[102] Aelian, Varia historia, v. 14. Varro, De re rustica, ii. 5. 3.
[103] Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika’s, p. 86; Kropf, op. cit. p. 102 (Kafirs). Merker, Die Masai, p. 169. Paulitschke, Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas, i. 153. Ratzel, History of Mankind, ii. 411 (pastoral races of Africa). Erman, Reise um die Erde, i. 515 (Kirghiz). Andree, Ethnographische Parallelen, p. 122 sq. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 297. Schurtz, op. cit. p. 30 sq.
[104] Porphyry, op. cit. ii. 11.
[105] Wilkinson, in Rawlinson’s translation of Herodotus, ii. 72 sq. n. 7.
[106] Schweinfurth, op. cit. i. 163.
[107] Herodotus, ii. 41.
[108] Barth, Religions of India, p. 264.
Certain foods, then, are generally abjured, not merely because they excite disgust, or as the case may be, because they have a disagreeable taste, but also from utilitarian considerations. To the instances just mentioned may be added the custom prevalent among the Tonga Islanders of setting a temporary prohibition or taboo on certain eatables in order to prevent them from growing scarce.[109] But the most important prudential motive underlying the general restrictions in diet is no doubt fear lest the food should have an injurious effect upon him who partakes of it. The harm caused by it may only be imaginary; indeed, forbidden food is commonly regarded as unwholesome, whatever be the original ground on which it was prohibited.[110] The Negroes of the Loango Coast say that they abstain from goat-flesh because otherwise their skin would scale off, and from fowl so as not to lose their hair.[111] Some tribes of the Malay Peninsula refuse to eat the flesh of elephants under the pretext that it would occasion sickness.[112] The tribes inhabiting the hills of Assam think that “the penalty for eating the flesh of a cat is loss of speech, while those who infringe a special rule forbidding the flesh of a dog are believed to die of boils.”[113] The worshippers of the Syrian goddess maintained that the eating of sprats or anchovies would fill the body with ulcers and wither up the liver.[114] In Russia veal is considered by many to be very unwholesome food, and is entirely rejected by pious people.[115] It is not probable that these ideas are in the first instance derived from experience; but there can be no doubt that fear of evil consequences is in many cases a primary motive for the abstinence from a certain kind of food. Mr. Im Thurn supposes that the Guiana Indian avoids eating the flesh of various animals because he thinks they are particularly malignant.[116] Animals that present some unusual or uncanny peculiarity are rejected because they are objects of superstitious fear. The Egyptian priests, we are told, did not eat oxen which were twins or which were speckled, nor animals that had only one eye.[117] The North American Indians of the South-Eastern States abstained from all birds of night, believing that if they ate them they would fall ill.[118] Another cause of rejecting the flesh of certain animals is the idea that anybody who partook of it would at the same time acquire some undesirable quality inherent in the animal.[119] The Záparo Indians of Ecuador “will, unless from necessity, in most cases not eat any heavy meats such as tapir and peccary, but confine themselves to birds, monkeys, deer, fish, &c., principally because they argue that the heavier meats make them also unwieldy, like the animals who supply the flesh, impeding their agility and unfitting them for the chase.”[120] For a similar reason the ancient Caribs are said to have refrained from turtles;[121] and some North American Indians state that in former days their greatest chieftains “seldom ate of any animal of gross quality, or heavy motion of body, fancying it conveyed a dullness through the whole system, and disabled them from exerting themselves with proper vigour in their martial, civil, and religious duties.”[122] The Namaquas of South Africa, again, pretend not to eat the flesh of the hare, because they think it would make them as faint-hearted as that animal.[123] Among the Kafirs only children may eat hares, whereas the men partake of the flesh of the leopard in order to get its strength.[124] Among some other peoples the hare is forbidden food,[125] possibly owing to a similar superstition. The blood of an animal is avoided because it is believed to contain its life or soul. We meet with this custom in several North American tribes,[126] as well as in the Old Testament;[127] and from the Jews it passed into early Christianity.[128]
[109] Mariner, Natives of the Tonga Islands, ii. 233.
[110] Cf. Schurtz, op. cit. p. 23.