An examination of all the many cases in which the savage bridles his passions and remains chaste from motives of superstition, would be instructive, but I cannot attempt it now. I will only add a few miscellaneous examples of the custom before passing to the ceremonies of purification which are observed by the hunter and fisherman after the chase and the fishing are over. The workers in the salt-pans near Siphoum, in Laos, must abstain from all sexual relations at the place where they are at work; and they may not cover their heads nor shelter themselves under an umbrella from the burning rays of the sun.[656] Among the Kachins of Burma the ferment used in making beer is prepared by two women, chosen by lot, who during the three days that the process lasts may eat nothing acid and may have no conjugal relations with their husbands; otherwise it is supposed that the beer would be sour.[657] Among the Masai honey-wine is brewed by a man and a woman who live in a hut set apart for them till the wine is ready for drinking. But they are strictly forbidden to have sexual intercourse with each other during this time; it is deemed essential that they should be chaste for two days before they begin to brew and for the whole of the six days that the brewing lasts. The Masai believe that were the couple to commit a breach of chastity, not only would the wine be undrinkable but the bees which made the honey would fly away. Similarly they require that a man who is making poison should sleep alone and observe other taboos which render him almost an outcast.[658] The Wandorobbo, a tribe of the same region as the Masai, believe that the mere presence of a woman in the neighbourhood of a man who is brewing poison would deprive the poison of its venom, and [pg 201] that the same thing would happen if the wife of the poison-maker were to commit adultery while her husband was brewing the poison.[659] In this last case it is obvious that a rationalistic explanation of the taboo is impossible. How could the loss of virtue in the poison be a physical consequence of the loss of virtue in the poison-maker's wife? Clearly the effect which the wife's adultery is supposed to have on the poison is a case of sympathetic magic; her misconduct sympathetically affects her husband and his work at a distance. We may, accordingly, infer with some confidence that the rule of continence imposed on the poison-maker himself is also a simple case of sympathetic magic, and not, as a civilised reader might be disposed to conjecture, a wise precaution designed to prevent him from accidentally poisoning his wife. Again, to take other instances, in the East Indian island of Buru people smear their bodies with coco-nut oil as a protection against demons. But in order that the charm may be effective, the oil must have been made by young unmarried girls.[660] In the Seranglao and Gorong archipelagoes the same oil is regarded as an antidote to poison; but it only possesses this virtue if the nuts have been gathered on a Friday by a youth who has never known a woman, and if the oil has been extracted by a pure maiden, while a priest recited the appropriate spells.[661] So in the Marquesas Islands, when a woman was making coco-nut oil, she was tabooed for four or five or more days, during which she might have no intercourse with her husband. If she broke this rule, it was believed that she would obtain no oil.[662] In the same islands when a man had placed a dish of bananas and coco-nuts in an oven of hot stones to bake over night, he might not go in to his wife, or the food would not be found baked in the morning.[663] In ancient Mexico the men who distilled the wine known as pulque from the [pg 202] sap of the great aloe, might not touch a woman for four days; if they were unchaste, they thought the wine would be sour and putrid.[664]
Miscellaneous examples of continence observed from superstitious motives. Continence observed by the Motu of New Guinea before and during a trading voyage. Continence observed by the Akamba and Akikuyu on a journey and other occasions.
Among the Ba-Pedi and Ba-thonga tribes of South Africa, when the site of a new village has been chosen and the houses are building, all the married people are forbidden to have conjugal relations with each other. If it were discovered that any couple had broken this rule, the work of building would immediately be stopped, and another site chosen for the village. For they think that a breach of chastity would spoil the village which was growing up, that the chief would grow lean and perhaps die, and that the guilty woman would never bear another child.[665] Among the Chams of Cochin-China, when a dam is made or repaired on a river for the sake of irrigation, the chief who offers the traditional sacrifices and implores the protection of the deities on the work, has to stay all the time in a wretched hovel of straw, taking no part in the labour, and observing the strictest continence; for the people believe that a breach of his chastity would entail a breach of the dam.[666] Here, it is plain, there can be no idea of maintaining the mere bodily vigour of the chief for the accomplishment of a task in which he does not even bear a hand. In New Caledonia the wizard who performs certain superstitious ceremonies at the building and launching of a large canoe is bound to the most rigorous chastity the whole time that the vessel is on the stocks.[667] Among the natives of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain men who are engaged in making fish-traps avoid women and observe strict continence. They believe that if a woman were even to touch a fish-trap, it would catch nothing.[668] Here, therefore, the rule of continence probably springs from a fear of infecting sympathetically the traps [pg 203] with feminine weakness or perhaps with menstrual pollution. Every year at the end of September or the beginning of October, when the north-east monsoon is near an end, a fleet of large sailing canoes leaves Port Moresby and the neighbouring Motu villages of New Guinea on a trading voyage to the deltas of the rivers which flow into the Papuan Gulf. The canoes are laden with a cargo of earthenware pots, and after about three months they return, sailing before the north-west monsoon and bringing back a cargo of sago which they have obtained by barter for their crockery. It is about the beginning of the south-east monsoon, that is, in April or May, that the skippers, who are leading men in the villages, make up their minds to go on these trading voyages. When their resolution is taken they communicate it to their wives, and from about that time husband and wife cease to cohabit. The same custom of conjugal separation is observed by what we may call the mate or second in command of each vessel. But it is not till the month of August that the work of preparing the canoes for sea by overhauling and caulking them is taken seriously in hand. From that time both skipper and mate become particularly sacred or taboo (helaga), and consequently they keep apart from their wives more than ever. Husband and wife, indeed, sleep in the same house but on opposite sides of it. In speaking of his wife he calls her “maiden,” and she calls him “youth.” They have no direct conversation or dealings with each other. If he wishes to communicate with her, he does so through a third person, usually a relative of one of them. Both refrain from washing themselves, and he from combing his hair. “The wife's position indeed becomes very much like that of a widow.” When the canoe has been launched, skipper, mate, and crew are all forbidden to touch their food with their fingers; they must always handle it and convey it to their mouths with a bone fork.[669] A briefer account of the custom and superstition had previously been given by a native pastor settled in the neighbourhood of Port Moresby. [pg 204] He says: “Here is a custom of trading-voyage parties:—If it is arranged to go westward, to procure arrowroot, the leader of the party sleeps apart from his wife for the time being, and on until the return from the expedition, which is sometimes a term of five months. They say if this is not done the canoe of the chief will be sunk on the return voyage, all the arrowroot lost in the sea, and he himself covered with shame. He, however, who observes the rule of self-denial, returns laden with arrowroot, has not a drop of salt water to injure his cargo, and so is praised by his companions and crew.”[670] The Akamba and Akikuyu of eastern Africa refrain from the commerce of the sexes on a journey, even if their wives are with them in the caravan; and they observe the same rule of chastity so long as the cattle are at pasture, that is, from the time the herds are driven out to graze in the morning till they come back in the evening.[671] Why the rule should be in force just while the cattle are at pasture is not said, but we may conjecture that any act of incontinence at that time is somehow supposed, on the principles of sympathetic magic, to affect the animals injuriously. The conjecture is confirmed by the observation that among the Akikuyu for eight days after the quarterly festivals, which they hold for the sake of securing God's blessing on their flocks and herds, no commerce is permitted between the sexes. They think that any breach of continence in these eight days would be followed by a mortality among the flocks.[672]
The taboos observed by hunters and fishers are often continued and even increased in stringency after the game has been killed and the fish caught. The motive for this conduct can only be superstitious.
If the taboos or abstinences observed by hunters and fishermen before and during the chase are dictated, as we have seen reason to believe, by superstitious motives, and chiefly by a dread of offending or frightening the spirits of the creatures whom it is proposed to kill, we may expect that the restraints imposed after the slaughter has been perpetrated will be at least as stringent, the slayer and his [pg 205] friends having now the added fear of the angry ghosts of his victims before their eyes. Whereas on the hypothesis that the abstinences in question, including those from food, drink, and sleep, are merely salutary precautions for maintaining the men in health and strength to do their work, it is obvious that the observance of these abstinences or taboos after the work is done, that is, when the game is killed and the fish caught, must be wholly superfluous, absurd, and inexplicable. But as I shall now shew, these taboos often continue to be enforced or even increased in stringency after the death of the animals, in other words, after the hunter or fisher has accomplished his object by making his bag or landing his fish. The rationalistic theory of them therefore breaks down entirely; the hypothesis of superstition is clearly the only one open to us.
Taboos observed by the Bering Strait Esquimaux after catching whales or salmon.
Among the Inuit or Esquimaux of Bering Strait “the dead bodies of various animals must be treated very carefully by the hunter who obtains them, so that their shades may not be offended and bring bad luck or even death upon him or his people.” Hence the Unalit hunter who has had a hand in the killing of a white whale, or even has helped to take one from the net, is not allowed to do any work for the next four days, that being the time during which the shade or ghost of the whale is supposed to stay with its body. At the same time no one in the village may use any sharp or pointed instrument for fear of wounding the whale's shade, which is believed to be hovering invisible in the neighbourhood; and no loud noise may be made lest it should frighten or offend the ghost. Whoever cuts a whale's body with an iron axe will die. Indeed the use of all iron instruments is forbidden in the village during these four days. These Inuit have a special name (nu-na hlukh-tuk) “for a spot of ground where certain things are tabooed, or where there is to be feared any evil influence caused by the presence of offended shades of men or animals, or through the influence of other supernatural means. This ground is sometimes considered unclean, and to go upon it would bring misfortune to the offender, producing sickness, death, or lack of success in hunting or fishing. The same term is also applied to ground where certain animals have been killed or have died.” In [pg 206] the latter case the ground is thought to be dangerous only to him who there performs some forbidden act. For example, the shore where a dead white whale has been beached is so regarded. At such a place and time to chop wood with an iron axe is supposed to be fatal to the imprudent person who chops. Death, too, is supposed to result from cutting wood with an iron axe where salmon are being dressed. An old man at St. Michael told Mr. Nelson of a melancholy case of this kind which had fallen within the scope of his own observation. A man began to chop a log near a woman who was splitting salmon: both of them died soon afterwards. The reason of this disaster, as the old man explained, was that the shade or ghost (inua) of the salmon and the spirit or mystery (yu-a) of the ground were incensed at the proceeding. Such offences are indeed fatal to every person who may be present at the desecrated spot. Dogs are regarded as very unclean and offensive to the shades of game animals, and great care is taken that no dog shall get at the bones of a white whale. Should a dog touch one of them, the hunter might lose his luck; his nets would break or be shunned by the whales, and his spears would not strike. But in addition to the state of uncleanness or taboo which arises from the presence of the shades of men or animals, these Esquimaux believe in uncleanness of another sort which, though not so serious, nevertheless produces sickness or bad luck in hunting. It consists, we are told, of a kind of invisible, impalpable vapour, which may attach itself to a person from some contamination. A hunter infected by such a vapour is much more than usually visible to game, so that his luck in the chase is gone until he succeeds in cleansing himself once more. That is why hunters must avoid menstruous women; if they do not, they will be unable to catch game.[673]
Taboos observed by the Bering Strait Esquimaux and the Aleuts of Alaska out of regard for the animals they have killed.
These same Esquimaux of Bering Strait celebrate a great annual festival in December, when the bladders of all the seals, whales, walrus, and white bears that have been killed in the year are taken into the assembly-house of the village. [pg 207] They remain there for several days, and so long as they do so the hunters avoid all intercourse with women, saying that if they failed in that respect the shades of the dead animals would be offended.[674] Similarly among the Aleuts of Alaska the hunter who had struck a whale with a charmed spear would not throw again, but returned at once to his home and separated himself from his people in a hut specially constructed for the purpose, where he stayed for three days without food or drink, and without touching or looking upon a woman. During this time of seclusion he snorted occasionally in imitation of the wounded and dying whale, in order to prevent the whale which he had struck from leaving the coast. On the fourth day he emerged from his seclusion and bathed in the sea, shrieking in a hoarse voice and beating the water with his hands. Then, taking with him a companion, he repaired to that part of the shore where he expected to find the whale stranded. If the beast was dead he at once cut out the place where the death-wound had been inflicted. If the whale was not dead, he again returned to his home and continued washing himself until the whale died.[675] Here the hunter's imitation of the wounded whale is probably intended by means of homoeopathic magic to make the beast die in earnest. Among the Kaniagmuts of Alaska the men who attacked the whale were considered by their countrymen as unclean during the fishing season, though otherwise they were held in high honour.[676]
Taboos observed by the central Esquimaux after killing sea-beasts. The sea-mammals may not be brought into contact with reindeer.