Among the many curious superstitions recorded by [[10]]Mr Hobley none is perhaps more interesting and suggestive than by the name of thahu or thabu, and which presents points of similarity to the Polynesian taboo. Mr Hobley thinks that the idea involved in it is best expressed by the English term “curse.” But to this it may be objected that a curse implies a personal agent, human or divine, who has called down some evil on the sufferer; whereas in many, indeed in most, of the cases enumerated by Mr Hobley there is no suggestion of such an agent, and the evil which befalls the sufferer is the direct consequence of his own action or of a simple accident. Thus it would seem that “ceremonial uncleanness” answers better to the meaning of thahu than “curse.” Be that as it may, deliberate cursing apparently plays a prominent part in the superstition of the Kikuyu and Kamba; but it is significant that they give it a different name (kirume, kiume) from that which they apply to ceremonial uncleanness. Great faith is put in the effectiveness of curses, especially the curses of dying persons; and as these latter curses often refer to the disposal of the dying man’s property after his death and are intended to prevent the alienation of land from the family, Mr Hobley is led to make the ingenious suggestion that in some curses we may detect the origin of entail and of testamentary dispositions in general.
Not a few of the customs and beliefs described by Mr Hobley remind us of similar practices and ideas in the religion and mythology of classical antiquity. Thus the warriors who, armed with swords and clubs, dance or hop from foot to foot at the time when the mawele grain is reaped, are curiously reminiscent of the Roman Salii, the dancing or leaping priests of the war-god Mars, who, similarly accoutred with swords and staves, danced or leaped, while they invoked Saturn, the God of Sowing. Again, the strange sort of madness which from time to time seizes on Kamba women and under the influence of which, wrought up to a state of frenzy, they caper about with cow’s tails suspended from their [[11]]arms, offers a parallel to the Greek legend of the daughters of Prœtus and the other Argive women, who, oddly enough, were said like their African sisters to have been healed of their infirmity by dances and the sacrifice of cattle.[2] The study of such hysterical and infectious manias among primitive peoples opens up an interesting field of inquiry to the psychologist.
Such are a few specimens culled from the rich collection of East African folk-lore and religion which the author has presented to his readers in this volume. The facts recorded by him provide much food for thought and suggest many lines of investigation for inquiries in the future. For, as he reminds us, with equal truth and modesty, the field of inquiry is far from being exhausted. Let us hope that it will yet yield an abundant harvest to others, who will follow in Mr Hobley’s footsteps and imitate the example he has set them of patient and open-minded research.
J. G. FRAZER. [[13]]
[1] Vol. II. pp. 4 et seq. [↑]
[2] Apollodorus, The Library, II. 2, 2, with my notes. [↑]
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