 Chapter 21A of The Golden Bough, Sections 1-7 The Golden Bough by Sir James Fraser Chapter 21. Tabooed Things 1. The Meaning of Taboo 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 child-bed, 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 a man as really as does gravitation, and may kill him as certainly as a dose of prusic 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. 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 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. No one might touch the body of the king or queen of Tahiti. It is forbidden to touch the person of the king of Siam under pain of death, 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 sweet dared to touch him. A European coming to the spot carried the injured monarch to his palace. Formerly no one might touch the king of Korea, 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 Tien Song Tai Wang 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. Roman and Sabine priests might not be shaved with iron, but only with bronze, razors or shears, and whenever an iron-graving-tool was brought into the sacred grove of the Arville 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. As a general rule iron might not be brought into Greek sanctuaries. In Greek sacrifices were offered to Menedymus without the use of iron because the legend ran that Menedymus had been killed by an iron-weapon in the Trojan War. The archon of Platia might not touch iron, but once a year at the annual commemoration of the men who fell at the battle of Platia he was allowed to carry a sword wherewith to sacrifice a bull. To this day a hot-and-tocked priest never uses an iron-knife, but always a sharp splint of quartz in sacrificing an animal or circumcising a lad. Among the ovambol 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. Among the mockies of Arizona stone knives, hatchets and so on have passed out of common use but are retained in religious ceremonies. After the poor nays had ceased to use stone arrowheads for ordinary purposes they still employed them to slay the sacrifices, whether human captives or buffalo and deer. Amongst the Jews no iron-tool was used in building the temple at Jerusalem or in making an altar. 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. It was expressly provided by law that the temple of Jupiter Libia at Fufo might be repaired with iron-tools. The council chamber at Kidzicus was constructed of wood without any iron nails, the beams being so arranged that they could be taken out and replaced. 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, 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 Dussons, 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. The unusually heavy rains which happened to follow the English survey of the Nicobar Islands in the winter of 1886 to 1887 were imputed by the alarmed natives to the wrath of the spirits at the theodolites, dumpy levelers 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. In the seventeenth century a succession of bad seasons excited a revolt among the Estonian peasantry, who traced the origin of the evil to a water mill, which put a stream to some inconvenience by checking its flow. The first introduction of iron plowshares into Poland, having been followed by a succession of bad harvests, the farmers attributed the badness of the crops to the iron plowshares and discarded them for the old wooden ones. To this day the primitive Badooese of Java, who lived chiefly by husbandry, will use no iron tools in telling their fields. 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 plowshares in Poland. But the disfavour in which iron is held by the gods and their ministers has another side. 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 a person 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 carcass, 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, disgorced on a Jew's harp, keeps the Elfin women away from the hunter because the tongue of the instrument is of steel. 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. The singleese 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 Vians 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. On the slave-coast, 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. 3. Sharp Weapons Tabooed There is a priestly king to the north of Zangui in Burma, revered by the Sotih as the highest spiritual and temporal authority, into whose house no weapon or cutting instrument may be brought. This rule may perhaps be explained by a custom observed by various people 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 Eskimos 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. We have seen that in like manner after killing a white whale these Eskimos abstain from the use of cutting or pointed instruments for four days lest they should unwittingly cut or stab the whale's ghost. 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. After death the Romanians of Transylvania are careful not to leave a knife lying with the sharp edge uttermost so long as the corpse remains in the house, or else the soul will be forced to ride on the blade. 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. 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. 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 its body to hover invisible in the air or to fly on some distant mission. 4. Blood Tabood We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was forbidden to touch or even name raw flesh. At certain times a Brahmin teacher is enjoined not to look on raw flesh, blood or persons whose hands have been cut off. 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. In the Pelau 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 beetle 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. 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 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 Estonians 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. 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. 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. 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 spilled 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 cauldron 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. When Kublai Khan defeated and took his uncle Nayun who had rebelled against him he caused Nayun to be put to death by being wracked 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. Friar Rickold mentions the Tata 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. 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 Kambaluk or Peking at unseasonable hours were arrested and if found guilty of a misdemeanor were beaten with a stick. Under this punishment people sometimes die but they adopt it in order to eschew bloodshed for their backsies say that it is an evil thing to shed man's blood. In West Sussex people believe that the ground on which human blood has been shed is a cursed and will remain barren forever. Among some primitive peoples when the blood of a tribesman has to be spilled 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 and when the 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. Also the Gauls used to drink their enemies blood and paint themselves their with so also they write that the old Irish were want 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 Mara 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 there out 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. Among the Latuca 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 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. 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 dropped on the ground or cut out any wood that has been soaked in it from a like dread of sorcery natives of New Guinea are careful to burn any sticks leaves or rags which has 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 the same fear explains the curious duties discharged by a class of men called Ramanga or blue blood among the Betsy Leo of Madagascar it is their business to eat all the nail pairings and to lick up all the spilt blood of the nobles when the nobles pair their nails the pairings are collected to the last scrap and swallowed by these Ramanga if the pairings are too large they're minced small and so gulped down again should a nobleman wound himself say in cutting his nails or treading on something the Ramanga lick up the blood 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 hardly a nobleman of any pretension who does not strictly observe this custom 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 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 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 five the head tabooed many people regard the head as peculiarly sacred the special sanctity attributed to it is sometimes explained by belief that it contains a spirit which is very sensitive to injury or disrespect thus the yorubas hold that every man has three spiritual inmates of whom the first called olori dwells in the head and is a man's protector guardian and guide offerings are made to this spirit chiefly of fouls and some of the blood mixed with palm oil is rubbed on the forehead the karens supposed that a being called the tsot resides in the upper part of the head and while it retains its seat no harm can befall a person from the efforts of the seven kelas or personified passions but if the tsot becomes heedless or weak certain evil to the person is the result hence the head is carefully attended to and all possible pains are taken to provide such dress and attire as will be pleasing to the tsot the Siamese think that a spirit called kuan or kuan dwells in the human head of which it is the guardian spirit the spirit must be carefully protected from injury of every kind hence the act of shaving or cutting the hair is accompanied with many ceremonies the kuan is very sensitive on points of honor and would feel mortally insulted if the head in which he resides were touched by the hand of a stranger the cambodians esteem it a grave offense to touch a man's head some of them will not enter a place where anything whatever is suspended over their heads and the meanest cambodian would never consent to live under an inhabited room hence the houses are built of one story only and even the government respects the prejudice by never placing a prisoner in the stocks under the floor of a house though the houses are raised high above the ground the same superstition exists among the malaise for an early traveler reports that in java people wear nothing on their heads and say that nothing must be on their heads and if any person were to put his hand upon their head they would kill him and they do not build houses with stories in order that they may not walk over each other's heads the same superstition as to the head is found in full force throughout polinesia thus of gutta newa a marquesan chief it is said that to touch the top of his head or anything which had been on his head was sacrilege to pass over his head was an indignity never to be forgotten the son of a marquesan high priest has been seen to roll on the ground in an agony of rage and despair begging for death because someone had desecrated his head and deprived him of his divinity by sprinkling a few drops of water on his hair but it was not the marquesan chiefs only whose heads were sacred the head of every marquesan was taboo and might never be touched nor stepped over by another even a father might not step over the head of his sleeping child women were forbidden to carry or touch anything that had been in contact with or had merely hung over the head of their husband or father no one was allowed to be over the head of the king of tonga in tahiti anyone who stood over the king or queen or passed his hand over their heads might be put to death until certain rites were performed over it a tahitian infant was especially taboo whatever touched the child's head while it was in this state became sacred and was deposited in a consecrated place railed in for the purpose at the child's house if a branch of a tree touched the child's head the tree was cut down and if in its fall it injured another tree so as to penetrate the bark that tree also was cut down as unclean and unfit for use after the rites were performed these special taboos ceased but the head of a tahitian was always sacred he never carried anything on it and to touch it was an offense so sacred was the head of a Maori chief that if he only touched it with his fingers he was obliged immediately to apply them to his nose and snuff up the sanctity which they had acquired by the touch and thus restore it to the part from whence it was taken on account of the sacredness of his head a Maori chief could not blow the fire with his mouth for the breath being sacred communicated his sanctity to it and a brand might be taken by a slave or a man of another tribe or the fire might be used for other purposes such as cooking and so cause his death six hair tabooed when the head was considered so sacred that it might not even be touched without grave offence it is obvious that the cutting of the hair must have been a delicate and difficult operation the difficulties and dangers which on the primitive view beset the operation are of two kinds there is first the danger of disturbing the spirit of the head which may be injured in the process and may revenge itself upon the person who molests him second there is the difficulty of disposing of the shorn locks but the savage believes that the sympathetic connection which exists between himself and every part of his body continues to exist even after the physical connection has been broken and that therefore he will suffer from any harm that may be full the severed parts of his body such as the clippings of his hair or the pairings of his nails accordingly he takes care that these severed portions of himself shall not be left in places where they might either be exposed to accidental injury or fall into the hands of malicious persons who might work magic on them to his detriment or death such dangers are common to all but sacred persons have more to fear from them than ordinary people so the precautions taken by them are proportionately stringent the simplest way of evading the peril is not to cut the hair at all and this is the expedient adopted where the risk is thought to be more than usually great the Frankish kings were never allowed to crop their hair from their childhood upwards they had to keep it unshawn to pull the long locks that floated on their shoulders would have been to renounce their right to the throne when the wicked brothers Clotaire and Childebert coveted the kingdom of their dead brother Clodomir they invagled into their power their little nephews the two sons of Clodomir and having done so they sent a messenger bearing scissors and a naked sword to the children's grandmother Queen Clotilde at Paris the envoy showed the scissors and the sword to Clotilde and bet her choose whether the children should be shorn and live or remain unshawn and die the proud queen replied that if her grandchildren were not to come to the throne she would rather see them dead than shorn and murdered they were by their ruthless uncle Clotilde with his own hand the king of Bonapé one of the Caroline islands must wear his hair long and so must his grandees among the hose a negro tribe of West Africa there are priests on whose head no razor may come during the whole of their lives the god who dwells in the man forbids the cutting of his hair on pain of death if the hair is at last too long the owner must pray to his god to allow him at least to clip the tips of it the hair is in fact conceived as the seat and lodging place of his god so that were it shorn the god would lose his abode in the priest the members of a Masai clan who are believed to possess the art of making rain may not pluck out their beards because the loss of their beard would it is supposed entail the loss of their rain making powers the head chief and the sorcerers of the Masai observe the same rule for a light reason they think that were they to pull out their beards their supernatural gifts would desert them again men who have taken a vow of vengeance sometimes keep their hair unshawn till they have fulfilled their vow thus of the marquesans we are told that occasionally they have their head entirely shaved except one lock on the crown which is worn loose or put up in a knot but the latter mode of wearing the hair is only adopted by them when they have a solemn vow as to revenge the death of some near relation etc in such case the lock is never cut off until they have fulfilled their promise a similar custom was sometimes observed by the ancient Germans among the chatty the young warriors never clip their hair or their beard till they had slain an enemy among the toradjas when a child's hair is cut to ridditor vermin some locks are allowed to remain on the crown of the head as a refuge for one of the child's souls otherwise the soul would have no place in which to settle and the child would sicken the Karobataks are much afraid of frightening away the soul of a child hence when they cut its hair they always leave a patch unshawn to which the soul can retreat before the shears usually this lock remains unshawn all through life or at least up to manhood seven ceremonies at hair cutting but when it becomes necessary to crop the hair measures are taken to lessen the dangers which are supposed to attend the operation the chief of Namolsi in Fiji always et a man by way of precaution when he had had his hair cut there was a certain clan that had to provide the victim and they used to sit in solemn council among themselves to choose him it was a sacrificial feast to avert evil from the king among the Maori's many spells were uttered at hair cutting one for example was spoken to consecrate the obsidian knife with which the hair was cut another was pronounced to avert the thunder and lightning which hair cutting was believed to cause he who had his hair cut is in immediate charge of the attua or spirit he is removed from the contact and society of his family and his tribe he dare not touch his food himself it is put into his mouth by another person nor can he for some days resume his accustomed occupations or associate with his fellow men the person who cuts the hair is also tabooed his hands having been in contact with the sacred head he may not touch food with them or engage in any other employment he is fed by another person with food cooked over a sacred fire he cannot be released from the taboo before the following day when he rubs his hands with a potato or fern root which has been cooked on a sacred fire and this food having been taken to the head of the family in the female line and eaten by her his hands are freed from the taboo in some parts of new zealand the most sacred day of the year was that appointed for hair cutting the people assembled in large numbers on that day from all the neighborhood and of section seven chapter 21 b of the golden bow sections eight to eleven this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the golden bow by Sir James Fraser chapter 21 tabooed things eight disposal of cut hair and nails but even when the hair and nails have been safely cut there remains the difficulty of disposing of them for their owner believes himself liable to suffer from any harm that may befall them the notion that a man may be bewitched by means of the clippings of his hair the pairings of his nails or any other severed portion of his person is almost worldwide and attested by evidence too ample too familiar and too tedious in its uniformity to be here analyzed at length the general idea on which the superstition rests is that of the sympathetic connection supposed to persist between a person and everything that has once been part of his body or in any way closely related to him a very few examples must suffice they belong to that branch of sympathetic magic which may be called contagious dread of sorcery we are told formed one of the most salient characteristics of the marquesan islanders in the old days the sorcerer took some of the hair spittle or other bodily refuse of the man he wished to injure wrapped it up in a leaf and placed the packet in a bag woven of threads or fibres which were knotted in an intricate way the hole was then buried with certain rights and thereupon the victim wasted a way of a languishing sickness which lasted 20 days his life however might be saved by discovering and digging up the buried hair spittle or whatnot for as soon as this was done the power of the charm ceased a Maori sorcerer intent on bewitching somebody sought to get a trace of his victims hair the pairings of his nails some of his spittle or a shred of his garment having obtained the object whatever it was he chanted certain spells and curses over it in a falsetto voice and buried it in the ground as the thing decayed the person to whom it had belonged was supposed to waste away when an Australian black fellow wishes to get rid of his wife he cuts off a lock of her hair in her sleep ties it to his spear thrower and goes with it to a neighbouring tribe where he gives it to a friend his friend sticks the spear thrower up every night before the campfire and when it falls down it is a sign that the wife is dead the way in which the charm operates was explained to dr. how it by a Wiradjuri man you see he said when a black fellow doctor gets hold of something belonging to a man and roasts it with things and sings over it the fire catches hold of the smell of the man and that settles the poor fellow the whizzles of the carpathians imagine that if mice get a person's shorn hair and make a nest of it the person will suffer from headache or even become idiotic similarly in Germany it is a common notion that if birds find a person's cut hair and build their nests with it the person will suffer from headache sometimes it is thought that he will have an eruption on the head the same superstition prevails or used to prevail in West Sussex again it is thought that cut or combed out hair may disturb the weather by producing rain and hail thunder and lightning we have seen that in New Zealand a spell was uttered at hair cutting to avert thunder and lightning in the Tyrol which is supposed to use cut or combed out hair to make hailstones or thunderstorms with flink eat Indians have been known to attribute stormy weather to the rash act of a girl who had combed her hair outside of the house the Romans seemed to have held similar views for it was a maxim with them that no one on shipboard could cut his hair or nails except in a storm that is when the mischief was already done in the Highlands of Scotland it is said that no sister should comb her hair at night if she have a brother at sea in West Africa when the mani of Chitombe or Jumba died the people used to run in crowds to the corpse and tear out his hair teeth and nails which they kept as a rain charm believing that otherwise no rain would fall the Makoko of the Anzikos begged the missionaries to give them half their beards as a rain charm if cut hair and nails remain in sympathetic connection with the person from whose body they have been severed it is clear that they can be used as hostages for his good behavior by anyone who may chance to possess them for on the principles of contagious magic he has only to injure the hair or nails in order to hurt simultaneously their original owner hence when the Nandi have taken a prisoner they shave his head and keep the shorn hair as a surety that he will not attempt to escape but when the captive is ransomed they return his shorn hair with him to his own people to preserve the cut hair and nails from injury and from the dangerous uses to which they may be put by sorcerers it is necessary to deposit them in some safe place the shorn locks of a Maori chief were gathered with much care and placed in an adjoining cemetery the Tahitians buried the cuttings of their hair at the temples in the streets of Soku a modern traveller observed cairns of large stones piled against walls with tufts of human hair inserted in the crevices on asking the meaning of this he was told that when any native of the place pulled his hair he carefully gathered up the clippings and deposited them in one of these cairns all of which were sacred to the fatish and therefore inviolable these cairns of sacred stones he further learned were simply a precaution against witchcraft for if a man were not thus careful in disposing of his hair some of it might fall into the hands of his enemies who would by means of it be able to cast spells over him and so compass his destruction when the top knot of a Siamese child has been cut with great ceremony the short hairs are put into a little vessel made of plantain leaves and set adrift on the nearest river or canal as they float away all that was wrong or harmful in the child's disposition is believed to depart with them the long hairs are kept till the child makes a pilgrimage to the holy footprint of Buddha on the sacred hill at Prabhat they're then presented to the priests who are supposed to make them into brushes with which they sweep the footprint but in fact so much hair is thus offered each year that the priests cannot use it all so they quietly burn the superfluity as soon as the pilgrims backs are turned the cut hair and nails of the flamen dialis were buried under a lucky tree the shorn tresses of the vestal virgins were hung on an ancient lotus tree often the clipped hair and nails are stored away in any secret place not necessarily in a temple or cemetery or at a tree as in the cases already mentioned thus in sway beer you are recommended to deposit your clipped hair in some spot when neither sun nor moon can shine on it for example in the earth or under a stone in Danzig it is buried in a bag under the threshold in Uggie one of the Solomon islands men bury their hair lest it should fall into the hands of an enemy who would make magic with it and so bring sickness or calamity on them the same fear seems to be general in Melanesia and has led to a regular practice of hiding cut hair and nails the same practice prevails among many tribes of South Africa from a fear lest wizards should get hold of the severed particles and work evil with them the kafers carry still further this dread of allowing any portion of themselves to fall into the hands of an enemy for not only do they bury their cut hair and nails in a secret spot but when one of them cleans the head of another he preserves the vermin which he catches carefully delivering them to the person to whom they originally have attained supposing according to their theory that as they derived their support from the blood of the man from whom they were taken should they be killed by another the blood of his neighbor would be in his possession thus placing in his hands the power of some superhuman influence sometimes the severed hair and nails are preserved not to prevent them from falling into the hands of a magician but that the owner may have them at the resurrection of the body to which some races look forward thus the Incas of Peru took extreme care to preserve the nail pairings and the hairs that were shorn off or torn out with a comb placing them in holes or niches in the walls and if they fell out any other Indian that saw them picked them up and put them in their places again I very often asked different Indians at various times why they did this in order to see what they would say and they all replied in the same words saying know that all persons who were born must return to life they have no word to express resuscitation and the souls must rise out of their tombs with all that belong to their bodies we therefore in order that we may not have to search for our hair and nails at a time when there will be much hurry and confusion place them in one place that they may be brought together more conveniently and whenever it is possible we are also careful to spit in one place similarly the Turks never throw away the pairings of their nails but carefully stow them in cracks of the walls or of the boards in the belief that they will be needed at the resurrection the Armenians do not throw away their cut hair and nails and extracted teeth but hide them in places that are esteemed holy such as a crack in the church wall a pillar of the house or a hollow tree they think that all these seven portions of themselves will be wanted at the resurrection and that he who has not stowed them away in a safe place will have to hunt about for them on the great day in the village of drum Conrath in Ireland there used to be some old women who having ascertained from scripture that the hairs of their heads were all numbered by the Almighty expected to have to account for them at the day of judgment in order to be able to do so they stuffed the severed hair away in the thatch of their cottages some people burn their loose hair to save it from falling into the hands of sorcerers this is done by the Patagonians and some of the Victorian tribes in the upper vogue they say that you should never leave the clippings of your hair and nails lying about but burn them to hinder the sorcerers from using them against you for the same reason Italian women either burn their loose hairs or throw them into a place when no one is likely to look for them the almost universal dread of witchcraft induces the West African Negroes the Makololo of South Africa and the Tahitians to burn or bury their shorn hair in the Tyrol many people burn their hair lest the witches should use it to raise thunderstorms others burn or bury it to prevent the birds from lining their nests with it which would cause the heads from which the hair came to ache this destruction of the hair and nails plainly involves an inconsistency of thought the object of the destruction is avowedly to prevent these severed portions of the body from being used by sorcerers but the possibility of their being so used depends upon the supposed sympathetic connection between them and the man from whom they were severed and if this sympathetic connection still exists clearly those severed portions cannot be destroyed without injury to the man nine spittle tabooed the same fear of witchcraft which has led so many people to hide or destroy their loose hair and nails has induced others or the same people to treat their spittle in a like fashion for on the principles of sympathetic magic the spittle is part of the man and whatever is done to it will have a corresponding effect on him a chilote Indian who has gathered up the spittle of an enemy will put it in a potato and hang the potato in the smoke uttering certain spells as he does so in the belief that his foe will waste away as the potato dries in the smoke or he will put the spittle in a frog and throw the animal into an inaccessible unnavigable river which will make the victim quake and shake with a view the natives of Urewera a district of New Zealand enjoyed a high reputation for their skill in magic it was said that they made use of people's spittle to bewitch them hence visitors were careful to conceal their spittle lest they should furnish these wizards with a handle for working them harm similarly among some tribes of South Africa no man will spit when an enemy is near lest his foe should find the spittle and give it to a wizard who would then mix it with magical ingredients so as to injure the person from whom it fell even in a man's own house his saliva is carefully swept away and obliterated for a similar reason if common folk are thus cautious it is natural that kings and chiefs should be doubly so in the Sandwich Islands chiefs were attended by a confidential servant bearing a portable spittoon and the deposit was carefully buried every morning to put it out of the reach of sorcerers on the slave coast for the same reason whenever a king or chief expectorates the saliva is scrupulously gathered up and hidden or buried the same precautions are taken for the same reason with the spittle of the chief of Tabali in southern Nigeria the magical use to which spittle may be put marks it out like blood or nail pairings as a suitable material basis for a covenant since by exchanging their saliva the covenanting parties give each other a guarantee of good faith if either of them afterwards foresares himself the other can punish his perfidy by magical treatment of the perjurer's spittle which he has in his custody thus when the wajaga of east africa desire to make a covenant the two parties will sometimes sit down with a bowl of milk or beer between them and after uttering an incantation over the beverage they each take a mouthful of the milk or beer and spit it into the other's mouth in urgent cases when there is no time to spend on ceremony the two will simply spit into each other's mouth which seals the covenant just as well 10 foods to food as might have been expected the superstitions of the savage cluster thick about the subject of food and he abstains from eating many animals and plants wholesome enough in themselves which for one reason or another he fancies would prove dangerous or fatal to the eater examples of abstinence are too familiar and far too numerous to quote but if the ordinary man is thus deterred by superstitious fear from partaking of various foods the restraints of this kind which are laid upon sacred or tabooed persons such as kings and priests are still more numerous and stringent we've already seen that the flamen dialys was forbidden to eat or even name several plants and animals and that the flesh diet of egyptian kings was restricted to veal and goose in antiquity many priests and many kings of barbarous peoples abstained wholly from a flesh diet the gangas or fetish priests of the low angle coast are forbidden to eat or even see a variety of animals and fish in consequence of which their flesh diet is extremely limited often they live only on herbs and roots though they may drink fresh blood the heir to the throne of low angle is forbidden from infancy to eat pork from early childhood he is interdicted the use of the cola fruit in company at puberty he is taught by a priest not to partake of fouls except such as he has himself killed and cooked and so the number of taboos goes on increasing with his years in Fernando Poe the king after installation is forbidden to eat cocoa arum a caule dear and porcupine which are the ordinary foods of the people the head chief of the messiah may eat nothing but milk honey and the roasted livers of goats for if he partook of any other food he would lose his power of sooth saying and of compounding charms eleven knots and rings tabooed we have seen that among the many taboos which the flamen dialis at Rome had to observe there was one that forbade him to have a knot on any part of his garments and another that obliged him to wear no ring unless it were broken in the like manner Muslim pilgrims to Mecca are in a state of sanctity or taboo and may wear on their persons neither knots nor rings these rules are probably of kindred significance and may conveniently be considered together to begin with knots many people in different parts of the world entertain a strong objection to having any knot about their person at certain critical seasons particularly childbirth marriage and death thus among the Saxons of Transylvania when a woman is in travail all knots on her garments are untied because it is believed that this will facilitate her delivery and with the same intention all the locks in the house whether on doors or boxes are unlocked the laps think that a lying in woman should have no knot on her garments because a knot would have the effect of making the delivery difficult and painful in the East Indies this superstition is extended to the whole time of pregnancy the people believe that if a pregnant woman were to tie knots or braid or make anything fast the child would thereby be constricted or the woman would herself be tied up when her time came nay some of them enforce the observance of the rule on the father as well as the mother of the unborn child among the sea dikes neither of the parents may bind up anything with string or make anything fast during the wife's pregnancy in the Talm Bulu tribe of North Salibis a ceremony is performed in the fourth or fifth month of a woman's pregnancy and after it her husband is forbidden among many other things to tie any fast knots and to sit with his legs crossed over each other in all these cases the idea seems to be that the tying of a knot would as they say in the East Indies tie up the woman in other words impede and perhaps prevent her delivery or delay her convalescence after the birth on the principles of homeopathic or imitative magic the physical obstacle or impediment of a knot on a cord would create a corresponding obstacle or impediment in the body of the woman that this is really the explanation of the rule appears from a custom observed by the hose of West Africa at a difficult birth when a woman is in hard labor and cannot bring forth they call in a magician to her aid he looks at her and says the child is bound in the womb that is why she cannot be delivered on the entreaties of her female relations he then promises to loose the bond so that she may bring forth for that purpose he orders them to fetch a tough creeper from the forest and with it he binds the hands and feet of the sufferer on her back then he takes a knife and calls out the woman's name and when she answers he cuts through the creeper with a knife saying I cut through today thy bonds and thy child's bonds after that he chops up the creeper small puts the bits in a vessel of water and bathes the woman with the water here the cutting of the creeper with which the woman's hands and feet are bound is a simple piece of homeopathic or imitative magic by releasing her limbs from their bonds the magician imagines that he simultaneously releases the child in her womb from the trammels which impede its birth the same train of thought underlies a practice observed by some peoples of opening all locks doors and so on while a birth is taking place in the house we have seen that at such a time the Germans of Transylvania open all the locks and the same thing is done in Voigtland and Mecklenburg in northwestern Argyleshire superstitious people used to open every lock in the house at childbirth in the island of Salcet near Bombay when a woman is in hard labor all locks or doors or drawers are opened with a key to facilitate her delivery among the mandolings of Sumatra the lids of all chests boxes pans and so forth are opened and if this does not produce the desired effect the anxious husband has to strike the projecting ends of some of the house beams in order to loosen them for they think that everything must be open and loose to facilitate the delivery in Chittagong when a woman cannot bring her child to the birth the midwife gives orders to throw all doors and windows wide open to uncork all bottles to remove the buns from all casks to unloose the cows in the stall the horses in the stable the watchdog in his kennel to set free sheep fowls dark and so forth this universal liberty according to the animals and even to inanimate things is according to the people an infallible means of ensuring the woman's delivery and allowing the babe to be born in the island of Sakalien when a woman is in labor her husband undoes everything that can be undone he loosens the plates of his hair and the laces of his shoes then he unties whatever is tied in the house or its vicinity in the courtyard he takes the axe out of the log in which it is stuck he unfastens the boat if it is moored to a tree he withdraws the cartridges from his gun and the arrows from his crossbow again we have seen that a tall bullman abstains not only from tying knots but also from sitting with crossed legs during his wife's pregnancy the train of thought is the same in both cases whether you cross threads in tying a knot or only cross your legs in sitting at your ease you are equally on the principles of homeopathic magic crossing or thwarting the free course of things and your action cannot but check and impede whatever may be going forward in your neighborhood of this important truth the romans were fully aware to sit beside a pregnant woman or a patient under medical treatment with clasped hands says the grave plinny is to cast a malignant spell over the person and it is worse still if you nurse your leg or legs with your clasped hands or lay one leg over the other such postures were regarded by the old romans as a let and hindrance to business of every sort and at a council of war or a meeting of magistrates at prayers and sacrifices no man was suffered to cross his legs or clasp his hands the stock instance of the dreadful consequences that might flow from doing one or the other was that of alkemena who traveled with hercules for seven days and seven nights because the goddess luquina sat in front of the house with clasped hands and crossed legs and the child could not be born until the goddess had been beguiled into changing her attitude it is a Bulgarian superstition that if a pregnant woman is in the habit of sitting with crossed legs she will suffer much in childbed in some parts of Bavaria when conversation comes to a standstill and silence ensues they say surely somebody has crossed his legs the magical effect of knots in trampling and obstructing human activity was believed to be manifested at marriage not less than at birth during the middle ages and down to the 18th century it seems to have been commonly held in Europe that the consummation of marriage could be prevented by anyone who while the wedding ceremony was taking place either locked a lock or tied a knot in a cord and then threw the lock or the cord away the lock or the knotted cord had to be flung into water and until it had been found and unlocked or untied no real union of the married pair was possible hence it was a grave offence not only to cast such a spell but also to steal or make away with the material instrument of it whether lock or knitted cord in the year 1718 the parliament of Bordeaux sentenced someone to be burnt alive for having spread desolation through a whole family by means of knotted cords and in 1705 two persons were condemned to death in Scotland for stealing certain charmed knots which a woman had made in order thereby to mar the wedded happiness of spaulding of Ashintilli the belief in the efficacy of these charms appears to have lingered in the highlands of Perthshire down to the end of the 18th century for at that time it was still customary in the beautiful parish of loge rate between the river tummel and the river Tay to unloose carefully every knot in the clothes of the bride and bridegroom before the celebration of the marriage ceremony we meet with the same superstition and the same custom at the present day in Syria the persons who help a Syrian bridegroom to don his wedding garments take care that no knot is tied on them and no button buttoned but they believe that a button buttoned or a knot tied would put it within the power of his enemies to deprive him of his nuptial rights by magical means the fear of such charms is diffused all over North Africa at the present day to render a bridegroom impotent the enchanter has only to tie a knot in a handkerchief which he had previously placed quietly on some part of the bridegroom's body when he was mounted on horseback ready to fetch his bride so long as the knot in the handkerchief remains tied so long will the bridegroom remain powerless to consummate the marriage the maleficent power of knots may also be manifested in the infliction of sickness disease and all kinds of misfortune thus amongst the hose of West Africa a sorcerer will sometimes curse his enemy and tie a knot in a stalk of grass saying I have tied up the so-and-so in this knot may all evil light upon him when he goes into the field may a snake bite him when he goes to the chase may a ravening beast attack him and when he steps into a river may the water sweep him away when it rains may the lightning strike him may evil nights be his it is believed that in the knot the sorcerer has bound up the life of his enemy in the Quran there is an allusion to the mischief of those who puff into the knots and an Arab commentator on the passage explains that the words refer to women who practice magic by tying knots in cords and then blowing and spitting upon them he goes on to relate how once upon a time a wicked Jew bewitched the prophet Muhammad himself by tying nine knots on a string which he then hid in a well so the prophet fell ill and nobody knows what might have happened if the archangel Gabriel had not opportunally revealed to the holy man the place where the knotted cord was concealed the trusty alley soon fetched the baleful thing from the well and the prophet recited over it certain charms which were specially revealed to him for the purpose at every verse of the charms are not untied itself and the prophet experienced a certain relief if knots are supposed to kill they are also supposed to cure this follows from the belief that to undo the knots which are causing sickness will bring the sufferer relief but apart from this negative virtue of maleficent knots there are certain beneficent knots to which a positive power of healing is ascribed plenty tells us that some folk cured diseases of the groin by taking a thread from a web tying seven or nine knots on it and then fastening it to the patient's groin but to make the cure effectual it was necessary to name some widow as each knot was tied O'Donovan describes a remedy for fever employed among the turcomans the enchanter takes some camel hair and spins it into a stout thread droning a spell the while next he ties seven knots on the thread blowing on each knot before he pulls it tight this knotted thread is then worn as a bracelet on his wrist by the patient every day one of the knots is untied and blown upon and when the seventh knot is undone the whole thread is rolled up into a ball and thrown into a river bearing away as they imagine the fever with it again knots may be used by an enchanterist to win a lover and attach him firmly to herself thus the lovesick maid in Virgil seeks to draw daftness to her from the city by spells and by tying three knots on each of three strings of different colors so an Arab maiden who has lost her heart to a certain man tried to gain his love and bind him to herself by tying knots in his whip but her jealous rival undid the knots on the same principle magic knots may be employed to stop a runaway in Swaziland you may often see grass tied in knots at the side of the footpaths every one of these knots tells of a domestic tragedy a wife has run away from her husband and he and his friends have gone in pursuit binding up the paths as they call it in this fashion to prevent the fugitive from doubling back over them a net from its affluence of knots has always been considered in Russia very efficacious against sorcerers hence in some places when a bride is being dressed in her wedding attire a fishing net is flung over her to keep her out of harm's way for a similar purpose the bridegroom and his companions are often girt with pieces of net or at least with tight drawn girdles for before a wizard can begin to injure them he must undo all the knots in the net or take off the girdles but often a Russian amulet is merely a knotted thread the skein of red wool wound about the arms and legs is thought to ward off agues and fevers and nine skeins fastened round a child's neck are deemed a preservative against scarletina in the Tver government a bag of a special kind is tied to the neck of the cow which walks before the rest of a herd in order to keep off wolves its force binds the more of the ravening beast on the same principle a padlock is carried thrice around a herd of horses before they go afield in the spring and the bearer locks and unlocks it as he goes saying I lock from my herd the mouths of the gray wolves with this steel lock knots and locks may serve to avert not only wizards and wolves but death itself when they brought a woman to the stake at st. Andrews in 1572 to burn her alive for a witch they found on her a white cloth like a collar with strings and many knots on the strings they took it from her sorely against her will for she seemed to think that she could not die in the fire if only the cloth with the knotted strings was on her when it was taken away she said now I have no hope of myself in many parts of England it is thought that a person cannot die so long as any locks are locked or bolts shot in the house it is therefore a very common practice to undo all locks and bolts when the sufferer is plainly near his end in order that his agony may not be unduly prolonged for example in the year 1863 at Taunton a child lay sick of scarletina and death seemed inevitable a jury of matrons was as it were impaneled and to prevent the child dying hard all the doors in the house all the drawers all the boxes all the cupboards were thrown wide open the keys taken out and the body of the child placed under a beam whereby a sure certain and easy passage into eternity could be secured strange to say the child declined to avail itself of the facilities for dying so obligingly placed at its disposal by the sagacity and experience of the British matrons of Taunton it preferred to live rather than give up the ghost just then the rule which prescribes that at certain magical and religious ceremonies the hair should hang loose and the feet should be bare is probably based on the same fear of trampling and impeding the action in hand whatever it may be by the presence of any knot or constriction whether on the head or on the feet of the performer a similar power to bind and hamper spiritual as well as bodily activities is ascribed by some people to rings thus in the island of Carpathus people never button the clothes they put upon a dead body they are careful to remove all rings from it for the spirit they say can even be detained in the little finger and cannot rest here it is plain that even if the soul is not definitely supposed to issue a death from the fingertips yet the ring is conceived to exercise a certain constrictive influence which detains and imprisons the immortal spirit in spite of its efforts to escape from the tabernacle of clay in short the ring like the knot acts as a spiritual fetter this may have been the reason of an ancient Greek maxim attributed to Pythagoras which forbade people to wear rings nobody might enter the ancient arcadian sanctuary of the mistress at like Osora with a ring on his or her finger persons who consulted the oracle of thornus had to be chased to eat no flesh and to wear no rings on the other hand the same constriction which hinders the egress of the soul may prevent the entrance of evil spirits hence we find rings used as amulets against demons witches and ghosts in the Tyrol it is said that a woman in child bed should never take off her wedding ring or spirits and witches will have power over her among the laps the person who is about to place a corpse in the coffin receives from the husband wife or children of the deceased a brass ring which he must wear fastened to his right arm until the corpse is safely deposited in the grave the ring is believed to serve the person as an amulet against any harm which the ghost might do to him how father custom of wearing finger rings may have been influenced by or even have sprung from a belief in their efficacy as amulets to keep the soul in the body or demons out of it is a question which seems worth considering here we are only concerned with the belief in so far as it seems to throw light on the rule that the flamen dialis might not wear a ring unless it were broken taken in conjunction with the rule which forbade him to have a knot on his garments it points to a fear that the powerful spirit embodied in him might be trampled and hampered in its goings out and coming in by such corporeal and spiritual fetters as rings and knots