[292] Reference is made in 1 Sam. xxi. 5, 2 Sam. xi. 11 to an act of self-control which was also part of the consecration for battle; but this, which is found among many other races, had its special reason and does not come into consideration here.
[293] GB, Spirits of the Corn ..., II. 145, where other examples are given.
[294] GB, Spirits of the Corn ..., I. 22.
[295] The possibility is not excluded that in all cases of animals being eaten in order to absorb their qualities, their sacredness may have been the real reason at one time in the history of the rite. When this reason was forgotten and its qualities became the sole reason for eating an animal, the extension of the idea in other ways would be natural.
[296] Religion of the Semites, p. 288.
[297] GB, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 165 f. (1911); the account is taken from S. Müller, Reizen en Ondergoekingen in den Indischen Archipel., II. 252 (1857). For another example see Chalmers, op. cit. p. 182.
[298] C. G. Seligmann, The Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 298 (1910), quoted by Frazer, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 168.
[299] Spencer and Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 493 f. (1899).
[300] De Flacourt, Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar, pp. 97 f. (1658), quoted by Frazer, GB, The Magic Art, I. 131 (1911).
[301] The Secret Tribal Societies of West Africa, p. 17, quoted by Frazer, op. cit. I. 132.