Section 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. 1
