Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/808

 INFLUENCE OF SUPERSTITION ON THE EVOLUTION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS

BUTTON WEBSTER University of Nebraska

The student of primitive religion must needs be a sociologist. Modern research into the culture of the lower races has shown us how close is the connection between the faith of the savage and his general social environment. It is an idle task to investi- gate the beginnings of law and morality, of politics and govern- ment, without due reference to the beliefs, call them superstitions, if you will, of primitive man. Little has been done, on the other hand, toward setting forth those no less intimate relations between early economics and early religion.

Let us take, by way of illustration, that very extensive group of superstitions included under the term "taboo." A taboo is a prohibition or interdiction, to which a supernatural sanction is attached. The word comes to us from the South Seas where the taboo system appears to have reached its most elaborate and grotesque development. Contemporary researches, however, are steadily disclosing the existence of very similar conceptions in many other regions of the savage world. And while the range of taboo is relatively restricted in the higher levels of culture, numerous "survivals" there attest its former sway and im- portance. Indeed an eminent French savant has recently defined religion itself as essentially a collection of taboos — as a set of divine ordinances without any very obvious meaning, which, from the beginning have fettered man in the free exercise of his faculties. We need not, perhaps, follow M. Reinach to quite this extreme in order to emphasize the influence of taboo ideas and taboo regulations on human conduct.

For the purpose of the present discussion it will be sufficient to inquire what in legal language is the "sanction" of these taboos. What is their compelling power? How do they oper- ate? In somewhat advanced stages of culture the penalty for

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