Section 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. 1
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." 2
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. 3
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." 4
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. 5
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. 6
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. 7