Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/27

Rh unclean, which plays so important a part in the later history of religion, did in fact arise by differentiation from the single root idea of taboo, which includes and reconciles them both and by reference to which alone their history and mutual relation are intelligible.

The original character of the taboo must be looked for not in its civil but in its religious element. It was not the creation of a legislator but the gradual outgrowth of animistic beliefs, to which the ambition and avarice of chiefs and priests afterwards gave an artificial extension. But in serving the cause of avarice and ambition it subserved the progress of civilization, by fostering conceptions of the rights of property and the sanctity of the marriage tie, — conceptions which in time grew strong enough to stand by themselves and to fling away the crutch of superstition which in earlier days had been their sole support. For we shall scarcely err in believing that even in advanced societies the moral sentiments, in so far as they are merely sentiments and are not based on an induction from experience, derive much of their force from an original system of taboo. Thus on the taboo were grafted the golden fruits of law and morality, while the parent stem dwindled slowly into the sour crabs and empty husks of popular superstition on which the swine of modern society are still content to feed.

It remains to indicate briefly some facts which point to a wide diffusion under various names of customs similar to the taboo. As might have been expected, the taboo is found, though in a less marked form, among the Micronesians, Malays, and Dyaks, all of whom are ethnologically connected with the Polynesians. In Micronesia both the name and the institution occur: the inhabitants of certain islands are forbidden to eat certain animals and the fruits of certain trees; temples and great chiefs are tabooed from the people; any one who fishes must previously for twenty-four hours abstain from women; in conversing with women men are not allowed to use certain words, &c. Again, the Malays have the custom, though apparently not the name. In Timor and the neighbouring islands the word for taboo is pamali (or pomali); and during the long festival which celebrates a successful head-hunt the man who has secured the most heads is pamali; he must not sleep with his wife nor eat from his own hand, but is fed by women. Pamali is a Javanese word, and had originally in Java and Sumatra the same meaning that it now bears in Timor. In Celebes a mother after childbirth was pamali. Amongst the Dyaks of Borneo the pamali (called by the Land Dyaks porikh) is regularly practised at the planting of rice, harvest home, when the cry of the gazelle is heard behind, in times of sickness, after a death, &c. At the harvest home it is observed by the whole tribe, no one being allowed to enter or leave the village. The house where a death has taken place is pamali for twelve days, during which no one may enter it and nothing may be taken out of it. A tabooed Dyak may not bathe, meddle with fire, follow his ordinary occupation, or leave his house. Certain families are forbidden to eat the flesh of particular animals, as cattle, goats, and snakes. The taboo is often indicated by a bundle of spears or a rattan. The Motu of New Guinea also have the taboo: a man is tabooed after handling a corpse. He then keeps apart from his wife; his food is cooked for him by his sister; and he may not touch it with his hands. After three days he bathes and is free. But the Motu appear to be Malayo-Polynesians, not Melanesians proper. However, in Melanesia also we find the taboo. It flourished in Fiji. It is observed in New Caledonia in cases of death, to preserve a crop, &c. According to the Rev. R. H. Codrington, there is this distinction between the Melanesian and the Polynesian taboo, that for the former there is no supernatural sanction: the man who breaks a taboo simply pays compensation to the person on whose tabooed property he has transgressed. But Mr R. Parkinson states that in New Britain (now New Pomerania) a person who violates a taboo-mark set on a plantation, tree, &c., is supposed to be "attacked by sickness and misfortune." To go through the similar customs observed by savages all over the world would be endless; we may, however, note that a regular system of taboo is said to exist among some of the wild tribes of the Naga Hills in India, and that the rules not to touch food with the hands or the head with the hands are observed by tabooed women among one of the Fraser Lake tribes in North America. In fact some of the most characteristic features of taboo — the prohibition to eat certain foods and the disabilities entailed by childbirth and by contact with the dead, together with a variety of ceremonies for removing these disabilities — have been found more or less amongst all primitive races. It is more interesting to mark the traces of such customs among civilized peoples, e.g., Jews, Greeks, and Romans.

Amongst the Jews — (1) the vow of the Nazarite (Num. vi. 1-21) presents the closest resemblance to the Polynesian taboo. The meaning of the word Nazarite is "one separated or consecrated," and this, as we saw (p. 15), is precisely the meaning of taboo. It is the head of the Nazarite, that is especially consecrated (v. 7, "his separation unto God is upon his head"; v. 9, "defile the head of his separation"; v. 11, "shall hallow his head"), and so it was in the taboo. The Nazarite might not partake of certain meats and drinks, nor shave his head, nor touch a dead body, — all rules of taboo. If a person died suddenly beside him, this was said to "defile the head of his separation," and the same effect, expressed in the same language, would apply to a tabooed Polynesian in similar circumstances. Again, the mode of terminating the vow of the Nazarite corresponds with the mode of breaking a taboo. He shaved his head at the door of the sanctuary and the priest placed food in his hands, either of which acts would have been a flagrant violation of a Polynesian taboo. (2) Some of the rules for the observance of the Sabbath are identical with rules of strict taboo; such are the prohibitions to do any work, to kindle a fire in the house, to cook food, and to go out of doors (Exod. xxxv. 2, 3; xvi. 23, 29). The Essenes strictly observed the rules to cook no food and light no fire on the Sabbath (Josephus, Bell. Jud., ii. 8, 9). (3) Any one who touched a dead body was "unclean" for seven days; what he touched became unclean, and could communicate its uncleanness to any other person who touched it. At the end of seven days the unclean person washed his clothes, bathed himself, and was clean (Num. xix. 11, 14, 19, 22). In Polynesia, as we have seen, any one who touched a dead body was taboo; what he touched became taboo, and could communicate the infection to any one who touched it; and one of the ceremonies for getting rid of the taboo was washing. (4) A Jewish mother after childbirth was unclean (Lev. xii.); a Polynesian mother was taboo. (5) A great many animals were unclean, and could infect with their uncleanness whatever they touched; earthen vessels touched by certain of them were broken. Certain animals were taboo in Polynesia, and utensils which had contracted a taint of taboo were in some cases broken.

Amongst the Greeks a survival, or at least a reminiscence, of a system of taboo is perhaps to be found in certain applications of the epithets "sacred" and "divine" in

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