Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/437

 Rcz'iezc'S. 405

Ezenri or priestly king of Nri, who, like his fellow sovereigns described by Sir J. Frazer, is subjected to many curious taboos : he may not see a corpse, even of one of his own children ; a woman who has not washed in the morning may not salute him or come to his house ; he may not touch the water of the adjoining lake with his foot ; no one is allowed to rub his back while he is bathing; his wives are not permitted to wash with other women ; the shaving of his head is attended with various ceremonies ; he may not sit on the ground or eat in the house of another, and when a boy cooks for him he may not touch anything, and so on. He, however, holds his office for life, and sickness and old age do not disqualify him (Part i., chap. iv.). Aro, the year, is worshipped, and at the end of the year, as at the Hindu Diwall, the women carry old pots, clothes, baskets, etc., to his shrine, and throw them away, with the belief that in this way they rid themselves of pain and sickness for the coming year {ilnJ., p. 2S). Certain children are supposed to come from the tree world, and if the trees of which they are reincarnations are cut down, the children will die {ibid., p. 31). An interesting kind of " medicine " to repel thieves has European parallels : the "doctor," or magician, puts a broom in a pot, and when the wind blows it shakes and drives thieves away {ibid., p. 44). To repel an akaiogoii, or evil spirit, a pot with a broom in it is placed against the wall just inside the door, or a forked stick hangs from that part of the framework which supports the roof; the akaiogoii is supposed to catch its foot in the fork of this stick, just as the witch is believed to be caught in the witch's ladder in England {ibid., p. 40). A man who has killed a leopard may not go to the Ajana, or earth shrine, for a year; the hunter has to sit down for twenty-eight days without working, and may eat only such food as has been put in a pot and hung over a fire : he sleeps in a good house, and people watch so that other leopards may not come and help him {ibid., p. 45). Mr. Thomas bases his account of birth customs on two sets of ideas : in the first place, both mother and child are centres of dangerous force, and must be isolated so that certain people may not touch or see them, animals may not come near them, and before this state can be changed various ablutions have to be performed ; in the second place, they are in a state of dangerous receptivity, and conse-