§ 7. Ceremonies at Hair-cutting.
Solemn ceremonies observed at hair-cutting.
But when it becomes necessary to crop the hair, measures are taken to lessen the dangers which are supposed to attend the operation. The chief of Namosi in Fiji always ate a man by way of precaution when he had had his hair cut. “There was a certain clan that had to provide the victim, and they used to sit in solemn council among themselves to choose him. It was a sacrificial feast to avert evil from the chief.”[914] This remarkable custom has been described more fully by another observer. The old heathen temple at Namosi is called Rukunitambua, “and round about it are hundreds of stones, each of which tells a fearful tale. A subject tribe, whose town was some little distance from Namosi, had committed an unpardonable offence, and were condemned to a frightful doom. The earth-mound on which their temple had stood was planted with the mountain ndalo (arum), and when the crop was ripe, the poor wretches had to carry it down to Namosi, and give at least one of their number to be killed and eaten by the chief. He used to take advantage of these occasions to have his hair cut, for the human sacrifice was supposed to avert all danger of witchcraft if any ill-wisher got hold of the cuttings of his hair, human hair being the most dangerous channel for the deadliest spells of the sorcerers. The stones round Rukunitambua represented these and other victims who had been killed and eaten at Namosi. Each stone was the record of a murder succeeded by a cannibal feast.”[915] Amongst the Maoris many spells were uttered at hair-cutting; one, for [pg 265] example, was spoken to consecrate the obsidian knife with which the hair was cut; another was pronounced to avert the thunder and lightning which hair-cutting was believed to cause.[916] “He who has had his hair cut is in immediate charge of the Atua (spirit); he is removed from the contact and society of his family and his tribe; he dare not touch his food himself; it is put into his mouth by another person; nor can he for some days resume his accustomed occupations or associate with his fellow-men.”[917] The person who cuts the hair is also tabooed; his hands having been in contact with a sacred head, he may not touch food with them or engage in any other employment; he is fed by another person with food cooked over a sacred fire. He cannot be released from the taboo before the following day, when he rubs his hands with potato or fern root which has been cooked on a sacred fire; and this food having been taken to the head of the family in the female line and eaten by her, his hands are freed from the taboo. In some parts of New Zealand the most sacred day of the year was that appointed for hair-cutting; the people assembled in large numbers on that day from all the neighbourhood.[918] Sometimes a Maori chief's hair was shorn by his wife, who was then tabooed for a week as a consequence of having touched his sacred locks.[919] It is an affair of state when the king of Cambodia's hair is cropped. The priests place on the barber's fingers certain old rings set with large stones, which are supposed to contain spirits favourable to the kings, and during the operation the Brahmans keep up a noisy music to drive away the evil spirits.[920] The hair and nails of the Mikado could only be cut while he was asleep,[921] perhaps because his soul being then absent from his body, there was less chance of injuring it with the shears.
Ceremonies at cutting the hair of Siamese children.
From their earliest days little Siamese children have the [pg 266] crown of the head clean shorn with the exception of a single small tuft of hair, which is daily combed, twisted, oiled, and tied in a little knot until the day when it is finally removed with great pomp and ceremony. The ceremony of shaving the top-knot takes place before the child has reached puberty, and great anxiety is felt at this time lest the kwun, or guardian-spirit who commonly resides in the body and especially the head of every Siamese,[922] should be so disturbed by the tonsure as to depart and leave the child a hopeless wreck for life. Great pains are therefore taken to recall this mysterious being in case he should have fled, and to fix him securely in the child. This is the object of an elaborate ceremony performed on the afternoon of the day when the top-knot has been cut. A miniature pagoda is erected, and on it are placed several kinds of food known to be favourites of the spirit. When the kwun has arrived and is feasting on these dainties, he is caught and held fast under a cloth thrown over the food. The child is now placed near the pagoda, and all the family and friends form a circle, with the child, the captured spirit, and the Brahman priests in the middle. Hereupon the priests address the spirit, earnestly entreating him to enter into the child. They amuse him with tales, and coax and wheedle him with flattery, jest, and song; the gongs ring out their loudest; the people cheer and only a kwun of the sourest and most obdurate disposition could resist the combined appeal. The last sentences of the formal invocation run as follows: “Benignant kwun! Thou fickle being who art wont to wander and dally about! From the moment that the child was conceived in the womb, thou hast enjoyed every pleasure, until ten (lunar) months having elapsed and the time of delivery arrived, thou hast suffered and run the risk of perishing by being born alive into the world. Gracious kwun! thou wast at that time so tender, delicate, and wavering as to cause great anxiety concerning thy fate; thou was exactly like a child, youthful, innocent, and inexperienced. The least trifle frightened thee and made thee shudder. In thy infantile playfulness thou wast wont to frolic and wander to no purpose. As thou didst commence to learn to sit, and, [pg 267] unassisted, to crawl totteringly on all fours, thou wast ever falling flat on thy face or on thy back. As thou didst grow up in years and couldst move thy steps firmly, thou didst begin to run and sport thoughtlessly and rashly all round the rooms, the terrace, and bridging planks of travelling boat or floating house, and at times thou didst fall into the stream, creek, or pond, among the floating water-weeds, to the utter dismay of those to whom thy existence was most dear. O gentle kwun, come into thy corporeal abode; do not delay this auspicious rite. Thou art now full-grown and dost form everybody's delight and admiration. Let all the tiny particles of kwun that have fallen on land or water assemble and take permanent abode in this darling little child. Let them all hurry to the site of this auspicious ceremony and admire the magnificent preparations made for them in this hall.” The brocaded cloth from the pagoda, under which lurks the captive spirit, is now rolled up tightly and handed to the child, who is told to clasp it firmly to his breast and not let the kwun escape. Further, the child drinks the milk of the coco-nuts which had been offered to the spirit, and by thus absorbing the food of the kwun ensures the presence of that precious spirit in his body. A magic cord is tied round his wrist to keep off the wicked spirits who would lure the kwun away from home; and for three nights he sleeps with the embroidered cloth from the pagoda fast clasped in his arms.[923]
§ 8. Disposal of Cut Hair and Nails.
Belief that people may be bewitched through the clippings of their hair, the parings of their nails, and other severed parts of their persons.
But even when the hair and nails have been safely cut, there remains the difficulty of disposing of them, for their owner believes himself liable to suffer from any harm that may befall them. The notion that a man may be bewitched by means of the clippings of his hair, the parings of his nails, or any other severed portion of his person is [pg 268] almost world-wide,[924] and attested by evidence too ample, too familiar, and too tedious in its uniformity to be here analysed at length. The general idea on which the superstition rests is that of the sympathetic connexion supposed to persist between a person and everything that has once been part of his body or in any way closely related to him. A very few examples must suffice. They belong to that branch of sympathetic magic which may be called contagious.[925] Thus, when the Chilote Indians, inhabiting the wild, deeply indented coasts and dark rain-beaten forests of southern Chili, get possession of the hair of an enemy, they drop it from a high tree or tie it to a piece of seaweed and fling it into the surf; for they think that the shock of the fall, or the blows of the waves as the tress is tossed to and fro on the heaving billows, will be transmitted through the hair to the person from whose head it was cut.[926] Dread of sorcery, we are told, formed one of the most salient characteristics of the Marquesan islanders in the old days. The sorcerer took some of the hair, spittle, or other bodily refuse of the man he wished to injure, wrapped it up in a leaf, and placed the packet in a bag woven of threads or fibres, which were knotted in an intricate way. The whole was then buried with certain rites, and thereupon the victim wasted away of a languishing sickness which lasted twenty days. His life, however, might be saved by discovering and digging up the buried hair, spittle, or what not; for as soon as this was done the power of the charm ceased.[927] A Marquesan chief told Lieutenant Gamble that he was extremely ill, the Happah tribe having stolen a lock of his hair and buried it in a plantain leaf for the purpose of taking his life. Lieutenant Gamble argued with him, but in vain; die he must unless the hair and the plantain leaf were brought back to him; and to obtain them he had offered the Happahs the greater part of his property. He complained of excessive [pg 269] pain in the head, breast, and sides.[928] A Maori sorcerer intent on bewitching somebody sought to get a tress of his victim's hair, the parings of his nails, some of his spittle, or a shred of his garment. Having obtained the object, whatever it was, he chanted certain spells and curses over it in a falsetto voice and buried it in the ground. As the thing decayed, the person to whom it had belonged was supposed to waste away.[929] Again, an Australian girl, sick of a fever, laid the blame of her illness on a young man who had come behind her and cut off a lock of her hair; she was sure he had buried it and that it was rotting. “Her hair,” she said, “was rotting somewhere, and her Marm-bu-la (kidney fat) was wasting away, and when her hair had completely rotted, she would die.”[930] When an Australian blackfellow wishes to get rid of his wife, he cuts off a lock of her hair in her sleep, ties it to his spear-thrower, and goes with it to a neighbouring tribe, where he gives it to a friend. His friend sticks the spear-thrower up every night before the camp fire, and when it falls down it is a sign that the wife is dead.[931] The way in which the charm operates was explained to Dr. Howitt by a Wirajuri man. “You see,” he said, “when a blackfellow doctor gets hold of something belonging to a man and roasts it with things, and sings over it, the fire catches hold of the smell of the man, and that settles the poor fellow.”[932] A slightly different form of the charm as practised in Australia is to fasten the enemy's hair with wax to the pinion bone of a hawk, and set the bone in a small circle of fire. According as the sorcerer desires the death or only the sickness of his victim he leaves the bone in the midst of the fire or removes it and lays it in the sun. When he thinks he has done his enemy enough harm, he places the bone in water, which ends the enchantment.[933] [pg 270] Lucian describes how a Syrian witch professed to bring back a faithless lover to his forsaken fair one by means of a lock of his hair, his shoes, his garments, or something of that sort. She hung the hair, or whatever it was, on a peg and fumigated it with brimstone, sprinkling salt on the fire and mentioning the names of the lover and his lass. Then she drew a magic wheel from her bosom and set it spinning, while she gabbled a spell full of barbarous and fearsome words. This soon brought the false lover back to the feet of his charmer.[934] Apuleius tells how an amorous Thessalian witch essayed to win the affections of a handsome Boeotian youth by similar means. As darkness fell she mounted the roof, and there, surrounded by a hellish array of dead men's bones, she knotted the severed tresses of auburn hair and threw them on the glowing embers of a perfumed fire. But her cunning handmaid had outwitted her; the hair was only goat's hair; and all her enchantments ended in dismal and ludicrous failure.[935]