Page:Frazer (1890) The Golden Bough (IA goldenboughstudy01fraz).djvu/223

II the clippings of hair used often to be buried under an elder-bush. In Oldenburg cut hair and nails are wrapt in a cloth which is deposited in a hole in an elder-tree three days before the new moon; the hole is then plugged up. In the West of Northumberland it is thought that if the first parings of a child’s nails are buried under an ash-tree, the child will turn out a fine singer. In Amboina before a child may taste sago-pap for the first time, the father cuts off a lock of the child’s hair which he buries under a sago palm. In the Aru Islands, when a child is able to run alone, a female relation cuts off a lock of its hair and deposits it on a banana-tree. In the island of Roti it is thought that the first hair which a child gets is not his own and that, if it is not cut off, it will make him weak and ill. Hence, when the child is about a month old, his hair is cut off with much ceremony. As each of the friends who are invited to the ceremony enters the house he goes up to the child, cuts off a little of its hair and drops it into a cocoa-nut shell full of water. Afterwards the father or another relation takes the hair and packs it into a litde bag made of leaves, which he fastens to the top of a palm-tree. Then he gives the leaves of the palm a good shaking, climbs down, and goes home without speaking to any one. Indians of the Yukon territory, Alaska, do not throw away their cut hair and nails, but tie them up in little bundles and place them in the crotches of trees or anywhere where they will