Taboo.
The subject of taboo may perhaps be referred to under the present heading, for, though there appear to be no totemic taboos, and though I have no material showing that the Mafulu taboos are based on superstitious ideas, it may, I imagine, be assumed that, while some of these taboos are possibly partly based on medical common sense, the element of superstition enters more or less into many of them. I have already referred to a few general restrictions connected with etiquette, and what I now propose to mention are food taboos.
Young men are not supposed to eat wild pig until they have married, but this is the only food restriction which is put upon them.[10] A woman who is about to give birth to a child must eat no food whatever for a day or rather longer (never more than two days), before the child is born. I have already referred to the food taboo on persons undergoing the nose-piercing operation, and the optional food taboo to which the nearest relative of a deceased person may submit, in lieu of wearing the mourning string. There is also a general taboo against any food other than sweet potato and chewing of betel-nuts, with its condiments of lime and pepper, upon any male person who intends to take part, either as a dancer or singer, in any ceremonial dance. This latter term includes the dance at a big feast and the women’s dance on the eve of it, but not the dancing during the six months’ interval before it. It also includes the dance at any of the various minor ceremonies above described, and at a funeral ceremony. The period of restriction in the case of the big feast begins when the formal croton-leaf invitation has gone out to the guests, about a month before the date of the feast. In the case of a funeral it is necessarily only quite short, and in cases of other ceremonies it varies, being largely dependent on the length of period during which the approach of the ceremony is known. During the period of restriction the people avail themselves largely of the privilege of betel-chewing, and prior to a big feast their mouths get very red. In connection with personal ceremonies upon assumption of the perineal band, admission to the emone (excepting, as regards this, the case of a child of very tender years), qualifying for drumming and dancing, devolution of chieftainship and nose-piercing, the person concerned, male or female, is under the same food restriction for a day prior to that of the ceremony, and as regards nose-piercing this taboo is prior to the actual piercing, and is quite distinct from the subsequent taboo already referred to. There does not appear to be any taboo connected with fishing, hunting or war.
The observance of all these taboos is secured only by superstitious belief or public opinion, or both, there being no method of enforcing them by punishment or by any exercise of authority by the chiefs.
[1] I have been unable to find an account of any spiritual or partly spiritual being associated with the beliefs of Papuans or Melanesians who can be regarded as being similar to Tsidibe. Perhaps the nearest approach to him will be found in Qat of the Banks Islands, of whom much is told us by Dr. Codrington in The Melanesians, and who apparently is not regarded as having been of divine rank, but is rather a specially powerful, but perhaps semi-human, spiritual individual, who, though not having originally created mankind and the animal and vegetable world and the objects and forces of nature as a whole, has had, and it would seem still has, considerable creative and influencing powers over them all. But I could learn no detailed legends concerning Tsidibe; and the scanty information given to me concerning him differs from what we know of Qat.
[2] Dr. Stapf thinks it is probably a species of Podocarpus or Dacrydium.
[3] Dr. Seligmann refers (Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 185) to a specimen of Ficus rigo, in which a taboo, having the power of making Koita folk sick, is believed to be immanent. I do not know whether or not the gabi tree is Ficus rigo, but, if it be so, there is an interesting similarity in this respect between these people and the Mafulu.
[4] A knotted wisp of grass is, I think, a common form of taboo sign in parts of New Guinea; and Dr. Seligmann refers (Melanesians of British New Guinea, pp. 136 to 138) to its use by the Koita for the protection of cocoanuts and other trees and firewood, and as part of the protective sign for new gardens. The use of the wisp by the Mafulu people, as above described, is not a taboo used for the protection of an object from human interference, being intended to protect the travellers in some way from the spirit or spirits haunting the spot. But there is, I think, an underlying similarity of superstitious ideas involved by the two purposes for which the wisps are used.
[5] Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 281.
[6] The Melanesians, p. 203.
[7] Seligmann, Melanesians of British New Guinea, p.85.
[8] I imagine a somewhat similar superstitious origin may be assumed as regards the idea of general purification (I of course do not refer to mere physical surface washing) by bathing: and Father Egedi says (Anthropos, Vol. V., p. 755) that the Kuni people, after a cannibal feast, had to confine themselves until the end of the moon which commenced before the feast to certain food, and that they then all bathed in running water and returned purified and free to eat any food.
[9] Apparently flying foxes are good omens in Tubetube (Southern Massim). See Seligmann’s Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 653.
[10] This is very different from the extensive food taboo restrictions which Father Egedi told me were placed upon the bachelors of Mekeo.