Taboo in Melanesia. In Melanesia also a system of taboo (tambu, tapu) exists; it is described as “a prohibition with a curse expressed or implied,” and derives its sanction from a belief that the chief or other person who imposes a taboo has the support of a powerful ghost or spirit (tindalo). If a common man took it upon himself to taboo anything, people would watch to see whether a transgressor of the taboo fell sick; if he did, it was a proof that the man who imposed the taboo was backed by a powerful ghost, and his reputation would rise accordingly. Each ghost affected a particular sort of leaf, which was his taboo mark.[26.3] In New Britain plantations, coco-nut trees, and other possessions are protected against thieves by marks of taboo attached to them, and it is thought that whoever violates the taboo will be visited by sickness or other misfortune. The nature of the sickness or misfortune varies with that of the mark or magical object which embodies the mystic virtue of the taboo. One plant used for this purpose will cause the thief’s head to ache; another will make his thighs swell; another will break his legs; and so forth. Even the murmuring of a spell over a fence is believed to ensure that whoever steals sticks from the fence will have a swollen head.[27.1] In Fiji the institution of taboo was the secret of power and the strength of despotic rule. It was wondrously diffused, affecting things great and small. Here it might be seen tending a brood of chickens and there directing the energies of a kingdom. The custom was much in favour with the chiefs, who adjusted it so that it sat lightly on them and heavily on others. By it they gained influence, supplied their wants, and commanded at will their inferiors. In imposing a taboo a chief need only be checked by a regard for ancient precedent. Inferior persons endeavoured by the help of the system to put their yam-beds and plantain-plots within a sacred pale.[27.2]
Taboo in the Malay Archipelago. A system of taboo based on superstition prevails all over the islands of the Malay Archipelago, where the common term for taboo is pamali, pomali, or pemali, though in some places other words, such as poso, potu, or boboso are in use to express the same idea.[27.3] In this great region also the superstition associated with taboo is a powerful instrument to enforce the rights of private property. Thus, in the island of Timor “a prevalent custom is the pomali, exactly equivalent to the ‘taboo’ of the Pacific islanders, and equally respected. It is used on the commonest occasions, and a few palm leaves stuck outside a garden as a sign of the pomali will preserve its produce from thieves as effectually as the threatening notice of man-traps, spring guns, or a savage dog, would do with us.”[27.4] In Amboyna the word for taboo is pamali. A man who wishes to protect his fruit-trees or other possessions against theft may do it in various ways. For example, he may make a white cross on a pot and hang the pot on the fruit-tree; then the thief who steals fruit from that tree will be a leper. Or he may place the effigy of a mouse under the tree; then the thief will have marks on his nose and ears as if a mouse had gnawed them. Or he may plait dry sago leaves into two round discs and tie them to the tree; then the thief’s body will swell up and burst.[28.1] In Ceram the methods of protecting property from thieves are similar. For example, a man places a pig’s jaw in the branches of his fruit-tree; after that any person who dares to steal the fruit from the tree will be rent in pieces by a wild boar. The image of a crocodile with a thread of red cotton tied round its neck will be equally efficacious; the thief will be devoured by a crocodile. A wooden effigy of a snake will make the culprit to be stung by a serpent. A figure of a cat with a red band round its neck will cause all who approach the tree with evil intentions to suffer from excruciating pains in their stomachs, as if a cat were clawing their insides.[28.2] An image of a swallow will cause the thief to suffer as if a swallow were pecking his eyes out: a piece of thorny wood and a red spongy stone will inflict piercing pangs on him and make his whole body to be red and pitted with minute holes: a burnt-out brand will cause his house to burst into flames, without any apparent reason; and so on.[28.3] Similarly in the Ceram Laut Islands a man protects his coco-nut trees or sago palms by placing charmed objects at the foot of them. For example, he puts the effigy of a fish under his coco-nut tree and says, “Grandfather fish, cause the person who steals my coco-nuts to be sick and vomit.” The culprit accordingly is seized with pains in his stomach and can only be relieved of them by the owner of the coco-nuts, who spits betel-nut juice on the ailing part and blows into the sufferer’s ear, saying, “Grandfather fish, return to the sea. You have there room enough and great rocks of coral where you can swim about.” Or again he may make a miniature coffin and place it on the ground under the tree; then the thief will suffer from shortness of breath and a feeling of suffocation, as if he were actually shut up in a coffin. And many other devices there are whereby in these islands the owner of fruit-trees protects the fruit from the depredations of his unscrupulous neighbours. In every case he deposits at the foot of the tree or fastens to the trunk a charmed object, which he regards as endowed with supernatural powers, and he invokes its aid to guard his possessions.[29.1]
Charms for the protection of fruit-trees in Central Celebes. The Bare’e-speaking Toradjas of Central Celebes protect their fruit-trees, especially their sirih plants and their coco-nut palms against thieves by amulets or charms of various sorts which they attach to the trees. The charms consist of the leaves of certain plants or parts of an animal tied up in leaves. Before the owner fastens one of these amulets to the tree, he says, “O charm (ooroo), if any man will take of these fruits, make him sick.” And the people in general believe that sickness will overtake the thief who disregards the taboo and steals the fruit. The kind of sickness or other mishap which will visit the sinner varies with the nature of the charm. The qualities of the object which is fastened to the tree are supposed to enter into the culprit’s body and to affect him accordingly. For example, if the charm consists of a particular sharp-edged grass, then the thief will feel sharp pains in his body; if it is part of a white ant heap, he will be afflicted with leprosy; if it is a certain weed of which the fruit drops off easily, his teeth will fall out; if it is a plant whose leaves cause itching, his body will itch all over; if it is the dracaena terminalis, he will be killed in war; and so on. There is a great variety of these amulets for the protection of fruit-trees; every man has his own in which he puts his trust. Yet while the Toradjas believe that sickness or other misfortune follows automatically the breach of such taboos, nevertheless they allege that they know how to evade the force and vigilance of the charm and to eat of the forbidden fruit with impunity. One of the expedients adopted for that purpose is as follows. You take a handful of earth and throw it at the tree; then with your chopping-knife you chip a splinter from the trunk, and addressing the protective charm you say, “Make the earth sick first, and then the chopping-knife, and then me.” After that you have practically nothing to fear from the amulet, and you can steal the fruit and eat it at your ease. But that is not all. Some artful thieves are able not merely to counteract the charm and render it powerless against themselves; they can even reverse its action and direct it against the owner of the tree himself. Indeed, so well-recognized is this power that many a prudent Toradja refuses to protect his trees with amulets at all, lest in doing so he should be simply putting in the hands of his enemies a weapon to be used by them for his own destruction. One of the ways in which a cunning robber will thus defeat the ends of justice is this. He goes boldly up to the fruit-tree which he intends to rob, removes the charm from it, and hangs it up somewhere else. Then he lays a plank on the ground with one end of it touching the trunk of the fruit-tree; on this plank he walks up to the tree and calmly appropriates the fruit. The charm, of course, in the meantime is helpless, since it is not on the tree. When he has stripped the fruit, the rascal restores the charm to its proper place and removes the plank. Again, the guardian charm is helpless; it cannot pursue the thief, since he has carried away the plank, leaving no possible exit from the tree. Thus the faithful guardian is, as it were, imprisoned in the castle which he has been set to guard; he frets and fumes at his confinement, and in his blind rage will fall foul of the owner of the tree himself when next he comes to inspect his property. This is, perhaps, the simplest and easiest mode of hoisting a fruit-farmer with his petard. There are, however, other ways of doing it. One of them is to get up into the tree and hang by your feet from a branch with your head down, and, while thus suspended in the air, to chew the root of a stinging nettle. This causes the owner of the tree either to be eaten up by a crocodile or to perish in war. A very popular charm among the Mountain Toradjas of Central Celebes is to take the head or paw of an iguana and hang it on the fruit-tree which is to be protected. The head bites the thief’s head, and the paw grabs him by the leg, so that he feels excruciating pains in these portions of his frame. But if you hang up the whole carcase, the thief is a dead man.[31.1]
Taboo (fady) in Madagascar. In Madagascar there is an elaborate system of taboo known as fady.[31.2] It has been carefully studied in a learned monograph by Professor A. van Gennep,[31.3] who argues that originally all property was based on religion, and that marks of property were marks of taboo.[31.4] However, so far as the evidence permits us to judge, it does not appear that the system has been used by the Malagasy for the protection of property to the same extent as by the Polynesians, the Melanesians, and the Indonesians. But we hear of Malagasy charms placed in the fields to afflict with leprosy and other maladies any persons who should dare to steal from them.[31.5] And we are told that some examples of fady or taboo “seem to imply a curious basis for the moral code in regard to the rights of property among the last generation of Malagasy. It does not appear to have been fady to steal in general, but certain articles were specified, to steal which there were various penalties attached. Thus, to steal an egg caused the thief to become leprous; to steal landy (native silk) caused blindness or some other infirmity. And to steal iron was also visited by some bodily affliction.”[31.6] In order to recover stolen property the Malagasy had recourse to a deity called Ramanandroany. The owner would take a remnant of the thing that had been purloined, and going with it to the idol would say, “As to whoever stole our property, O Ramanandroany, kill him by day, destroy him by night, and strangle him; let there be none amongst men like him; let him not be able to increase in riches, not even a farthing, but let him pick up his livelihood as a hen pecks rice-grains; let his eyes be blinded, and his knees swollen, O Ramanandroany.” It was supposed that these curses fell on the thief.[32.1]
Property protected by superstitious fears elsewhere. Similar modes of enforcing the rights of private property by the aid of superstitious fears have been adopted in many other parts of the world. The subject has been copiously illustrated by Dr. Edward Westermarck in his very learned work on the origin and development of the moral ideas.[32.2] Here I will cite only a few cases out of many. The Kouis of Laos, on the borders of Siam, protect their plantations against thieves in a very simple way. They place a “shaking tubercule” (prateal anchot) on the land which is to be guarded; and if any thief should thereafter dare to lay hands on the crop, he is immediately seized by a shaking fit like that of a drenched dog and cannot budge from the spot. They say that a fisherman at Sangkeah employed this charm with the best results. He used always to find his bow-net empty till one day he had the happy thought of protecting it by a “shaking tubercule.” It acted like magic. The thief went down as usual into the river and brought up the net full of fish. But hardly had he stepped on the bank when he began to shiver and shake, with the dripping net and its writhing silvery contents glued to his breast. Two days afterwards, the proprietor, making his rounds, discovered the thief on the same spot, shivering and chattering away as hard as ever, but of course the fish in the net were dead and rotten.[33.1] Among the Kawars, a primitive hill tribe of the Central Provinces in India, “the sword, the gun, the axe, the spear have each a special deity, and in fact in the Bangawan, the tract where the wilder Kawars dwell, it is believed that every article of household furniture is the residence of a spirit, and that if any one steals or injures it without the owner’s leave the spirit will bring some misfortune on him in revenge. Theft is said to be unknown among them, partly on this account and partly perhaps because no one has much property worth stealing.”[33.2] In Ceylon, when a person wishes to protect his fruit-trees from thieves, he hangs up certain grotesque figures round the orchard and dedicates it to the devils. After that no native will dare to touch the fruit; even the owner himself will not venture to use it till the charm has been removed by a priest, who naturally receives some of the fruit for his trouble.[33.3] The Indians of Cumana in South America surrounded their plantations with a single cotton thread, and this was safeguard enough; for it was believed that any trespasser would soon die. The Juris of Brazil adopt the same simple means of stopping gaps in their fences.[33.4]
Property in Annam protected by ghosts and curses. The Annamites in the interior of Tonquin believe that the ghosts of young girls who have been buried in a corner of the dwelling act as a vigilant police; if thieves have made their way into the house and are preparing to depart with their booty, they hear the voice of a ghost enumerating the things on which they have laid hands, and in a panic they drop them and take to flight.[33.5] But if in spite of all an Annamite should chance to be robbed, he can easily recover the stolen property as follows. With a clod of earth taken from the kitchen floor, a pinch of vermilion, the white of an egg, and a little alcohol he makes a ball, which stands for the head of the thief. This he puts in the fire on the hearth, and having lit some incense sticks he pronounces the following incantation: “On such a day of such a month of such a year So-and-so was robbed of various things. The name of the thief is unknown. I pray the guardian-spirit of the kitchen to hold the rascal’s head in the fire that it may burn.” After that, if the thief does not restore the stolen property, he will be a dead man within a month.[34.1]
Thieves cursed in Nias. Similarly in Nias, an island to the west of Sumatra, when a thief cannot be found he is cursed, and to give weight to the curse a dog is burned alive. While the animal is expiring in torments, the man who has been robbed expresses his wish that the thief may likewise die in agony; and they say that thieves who have been often cursed do die screaming.[34.2] Thieves cursed among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo. Curses are also employed for the same purpose with excellent effect by the Sea Dyaks of Borneo. On this point a missionary bears the following testimony. “With an experience of nearly twenty years in Borneo, during which I came into contact with thousands of the people, I have known of only two instances of theft among the Dyaks. One was a theft of rice. The woman who lost the rice most solemnly and publicly cursed the thief, whoever it might be. The next night the rice was secretly left at her door. The other was a theft of money. In this case, too, the thief was cursed. The greater part of the money was afterwards found returned to the box from which it had been abstracted. Both these incidents show the great dread the Dyak has of a curse. Even an undeserved curse is considered a terrible thing, and, according to Dyak law, to curse a person for no reason at all is a fineable offence.
“A Dyak curse is a terrible thing to listen to. I have only once heard a Dyak curse, and I am sure I do not want to do so again. I was travelling in the Saribas district, and at that time many of the Dyaks there had gone in for coffee-planting; indeed, several of them had started coffee plantations on a small scale. A woman told me that some one had over and over again stolen the ripe coffee-berries from her plantation. Not only were the ripe berries stolen, but the thief had carelessly picked many of the young berries and thrown them on the ground, and many of the branches of the plants had been broken off. In the evening, when I was seated in the public part of the house with many Dyak men and women round me, we happened to talk about coffee-planting. The woman was present, and told us of her experiences, and how her coffee had been stolen by some thief, who, she thought, must be one of the inmates of the house. Then she solemnly cursed the thief. She began in a calm voice, but worked herself up into a frenzy. We all listened horror-struck, and no one interrupted her. She began by saying what had happened, and how these thefts had gone on for some time. She had said nothing before, hoping that the thief would mend his ways; but the matter had gone on long enough, and she was going to curse the thief, as nothing, she felt sure, would make him give up his evil ways. She called on all the spirits of the waters and the hills and the air to listen to her words and to aid her. She began quietly, but became more excited as she went on. She said something of this kind:
Curses on a man thief. “ ‘If the thief be a man, may he be unfortunate in all he undertakes! May he suffer from a disease that does not kill him, but makes him helpless—always in pain—and a burden to others. May his wife be unfaithful to him, and his children become as lazy and dishonest as he is himself. If he go out on the war-path, may he be killed, and his head smoked over the enemy’s fire. If he be boating, may his boat be swamped and may he be drowned. If he be out fishing, may an alligator kill him suddenly, and may his relatives never find his body. If he be cutting down a tree in the jungle, may the tree fall on him and crush him to death. May the gods curse his farm so that he may have no crops, and have nothing to eat, and when he begs for food, may he be refused, and die of starvation.
Curses on a woman thief. “ ‘If the thief be a woman, may she be childless, or if she happen to be with child let her be disappointed, and let her child be still-born, or, better still, let her die in childbirth. May her husband be untrue to her, and despise her and ill-treat her. May her children all desert her if she live to grow old. May she suffer from such diseases as are peculiar to women, and may her eyesight grow dim as the years go on, and may there be no one to help her or lead her about when she is blind.’