The white-shark taboo was another object of terror to a thief. This was done by plaiting a cocoanut leaf in the form of a shark, adding fins, etc., and this they suspended from the tree. It was tantamount to an expressed imprecation, that the thief might be devoured by the white shark the next time he went to fish.
The cross-stick taboo. This was a piece of any sort of stick suspended horizontally from the tree. It expressed the wish of the owner of the tree, that any thief touching it might have a disease running right across his body, and remaining fixed there till he died.
The ulcer taboo. This was made by burying in the ground some pieces of clam shell, and erecting at the spot three or four reeds, tied together at the top in a bunch like the head of a man. This was to express the wish and prayer of the owner that any thief might be laid down with ulcerous sores all over his body.
The death taboo. This was made by pouring some oil into a small calabash, and burying it near the tree. The spot was marked by a little hillock of white sand.
The thunder taboo. If a man wished that lightning might strike any who should steal from his land, he would plait some cocoanut leaflets in the form of a small square mat, and suspend it from a tree, with the addition of some white streamers of native cloth flying. A thief believed that if he trespassed, he, or some of his children, would be struck with lightning, or perhaps his own trees struck and blasted from the same cause. They were not, however, in the habit of talking about the effects of lightning. It was the thunder they thought did the mischief; hence they called that to which I have just referred the thunder taboo.
SECTION 5.
RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES.
Many examples of masks, dance ornaments, and fetiches used in ceremonies are reported and illustrated in the several papers of Messrs. Cushing, Holmes, and Stevenson in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Paintings or drawings of many of them have been found on pottery, on shells, and on rocks.
An admirable article by Mr. J. Walter Fewkes (b) on Tusayan Pictographs explains many of the petroglyphs of that region as depicting objects used in dances and ceremonies.
Fig. 713.—Moki masks traced on rocks. Arizona.