if found guilty of a misdemeanour were beaten with a stick. “Under this punishment people sometimes die, but they adopt it in order to eschew bloodshed, for their _Bacsis_ say that it is an evil thing to shed man’s blood.”(803) When Captain Christian was shot by the Manx Government at the Restoration in 1660, the spot on which he stood was covered with white blankets, that his blood might not fall on the ground.(804) In West Sussex people believe that the ground on which human blood has been shed is accursed and will remain barren for ever.(805) Among some primitive peoples, when the blood of a tribesman has to be spilt it is not suffered to fall upon the ground, but is received upon the bodies of his fellow-tribesmen. Thus in some Australian tribes boys who are being circumcised are laid on a platform, formed by the living bodies of the tribesmen;(806) and when a boy’s tooth is knocked out as an initiatory ceremony, he is seated on the shoulders of a man, on whose breast the blood flows and may not be wiped away.(807) When Australian blacks bleed each other as a cure for headache and other ailments, they are very careful not to spill any of the blood on the ground, but sprinkle it on each other.(808) We have already seen that in the Australian ceremony for making rain the blood which is supposed to imitate the rain is received upon the bodies of the tribesmen.(809) “Also the Gauls used to drink their enemies’ blood and paint themselves therewith. So also they write that the old Irish were wont; and so have I seen some of the Irish do, but not their enemies’ but friends’ blood, as, namely, at the execution of a notable traitor at Limerick, called Murrogh O’Brien, I saw an old woman, which was his foster-mother, take up his head whilst he was quartered and suck up all the blood that ran thereout, saying that the earth was not worthy to drink it, and therewith also steeped her face and breast and tore her hair, crying out and shrieking most terribly.”(810) After a battle in Horne Island, South Pacific, it was found that the brother of the vanquished king was among the wounded. “It was sad to see his wife collect in her hands the blood which had flowed from his wounds, and throw it on to her head, while she uttered piercing cries. All the relatives of the wounded collected in the same manner the blood which had flowed from them, down even to the last drop, and they even applied their lips to the leaves of the shrubs and licked it all up to the last drop.”(811) In the Marquesas Islands the persons who helped a woman at childbirth received on their heads the blood which flowed at the cutting of the navel-string; for the blood might not touch anything but a sacred object, and in Polynesia the head is sacred in a high degree.(812) In South Celebes at childbirth a female slave stands under the house (the houses being raised on posts above the ground) and receives in a basin on her head the blood which trickles through the bamboo floor.(813) Among the Latuka of central Africa the earth on which a drop of blood has fallen at childbirth is carefully scraped up with an iron shovel, put into a pot along with the water used in washing the mother, and buried tolerably deep outside the house on the left-hand side.(814) In West Africa, if a drop of your blood has fallen on the ground, you must carefully cover it up, rub and stamp it into the soil; if it has fallen on the side of a canoe or a tree, the place is cut out and the chip destroyed.(815) The Caffres, we are told, have a great horror of blood, and must purify themselves from the pollution if they have shed it and been bespattered by it. Hence warriors on the return from battle purge themselves with emetics, and that so violently that some of them give up the ghost. A Caffre would never allow even a drop of blood from his nose or a wound to lie uncovered, but huddles it over with earth, that his feet may not be defiled by it.(816) One motive of these African customs may be a wish to prevent the blood from falling into the hands of magicians, who might make an evil use of it. That is admittedly the reason why people in West Africa stamp out any blood of theirs which has fallen on the ground or cut out any wood that has been soaked with it.(817) From a like dread of sorcery natives of New Guinea are careful to burn any sticks, leaves, or rags which are stained with their blood; and if the blood has dripped on the ground they turn up the soil and if possible light a fire on the spot.(818) The same fear explains the curious duties discharged by a class of men called _ramanga_ or “blue blood” among the Betsileo of Madagascar. It is their business to eat all the nail-parings and to lick up all the spilt blood of the nobles. When the nobles pare their nails, the parings are collected to the last scrap and swallowed by these _ramanga_. If the parings are too large, they are minced small and so gulped down. Again, should a nobleman wound himself, say in cutting his nails or treading on something, the _ramanga_ lick it up as fast as possible. Nobles of high rank hardly go anywhere without these humble attendants; but if it should happen that there are none of them present, the cut nails and the spilt blood are carefully collected to be afterwards swallowed by the _ramanga_. There is scarcely a nobleman of any pretensions who does not strictly observe this custom,(819) the intention of which probably is to prevent these parts of his person from falling into the hands of sorcerers, who on the principles of contagious magic could work him harm thereby. The tribes of the White Nile are said never to shed human blood in their villages because they think the sight of it would render women barren or bring misfortune on their children. Hence executions and murders commonly take place on the roads or in the forest.(820)

(M152) The unwillingness to shed blood is extended by some peoples to the blood of animals. Thus, when the Caffres offer an ox to the spirits, the blood of the beast must be carefully caught in a calabash, and none of it may fall on the ground.(821) When the Wanika in eastern Africa kill their cattle for food, “they either stone or beat the animal to death, so as not to shed the blood.”(822) Amongst the Damaras cattle killed for food are suffocated, but when sacrificed they are speared to death.(823) But like most pastoral tribes in Africa, both the Wanika and Damaras very seldom kill their cattle, which are indeed commonly invested with a kind of sanctity.(824) Some of the Ewe-speaking negroes of Togoland, in West Africa, celebrate a festival in honour of the Earth at which it is unlawful to shed blood on the ground. Hence the fowls which are sacrificed on these occasions have their necks wrung, not their throats cut.(825) In killing an animal for food the Easter Islanders do not shed its blood, but stun it or suffocate it in smoke.(826) When the natives of San Cristoval, one of the Solomon Islands, sacrifice a pig to a ghost in a sacred place, they take great care that the blood shall not fall on the ground; so they place the animal in a large bowl and cut it up there.(827) It is said that in ancient India the sacrificial victims were not slaughtered but strangled.(828)

(M153) The general explanation of the reluctance to shed blood on the ground is probably to be found in the belief that the soul is in the blood, and that therefore any ground on which it may fall necessarily becomes taboo or sacred. In New Zealand anything upon which even a drop of a high chief’s blood chances to fall becomes taboo or sacred to him. For instance, a party of natives having come to visit a chief in a fine new canoe, the chief got into it, but in doing so a splinter entered his foot, and the blood trickled on the canoe, which at once became sacred to him. The owner jumped out, dragged the canoe ashore opposite the chief’s house, and left it there. Again, a chief in entering a missionary’s house knocked his head against a beam, and the blood flowed. The natives said that in former times the house would have belonged to the chief.(829) As usually happens with taboos of universal application, the prohibition to spill the blood of a tribesman on the ground applies with peculiar stringency to chiefs and kings, and is observed in their case long after it has ceased to be observed in the case of others.

(M154) We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was not allowed to walk under a trellised vine.(830) The reason for this prohibition was perhaps as follows. It has been shewn that plants are considered as animate beings which bleed when cut, the red juice which exudes from some of them being regarded as the blood of the plant.(831) The juice of the grape is therefore naturally conceived as the blood of the vine.(832) And since, as we have just seen, the soul is often believed to be in the blood, the juice of the grape is regarded as the soul, or as containing the soul, of the vine. This belief is strengthened by the intoxicating effects of wine. For, according to primitive notions, all abnormal mental states, such as intoxication or madness, are caused by the entrance of a spirit into the person; such mental states, in other words, are accounted forms of possession or inspiration. Wine, therefore, is considered on two distinct grounds as a spirit, or containing a spirit; first because, as a red juice, it is identified with the blood of the plant, and second because it intoxicates or inspires. Therefore if the Flamen Dialis had walked under a trellised vine, the spirit of the vine, embodied in the clusters of grapes, would have been immediately over his head and might have touched it, which for a person like him in a state of permanent taboo(833) would have been highly dangerous. This interpretation of the prohibition will be made probable if we can shew, first, that wine has been actually viewed by some peoples as blood, and intoxication as inspiration produced by drinking the blood; and, second, that it is often considered dangerous, especially for tabooed persons, to have either blood or a living person over their heads.

(M155) With regard to the first point, we are informed by Plutarch that of old the Egyptian kings neither drank wine nor offered it in libations to the gods, because they held it to be the blood of beings who had once fought against the gods, the vine having sprung from their rotting bodies; and the frenzy of intoxication was explained by the supposition that the drunken man was filled with the blood of the enemies of the gods.(834) The Aztecs regarded _pulque_ or the wine of the country as bad, on account of the wild deeds which men did under its influence. But these wild deeds were believed to be the acts, not of the drunken man, but of the wine-god by whom he was possessed and inspired; and so seriously was this theory of inspiration held that if any one spoke ill of or insulted a tipsy man, he was liable to be punished for disrespect to the wine-god incarnate in his votary. Hence, says Sahagun, it was believed, not without ground, that the Indians intoxicated themselves on purpose to commit with impunity crimes for which they would certainly have been punished if they had committed them sober.(835) Thus it appears that on the primitive view intoxication or the inspiration produced by wine is exactly parallel to the inspiration produced by drinking the blood of animals.(836) The soul or life is in the blood, and wine is the blood of the vine. Hence whoever drinks the blood of an animal is inspired with the soul of the animal or of the god, who, as we have seen,(837) is often supposed to enter into the animal before it is slain; and whoever drinks wine drinks the blood, and so receives into himself the soul or spirit, of the god of the vine.

(M156) With regard to the second point, the fear of passing under blood or under a living person, we are told that some of the Australian blacks have a dread of passing under a leaning tree or even under the rails of a fence. The reason they give is that a woman may have been upon the tree or fence, and some blood from her may have fallen on it and might fall from it on them.(838) In Ugi, one of the Solomon Islands, a man will never, if he can help it, pass under a tree which has fallen across the path, for the reason that a woman may have stepped over it before him.(839) Amongst the Karens of Burma “going under a house, especially if there are females within, is avoided; as is also the passing under trees of which the branches extend downwards in a particular direction, and the butt-end of fallen trees, etc.”(840) The Siamese think it unlucky to pass under a rope on which women’s clothes are hung, and to avert evil consequences the person who has done so must build a chapel to the earth-spirit.(841)

(M157) Probably in all such cases the rule is based on a fear of being brought into contact with blood, especially the blood of women. From a like fear a Maori will never lean his back against the wall of a native house.(842) For the blood of women is supposed to have disastrous effects upon males. The Arunta of central Australia believe that a draught of woman’s blood would kill the strongest man.(843) In the Encounter Bay tribe of South Australia boys are warned that if they see the blood of women they will early become grey-headed and their strength will fail prematurely.(844) Men of the Booandik tribe in South Australia think that if they see the blood of their women they will not be able to fight against their enemies and will be killed; if the sun dazzles their eyes at a fight, the first woman they afterwards meet is sure to get a blow from their club.(845) In the island of Wetar it is thought that if a man or a lad comes upon a woman’s blood he will be unfortunate in war and other undertakings, and that any precautions he may take to avoid the misfortune will be vain.(846) The people of Ceram also believe that men who see women’s blood will be wounded in battle.(847) It is an Esthonian belief that men who see women’s blood will suffer from an eruption on the skin.(848) A Fan negro told Miss Kingsley that a young man in his village, who was so weak that he could hardly crawl about, had fallen into this state through seeing the blood of a woman who had been killed by a falling tree. “The underlying idea regarding blood is of course the old one that the blood is the life. The life in Africa means a spirit, hence the liberated blood is the liberated spirit, and liberated spirits are always whipping into people who do not want them. In the case of the young Fan, the opinion held was that the weak spirit of the woman had got into him.”(849)

§ 5. The Head tabooed.