The dislike of spirits to iron allows men to use the metal as a weapon against them. Iron used as a charm against fairies in the Highlands of Scotland. Iron used as a protective charm by Scotch fishermen and others. Iron used as a protective charm against devils and ghosts in India, Annam. Africa, and Scotland.
The general dislike of innovation, which always makes itself strongly felt in the sphere of religion, is sufficient by itself to account for the superstitious aversion to iron entertained by kings and priests and attributed by them to the gods; possibly this aversion may have been intensified in places by some such accidental cause as the series of bad seasons which cast discredit on iron ploughshares in Poland. But the disfavour in which iron is held by the gods and their ministers has another side. Their antipathy to the metal furnishes men with a weapon which may be turned against the spirits when occasion serves. As their dislike of iron is supposed to be so great that they will not approach persons and things protected by the obnoxious metal, iron may obviously be employed as a charm for banning ghosts and other dangerous spirits. And often it is so used. Thus in the Highlands of Scotland the great safeguard against the elfin race is iron, or, better yet, steel. The metal in any form, whether as a sword, a knife, a gun-barrel, or what not, is all-powerful for this purpose. Whenever you enter a fairy [pg 233] dwelling you should always remember to stick a piece of steel, such as a knife, a needle, or a fish-hook, in the door; for then the elves will not be able to shut the door till you come out again. So too when you have shot a deer and are bringing it home at night, be sure to thrust a knife into the carcase, for that keeps the fairies from laying their weight on it. A knife or a nail in your pocket is quite enough to prevent the fairies from lifting you up at night. Nails in the front of a bed ward off elves from women “in the straw” and from their babes; but to make quite sure it is better to put the smoothing-iron under the bed, and the reaping-hook in the window. If a bull has fallen over a rock and been killed, a nail stuck into it will preserve the flesh from the fairies. Music discoursed on that melodious instrument, a Jew's harp, keeps the elfin women away from the hunter, because the tongue of the instrument is of steel.[741] Again, when Scotch fishermen were at sea, and one of them happened to take the name of God in vain, the first man who heard him called out “Cauld airn,” at which every man of the crew grasped the nearest bit of iron and held it between his hands for a while.[742] So too when he hears the unlucky word “pig” mentioned, a Scotch fisherman will feel for the nails in his boots and mutter “Cauld airn.”[743] The same magic words are even whispered in the churches of Scotch fishing-villages when the clergyman reads the passage about the Gadarene swine.[744] In Morocco iron is considered a great protection against demons; hence it is usual to place a knife or dagger under a sick man's pillow.[745] The Singhalese believe that they are constantly surrounded by evil spirits, who lie in wait to do them harm. A peasant would not dare to carry good food, such as cakes or roast meat, from one place to another without putting an iron nail on it to prevent a demon from taking possession of the viands and so making the eater ill. No [pg 234] sick person, whether man or woman, would venture out of the house without a bunch of keys or a knife in his hand, for without such a talisman he would fear that some devil might take advantage of his weak state to slip into his body. And if a man has a large sore on his body he tries to keep a morsel of iron on it as a protection against demons.[746] The inhabitants of Salsette, an island near Bombay, dread a spirit called gîrâ, which plays many pranks with a solitary traveller, leading him astray, lowering him into an empty well, and so on. But a gîrâ dare not touch a person who has on him anything made of iron or steel, particularly a knife or a nail, of which the spirit stands in great fear. Nor will he meddle with a woman, especially a married woman, because he is afraid of her bangles.[747] Among the Majhwâr, an aboriginal tribe in the hill country of South Mirzapur, an iron implement such as a sickle or a betel-cutter is constantly kept near an infant's head during its first year for the purpose of warding off the attacks of ghosts.[748] Among the Maravars, an aboriginal race of southern India, a knife or other iron object lies beside a woman after childbirth to keep off the devil.[749] When a Mala woman is in labour, a sickle and some nïm leaves are always kept on the cot. In Malabar people who have to pass by burning-grounds or other haunted places commonly carry with them iron in some form, such as a knife or an iron rod used as a walking-stick. When pregnant women go on a journey, they carry with them a few twigs or leaves of the nïm tree, or iron in some shape, to scare evil spirits lurking in groves or burial-grounds which they may pass.[750] In Bilaspore people attribute cholera to a goddess who visits the afflicted family. But they think that she may be kept off by iron; hence during an epidemic of cholera people go about with axes or sickles in their hands. “Their horses are not shod, otherwise they might possibly nail horse-shoes to the door, [pg 235] but their belief is more primitive; for with them iron does not bring good luck, but it scares away the evil spirits, so when a man has had an epileptic fit he will wear an iron bracelet to keep away the evil spirit which was supposed to have possessed him.”[751] The Annamites imagine that a new-born child is exposed to the attacks of evil spirits. To protect the infant from these malignant beings the parents sometimes sell the child to the village smith, who makes a small ring or circlet of iron and puts it on the child's foot, commonly adding a little chain of iron. When the infant has been sold to the smith and firmly attached to him by the chain, the demons no longer have any power over him. After the child has grown big and the danger is over, the parents ask the smith to break the iron ring and thank him for his services. No metal but iron will serve the purpose.[752] On the Slave Coast of Africa when a mother sees her child gradually wasting away, she concludes that a demon has entered into the child and takes her measures accordingly. To lure the demon out of the body of her offspring, she offers a sacrifice of food; and while the devil is bolting it, she attaches iron rings and small bells to her child's ankles and hangs iron chains round his neck. The jingling of the iron and the tinkling of the bells are supposed to prevent the demon, when he has concluded his repast, from entering again into the body of the little sufferer. Hence many children may be seen in this part of Africa weighed down with iron ornaments.[753] The use of iron as a means to exorcise demons was forbidden by the Coptic church.[754] In India “the mourner who performs the ceremony of putting fire into the dead person's mouth carries with him a piece of iron: it may be a key or a knife, or a simple piece of iron, and during the whole time of his separation (for he is unclean for a certain time, and no one will either touch him or eat or drink with him, neither can he change his [pg 236] clothes[755]) he carries the piece of iron about with him to keep off the evil spirit. In Calcutta the Bengali clerks in the Government Offices used to wear a small key on one of their fingers when they had been chief mourners.”[756] When a woman dies in childbed in the island of Salsette, they put a nail or other piece of iron in the folds of her dress; this is done especially if the child survives her. The intention plainly is to prevent her spirit from coming back; for they believe that a dead mother haunts the house and seeks to carry away her child.[757] In the north-east of Scotland immediately after a death had taken place, a piece of iron, such as a nail or a knitting-wire, used to be stuck into all the meal, butter, cheese, flesh, and whisky in the house, “to prevent death from entering them.” The neglect of this salutary precaution is said to have been closely followed by the corruption of the food and drink; the whisky has been known to become as white as milk.[758] When iron is used as a protective charm after a death, as in these Hindoo and Scotch customs, the spirit against which it is directed is the ghost of the deceased.[759]
§ 3. Sharp Weapons tabooed.
The use of sharp-edged weapons is sometimes forbidden lest they should wound spirits. Sharp-edged weapons removed from a room where there is a lying-in woman.
There is a priestly king to the north of Zengwih in Burma, revered by the Sotih as the highest spiritual and temporal authority, into whose house no weapon or cutting instrument may be brought.[760] This rule may perhaps be explained by a custom observed by various peoples after a death; they refrain from the use of sharp instruments so long as the ghost of the deceased is supposed to be near, lest they should wound it. Thus among the Esquimaux of Bering Strait “during the day on which a person dies in the village no one is permitted to work, and the relatives must perform no labour during the three following days. It is especially forbidden during this period to cut with any edged instrument, such as a knife or an axe; and the use of pointed instruments, like needles or bodkins, is also forbidden. This is said to be done to avoid cutting or injuring the shade, which may be present at any time during this period, and, if accidentally injured by any of these things, it would become very angry and bring sickness or death to the people. The relatives must also be very careful at this time not to make any loud or harsh noises that may startle or anger the shade.”[761] We have seen that in like manner after killing a white whale these Esquimaux abstain from the use of cutting or pointed instruments for four days, lest they should unwittingly cut or stab the whale's ghost.[762] The same taboo is sometimes observed by them when there is a sick person in the village, probably from a fear of injuring [pg 238] his shade which may be hovering outside of his body.[763] After a death the Roumanians of Transylvania are careful not to leave a knife lying with the sharp edge uppermost as long as the corpse remains in the house, “or else the soul will be forced to ride on the blade.”[764] For seven days after a death, the corpse being still in the house, the Chinese abstain from the use of knives and needles, and even of chopsticks, eating their food with their fingers.[765] On the third, sixth, ninth, and fortieth days after the funeral the old Prussians and Lithuanians used to prepare a meal, to which, standing at the door, they invited the soul of the deceased. At these meals they sat silent round the table and used no knives, and the women who served up the food were also without knives. If any morsels fell from the table they were left lying there for the lonely souls that had no living relations or friends to feed them. When the meal was over the priest took a broom and swept the souls out of the house, saying, “Dear souls, ye have eaten and drunk. Go forth, go forth.”[766] In cutting the nails and combing the hair of a dead prince in South Celebes only the back of the knife and of the comb may be used.[767] The Germans say that a knife should not be left edge upwards, because God and the spirits dwell there, or because it will cut the face of God and the angels.[768] Among the Monumbos of New Guinea a pregnant woman may not use sharp instruments; for example, she may not sew. If she used such instruments, they think that she would thereby stab the child in her womb.[769] Among [pg 239] the Kayans of Borneo, when the birth-pangs begin, all men leave the room, and all cutting weapons and iron are also removed, “perhaps in order not to frighten the child,” says the writer who reports the custom.[770] The reason may rather be a fear of injuring the flitting soul of mother or babe. In Uganda, when the hour of a woman's delivery is at hand, her husband carries all spears and weapons out of the house,[771] doubtless in order that they may not hurt the tender soul of the new-born child. Early in the period of the Ming dynasty a professor of geomancy made the alarming discovery that the spiritual atmosphere of Kü-yung, a city near Nanking, was in a truly deplorable condition through the intrusion of an evil spirit. The Chinese emperor, with paternal solicitude, directed that the north gate, by which the devil had effected his entrance, should be built up solid, and that for the future the population of the city should devote their energies to the pursuits of hair-dressing, corn-cutting, and the shaving of bamboo-roots, because, as he sagaciously perceived, all these professions call for the use of sharp-edged instruments, which could not fail to keep the demon at bay.[772] We can now understand why no cutting instrument may be taken into the house of the Burmese pontiff. Like so many priestly kings, he is probably regarded as divine, and it is therefore right that his sacred spirit should not be exposed to the risk of being cut or wounded whenever it quits his body to hover invisible in the air or to fly on some distant mission.
§ 4. Blood tabooed.
Raw meat tabooed because the life or spirit is in the blood.
We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was forbidden to touch or even name raw flesh.[773] At certain times a Brahman teacher is enjoined not to look on raw flesh, blood, or persons whose hands have been cut off.[774] In Uganda the father of [pg 240] twins is in a state of taboo for some time after the birth; among other rules he is forbidden to kill anything or to see blood.[775] In the Pelew Islands when a raid has been made on a village and a head carried off, the relations of the slain man are tabooed and have to submit to certain observances in order to escape the wrath of his ghost. They are shut up in the house, touch no raw flesh, and chew betel over which an incantation has been uttered by the exorcist. After this the ghost of the slaughtered man goes away to the enemy's country in pursuit of his murderer.[776] The taboo is probably based on the common belief that the soul or spirit of the animal is in the blood. As tabooed persons are believed to be in a perilous state—for example, the relations of the slain man are liable to the attacks of his indignant ghost—it is especially necessary to isolate them from contact with spirits; hence the prohibition to touch raw meat. But as usual the taboo is only the special enforcement of a general precept; in other words, its observance is particularly enjoined in circumstances which seem urgently to call for its application, but apart from such circumstances the prohibition is also observed, though less strictly, as a common rule of life. Thus some of the Esthonians will not taste blood because they believe that it contains the animal's soul, which would enter the body of the person who tasted the blood.[777] Some Indian tribes of North America, “through a strong principle of religion, abstain in the strictest manner from eating the blood of any animal, as it contains the life and spirit of the beast.” These Indians “commonly pull their new-killed venison (before they dress it) several times through the smoke and flame of the fire, both by the way of a sacrifice and to consume the blood, life, or animal spirits of the beast, which with them would be a most horrid abomination to eat.”[778] Among the western Dénés or Tinneh Indians of British Columbia until lately no woman [pg 241] would partake of blood, “and both men and women abhorred the flesh of a beaver which had been caught and died in a trap, and of a bear strangled to death in a snare, because the blood remained in the carcase.”[779] Many of the Slave, Hare, and Dogrib Indians scruple to taste the blood of game; hunters of the former tribes collect the blood in the animal's paunch and bury it in the snow.[780] The Malepa, a Bantu tribe in the north of the Transvaal, will taste no blood. Hence they cut the throats of the cattle they slaughter and let the blood drain out of the carcase before they will eat it. And they do the same with game.[781] Jewish hunters poured out the blood of the game they had killed and covered it up with dust. They would not taste the blood, believing that the soul or life of the animal was in the blood, or actually was the blood.[782] The same belief was held by the Romans,[783] and is shared by the Arabs,[784] by Chinese medical writers,[785] and by some of the Papuan tribes of New Guinea.[786]