Section 6. Hunters and Fishers tabooed.
IN SAVAGE society the hunter and the fisherman have often to observe
rules of abstinence and to submit to ceremonies of purification of the same
sort as those which are obligatory on the warrior and the manslayer; and
though we cannot in all cases perceive the exact purpose which these
rules and ceremonies are supposed to serve, we may with some probability
assume that, just as the dread of the spirits of his enemies is the main
motive for the seclusion and purification of the warrior who hopes to take or
has already taken their lives, so the huntsman or fisherman who complies
with similar customs is principally actuated by a fear of the spirits of the
beasts, birds, or fish which he has killed or intends to kill. For the savage
commonly conceives animals to be endowed with souls and intelligences
like his own, and hence he naturally treats them with similar respect. Just
as he attempts to appease the ghosts of the men he has slain, so he essays
to propitiate the spirits of the animals he has killed. These ceremonies of
propitiation will be described later on in this work; here we have to deal,
first, with the taboos observed by the hunter and the fisherman before or
during the hunting and fishing seasons, and, second, with the ceremonies
of purification which have to be practised by these men on returning with
their booty from a successful chase. 1
While the savage respects, more or less, the souls of all animals, he treats
with particular deference the spirits of such as are either especially useful
to him or formidable on account of their size, strength, or ferocity.
Accordingly the hunting and killing of these valuable or dangerous beasts
are subject to more elaborate rules and ceremonies than the slaughter of
comparatively useless and insignificant creatures. Thus the Indians of
Nootka Sound prepared themselves for catching whales by observing a fast
for a week, during which they ate very little, bathed in the water several
times a day, sang, and rubbed their bodies, limbs, and faces with shells
and bushes till they looked as if they had been severely torn with briars.
They were likewise required to abstain from any commerce with their
women for the like period, this last condition being considered
indispensable to their success. A chief who failed to catch a whale has
been known to attribute his failure to a breach of chastity on the part of his
men. It should be remarked that the conduct thus prescribed as a
preparation for whaling is precisely that which in the same tribe of Indians
was required of men about to go on the war-path. Rules of the same sort
are, or were formerly, observed by Malagasy whalers. For eight days
before they went to sea the crew of a whaler used to fast, abstaining from
women and liquor, and confessing their most secret faults to each other;
and if any man was found to have sinned deeply, he was forbidden to
share in the expedition. In the island of Mabuiag continence was imposed
on the people both before they went to hunt the dugong and while the
turtles were pairing. The turtle-season lasts during parts of October and
November; and if at that time unmarried persons had sexual intercourse with
each other, it was believed that when the canoe approached the floating
turtle, the male would separate from the female and both would dive down
in different directions. So at Mowat in New Guinea men have no relation
with women when the turtles are coupling, though there is considerable
laxity of morals at other times. In the island of Uap, one of the Caroline
group, every fisherman plying his craft lies under a most strict taboo during
the whole of the fishing season, which lasts for six or eight weeks.
Whenever he is on shore he must spend all his time in the men's
clubhouse, and under no pretext whatever may he visit his own house or
so much as look upon the faces of his wife and womenkind. Were he but to
steal a glance at them, they think that flying fish must inevitably bore out his
eyes at night. If his wife, mother, or daughter brings any gift for him or
wishes to talk with him, she must stand down towards the shore with her
back turned to the men's clubhouse. Then the fisherman may go out and
speak to her, or with his back turned to her he may receive what she has
brought him; after which he must return at once to his rigorous confinement.
Indeed the fishermen may not even join in dance and song with the other
men of the clubhouse in the evening; they must keep to themselves and be
silent. In Mirzapur, when the seed of the silkworm is brought into the house,
the Kol or Bhuiyar puts it in a place which has been carefully plastered
with holy cowdung to bring good luck. From that time the owner must be
careful to avoid ceremonial impurity. He must give up cohabitation with his
wife; he may not sleep on a bed, nor shave himself, nor cut his nails, nor
anoint himself with oil, nor eat food cooked with butter, nor tell lies, nor do
anything else that he deems wrong. He vows to Singarmati Devi that, if the
worms are duly born, he will make her an offering. When the cocoons open
and the worms appear, he assembles the women of the house and they
sing the same song as at the birth of a baby, and red lead is smeared on
the parting of the hair of all the married women of the neighbourhood. When
the worms pair, rejoicings are made as at a marriage. Thus the silkworms
are treated as far as possible like human beings. Hence the custom which
prohibits the commerce of the sexes while the worms are hatching may be
only an extension, by analogy, of the rule which is observed by many
races, that the husband may not cohabit with his wife during pregnancy
and lactation. 2
In the island of Nias the hunters sometimes dig pits, cover them lightly
over with twigs, grass, and leaves, and then drive the game into them.
While they are engaged in digging the pits, they have to observe a number
of taboos. They may not spit, or the game would turn back in disgust from
the pits. They may not laugh, or the sides of the pit would fall in. They may
eat no salt, prepare no fodder for swine, and in the pit they may not scratch
themselves, for if they did, the earth would be loosened and would
collapse. And the night after digging the pit they may have no intercourse
with a woman, or all their labour would be in vain. 3
This practice of observing strict chastity as a condition of success in
hunting and fishing is very common among rude races; and the instances
of it which have been cited render it probable that the rule is always based
on a superstition rather than on a consideration of the temporary weakness
which a breach of the custom may entail on the hunter or fisherman. In
general it appears to be supposed that the evil effect of incontinence is not
so much that it weakens him, as that, for some reason or other, it offends
the animals, who in consequence will not suffer themselves to be caught. A
Carrier Indian of British Columbia used to separate from his wife for a full
month before he set traps for bears, and during this time he might not drink
from the same vessel as his wife, but had to use a special cup made of
birch bark. The neglect of these precautions would cause the game to
escape after it had been snared. But when he was about to snare martens,
the period of continence was cut down to ten days. 4
An examination of all the many cases in which the savage bridles his
passions and remains chaste from motives of superstition, would be
instructive, but I cannot attempt it now. I will only add a few miscellaneous
examples of the custom before passing to the ceremonies of purification
which are observed by the hunter and fisherman after the chase and the
fishing are over. The workers in the salt-pans near Siphoum, in Laos, must
abstain from all sexual relations at the place where they are at work; and
they may not cover their heads nor shelter themselves under an umbrella
from the burning rays of the sun. Among the Kachins of Burma the ferment
used in making beer is prepared by two women, chosen by lot, who during
the three days that the process lasts may eat nothing acid and may have
no conjugal relations with their husbands; otherwise it is supposed that the
beer would be sour. Among the Masai honey-wine is brewed by a man
and a woman who live in a hut set apart for them till the wine is ready for
drinking. But they are strictly forbidden to have sexual intercourse with
each other during this time; it is deemed essential that they should be
chaste for two days before they begin to brew and for the whole of the six
days that the brewing lasts. The Masai believe that were the couple to
commit a breach of chastity, not only would the wine be undrinkable but the
bees which made the honey would fly away. Similarly they require that a
man who is making poison should sleep alone and observe other taboos
which render him almost an outcast. The Wandorobbo, a tribe of the same
region as the Masai, believe that the mere presence of a woman in the
neighbourhood of a man who is brewing poison would deprive the poison
of its venom, and that the same thing would happen if the wife of the
poison-maker were to commit adultery while her husband was brewing the
poison. In this last case it is obvious that a rationalistic explanation of the
taboo is impossible. How could the loss of virtue in the poison be a
physical consequence of the loss of virtue in the poison-maker's wife?
Clearly the effect which the wife's adultery is supposed to have on the
poison is a case of sympathetic magic; her misconduct sympathetically
affects her husband and his work at a distance. We may, accordingly, infer
with some confidence that the rule of continence imposed on the
poison-maker himself is also a simple case of sympathetic magic, and not,
as a civilised reader might be disposed to conjecture, a wise precaution
designed to prevent him from accidentally poisoning his wife. 5
Among the Ba-Pedi and Ba-Thonga tribes of South Africa, when the site
of a new village has been chosen and the houses are building, all the
married people are forbidden to have conjugal relations with each other. If it
were discovered that any couple had broken this rule, the work of building
would immediately be stopped, and another site chosen for the village. For
they think that a breach of chastity would spoil the village which was
growing up, that the chief would grow lean and perhaps die, and that the
guilty woman would never bear another child. Among the Chams of
Cochin-China, when a dam is made or repaired on a river for the sake of
irrigation, the chief who offers the traditional sacrifices and implores the
protection of the deities on the work has to stay all the time in a wretched
hovel of straw, taking no part in the labour, and observing the strictest
continence; for the people believe that a breach of his chastity would entail
a breach of the dam. Here, it is plain, there can be no idea of maintaining
the mere bodily vigour of the chief for the accomplishment of a task in
which he does not even bear a hand. 6
If the taboos or abstinences observed by hunters and fishermen before
and during the chase are dictated, as we have seen reason to believe, by
superstitious motives, and chiefly by a dread of offending or frightening the
spirits of the creatures whom it is proposed to kill, we may expect that the
restraints imposed after the slaughter has been perpetrated will be at least
as stringent, the slayer and his friends having now the added fear of the
angry ghosts of his victims before their eyes. Whereas on the hypothesis
that the abstinences in question, including those from food, drink, and
sleep, are merely salutary precautions for maintaining the men in health
and strength to do their work, it is obvious that the observance of these
abstinences or taboos after the work is done, that is, when the game is
killed and the fish caught, must be wholly superfluous, absurd, and
inexplicable. But as I shall now show, these taboos often continue to be
enforced or even increased in stringency after the death of the animals, in
other words, after the hunter or fisher has accomplished his object by
making his bag or landing his fish. The rationalistic theory of them therefore
breaks down entirely; the hypothesis of superstition is clearly the only one
open to us. 7
Among the Inuit or Esquimaux of Bering Strait "the dead bodies of various
animals must be treated very carefully by the hunter who obtains them, so
that their shades may not be offended and bring bad luck or even death
upon him or his people." Hence the Unalit hunter who has had a hand in
the killing of a white whale, or even has helped to take one from the net, is
not allowed to do any work for the next four days, that being the time during
which the shade or ghost of the whale is supposed to stay with its body. At
the same time no one in the village may use any sharp or pointed
instrument for fear of wounding the whale's shade, which is believed to be
hovering invisible in the neighbourhood; and no loud noise may be made
lest it should frighten or offend the ghost. Whoever cuts a whale's body with
an iron axe will die. Indeed the use of all iron instruments is forbidden in the
village during these four days. 8
These same Esquimaux celebrate a great annual festival in December
when the bladders of all the seals, whales, walrus, and white bears that
have been killed in the year are taken into the assembly-house of the
village. They remain there for several days, and so long as they do so the
hunters avoid all intercourse with women, saying that if they failed in that
respect the shades of the dead animals would be offended. Similarly among
the Aleuts of Alaska the hunter who had struck a whale with a charmed
spear would not throw again, but returned at once to his home and
separated himself from his people in a hut specially constructed for the
purpose, where he stayed for three days without food or drink, and without
touching or looking upon a woman. During this time of seclusion he snorted
occasionally in imitation of the wounded and dying whale, in order to
prevent the whale which he had struck from leaving the coast. On the
fourth day he emerged from his seclusion and bathed in the sea, shrieking
in a hoarse voice and beating the water with his hands. Then, taking with
him a companion, he repaired to that part of the shore where he expected
to find the whale stranded. If the beast was dead, he at once cut out the
place where the death-wound had been inflicted. If the whale was not
dead, he again returned to his home and continued washing himself until
the whale died. Here the hunter's imitation of the wounded whale is
probably intended by means of homoeopathic magic to make the beast die
in earnest. Once more the soul of the grim polar bear is offended if the
taboos which concern him are not observed. His soul tarries for three days
near the spot where it left his body, and during these days the Esquimaux
are particularly careful to conform rigidly to the laws of taboo, because they
believe that punishment overtakes the transgressor who sins against the
soul of a bear far more speedily than him who sins against the souls of the
sea-beasts. 9
When the Kayans have shot one of the dreaded Bornean panthers, they
are very anxious about the safety of their souls, for they think that the soul
of a panther is almost more powerful than their own. Hence they step eight
times over the carcase of the dead beast reciting the spell, "Panther, thy
soul under my soul." On returning home they smear themselves, their dogs,
and their weapons with the blood of fowls in order to calm their souls and
hinder them from fleeing away; for, being themselves fond of the flesh of
fowls, they ascribe the same taste to their souls. For eight days afterwards
they must bathe by day and by night before going out again to the chase.
Among the Hottentots, when a man has killed a lion, leopard, elephant, or
rhinoceros, he is esteemed a great hero, but he has to remain at home
quite idle for three days, during which his wife may not come near him; she
is also enjoined to restrict herself to a poor diet and to eat no more than is
barely necessary to keep her in health. Similarly the Lapps deem it the
height of glory to kill a bear, which they consider the king of beasts.
Nevertheless, all the men who take part in the slaughter are regarded as
unclean, and must live by themselves for three days in a hut or tent made
specially for them, where they cut up and cook the bear's carcase. The
reindeer which brought in the carcase on a sledge may not be driven by a
woman for a whole year; indeed, according to one account, it may not be
used by anybody for that period. Before the men go into the tent where they
are to be secluded, they strip themselves of the garments they had worn in
killing the bear, and their wives spit the red juice of alder bark in their
faces. They enter the tent not by the ordinary door but by an opening at the
back. When the bear's flesh has been cooked, a portion of it is sent by the
hands of two men to the women, who may not approach the men's tent
while the cooking is going on. The men who convey the flesh to the women
pretend to be strangers bringing presents from a foreign land; the women
keep up the pretence and promise to tie red threads round the legs of the
strangers. The bear's flesh may not be passed in to the women through the
door of their tent, but must be thrust in at a special opening made by lifting
up the hem of the tent-cover. When the three days' seclusion is over and
the men are at liberty to return to their wives, they run, one after the other,
round the fire, holding the chain by which pots are suspended over it. This
is regarded as a form of purification; they may now leave the tent by the
ordinary door and rejoin the women. But the leader of the party must still
abstain from cohabitation with his wife for two days more. 10
Again, the Caffres are said to dread greatly the boa-constrictor or an
enormous serpent resembling it; "and being influenced by certain
superstitious notions they even fear to kill it. The man who happened to put
it to death, whether in self-defence or otherwise, was formerly required to
lie in a running stream of water during the day for several weeks together;
and no beast whatever was allowed to be slaughtered at the hamlet to
which he belonged, until this duty had been fully performed. The body of
the snake was then taken and carefully buried in a trench, dug close to the
cattle-fold, where its remains, like those of a chief, were henceforward kept
perfectly undisturbed. The period of penance, as in the case of mourning
for the dead, is now happily reduced to a few days." In Madras it is
considered a great sin to kill a cobra. When this has happened, the people
generally burn the body of the serpent, just as they burn the bodies of
human beings. The murderer deems himself polluted for three days. On the
second day milk is poured on the remains of the cobra. On the third day the
guilty wretch is free from pollution. 11
In these last cases the animal whose slaughter has to be atoned for is
sacred, that is, it is one whose life is commonly spared from motives of
superstition. Yet the treatment of the sacrilegious slayer seems to resemble
so closely the treatment of hunters and fishermen who have killed animals
for food in the ordinary course of business, that the ideas on which both
sets of customs are based may be assumed to be substantially the same.
Those ideas, if I am right, are the respect which the savage feels for the
souls of beasts, especially valuable or formidable beasts, and the dread
which he entertains of their vengeful ghosts. Some confirmation of this view
may be drawn from the ceremonies observed by fishermen of Annam when
the carcase of a whale is washed ashore. These fisherfolk, we are told,
worship the whale on account of the benefits they derive from it. There is
hardly a village on the sea-shore which has not its small pagoda,
containing the bones, more or less authentic, of a whale. When a dead
whale is washed ashore, the people accord it a solemn burial. The man
who first caught sight of it acts as chief mourner, performing the rites which
as chief mourner and heir he would perform for a human kinsman. He puts
on all the garb of woe, the straw hat, the white robe with long sleeves
turned inside out, and the other paraphernalia of full mourning. As next of
kin to the deceased he presides over the funeral rites. Perfumes are
burned, sticks of incense kindled, leaves of gold and silver scattered,
crackers let off. When the flesh has been cut off and the oil extracted, the
remains of the carcase are buried in the sand. After wards a shed is set up
and offerings are made in it. Usually some time after the burial the spirit of
the dead whale takes possession of some person in the village and
declares by his mouth whether he is a male or a female. 12