The clothes as well as the drinking vessels of the Mikado were fatal to those who touched them.1 Amongst the Tshispeaking peoples of the Gold Coast, "all the commoner utensils that have been used during the festival [a general remembrance of the dead], such as calabashes and earthen pots, are carried out at daybreak on the ninth day, and thrown away." 2 The Selli at Dodona were xaμaιeûvaι, i.e. abstained from sleeping in a bed, probably for the reason that the bed would become too holy for anyone else to occupy afterwards. They were also dviπтóπodes, and the priest and priestess of Artemis Hymnia did not wash like other people,3 doubtless because of the excessive sanctity of their persons, just as the Arabians of old might not wash or anoint the head; and the head of a Maori chief was so sacred that "if he only touched it with his fingers, he was obliged immediately to apply them to his nose, and snuff up the sanctity which they had acquired by the touch, and thus restore it to the part from whence it was taken." 4 As tabooed persons render everything taboo with which they come in contact, so holy places make everything in them taboo. The fish in the sacred river Reiti in Attica were themselves, like the stream, sacred to Demeter,5 and might be caught by her priests alone. In Phare (a town of Achæa) there was a stream sacred to Hermes, the fish of which, as being sacred to the god, were taboo and might not be caught at all." In Yabe there is a certain deity's hut which is so taboo, that whoso enters it, except on business, becomes the slave of the priest. On the Slave Coast any person accidentally touched by the sacred python is thereby made dedicate to the god and has to serve it for the rest of his life. By an extension of the same principle, in Polynesia the holy places of the gods and the houses of the most sacred chiefs became asylums for fugitives. The very soil of holy places is sacred, and communicates its sanctity to that which touches it: hence in Peru, none came within where the idol was, save the principal chiefs, who entered with much reverence and veneration, having removed their sandals,"1 doubtless because the sandals by contact with the sacred soil would become taboo and unfit thereafter for daily use. In the same way in Tonga, the upper garment was removed in the presence of the king, because his glance would render it taboo, and therefore useless afterwards. 2 ... The sanctity of the soil of sacred places gives rise to a remarkable coincidence in the practices of two races so widely separated as the ancient Mexicans and the negroes of the Gold Coast. The former practised "eating earth in honour of the god," the latter still "eat fetish." The Mexicans on entering any sacred place, or by way of taking oath, touched the soil with their finger and then placed the finger in the mouth. Amongst the negroes, " to make an oath binding on a person who takes it, it is usual to give him something to eat or drink which in some way appertains to a deity the ordinary plan is to take something from the spot in which the deity resides a little earth, or some leaves or berries. . . this is (incorrectly) called 'eating fetish.'"3 That this procedure somehow gives the deity of the place a greater hold over the person taking oath than he would have if the ceremony was omitted, is clear. How or why this should be, may be difficult for the enlightened reader to imagine, but it would be intelligible enough to the intending perjurer, who at the present day in an English court of justice kisses his thumb instead of "the book," and thinks thereby to escape the consequences of his perjury. The mediæval practice of swearing by or on the relics of a saint, and the classical custom of swearing or conjuring by the beard (which partakes of the peculiar sanctity of the head), though they do not involve eating or kissing, are inspired by the same feeling; indeed, we may say generally that the practice of swearing "by" anything, and therefore the very conception of an oath, is due in its origin to the feeling that the sacredness of the object held or kissed communicates itself and gives sacredness to the oath. Probably the earliest oaths are those of "compurgation," and the person thus freeing 1 Payne, The New World called America, i. 513, quoting Juan de Betanzos. Sahagun, Appendix to bk. ii. 3 Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, 196. 2 himself from the charge made against him does so by voluntarily making himself taboo, by "eating fetish or otherwise devoting himself to the god. Thus his enemy no longer can touch him, for he is taboo, nor is it necessary that his enemy should touch him; it is now the god's affair. Oaths of witness then follow the analogy of purgatory oaths. But perhaps the most remarkable instance of the "contagion" of taboo is to be found in the fact that it is capable of infecting not only things but actions, and even time itself. Thus amongst the Basutos, on the day of a chief's decease work is tabooed: 1 the corpse "defiles" not only those who come in contact with it, but all work done on the fatal day. In Madagascar, work is taboo to the relatives of the deceased for a longer or shorter time according to his rank.2 The Tshi-speaking negroes celebrate an annual feast for the dead generally, and "the whole eight days are termed egwah awotchwi, 'Eight Seats,' because it is a period of rest, during which no work may be performed." 3 In the New World, the funeral ceremonies of the kings of Mechoacan "lasted five days, and in all that time no Fire was permitted to be kindled in the City, except in the King's house and Temples, nor yet any Corn was ground, or Market kept, nor durst any go out of their houses." 4 And it is not only in the case of things "unclean" that time itself becomes a channel of infection: the "infection of holiness is transmitted in the same way. On the Gold Coast, " on the day sacred to or set apart for the offering of sacrifice to a local god, the inhabitants abstain from all work, smear their bodies with white clay, and wear white cloths in sign of rejoicing.” 5 On the Slave Coast, "every general, tribal, and local god, with the exception of Mawu, has his holy day." Amongst the Tshi-speaking peoples," on the day sacred to it [the tutelary deity] all the members of the family wear white or light-coloured cloths and mark themselves with white ... no work of kind may be done, and should one of the members of the family ,, 1 Casalis, Les Bassoutos, 275. any 2 Réville, Rel. des peup. non-civ. ii. 167. Gage, A New Survey of the West Indies, 160. 5 Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, 74. Ellis, Ewe-speaking Peoples, 79. be absent on a journey, he must on that day make a halt." 1 In Polynesia, not only on the death of Tuitonga, or in time of general mourning or of sickness in the royal family, but before war (a sacred function), or before a great feast, a tabooday or days are proclaimed; no one may cook food, no fire or light may be kindled, no one may go outside of his house, no domestic animal may utter a sound (dogs are muzzled, cocks put under a calabash). In Mexico, too, the principal feasts of the two chief deities, Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli, were preceded by a taboo period, "notice of which was solemnly given by the officials.” 2 In Madagascar there are days on which it is taboo to go outside the house or begin any business; "the child who comes into the world on one of those days is drowned, exposed, or buried alive, for it belongs to the gods, and therefore may not be kept from them." 3 This last quotation may make it easier to understand why work is taboo on a holy day; anything begun or done on such a day belongs to the god, and is not for common use. But the reference to a god is not indispensable; work done or begun on an "unclean" day is equally unfit for everyday use, though there is no god for it to belong to. An exact parallel may be found in the matter of raiment, of "best clothes" and "mourning." The clothes which a mourner wears become "defiled" by his contact with the deceased; and, when the days of his "impurity" are over, they are cast aside; they can no longer be used in his ordinary avocations, for they would communicate to all that he touched and to everything that he did the pollution with which they are infected. He therefore confines himself to one set of garments, in order not to spoil too many; and if it is the custom in his country to mark tabooed objects by some special colour, he is expected to wear raiment of that colour, to warn off those who otherwise might unwittingly come in contact with him and become defiled. So, too, the clothes. which a man wore in the worship of the gods acquired sanctity and could not be used in his ordinary avocations (just as "among the later Jews the contact of a sacred volume or a phylactery defiled the hands' and called for an 1 Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, 93. 2 Payne, New World, i. 486. 3 Réville, Rel. des peup. non-civ. i. 167. ablution " 1). A special set of garments therefore was reserved for this purpose exclusively; these were presumably the best that the wearer possessed, and so "in early times best clothes meant clothes that were taboo for the purposes of ordinary life.” 2 On the Gold Coast there is a special colour (white) for holy days, distinguished from that distinctive of mourning (red).3 Intermediate between the taboo on "best clothes" and that on "mourning" is the New Zealand taboo already mentioned on a garment on which the glance of a chief has rested. Intermediate, too, between "holy days" and days of mourning are the dies nefasti of the Romans and the μépai άπоpрádes of the Greeks, which were neither dedicated to any god nor "unclean," but were certainly taboo days. To a certain extent, it is plain, the transmissibility or infection of taboo can be explained by the laws of the Association of Ideas: the sentiment with which a person or thing is regarded colours all that is associated with that person or thing, and may be revived by anything which reminds us of it or him. "The glove upon that hand" has for the lover some of the glamour which surrounds his mistress; to all, the scene of former misery is painful. So, too, the terror which attaches to a thing taboo may be reawakened by anything which calls it to mind; of all things blood is most taboo; hence in Polynesia red berries are taboo, because of their colour; on the Gold Coast "every spot where the earth is of a red colour is believed to be or to have been the place of abode of a Sasabonsum," and is taboo; and in both countries red is the colour used to signify that a thing is tabooed. But whereas civilised man is aware that the association between such ideas is merely mental, to the savage the connection is real. The savage believes that the same terrible consequences -whatever they may be-which ensue on contact with blood, do actually and really follow on contact with things which by their colour or otherwise remind him thereof. That primitive man should mistake the mental association for a real connection was inevitable; he could not do otherwise. The reality of the connection was not for him matter of 1 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 452. 2 Ibid. 453. 4 Ibid. 35. |