Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/265

 of Contact zvith Inanimate Objects. 253

house they might enter became at once sacred and belonged to the king thenceforward, and in the case of the house the owner had to leave it never to return. Nobody might touch the king and queen, and anybody who stood over them or passed his hands above their heads was at once put to death. Great care had therefore -to be exercised lest the royal pair should put their feet on any land not included in the royal domain, that is, in their own inherited district. When they went abroad they rode on the shoulders of certain attendants, who became sacred and were specially privileged men accordingly. If they were going far and one became tired, the king and queen passed on the neck of another man without descending, such a descent implying that the place would become sacred. In eating, too, on occasion the food had to be put into their mouths, by a sacred person, of course.

The carrying of chiefs by their attendants is common in various parts of Africa, but I do not gather that there is any underlying reason of sanctity in it. It seems to have its vogue from enhanced dignity and disincHnation to walk. With the Tahiti chiefs the reason is quite different. It is because the chiefs are supposed to be descended from the gods, which may mean no more than that by origin they are descendants of some ancient conquering race, and may still possess a minute strain of foreign blood. It is noticeable that carrying -by their own followers is not met with in countries where there are horses or other animals. On the whole, except in regard to the South Seas, no special significance attaches to riding or being carried. It is a common custom throughout the world, as also is the accompanying assumption that the person who walks is in an inferior social position to one who rides.

Of a different nature, and one which may be ascribed in its origin to purely intolerant arrogance, is the custom among some primitive chiefs ruling over a very subdued or slave population that one of them is the most suitable