argument; it was a self-evident fact, of which he had direct consciousness and immediate certitude. But if this is so, if man began with this belief, and did not infer or deduce it from anything, then we must reject those theories which represent taboo as being the consequence of some other belief, such as that things taboo transmit a material, physical pollution, or that some supernatural influence is transmitted, or that the dead man's spirit adheres to those who touch the corpse. The material, physical theory (implied in the use of the terms "contagion," "infection" of taboo) is untenable, because the belief in taboo is not an induction based upon observation, experience, and experiment, but an à priori conviction it is not an inference from such facts of observation as that pitch, mud, etc., defile, but a belief prior to, independent of, indeed, irreconcilable with the facts of experience. The theory of a supernatural cause is simply superfluous; the connection between the two associated ideas was a self-evident fact, which for the savage required no explanation-supernatural or other-but was rather itself the explanation of other things.

But though the laws of the Association of Ideas explain the transmissibility of taboo and account for the fact that whatever is mentally associated with the thing taboo awakens the same terror as the thing itself, still they obviously cannot explain why the thing itself is terrible to begin with. To learn that, we must examine the things themselves.

CHAPTER VII

THINGS TABOO

BEFORE beginning to examine things taboo, with a view to seeing whether they possess any common quality, whether any general statement can be made with regard to them, whether, in fine, it is possible to frame any induction from them, it is plain that we must discriminate between things which I will venture henceforth to distinguish as things taboo and things tabooed. Both classes are "infectious" and communicate their mysterious and dangerous qualities to whatever they come in contact with; but things tabooed are those which would not possess the taboo-infection, if they had not derived it from contact with something else taboo or tabooed, whereas things taboo are those which do not derive the contagion from anything else, but have it inherent in themselves. A single thing taboo might infect the whole universe; on the Loango Coast, a divine king's glance would infect a river and the river infect all in its course; in modern Polish folklore a corpse may not be carried over a stream,2 for the same reason; taboo persons are generally not allowed to be seen by the sun, for they would infect him, and he the universe.

For the purpose of this chapter, therefore, we must set aside things tabooed. Food, for instance, is not inherently taboo, though it may become tabooed in many ways—if it is touched, intentionally or unintentionally, by a sorcerer (in the Mulgrave Islands), or by an Amatonga (amongst the Zulus), or by a "tapued person" (in New Zealand), or by the Mikado, or by the sick (in Fiji), or by mourners (Tahiti, New Zealand, Samoa), or by a superior chief (Fiji and Tonga), or by an outcast (Burma and the Brahmins); and as the hands are 1 Bastian, Loango Küste, i. 263. 2 Am Urquell, iii. 51.

used for all sorts of things and are specially liable therefore to become "unclean," not only are mourners not allowed in Tahiti to feed themselves "lest the food, defiled by the touch of their polluted hands, should cause their own death,"1 not only has the tabooed person in Timor to be fed like a little child, for the same reason, not only was sacred food consumed in Mexico by a sort of "bob-cherry" performance without the use of the hands,3 but in Tanna no food whatever might be offered with the bare hands, as such contact might give the food a potency for evil; finally, as a taboo person can infect things by his mere glance, it is a common precaution to allow no one to see you take your food.4

Tabooed persons, too, must be distinguished from persons taboo; and under the former head must probably be placed criminals and the sick. There is reason to think that in primitive society the only criminals are the violators of taboo; and this crime carries its own punishment with it, for in the act of breaking taboo the offender himself becomes tabooed, and no one in the community will touch him or have anything to do with him. In fine, as the only offence known to primitive society is taboo-breaking, so the only punishment is excommunication. As far as the early Indo-Europeans are concerned, the evidence of linguistic palæontology is clear upon the latter point: "wretch" is a word which goes back to the earliest Aryan times, and it means an outlaw.5 Even in historic times the Roman community continued to protect itself by the interdict from fire and water, the object of which was probably in its origin rather to save those necessaries of life from pollution than to punish the offender. As for the sick, the taboo on them is, I think, confined to Polynesia, and is expressly explained as due to the fact that an atua or spirit enters them: they are thereby tabooed, but they are not taboo.

1 Wilkes, U.S. Exploring Expedition, iii. 115. 2 Réville, Rel. des peup. non-civ. ii. 162.

3

6

Payne, New World, i. 428. 4 Mr. Crawley gives instances from Abyssinia, Nubia, Madagascar, the Aztecs, Cacongo, Cauna, Dahomey, Congo, the Monbuttoo, the Pongo Coast, Ashanti, Tonga, the Bakairi, the Karaja, Loango Coast, Celebes, Sandwich Islands. FolkLore, vi. 2. 140.

5 Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, 350.

6 Granger, Worship of the Romans, 266; cf. Cicero pro S. Roscio, § 71.

In the same way, it is clear that, for the purposes of this chapter, we must class as tabooed and not as taboo all persons, animals, and objects in which a supernatural spirit takes up his abode. But though all supernatural beings are inherently taboo, we are not yet in a position to convert the proposition simply and say that all things taboo are supernatural: we have to inquire without prejudice whether as a matter of fact there are things taboo and yet not supernatural. However this may turn out to be, a thing or person may undoubtedly become tabooed by contact with the supernatural. Hence strangers are not inherently taboo, but as belonging to strange gods bring with them strange supernatural influences. It is well, therefore, not to touch their food or eat with them-as the Yule Islanders hold and are supported by the Papuans of Humboldt Bay, the blackfellows of Victoria, and the Atiu Islanders, as well as the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land.2 A common practice, also, is to fumigate strangers, to drive away their evil influences, or for the natives to offer blood to their own gods and so gain divine protection. The early explorers of the New World mistakenly regarded these proceedings as done in their honour in Palmeria, "when they recieue straungers or newe guestes . . . in token of friendshippe, they drawe a little bloud from themselues either out of the tongue, hand, arme, or any other part of the bodie."3

Finally, to our list of things tabooed rather than taboo we must add two-if originally they were two and not one class in which the institution of taboo has had marked effects on the progress of civilisation; they are property and wives. In Polynesia, women before marriage are noa (common, safe), afterwards tabooed. So, too, in Mayumbe it is death. to touch another man's wife, whereas unmarried women are free to all; and, elsewhere on the Loango Coast, married women are so taboo that things must not be handed directly to them by a man, but must be put down on the ground for them to pick up. In the same way a Waliah making

4

1 Crawley, loc. cit.

2 Réville, Rel. des peup. non-civ. ii. 159.

3 Hakluyt, Historie of the West Indies, Decade iv. ch. 4. Bernal Diaz repeatedly makes the same mistake.

4 Bastian, Loango Küste, i. 244.

5 Ibid. 168.

offerings to a Brahmin must not hand them but put them on the ground for him to pick up.1 As for property generally, in Polynesia the owner protects himself in possession by tabooing it; where fishing is conducted co-operatively, the catch is tabooed until divided; when a diamond mine was supposed to have been found near Honolulu, King Tamehameha at once tabooed it, in order to appropriate it exclusively to himself; and European shipmasters who did not care for native visitors got their vessels tabooed by a native chief. In the Moluccas charms are used for the protection of property which have the power of bringing illness or misfortune on the thief. And, according to Hakluyt, the Caribs cultivated the plant called by them Hay; each man had his own plot of ground, and "euery one incloseth his portion onely with a little cotton line and they account it a matter of sacriledge if any passe ouer the corde and treade on the possession of his neighbour, and holde it for certayne that whoso violateth this sacred thing shall shortly perish."3 So, too, in Melanesia, "in the eastern islands, the tambu [taboo] sign is often two sticks crossed and placed in the ground. In such a manner, the St. Christoval native secures his patch of ground from intrusion." 4 In Eastern Central Africa, "the same word that is used for betrothing a girl is also applied to the selecting of a piece of ground for hoeing. A person who wants a new farm goes forth and makes his selection. After doing so he takes bunches of long grass and ties round the trees in that field. Everyone that passes knows by the grass put upon the trees that the field has been taken possession of. . . . In the same way the intending husband points to the cloth that he has given to the girl, and says, 'She is mine.'” 5

But the distinction between things tabooed and things taboo is not the only distinction that it is necessary to draw. The very conception of taboo, based as it largely is on the association of ideas, is one peculiarly liable to extension by analogy. If, for instance, a species of things is taboo, then

1 Bastian, Oest. Asien, v. 53.

2 Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologie, vi. 354.

3 Hakluyt, Historie of the West Indies, Decade viii. ch. 6. 4 Guppy, The Solomon Islands, 32.

5 Duff Macdonald, Africana, i. 118.