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object:1.19 - Tabooed Acts
book class:The Golden Bough
author class:James George Frazer
subject class:Occultism
class:chapter



XIX. Tabooed Acts



1. Taboos on Intercourse with Strangers

SO much for the primitive conceptions of the soul and the dangers to
which it is exposed. These conceptions are not limited to one people
or country; with variations of detail they are found all over the
world, and survive, as we have seen, in modern Europe. Beliefs so
deep-seated and so widespread must necessarily have contributed to
shape the mould in which the early kingship was cast. For if every
person was at such pains to save his own soul from the perils which
threatened it on so many sides, how much more carefully must _he_
have been guarded upon whose life hung the welfare and even the
existence of the whole people, and whom therefore it was the common
interest of all to preserve? Therefore we should expect to find the
king's life protected by a system of precautions or safeguards still
more numerous and minute than those which in primitive society every
man adopts for the safety of his own soul. Now in point of fact the
life of the early kings is regulated, as we have seen and shall see
more fully presently, by a very exact code of rules. May we not then
conjecture that these rules are in fact the very safeguards which we
should expect to find adopted for the protection of the king's life?
An examination of the rules themselves confirms this conjecture. For
from this it appears that some of the rules observed by the kings
are identical with those observed by private persons out of regard
for the safety of their souls; and even of those which seem peculiar
to the king, many, if not all, are most readily explained on the
hypothesis that they are nothing but safeguards or lifeguards of the
king. I will now enumerate some of these royal rules or taboos,
offering on each of them such comments and explanations as may serve
to set the original intention of the rule in its proper light.

As the object of the royal taboos is to isolate the king from all
sources of danger, their general effect is to compel him to live in
a state of seclusion, more or less complete, according to the number
and stringency of the rules he observes. Now of all sources of
danger none are more dreaded by the savage than magic and
witchcraft, and he suspects all strangers of practising these black
arts. To guard against the baneful influence exerted voluntarily or
involuntarily by strangers is therefore an elementary dictate of
savage prudence. Hence before strangers are allowed to enter a
district, or at least before they are permitted to mingle freely
with the inhabitants, certain ceremonies are often performed by the
natives of the country for the purpose of disarming the strangers of
their magical powers, of counteracting the baneful influence which
is believed to emanate from them, or of disinfecting, so to speak,
the tainted atmosphere by which they are supposed to be surrounded.
Thus, when the ambassadors sent by Justin II., Emperor of the East,
to conclude a peace with the Turks had reached their destination,
they were received by shamans, who subjected them to a ceremonial
purification for the purpose of exorcising all harmful influence.
Having deposited the goods brought by the ambassadors in an open
place, these wizards carried burning branches of incense round them,
while they rang a bell and beat on a tambourine, snorting and
falling into a state of frenzy in their efforts to dispel the powers
of evil. Afterwards they purified the ambassadors themselves by
leading them through the flames. In the island of Nanumea (South
Pacific) strangers from ships or from other islands were not allowed
to communicate with the people until they all, or a few as
representatives of the rest, had been taken to each of the four
temples in the island, and prayers offered that the god would avert
any disease or treachery which these strangers might have brought
with them. Meat offerings were also laid upon the altars,
accompanied by songs and dances in honour of the god. While these
ceremonies were going on, all the people except the priests and
their attendants kept out of sight. Amongst the Ot Danoms of Borneo
it is the custom that strangers entering the territory should pay to
the natives a certain sum, which is spent in the sacrifice of
buffaloes or pigs to the spirits of the land and water, in order to
reconcile them to the presence of the strangers, and to induce them
not to withdraw their favour from the people of the country, but to
bless the rice-harvest, and so forth. The men of a certain district
in Borneo, fearing to look upon a European traveller lest he should
make them ill, warned their wives and children not to go near him.
Those who could not restrain their curiosity killed fowls to appease
the evil spirits and smeared themselves with the blood. "More
dreaded," says a traveller in Central Borneo, "than the evil spirits
of the neighbourhood are the evil spirits from a distance which
accompany travellers. When a company from the middle Mahakam River
visited me among the Blu-u Kayans in the year 1897, no woman showed
herself outside her house without a burning bundle of _plehiding_
bark, the stinking smoke of which drives away evil spirits."

When Crevaux was travelling in South America he entered a village of
the Apalai Indians. A few moments after his arrival some of the
Indians brought him a number of large black ants, of a species whose
bite is painful, fastened on palm leaves. Then all the people of the
village, without distinction of age or sex, presented themselves to
him, and he had to sting them all with the ants on their faces,
thighs, and other parts of their bodies. Sometimes, when he applied
the ants too tenderly, they called out "More! more!" and were not
satisfied till their skin was thickly studded with tiny swellings
like what might have been produced by whipping them with nettles.
The object of this ceremony is made plain by the custom observed in
Amboyna and Uliase of sprinkling sick people with pungent spices,
such as ginger and cloves, chewed fine, in order by the prickling
sensation to drive away the demon of disease which may be clinging
to their persons. In Java a popular cure for gout or rheumatism is
to rub Spanish pepper into the nails of the fingers and toes of the
sufferer; the pungency of the pepper is supposed to be too much for
the gout or rheumatism, who accordingly departs in haste. So on the
Slave Coast the mother of a sick child sometimes believes that an
evil spirit has taken possession of the child's body, and in order
to drive him out, she makes small cuts in the body of the little
sufferer and inserts green peppers or spices in the wounds,
believing that she will thereby hurt the evil spirit and force him
to be gone. The poor child naturally screams with pain, but the
mother hardens her heart in the belief that the demon is suffering
equally.

It is probable that the same dread of strangers, rather than any
desire to do them honour, is the motive of certain ceremonies which
are sometimes observed at their reception, but of which the
intention is not directly stated. In the Ongtong Java Islands, which
are inhabited by Polynesians, the priests or sorcerers seem to wield
great influence. Their main business is to summon or exorcise
spirits for the purpose of averting or dispelling sickness, and of
procuring favourable winds, a good catch of fish, and so on. When
strangers land on the islands, they are first of all received by the
sorcerers, sprinkled with water, anointed with oil, and girt with
dried pandanus leaves. At the same time sand and water are freely
thrown about in all directions, and the newcomer and his boat are
wiped with green leaves. After this ceremony the strangers are
introduced by the sorcerers to the chief. In Afghanistan and in some
parts of Persia the traveller, before he enters a village, is
frequently received with a sacrifice of animal life or food, or of
fire and incense. The Afghan Boundary Mission, in passing by
villages in Afghanistan, was often met with fire and incense.
Sometimes a tray of lighted embers is thrown under the hoofs of the
traveller's horse, with the words, "You are welcome." On entering a
village in Central Africa Emin Pasha was received with the sacrifice
of two goats; their blood was sprinkled on the path and the chief
stepped over the blood to greet Emin. Sometimes the dread of
strangers and their magic is too great to allow of their reception
on any terms. Thus when Speke arrived at a certain village, the
natives shut their doors against him, "because they had never before
seen a white man nor the tin boxes that the men were carrying: 'Who
knows,' they said, 'but that these very boxes are the plundering
Watuta transformed and come to kill us? You cannot be admitted.' No
persuasion could avail with them, and the party had to proceed to
the next village."

The fear thus entertained of alien visitors is often mutual.
Entering a strange land the savage feels that he is treading
enchanted ground, and he takes steps to guard against the demons
that haunt it and the magical arts of its inhabitants. Thus on going
to a strange land the Maoris performed certain ceremonies to make it
"common," lest it might have been previously "sacred." When Baron
Miklucho-Maclay was approaching a village on the Maclay Coast of New
Guinea, one of the natives who accompanied him broke a branch from a
tree and going aside whispered to it for a while; then stepping up
to each member of the party, one after another, he spat something
upon his back and gave him some blows with the branch. Lastly, he
went into the forest and buried the branch under withered leaves in
the thickest part of the jungle. This ceremony was believed to
protect the party against all treachery and danger in the village
they were approaching. The idea probably was that the malignant
influences were drawn off from the persons into the branch and
buried with it in the depths of the forest. In Australia, when a
strange tribe has been invited into a district and is approaching
the encampment of the tribe which owns the land, "the strangers
carry lighted bark or burning sticks in their hands, for the
purpose, they say, of clearing and purifying the air." When the
Toradjas are on a head-hunting expedition and have entered the
enemy's country, they may not eat any fruits which the foe has
planted nor any animal which he has reared until they have first
committed an act of hostility, as by burning a house or killing a
man. They think that if they broke this rule they would receive
something of the soul or spiritual essence of the enemy into
themselves, which would destroy the mystic virtue of their
talismans.

Again, it is believed that a man who has been on a journey may have
contracted some magic evil from the strangers with whom he has
associated. Hence, on returning home, before he is readmitted to the
society of his tribe and friends, he has to undergo certain
purificatory ceremonies. Thus the Bechuanas "cleanse or purify
themselves after journeys by shaving their heads, etc., lest they
should have contracted from strangers some evil by witchcraft or
sorcery." In some parts of Western Africa, when a man returns home
after a long absence, before he is allowed to visit his wife, he
must wash his person with a particular fluid, and receive from the
sorcerer a certain mark on his forehead, in order to counteract any
magic spell which a stranger woman may have cast on him in his
absence, and which might be communicated through him to the women of
his village. Two Hindoo ambassadors, who had been sent to England by
a native prince and had returned to India, were considered to have
so polluted themselves by contact with strangers that nothing but
being born again could restore them to purity. "For the purpose of
regeneration it is directed to make an image of pure gold of the
female power of nature, in the shape either of a woman or of a cow.
In this statue the person to be regenerated is enclosed, and dragged
through the usual channel. As a statue of pure gold and of proper
dimensions would be too expensive, it is sufficient to make an image
of the sacred _Yoni,_ through which the person to be regenerated is
to pass." Such an image of pure gold was made at the prince's
command, and his ambassadors were born again by being dragged
through it.

When precautions like these are taken on behalf of the people in
general against the malignant influence supposed to be exercised by
strangers, it is no wonder that special measures are adopted to
protect the king from the same insidious danger. In the middle ages
the envoys who visited a Tartar Khan were obliged to pass between
two fires before they were admitted to his presence, and the gifts
they brought were also carried between the fires. The reason
assigned for the custom was that the fire purged away any magic
influence which the strangers might mean to exercise over the Khan.
When subject chiefs come with their retinues to visit Kalamba (the
most powerful chief of the Bashilange in the Congo Basin) for the
first time or after being rebellious, they have to bathe, men and
women together, in two brooks on two successive days, passing the
nights under the open sky in the market-place. After the second bath
they proceed, entirely naked, to the house of Kalamba, who makes a
long white mark on the breast and forehead of each of them. Then
they return to the market-place and dress, after which they undergo
the pepper ordeal. Pepper is dropped into the eyes of each of them,
and while this is being done the sufferer has to make a confession
of all his sins, to answer all questions that may be put to him, and
to take certain vows. This ends the ceremony, and the strangers are
now free to take up their quarters in the town for as long as they
choose to remain.



2. Taboos on Eating and Drinking

IN THE OPINION of savages the acts of eating and drinking are
attended with special danger; for at these times the soul may escape
from the mouth, or be extracted by the magic arts of an enemy
present. Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast "the
common belief seems to be that the indwelling spirit leaves the body
and returns to it through the mouth; hence, should it have gone out,
it behoves a man to be careful about opening his mouth, lest a
homeless spirit should take advantage of the opportunity and enter
his body. This, it appears, is considered most likely to take place
while the man is eating." Precautions are therefore adopted to guard
against these dangers. Thus of the Bataks it is said that "since the
soul can leave the body, they always take care to prevent their soul
from straying on occasions when they have most need of it. But it is
only possible to prevent the soul from straying when one is in the
house. At feasts one may find the whole house shut up, in order that
the soul may stay and enjoy the good things set before it." The
Zafimanelo in Madagascar lock their doors when they eat, and hardly
any one ever sees them eating. The Warua will not allow any one to
see them eating and drinking, being doubly particular that no person
of the opposite sex shall see them doing so. "I had to pay a man to
let me see him drink; I could not make a man let a woman see him
drink." When offered a drink they often ask that a cloth may be held
up to hide them whilst drinking.

If these are the ordinary precautions taken by common people, the
precautions taken by kings are extraordinary. The king of Loango may
not be seen eating or drinking by man or beast under pain of death.
A favourite dog having broken into the room where the king was
dining, the king ordered it to be killed on the spot. Once the
king's own son, a boy of twelve years old, inadvertently saw the
king drink. Immediately the king ordered him to be finely apparelled
and feasted, after which he commanded him to be cut in quarters, and
carried about the city with a proclamation that he had seen the king
drink. "When the king has a mind to drink, he has a cup of wine
brought; he that brings it has a bell in his hand, and as soon as he
has delivered the cup to the king, he turns his face from him and
rings the bell, on which all present fall down with their faces to
the ground, and continue so till the king has drank. . . . His
eating is much in the same style, for which he has a house on
purpose, where his victuals are set upon a bensa or table: which he
goes to, and shuts the door: when he has done, he knocks and comes
out. So that none ever see the king eat or drink. For it is believed
that if any one should, the king shall immediately die." The
remnants of his food are buried, doubtless to prevent them from
falling into the hands of sorcerers, who by means of these fragments
might cast a fatal spell over the monarch. The rules observed by the
neighbouring king of Cacongo were similar; it was thought that the
king would die if any of his subjects were to see him drink. It is a
capital offence to see the king of Dahomey at his meals. When he
drinks in public, as he does on extraordinary occasions, he hides
himself behind a curtain, or handkerchiefs are held up round his
head, and all the people throw themselves with their faces to the
earth. When the king of Bunyoro in Central Africa went to drink milk
in the dairy, every man must leave the royal enclosure and all the
women had to cover their heads till the king returned. No one might
see him drink. One wife accompanied him to the dairy and handed him
the milk-pot, but she turned away her face while he drained it.



3. Taboos on Showing the Face

IN SOME of the preceding cases the intention of eating and drinking
in strict seclusion may perhaps be to hinder evil influences from
entering the body rather than to prevent the escape of the soul.
This certainly is the motive of some drinking customs observed by
natives of the Congo region. Thus we are told of these people that
"there is hardly a native who would dare to swallow a liquid without
first conjuring the spirits. One of them rings a bell all the time
he is drinking; another crouches down and places his left hand on
the earth; another veils his head; another puts a stalk of grass or
a leaf in his hair, or marks his forehead with a line of clay. This
fetish custom assumes very varied forms. To explain them, the black
is satisfied to say that they are an energetic mode of conjuring
spirits." In this part of the world a chief will commonly ring a
bell at each draught of beer which he swallows, and at the same
moment a lad stationed in front of him brandishes a spear "to keep
at bay the spirits which might try to sneak into the old chief's
body by the same road as the beer." The same motive of warding off
evil spirits probably explains the custom observed by some African
sultans of veiling their faces. The Sultan of Darfur wraps up his
face with a piece of white muslin, which goes round his head several
times, covering his mouth and nose first, and then his forehead, so
that only his eyes are visible. The same custom of veiling the face
as a mark of sovereignty is said to be observed in other parts of
Central Africa. The Sultan of Wadai always speaks from behind a
curtain; no one sees his face except his intimates and a few
favoured persons.



4. Taboos on Quitting the House

BY AN EXTENSION of the like precaution kings are sometimes forbidden
ever to leave their palaces; or, if they are allowed to do so, their
subjects are forbidden to see them abroad. The fetish king of Benin,
who was worshipped as a deity by his subjects, might not quit his
palace. After his coronation the king of Loango is confined to his
palace, which he may not leave. The king of Onitsha "does not step
out of his house into the town unless a human sacrifice is made to
propitiate the gods: on this account he never goes out beyond the
precincts of his premises." Indeed we are told that he may not quit
his palace under pain of death or of giving up one or more slaves to
be executed in his presence. As the wealth of the country is
measured in slaves, the king takes good care not to infringe the
law. Yet once a year at the Feast of Yams the king is allowed, and
even required by custom, to dance before his people outside the high
mud wall of the palace. In dancing he carries a great weight,
generally a sack of earth, on his back to prove that he is still
able to support the burden and cares of state. Were he unable to
discharge this duty, he would be immediately deposed and perhaps
stoned. The kings of Ethiopia were worshipped as gods, but were
mostly kept shut up in their palaces. On the mountainous coast of
Pontus there dwelt in antiquity a rude and warlike people named the
Mosyni or Mosynoeci, through whose rugged country the Ten Thousand
marched on their famous retreat from Asia to Europe. These
barbarians kept their king in close custody at the top of a high
tower, from which after his election he was never more allowed to
descend. Here he dispensed justice to his people; but if he offended
them, they punished him by stopping his rations for a whole day, or
even starving him to death. The kings of Sabaea or Sheba, the spice
country of Arabia, were not allowed to go out of their palaces; if
they did so, the mob stoned them to death. But at the top of the
palace there was a window with a chain attached to it. If any man
deemed he had suffered wrong, he pulled the chain, and the king
perceived him and called him in and gave judgment.



5. Taboos on Leaving Food over

AGAIN, magic mischief may be wrought upon a man through the remains
of the food he has partaken of, or the dishes out of which he has
eaten. On the principles of sympathetic magic a real connexion
continues to subsist between the food which a man has in his stomach
and the refuse of it which he has left untouched, and hence by
injuring the refuse you can simultaneously injure the eater. Among
the Narrinyeri of South Australia every adult is constantly on the
look-out for bones of beasts, birds, or fish, of which the flesh has
been eaten by somebody, in order to construct a deadly charm out of
them. Every one is therefore careful to burn the bones of the
animals which he has eaten, lest they should fall into the hands of
a sorcerer. Too often, however, the sorcerer succeeds in getting
hold of such a bone, and when he does so he believes that he has the
power of life and death over the man, woman, or child who ate the
flesh of the animal. To put the charm in operation he makes a paste
of red ochre and fish oil, inserts in it the eye of a cod and a
small piece of the flesh of a corpse, and having rolled the compound
into a ball sticks it on the top of the bone. After being left for
some time in the bosom of a dead body, in order that it may derive a
deadly potency by contact with corruption, the magical implement is
set up in the ground near the fire, and as the ball melts, so the
person against whom the charm is directed wastes with disease; if
the ball is melted quite away, the victim will die. When the
bewitched man learns of the spell that is being cast upon him, he
endeavours to buy the bone from the sorcerer, and if he obtains it
he breaks the charm by throwing the bone into a river or lake. In
Tana, one of the New Hebrides, people bury or throw into the sea the
leavings of their food, lest these should fall into the hands of the
disease-makers. For if a disease-maker finds the remnants of a meal,
say the skin of a banana, he picks it up and burns it slowly in the
fire. As it burns, the person who ate the banana falls ill and sends
to the disease-maker, offering him presents if he will stop burning
the banana skin. In New Guinea the natives take the utmost care to
destroy or conceal the husks and other remains of their food, lest
these should be found by their enemies and used by them for the
injury or destruction of the eaters. Hence they burn their leavings,
throw them into the sea, or otherwise put them out of harm's way.

From a like fear, no doubt, of sorcery, no one may touch the food
which the king of Loango leaves upon his plate; it is buried in a
hole in the ground. And no one may drink out of the king's vessel.
In antiquity the Romans used immediately to break the shells of eggs
and of snails which they had eaten, in order to prevent enemies from
making magic with them. The common practice, still observed among
us, of breaking egg-shells after the eggs have been eaten may very
well have originated in the same superstition.

The superstitious fear of the magic that may be wrought on a man
through the leavings of his food has had the beneficial effect of
inducing many savages to destroy refuse which, if left to rot, might
through its corruption have proved a real, not a merely imaginary,
source of disease and death. Nor is it only the sanitary condition
of a tribe which has benefited by this superstition; curiously
enough the same baseless dread, the same false notion of causation,
has indirectly strengthened the moral bonds of hospitality, honour,
and good faith among men who entertain it. For it is obvious that no
one who intends to harm a man by working magic on the refuse of his
food will himself partake of that food, because if he did so he
would, on the principles of sympathetic magic, suffer equally with
his enemy from any injury done to the refuse. This is the idea which
in primitive society lends sanctity to the bond produced by eating
together; by participation in the same food two men give, as it
were, hostages for their good behaviour; each guarantees the other
that he will devise no mischief against him, since, being physically
united with him by the common food in their stomachs, any harm he
might do to his fellow would recoil on his own head with precisely
the same force with which it fell on the head of his victim. In
strict logic, however, the sympathetic bond lasts only so long as
the food is in the stomach of each of the parties. Hence the
covenant formed by eating together is less solemn and durable than
the covenant formed by transfusing the blood of the covenanting
parties into each other's veins, for this transfusion seems to knit
them together for life.






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