proceed to consider this evidence. For instance, it will have struck some readers as a serious omission that no reference has been made in this discussion to the "uncleanness" which is very generally, if not universally, considered to attach to a corpse and to all who come in contact with it-an omission all the more serious because this "taboo" has been explained as due to fear lest the spirit of the deceased should lodge on the person who touches the dead body.1 The omission, however, has been intentional, and the reasons for it are twofold. First, whatever the theory of this taboo, in practice the taboo may and does coexist with love for and confidence in the spirit of the deceased. Thus amongst the Pelew Islanders, who, as has been said already, have no fear of the ghosts of their own people, "because of the good understanding which exists between the family and its own ghosts," the relatives of the deceased are "unclean" for several days.2 In Samoa, where the natural affection for the deceased finds touching expression, "those who attended the deceased were most careful not to handle food, and for days were fed by others as if they were helpless infants . . . fasting was common at such times, and they who did so ate nothing during the day, but had a meal at night; reminding us," says the Rev. G. Turner, "of what David said when mourning the death of Abner: So do God to me and more also, if I taste bread or ought else till the sun be down.' The fifth day was a day of purification.' They bathed the face and hands with hot water, and then they were 'clean,' and resumed the usual time and mode of eating." On the Gold Coast, where the wives of the deceased try to tempt his soul to return by offering him his favourite dish, "those persons who have touched the corpse are considered unclean; and after the interment, they go in procession to the nearest well or brook, and sprinkle themselves with water, which is the ordinary native mode of purification." 4 In ancient Greece, also, where ancestors were worshipped, the relatives were tabooed.5 In 1 I have not been able to see the paper in which this explanation is put forth; but cf. Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 154. 2 Kubary in Allerlei, i. 6. 4 Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, 241. 3 Nineteen Years in Polynesia, 228. See my paper, "Funeral Laws and Folk-Lore in Greece," in the Classical Review for June 1895, for instances. China, too, where the spirit, so far from being feared, was, as in Bonny, invited to return, the corpse is or was taboo; for we may infer from the question in The Li Ki,1 "Whoever being engaged with the mourning rites for a parent bathed his head or body?" that the period of the mourning rites was a time of "uncleanness" for the son. It seems, therefore, that even if we were to admit that this species of "uncleanness" originated in a savage theory that the soul might settle on the "unclean," we could not infer that deceased spirits were feared wherever this taboo was found to exist. Next-and this is the second reason why no reference has been previously made to this important set of facts-there are several kinds of taboo, of which the corpse-taboo is only one, and it seems proper to employ the comparative method and consider the various kinds together. We may thus perhaps avoid one-sided conclusions, and get a general view, if not a general theory, of the subject. next chapter, therefore, deals with taboo. 1 Legge's translation (Sacred Books of the East), 181. The CHAPTER VI TABOO ITS TRANSMISSIBILITY TABOO is a Polynesian word, said to mean "strongly marked"; but though the word is Polynesian, the institution is universal.1 Things are taboo which are thought to be dangerous to handle or to have to do with: things "holy" and things "unclean" are alike taboo; the dead body, the new-born child; blood and the shedder of blood; the divine king as well as the criminal; the sick, outcasts, and foreigners; animals as well as men; women especially, the married woman as well as the sacred virgin; food, clothes, vessels, property, house, bed, canoes, the threshing-floor, the winnowing fan; a name, a word, a day; all are or may be taboo because dangerous. This short list does not contain one-hundredth part of the things which are supposed to be dangerous; but even if it were filled out and made tolerably complete, it would, by itself, fail to give any idea of the actual extent and importance of the institution of taboo. If it were merely bodily contact with the person or thing tabooed which entailed danger, it would be sufficiently difficult for the savage to avoid unintentionally touching some of all the many things taboo. But the difficulty and danger are multiplied by the fact that involuntarily to catch sight of the tabooed object, or to be seen by the tabooed person, is as dangerous as to 1 The best collections of facts are, for Polynesia, Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologie, vi. 343 ff.; for food-taboos, A. E. Crawley in Folk-Lore, vi. 2 (June 1895), 130 ff.; for taboos on women, A. E. Crawley in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxiv. Nos. 2, 3, 4 (Nov. 1894, Feb. and May 1895), 116 ff., 219 ff., 430 ff.; Frazer in the Encyclopædia Britannica, s. v. "Taboo," and in the Golden Bough, i. 109 ff.; cf. also Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 152 ff., 446 ff., 481. For instances not drawn from the above collec tions, the special references will be given in each case below. touch, taste, or handle. Thus in Samoa, "Tupai was the name of the high priest and prophet. He was greatly dreaded. His very look was poison. If he looked at a cocoa-nut tree it died, and if he glanced at a bread-fruit tree it also withered away." The king of Loango may not, for the same reason, see a river or tree, and he has to make many long detours in consequence when he goes visiting.2 In some places girls when taboo have an equally poisonous glance, and are made to wear very broad-brimmed hats, in order that they may not infect the sun. The custom common amongst savage royalties, of holding a state umbrella over the king, may be, I conjecture, a survival from times when the king was a divine king, and, like Tupai or a tabooed woman, might do mischief with his eyes. In Whydah, "in former times, on the eve of the day for the public procession [of the sacred python], the priests and Dañh-si went round the town, announcing the approach of the festival, and warning all the inhabitants, white and black, to close their doors and windows, and to abstain from looking into the streets." 3 In ancient Greece the same belief manifests itself in the tale that Eurypylus was stricken with madness, when he ventured to open the λápvac or tabernacle, and look upon the image of Dionysus Æsymnetes. In the mysteries, the secret objects of worship were so taboo that it was only after a long course of preparatory purification and communion that it became safe for the worshipper to see them: “the èπожτεíα was the last and highest grade of initiation." In modern folk-lore it is held to be fatal to see "the good people ""they are fairies: he who looks on them shall die." On the same principle that seeing or being seen is dangerous, mere proximity also is forbidden; and amongst the Basutos, during harvest-time, the "unclean may not even approach the crop. In the same way, too, to hear is as dangerous as to see; thus amongst the Zulus, on receipt of the news that a relative is dead, the hearer must sprinkle himself with the blood of sacrifice, "to purify himself from 1 Turner, Samoa, 23. 3 Ellis, Ewe-speaking Peoples, 61. 2 Bastian, Loango Küste, i. 263-8. Pausanias, viii. c. 19. Gardner and Jevons, Greek Antiquities, 278. Even the name of the death, is dangerous to Thus the native tribes 9 the mourning," though obviously from the nature of the case there can have been no bodily or even visual contact with the corpse to defile the mourner. deceased, as well as the news of his hear, and may not be pronounced. of Tasmania, now extinct, "never mentioned the dead";2 and the same reticence is observed by the Ainos, and the Australian black-men. The Ostiaks avoid mentioning the name of the deceased; 5 the Caribs do not like to pronounce the names of their dead." The same dislike is found in Tierra del Fuego.' The Guaycorous never utter the name of a deceased chief, and the Abipones abstain not only from the name of the deceased, but from any word of which the name may happen to form part. It would, however, be an error to suppose that it is only the names of things "unclean" and defiling, such as the name of one who is now a corpse, are dangerous to hear; in Polynesia, chiefs are so sacred that their names are strictly taboo, and the component syllables may not be used in common conversation. In Sumatra, the name of the tiger is taboo, and when a reference to him is unavoidable, euphemisms are employed, and he is called "Grandfather," "Ancient One," "The Free," etc.1 The later Jews shrank from pronouncing the actual name of God, and made substitutions, to avoid unnecessary contact even of this indirect kind with the consuming holiness of the Lord. In ancient Greece, the rites to which the initiated alone were admitted were so sacred that all mention of them to the profane was tabooed-hence our uncertainty as to what those rites really were. 10 We have, however, yet to mention the peculiar characteristic of the institution of taboo, and that which gives it its widest range and greatest power. That is the transmissibility, the infection or contagion of taboo. Everything which comes in 1 Bastian, Der Mensch, iii. 24. 2 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 238. 3 Ibid. 238. 5 Bastian, Der Mensch, ii. 362. Bastian, Oest. Asien, v. 86. Père Delaborde in the Recueil de divers voyages (A.D. 1684), 8. 7 Réville, Religions des peuples non-civilisés, i. 398. 8 Ibid. 384. 10 Bastian, Oest. Asien, v. 51. 9 Ibid. 386. |