Chapter 19. Tabooed Acts.
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
Section 2. Taboos on Eating and Drinking.
IN THE OPINION of savages the acts of eating and drinking are attended
with special danger; for at these times the soul may escape from the mouth,
or be extracted by the magic arts of an enemy present. Among the
Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast "the common belief seems to be
that the indwelling spirit leaves the body and returns to it through the mouth;
hence, should it have gone out, it behoves a man to be careful about
opening his mouth, lest a homeless spirit should take advantage of the
opportunity and enter his body. This, it appears, is considered most likely to
take place while the man is eating." Precautions are therefore adopted to
guard against these dangers. Thus of the Bataks it is said that "since the
soul can leave the body, they always take care to prevent their soul from
straying on occasions when they have most need of it. But it is only
possible to prevent the soul from straying when one is in the house. At
feasts one may find the whole house shut up, in order that the soul may
stay and enjoy the good things set before it." The Zafimanelo in
Madagascar lock their doors when they eat, and hardly any one ever sees
them eating. The Warua will not allow any one to see them eating and
drinking, being doubly particular that no person of the opposite sex shall
see them doing so. "I had to pay a man to let me see him drink; I could not
make a man let a woman see him drink." When offered a drink they often
ask that a cloth may be held up to hide them whilst drinking. 1
If these are the ordinary precautions taken by common people, the
precautions taken by kings are extraordinary. The king of Loango may not
be seen eating or drinking by man or beast under pain of death. A favourite
dog having broken into the room where the king was dining, the king
ordered it to be killed on the spot. Once the king's own son, a boy of
twelve years old, inadvertently saw the king drink. Immediately the king
ordered him to be finely apparelled and feasted, after which he commanded
him to be cut in quarters, and carried about the city with a proclamation that
he had seen the king drink. "When the king has a mind to drink, he has a
cup of wine brought; he that brings it has a bell in his hand, and as soon as
he has delivered the cup to the king, he turns his face from him and rings
the bell, on which all present fall down with their faces to the ground, and
continue so till the king has drank... . His eating is much in the same style,
for which he has a house on purpose, where his victuals are set upon a
bensa or table: which he goes to, and shuts the door: when he has done,
he knocks and comes out. So that none ever see the king eat or drink. For
it is believed that if any one should, the king shall immediately die." The
remnants of his food are buried, doubtless to prevent them from falling into
the hands of sorcerers, who by means of these fragments might cast a fatal
spell over the monarch. The rules observed by the neighbouring king of
Cacongo were similar; it was thought that the king would die if any of his
subjects were to see him drink. It is a capital offence to see the king of
Dahomey at his meals. When he drinks in public, as he does on
extraordinary occasions, he hides himself behind a curtain, or
handkerchiefs are held up round his head, and all the people throw
themselves with their faces to the earth. When the king of Bunyoro in
Central Africa went to drink milk in the dairy, every man must leave the
royal enclosure and all the women had to cover their heads till the king
returned. No one might see him drink. One wife accompanied him to the
dairy and handed him the milk-pot, but she turned away her face while he
drained it. 2
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
Section 4. Taboos on Quitting the House.
BY AN EXTENSION of the like precaution kings are sometimes forbidden
ever to leave their palaces; or, if they are allowed to do so, their subjects
are forbidden to see them abroad. The fetish king of Benin, who was
worshipped as a deity by his subjects, might not quit his palace. After his
coronation the king of Loango is confined to his palace, which he may not
leave. The king of Onitsha "does not step out of his house into the town
unless a human sacrifice is made to propitiate the gods: on this account he
never goes out beyond the precincts of his premises." Indeed we are told
that he may not quit his palace under pain of death or of giving up one or
more slaves to be executed in his presence. As the wealth of the country is
measured in slaves, the king takes good care not to infringe the law. Yet
once a year at the Feast of Yams the king is allowed, and even required
by custom, to dance before his people outside the high mud wall of the
palace. In dancing he carries a great weight, generally a sack of earth, on
his back to prove that he is still able to support the burden and cares of
state. Were he unable to discharge this duty, he would be immediately
deposed and perhaps stoned. The kings of Ethiopia were worshipped as
gods, but were mostly kept shut up in their palaces. On the mountainous
coast of Pontus there dwelt in antiquity a rude and warlike people named
the Mosyni or Mosynoeci, through whose rugged country the Ten
Thousand marched on their famous retreat from Asia to Europe. These
barbarians kept their king in close custody at the top of a high tower, from
which after his election he was never more allowed to descend. Here he
dispensed justice to his people; but if he offended them, they punished him
by stopping his rations for a whole day, or even starving him to death. The
kings of Sabaea or Sheba, the spice country of Arabia, were not allowed to
go out of their palaces; if they did so, the mob stoned them to death. But at
the top of the palace there was a window with a chain attached to it. If any
man deemed he had suffered wrong, he pulled the chain, and the king
perceived him and called him in and gave judgment. 1
Section 5. Taboos on Leaving Food over.
AGAIN, magic mischief may be wrought upon a man through the remains of
the food he has partaken of, or the dishes out of which he has eaten. On
the principles of sympathetic magic a real connexion continues to subsist
between the food which a man has in his stomach and the refuse of it
which he has left untouched, and hence by injuring the refuse you can
simultaneously injure the eater. Among the Narrinyeri of South Australia
every adult is constantly on the look-out for bones of beasts, birds, or fish,
of which the flesh has been eaten by somebody, in order to construct a
deadly charm out of them. Every one is therefore careful to burn the bones
of the animals which he has eaten, lest they should fall into the hands of a
sorcerer. Too often, however, the sorcerer succeeds in getting hold of such
a bone, and when he does so he believes that he has the power of life and
death over the man, woman, or child who ate the flesh of the animal. To put
the charm in operation he makes a paste of red ochre and fish oil, inserts in
it the eye of a cod and a small piece of the flesh of a corpse, and having
rolled the compound into a ball sticks it on the top of the bone. After being
left for some time in the bosom of a dead body, in order that it may derive a
deadly potency by contact with corruption, the magical implement is set up
in the ground near the fire, and as the ball melts, so the person against
whom the charm is directed wastes with disease; if the ball is melted quite
away, the victim will die. When the bewitched man learns of the spell that is
being cast upon him, he endeavours to buy the bone from the sorcerer,
and if he obtains it he breaks the charm by throwing the bone into a river or
lake. In Tana, one of the New Hebrides, people bury or throw into the sea
the leavings of their food, lest these should fall into the hands of the
disease-makers. For if a disease-maker finds the remnants of a meal, say
the skin of a banana, he picks it up and burns it slowly in the fire. As it
burns, the person who ate the banana falls ill and sends to the
disease-maker, offering him presents if he will stop burning the banana
skin. In New Guinea the natives take the utmost care to destroy or conceal
the husks and other remains of their food, lest these should be found by
their enemies and used by them for the injury or destruction of the eaters.
Hence they burn their leavings, throw them into the sea, or otherwise put
them out of harm's way. 1
From a like fear, no doubt, of sorcery, no one may touch the food which
the king of Loango leaves upon his plate; it is buried in a hole in the
ground. And no one may drink out of the king's vessel. In antiquity the
Romans used immediately to break the shells of eggs and of snails which
they had eaten, in order to prevent enemies from making magic with them.
The common practice, still observed among us, of breaking egg-shells after
the eggs have been eaten may very well have originated in the same
superstition. 2
The superstitious fear of the magic that may be wrought on a man through
the leavings of his food has had the beneficial effect of inducing many
savages to destroy refuse which, if left to rot, might through its corruption
have proved a real, not a merely imaginary, source of disease and death.
Nor is it only the sanitary condition of a tribe which has benefited by this
superstition; curiously enough the same baseless dread, the same false
notion of causation, has indirectly strengthened the moral bonds of
hospitality, honour, and good faith among men who entertain it. For it is
obvious that no one who intends to harm a man by working magic on the
refuse of his food will himself partake of that food, because if he did so he
would, on the principles of sympathetic magic, suffer equally with his
enemy from any injury done to the refuse. This is the idea which in primitive
society lends sanctity to the bond produced by eating together; by
participation in the same food two men give, as it were, hostages for their
good behaviour; each guarantees the other that he will devise no mischief
against him, since, being physically united with him by the common food in
their stomachs, any harm he might do to his fellow would recoil on his own
head with precisely the same force with which it fell on the head of his
victim. In strict logic, however, the sympathetic bond lasts only so long as
the food is in the stomach of each of the parties. Hence the covenant
formed by eating together is less solemn and durable than the covenant
formed by transfusing the blood of the covenanting parties into each other's
veins, for this transfusion seems to knit them together for life. 3