[27] Schomburgk, ‘Expedition to the Upper Corentyne,’ in Jour. Roy. Geograph. Soc. London, xv. 30.
There are still other cases in which certain persons are permanently required to abstain from certain kinds of food. Thus in the Andaman Islands every man and woman “is prohibited all through life from eating some one (or more) fish or animal: in most cases the forbidden dainty is one which in childhood was observed (or imagined) by the mother to occasion some functional derangement; when of an age to understand it the circumstance is explained, and cause and effect being clearly demonstrated, the individual, in question thence forth considers that particular meat his yât-tūb, and avoids it carefully. In cases where no evil consequences have resulted from partaking of any kind of food, the fortunate person is privileged to select his own yât-tūb, and is, of course, shrewd enough to decide upon some fish, such as shark or skate, which is little relished, and to abstain from which consequently entails no exercise of self-denial.” It is believed that the god Pūluga would punish severely any person who might be guilty of eating his yât-tūb, either by causing his skin to peel off, or by turning his hair white, and flaying him alive.[28] In Samoa each man had generally his god in the shape of some species of animal; and if he ate one of these divine animals it was supposed that the god avenged the insult by taking up his abode in the eater’s body and there generating an animal of the same kind until it caused his death.[29] The members of a totem clan are usually forbidden to eat the particular animal or plant whose name they bear.[30] Thus among the Omaha Indians men whose totem is the elk believe that if they ate the flesh of the male elk they would break out in boils and white spots in different parts of their bodies; and men whose totem is the red corn think that if they ate red corn they would have running sores all round their mouths.[31] Yet, however general, prohibitions of this kind cannot be said to be a universal characteristic of totemism.[32] Sir J. G. Frazer even suggests that the original custom was perhaps to eat the totem and the latter custom to abstain from it.[33] But this is hardly more than a guess.
[28] Man, ‘Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands.’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 354.
[29] Turner, Samoa, p. 17 sq.
[30] Frazer, Totemism, p. 7 sqq. Idem, Totemism and Exogamy, iv. 6.
[31] Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 225, 231. Idem, ‘Siouan Folk-Lore,’ in American Antiquarian, vii. 107.
[32] Frazer, Totemism, p. 19. Idem, Totemism and Exogamy, iv. 6. sq.
[33] Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, iv. 6 sq.
There are, finally, restrictions in eating which refer to the whole people or tribe. In early society certain things which might serve as food are often not only universally abstained from, but actually prohibited by custom or law. The majority of these prohibitions have reference to animals or animal products, which are naturally more apt to cause disgust than is vegetable food—probably because our ancestors in early days, by instinct, subsisted chiefly on a vegetable diet, and only subsequently acquired a more general taste for animal nourishment.[34] Certain animals excite a feeling of disgust by their very appearance, and are therefore abstained from. This I take to be a reason for the aversion to eating reptiles. It is said that snakes are avoided as food because their flesh is supposed to be as poisonous as their bite;[35] but this explanation is hardly relevant to harmless reptiles, which are likewise in some cases forbidden food.[36] The abstinence from fish seems generally to have a similar origin, though some peoples say that they refuse to eat certain species because the soul of a relative might be in the fish.[37] The Navahoes of New Mexico “must never touch fish, and nothing will induce them to taste one.”[38] The Mongols consider them unclean animals.[39] The South Siberian Kachinzes are said to refrain from them because they believe that “the evil principle lives in the water and eats fish.”[40] The Káfirs on the North-Western frontier of India “detest fish, though their rivers abound in them.”[41] The same aversion is common in the South African tribes[42] and among most Hamitic peoples of East Africa;[43] when asked for an explanation of it, they say that fish are akin to snakes. Fish, or at least certain species of fish, were forbidden to the ancient Syrians;[44] and the Hebrews were prohibited from eating all fish that have not fins and scales.[45] It is curious to note that various peoples who detest fish also abstain from fowl.[46] The Navahoes are strictly forbidden to eat the wild turkey with which their forests abound;[47] and the Mongols dislike of fowl is so great that one of Prejevalsky’s guides nearly turned sick on seeing him eat boiled duck.[48] Some peoples have a great aversion to eggs,[49] which are said to be excrements, and therefore unfit for food.[50] There may be a similar reason for the abstinence from milk among peoples who have domesticated animals able to supply them with it.[51] The Dravidian aborigines of the hills of Central India, who never use milk, are expressly said to regard it as an excrement.[52] The ancient Caribs had a horror of eggs and never drank milk.[53] The Ashantees are “forbidden eggs by the fetish, and cannot be persuaded to taste milk.”[54] The Kimbunda in South-Western Africa detest milk, and consider it inconceivable how a grown-up person can enjoy it; they believe that the Kilulu, or spirit, would punish him who partook of it.[55] The Dyaks of Borneo, the Javanese, and the Malays abstain from milk.[56] To the Chinese milk and butter are insupportably odious.[57]
[34] Cf. Schurtz, Die Speiseverbote, p. 17.