[586]. The objects affected by the conception of taboo are as various as the conditions of human life—they include things inanimate and animate, and events and experiences of all sorts. Sometimes the danger is supposed to be inherent in the object, sometimes the quality of dangerousness is imposed on it or infused into it by some authority; but in all cases there is present the force (mana) that, in savage theory, makes the external world a factor in human destinies.[939] This force may be transmitted from one object to another (usually by contact[940]), and thus the taboo infection may spread indefinitely, a silent and terrible source of misfortune, sometimes to a single person, sometimes to a whole community. Ceremonies connected with taboo are designed to protect against this destructive influence.
[587]. The principal taboo usages may be classed roughly under certain heads, which, however, will sometimes overlap one another.
[588]. Taboos connected with the conception of life. For early man the central mystery of the world was life, and mystery and danger attached to all things connected with its genesis, maintenance, and cessation—to pregnancy, birth, death, corpses, funerals, blood. Against these things precautions, in the form of various restrictions, had to be taken. Pregnancy was sometimes regarded as due to supernatural agency, and in all cases was noted as a mysterious condition in which the woman was peculiarly exposed to evil influences; she was sometimes required to keep her head covered or to avoid moonshine, or to live separated from her husband.[941]
[589]. Care for women during pregnancy and after the birth of a child might be induced by natural human kindliness. But certain usages in connection with birth indicate fear of superhuman dangers. In many regions (Central Asia, Africa, Oceania, China) the mother is taboo for a certain time, being regarded apparently as a source of danger to others, as well as being herself exposed to danger. The child also is surrounded by perils. Mother and child are protected by isolation, ablutions (baptism), amulets, conjurations, and by consecration to a deity.[942] The intimate relation between father and child may make it necessary to impose taboos on the former—he is sometimes required to go to bed (the couvade, or man-childbed), to abstain from work and from certain foods held to be injurious, and to avoid touching weapons and other dangerous things; thus, through the identity of father and child, the latter is guarded against the hostile mana that may be lurking near. The seclusion of the mother sometimes varies in duration according to the sex of the child; in most cases, apparently, the period is longer for a male child;[943] in the Jewish ritual the period for the maid-child is twice as great (eighty days) as that for the male;[944] the difference in the points of view, perhaps, is that the evil influence may direct itself particularly against, or be more serious for, the male as socially the more important, or it may be more dangerous for the female as the weaker.[945]
[590]. Taboos connected with death. The danger to the living arising from a death is of a twofold nature: the corpse, as a strange, uncanny thing, is a source of peril; and there are possible external enemies—the spirit that produced the death, and the ghost of the departed. Against these dangerous things avoidance of the corpse is the common precaution—a dead body must not be touched, or, if it is touched, he who touches must undergo purification.[946] Perhaps the various modes of disposing of corpses (exposure, inhumation, cremation) were originally attempts to get rid of their dangerous qualities; later other motives came in. The body of a suicide was especially feared, and was staked down on a public way to prevent its reappearance; it was perhaps the abnormal and desperate character of the death that produced this special fear. The dread of a corpse is, however, not universal among savages—in many cases it is eaten, simply as food or to acquire the qualities of the deceased, or for other reasons. It is feared as having hurtful power, it is eaten as being sacred or helpful.
[591]. The house in which a death occurs shares the evil power of the dead body, and sometimes must be destroyed, together with all its furniture, or abandoned or purified.[947] Death diffuses its baleful influence through the atmosphere, making it unfavorable for ordinary work, which, accordingly, is often then suspended for a time.[948] Seclusion is sometimes enjoined on widower or widow,[949] and mention of the name of the deceased is forbidden—the identity of spouse or name with the dead effects the transmission of what is dangerous in him. In another direction the earthly dwelling of a dead person is protected—a curse is pronounced on one who violates it.[950]
[592]. Taboos connected with woman and the relations between the sexes. Among many peoples there is dread of the presence of women and of their belongings under certain circumstances.[951] The ground of this fear may lie in those physiological peculiarities of woman which are regarded as mysterious and dangerous, and the antagonism of feeling may have been increased by the separation between the sexes consequent on the differences in their social functions and their daily pursuits. Woman seems to move in a sphere different from that of man; she acts in ways that are strange to him. Whatever its ground, the feeling of dread is a real one: a case is reported of a man who, on learning that he had lain down on his wife's blanket, became violently ill.
[593]. Various restrictions are imposed on women at periods of sexual crisis. The girl on reaching the age of puberty is generally (though not always[952]) immured, sometimes for weeks or months, to shield her from noxious influences, human and nonhuman. During menstruation a woman is isolated, may not be looked on by the sun, must remain apart from her husband, and her food is strictly regulated.[953] It is not infrequently the case that certain foods are permanently forbidden women, for what special reasons is not clear.[954] The rule forbidding a wife to eat with her husband may have come originally from nonreligious social considerations (her subordination to the man, or the fact that she belonged to a social group different from his), but in that case it later acquired a religious character. Women have commonly been excluded in savage communities from solemn ceremonies (as those of the initiation of males) and from tribal councils;[955] such rules may have originated in the natural differentiation of social functions of the sexes or in the desire of men to keep the control of tribal life in their own hands, but in many cases the presence of women was supposed to vitiate the proceedings supernaturally. In industrial enterprises, such as hunting and fishing, they are sometimes held to be a fatal influence.[956] In family life a wife's mother was debarred from all social intercourse with her son-in-law.[957]
[594]. Where procreation was ascribed to the union of the sexes, sexual intercourse, as being intimately connected with life, was credited with supernatural potency, generally unfavorable to vigor.[958] It has been largely prohibited on all important public occasions, such as hunting and war, and particularly in connection with religious ceremonies.[959] Various considerations may have contributed to the establishment of such customs, but in their earliest form we have, probably, to recognize not any moral effort to secure chastity, but a dread of injurious mana resident in women.[960] We may compare the fact that women have often been regarded as specially gifted in witchcraft.[961]
[595]. Taboos connected with great personages. The theory of mana includes the belief that special supernatural power resides in the persons of tribal leaders, such as magicians, chiefs, priests. It follows that danger attaches to their bodies (particularly to head, hair, and nails), to their names, and to their food and other belongings. These things must be avoided: their food must not be eaten by common folk; their houses and other property must not be used; their nail-cuttings must be buried so that danger may be averted from the community; their names must not be mentioned. They themselves, being peculiarly sensitive to malign influences, must be protected in the house and when they walk out; and it is in some cases not safe for the common man to look on the chief as he passes through the village.