This myth, it is almost needless to observe, does not really explain the custom. People do not usually observe a custom because on a particular occasion a mythical being is said to have acted in a certain way. But, on the contrary, they very often invent myths to explain why they practise certain customs. Dismissing, therefore, the story of Fireless and Homeless as a myth invented to explain why the Indians abstain from eating a particular sinew, it may be suggested[767] that the original reason for observing the custom was a belief that the sinew in question was necessary to reproduction, and that deprived of it the slain animals could not come to life again and stock the steppes and prairies either of the present world or of the spirit land. We have seen that the resurrection of animals is a common article of savage faith, and that when the Lapps bury the skeleton of the male bear in the hope of its resurrection they are careful to bury the genital parts along with it. However, subsequent enquiries make it probable that the Indian practice of cutting out the hamstring of deer has no other object than that of preventing eaters of venison from going lame. Among the Cherokee, we are told, “on killing a deer the hunter always makes an incision in the hind quarter and removes the hamstring, because this tendon, when severed, draws up into the flesh; ergo, any one who should unfortunately partake of the hamstring would find his limbs drawn up in the same manner.”[768] Thus the superstition [pg 267] seems to rest on the common principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic, that an eater infects himself with the qualities of the animal of whose flesh he partakes. Many instances of the application of that principle have met us already.[769]
Some hunters hamstring the dead game in order to lame the ghosts of the animals. Some savages put out the eyes of dead game in order perhaps to blind the ghosts of the animals.
But some hunters hamstring the game for a different purpose; they hope thereby to prevent the dead beast or its ghost from getting up and running away. This is the motive alleged for the practice by Koui hunters in Laos; they think that the spells which they utter in the chase may lose their magical virtue, and that the slaughtered animal may consequently come to life again and escape. To prevent that catastrophe they therefore hamstring the beast as soon as they have butchered it.[770] When an Esquimau of Alaska has killed a fox, he carefully cuts the tendons of all the animal's legs in order to prevent the ghost from reanimating the body and walking about.[771] But hamstringing the carcase is not the only measure which the prudent savage adopts for the sake of disabling the ghost of his victim. In old days, when the Aino went out hunting and killed a fox first, they took care to tie its mouth up tightly in order to prevent the ghost of the animal from sallying forth and warning its fellows against the approach of the hunter.[772] The Gilyaks of the Amoor River put out the eyes of the seals they have killed, lest the ghosts of the slain animals should know their slayers and avenge their death by spoiling the seal-hunt.[773] The custom of putting out the eyes of slaughtered animals appears to be not uncommon among primitive peoples, and we may suspect that even where a different reason is alleged for it, the true [pg 268] original motive was to blind the dangerous ghost of the injured creature, and so to incapacitate it for retaliating on the slayer. Thus, when a Samoyed has killed a wild reindeer, one of the first things he does is to cut out the eyes and throw them away “in order to ensure a good bag in future”; and he buries the eyes in some place where no woman or adult girl is likely to step over them, since that also would spoil his luck in the chase.[774] Among the tribes of South-east Africa hunters pluck out the right eye of any animal they have killed and pour a charmed medicine into the empty socket.[775] Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia a man whose daughter has just arrived at puberty may not hunt or trap for a month, or he will have no luck. Moreover, he should cut off the head of the first grouse he snares, pluck out the eyes, and insert two small roots of the Zygadenus elegans Pursch. in the orbits and another in its mouth, and having done so he ought to hang up the bird's head above his pillow. If he neglects these precautions, he will not be able to snare any more grouse or other small game.[776] No doubt the ceremonial pollution contracted by his daughter at this critical period of her life is supposed to infect the hunter and render him unacceptable to the game;[777] hence it seems a mere elementary dictate of prudence to hoodwink the grouse effectually by putting out their eyes. Sometimes, perhaps, the cutting out of the eyes of fierce and powerful animals may be a rational, not a superstitious, precaution. Thus the Kamtchatkans, who stab with knives the eyes of slain bears before they cut the carcases up, allege as their reason for doing so that bears which seem to be dead [pg 269] of their wounds will sometimes revive and kill their would-be killers.[778]
The custom of cutting out the tongues of dead animals may sometimes be intended to prevent their ghosts from telling tales. Tongues of animals cut out in order to confer superhuman knowledge or power on their possessors.
It appears to be a common custom with savage hunters to cut out the tongues of the animals which they kill. On the analogy of the foregoing customs we may conjecture that the removal of the tongues is sometimes a precaution to prevent the ghosts of the creatures from telling their sad fate to their sympathising comrades, the living animals of the same sort, who would naturally be frightened, and so keep out of the hunter's way. Thus, for example, Omaha hunters remove the tongue of a slain buffalo through an opening made in the animal's throat. The tongues thus removed are sacred and may not touch any tool or metal except when they are boiling in the kettles at the sacred tent. They are eaten as sacred food.[779] Indian bear-hunters cut out what they call the bear's little tongue (a fleshy mass under the real tongue) and keep it for good luck in hunting or burn it to determine, from its crackling and so on, whether the soul of the slain bear is angry with them or not.[780] In folk-tales the hero commonly cuts out the tongue of the wild beast which he has slain and preserves it as a token. The incident serves to shew that the custom was a common one, since folk-tales reflect with accuracy the customs and beliefs of a primitive age.[781] On the other hand, the [pg 270] tongues of certain animals, as the otter and the eagle, are torn out and sometimes worn round their necks by Thlinkeet and Haida shamans as a means of conferring superhuman knowledge and power on their possessors.[782] In particular, an otter's tongue is supposed to convey a knowledge of “the language of all inanimate objects, of birds, animals, and other living creatures” to the shaman, who wears it in a little bag hung round his neck.[783] When a Galla priest sacrifices an animal and decides that the omens are favourable, he cuts out the tongue, sticks his thumb through it, and so flays the animal.[784] In certain cases Gallas cut out the tongues of oxen and wear them on their heads as tokens.[785] In Bohemia a fox's tongue is worn as an amulet to make a timid person bold;[786] in Oldenburg and Belgium it is a remedy for erysipelas.[787] In Bohemia the tongue of a male snake, if cut from the living animal on St. George's Eve and placed under a person's tongue, will confer the gift of eloquence.[788] The Homeric Greeks cut out the tongues of sacrificial victims and burned them.[789] According to some accounts, the tongues of the victims were assigned by the Greeks to Hermes, as the god of speech, or to his human representatives the heralds.[790] [pg 271] On the principles of sympathetic magic we might expect that heralds should taste the tongues of sacrificial victims to strengthen their voices, or to acquire the gift of tongues.[791]
Bechuana custom of mutilating a sacrificial ox in order to inflict corresponding mutilations on the enemy. Mutilation of the corpses of enemies or other dangerous persons for the purpose of maiming their ghosts. Disabling the ghost by mutilating his dead body.
The conjecture that the practice of cutting out the tongues of dead animals may sometimes be a precaution to prevent their ghosts from telling tales, is to some extent confirmed by a ceremony which the Bechuanas used to observe after a battle. It was customary with them on these occasions to sacrifice a fine black ox, called the expiatory victim (pekou), cut off the tip of its tongue, and extract one of its eyes together with a piece of the hamstring and a piece of the principal tendon of the shoulder; and the severed parts were afterwards carefully fried, along with some medicinal herbs, in a horn by a medicine-man. The reasons for thus mutilating the animal were explained by a native to two French missionaries. “If we cut out and purify the victim's tongue,” said he, “the motive is to induce the guardian deities to prevent the enemy from speaking ill of us. We ask also that the sinews of their feet and hands may fail them in the battle; and that their eyes may not cast a covetous look on our herds.”[792] In this custom the sacrificial ox appears to be treated as the ceremonial equivalent of the enemy; accordingly by cutting out its tongue you obviously prevent your enemy from cursing you, for how can he curse you if he has no tongue? Similarly, by hamstringing the beast you ensure that the legs and arms of your adversary will fail him in the battle, and by gouging out the ox's eye you make perfectly certain that the foe will never be able to cast a longing eye on your fat beeves. Thus for all practical purposes the mutilation of the ox is quite as effective as the mutilation of the enemy's dead, which is sometimes practised by savages from similar superstitious motives. Thus on the return from a field of battle the Baganda used to cut up one or two of the enemy's dead, scoop out the eyes, cut off the ears, and lay the limbs on the road taken by the returning army “to [pg 272] prevent evil following them.”[793] The nature of the evil which the Baganda warriors feared to incur if they did not mutilate the dead in this fashion, is not mentioned, but we may conjecture that by gouging out the eyes and ears of their slain foes they hoped to make their angry ghosts blind and deaf; or perhaps, upon the principles of homoeopathic magic, they counted on maiming their living foes in like manner. Some of the aborigines of Australia cut off the thumbs of their dead enemies in order that their ghosts may not be able to throw spears.[794] Other Australian tribes burn off the thumb nails of their own dead to prevent the poor ghost from scratching a way for himself out of the grave.[795] When the Tupi Indians of Brazil killed and ate a prisoner, “the thumb was cut off because of its use in archery, an art concerning which they were singularly superstitious; what was done with it does not appear, except that it was not eaten like the rest.”[796] Perhaps these Indians, like the Australians, thought by this mutilation to disarm the dangerous ghost of their victim. When any bad man died, the Esquimaux of Bering Strait used to cut the sinews of his arms and legs, “in order to prevent the shade from returning to the body and causing it to walk at night as a ghoul.”[797] In Travancore the ghosts of men who have been hanged for murder are particularly dreaded; so in order to incapacitate them from roaming about and attacking people, it used to be customary to slice off a criminal's heels with a sword or hamstring him at the moment when he swung free from the ladder.[798] The Omaha Indians used to slit the soles of a man who had been killed by lightning in order to prevent his ghost from walking.[799] Among the Awemba of [pg 273] Northern Rhodesia murderers often inflicted shocking mutilations on the bodies of their victims. “This was done, it is said, to prevent the spirit of the murdered person from exacting vengeance, and even if only the joint of the first or the little finger were cut off, such mutilation would suffice for this purpose.”[800] These examples suggest that many other mutilations which savages practise on their dead enemies may spring, not from the blind fury of hatred, but from a cool calculation of the best mode of protecting themselves against the very natural resentment of the ghosts; by mutilating the corpse they apparently hope to maim the ghost and so to render him incapable of harming them. At all events it appears that in certain circumstances some savages treat the dead bodies of men and beasts much alike, by hamstringing them in order to prevent their ghosts from getting up and walking. So consistent and impartial is the primitive philosopher in his attitude to the spirit world.