The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12)

§ 7. Ceremonies at Hair-cutting

Solemn ceremonies observed at hair-cutting.

But when it becomes necessary to crop the hair, measures are taken to lessen the dangers which are supposed to attend the operation. The chief of Namosi in Fiji always ate a man by way of precaution when he had had his hair cut. “There was a certain clan that had to provide the victim, and they used to sit in solemn council among themselves to choose him. It was a sacrificial feast to avert evil from the chief.”[914 - Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to the author, dated August 26, 1898.] This remarkable custom has been described more fully by another observer. The old heathen temple at Namosi is called Rukunitambua, “and round about it are hundreds of stones, each of which tells a fearful tale. A subject tribe, whose town was some little distance from Namosi, had committed an unpardonable offence, and were condemned to a frightful doom. The earth-mound on which their temple had stood was planted with the mountain ndalo (arum), and when the crop was ripe, the poor wretches had to carry it down to Namosi, and give at least one of their number to be killed and eaten by the chief. He used to take advantage of these occasions to have his hair cut, for the human sacrifice was supposed to avert all danger of witchcraft if any ill-wisher got hold of the cuttings of his hair, human hair being the most dangerous channel for the deadliest spells of the sorcerers. The stones round Rukunitambua represented these and other victims who had been killed and eaten at Namosi. Each stone was the record of a murder succeeded by a cannibal feast.”[915 - From the report of a lecture delivered in Melbourne, December 9, 1898, by the Rev. H. Worrall, of Fiji, missionary. The newspaper cutting from which the above extract is quoted was sent to me by the Rev. Lorimer Fison in a letter, dated Melbourne, January 9, 1899. Mr. Fison omitted to give the name and date of the newspaper.] Amongst the Maoris many spells were uttered at hair-cutting; one, for example, was spoken to consecrate the obsidian knife with which the hair was cut; another was pronounced to avert the thunder and lightning which hair-cutting was believed to cause.[916 - R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants

(London, 1870), pp. 206 sqq.] “He who has had his hair cut is in immediate charge of the Atua (spirit); he is removed from the contact and society of his family and his tribe; he dare not touch his food himself; it is put into his mouth by another person; nor can he for some days resume his accustomed occupations or associate with his fellow-men.”[917 - Richard A. Cruise, Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in New Zealand (London, 1823), pp. 283 sq. Compare J. Dumont D'Urville, Voyage autour du monde et à la recherche de La Pérouse: histoire du voyage (Paris, 1832), ii. 533.] The person who cuts the hair is also tabooed; his hands having been in contact with a sacred head, he may not touch food with them or engage in any other employment; he is fed by another person with food cooked over a sacred fire. He cannot be released from the taboo before the following day, when he rubs his hands with potato or fern root which has been cooked on a sacred fire; and this food having been taken to the head of the family in the female line and eaten by her, his hands are freed from the taboo. In some parts of New Zealand the most sacred day of the year was that appointed for hair-cutting; the people assembled in large numbers on that day from all the neighbourhood.[918 - E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 108 sqq.; R. Taylor, l. c.] Sometimes a Maori chief's hair was shorn by his wife, who was then tabooed for a week as a consequence of having touched his sacred locks.[919 - G. F. Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand (London, 1847), ii. 90 sq.] It is an affair of state when the king of Cambodia's hair is cropped. The priests place on the barber's fingers certain old rings set with large stones, which are supposed to contain spirits favourable to the kings, and during the operation the Brahmans keep up a noisy music to drive away the evil spirits.[920 - J. Moura, Le Royaume du Cambodge, i. 226 sq.] The hair and nails of the Mikado could only be cut while he was asleep,[921 - See above, p. 3 (#x_3_i14).] perhaps because his soul being then absent from his body, there was less chance of injuring it with the shears.

Ceremonies at cutting the hair of Siamese children.

From their earliest days little Siamese children have the crown of the head clean shorn with the exception of a single small tuft of hair, which is daily combed, twisted, oiled, and tied in a little knot until the day when it is finally removed with great pomp and ceremony. The ceremony of shaving the top-knot takes place before the child has reached puberty, and great anxiety is felt at this time lest the kwun, or guardian-spirit who commonly resides in the body and especially the head of every Siamese,[922 - See above, p. 252 (#x_14_i38).] should be so disturbed by the tonsure as to depart and leave the child a hopeless wreck for life. Great pains are therefore taken to recall this mysterious being in case he should have fled, and to fix him securely in the child. This is the object of an elaborate ceremony performed on the afternoon of the day when the top-knot has been cut. A miniature pagoda is erected, and on it are placed several kinds of food known to be favourites of the spirit. When the kwun has arrived and is feasting on these dainties, he is caught and held fast under a cloth thrown over the food. The child is now placed near the pagoda, and all the family and friends form a circle, with the child, the captured spirit, and the Brahman priests in the middle. Hereupon the priests address the spirit, earnestly entreating him to enter into the child. They amuse him with tales, and coax and wheedle him with flattery, jest, and song; the gongs ring out their loudest; the people cheer and only a kwun of the sourest and most obdurate disposition could resist the combined appeal. The last sentences of the formal invocation run as follows: “Benignant kwun! Thou fickle being who art wont to wander and dally about! From the moment that the child was conceived in the womb, thou hast enjoyed every pleasure, until ten (lunar) months having elapsed and the time of delivery arrived, thou hast suffered and run the risk of perishing by being born alive into the world. Gracious kwun! thou wast at that time so tender, delicate, and wavering as to cause great anxiety concerning thy fate; thou was exactly like a child, youthful, innocent, and inexperienced. The least trifle frightened thee and made thee shudder. In thy infantile playfulness thou wast wont to frolic and wander to no purpose. As thou didst commence to learn to sit, and, unassisted, to crawl totteringly on all fours, thou wast ever falling flat on thy face or on thy back. As thou didst grow up in years and couldst move thy steps firmly, thou didst begin to run and sport thoughtlessly and rashly all round the rooms, the terrace, and bridging planks of travelling boat or floating house, and at times thou didst fall into the stream, creek, or pond, among the floating water-weeds, to the utter dismay of those to whom thy existence was most dear. O gentle kwun, come into thy corporeal abode; do not delay this auspicious rite. Thou art now full-grown and dost form everybody's delight and admiration. Let all the tiny particles of kwun that have fallen on land or water assemble and take permanent abode in this darling little child. Let them all hurry to the site of this auspicious ceremony and admire the magnificent preparations made for them in this hall.” The brocaded cloth from the pagoda, under which lurks the captive spirit, is now rolled up tightly and handed to the child, who is told to clasp it firmly to his breast and not let the kwun escape. Further, the child drinks the milk of the coco-nuts which had been offered to the spirit, and by thus absorbing the food of the kwun ensures the presence of that precious spirit in his body. A magic cord is tied round his wrist to keep off the wicked spirits who would lure the kwun away from home; and for three nights he sleeps with the embroidered cloth from the pagoda fast clasped in his arms.[923 - E. Young, The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe (Westminster, 1898), pp. 64 sq., 67-84. I have abridged the account of the ceremonies by omitting some details. For an account of the ceremonies observed at cutting the hair of a young Siamese prince, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, see Mgr. Bruguière, in Annales de l'Association de la Propagation de la Foi, v. (1831) pp. 197 sq.]

§ 8. Disposal of Cut Hair and Nails

Belief that people may be bewitched through the clippings of their hair, the parings of their nails, and other severed parts of their persons.

But even when the hair and nails have been safely cut, there remains the difficulty of disposing of them, for their owner believes himself liable to suffer from any harm that may befall them. The notion that a man may be bewitched by means of the clippings of his hair, the parings of his nails, or any other severed portion of his person is almost world-wide,[924 - The aboriginal tribes of Central Australia form an exception to this rule; for among them no attempt is made to injure a person by performing magical ceremonies over his shorn hair. See Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 478.] and attested by evidence too ample, too familiar, and too tedious in its uniformity to be here analysed at length. The general idea on which the superstition rests is that of the sympathetic connexion supposed to persist between a person and everything that has once been part of his body or in any way closely related to him. A very few examples must suffice. They belong to that branch of sympathetic magic which may be called contagious.[925 - See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, vol. i. pp. 52-54, 174 sqq.] Thus, when the Chilote Indians, inhabiting the wild, deeply indented coasts and dark rain-beaten forests of southern Chili, get possession of the hair of an enemy, they drop it from a high tree or tie it to a piece of seaweed and fling it into the surf; for they think that the shock of the fall, or the blows of the waves as the tress is tossed to and fro on the heaving billows, will be transmitted through the hair to the person from whose head it was cut.[926 - C. Martin, “Über die Eingeborenen von Chiloe,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, ix. (1877) p. 177.] Dread of sorcery, we are told, formed one of the most salient characteristics of the Marquesan islanders in the old days. The sorcerer took some of the hair, spittle, or other bodily refuse of the man he wished to injure, wrapped it up in a leaf, and placed the packet in a bag woven of threads or fibres, which were knotted in an intricate way. The whole was then buried with certain rites, and thereupon the victim wasted away of a languishing sickness which lasted twenty days. His life, however, might be saved by discovering and digging up the buried hair, spittle, or what not; for as soon as this was done the power of the charm ceased.[927 - Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, Îles Marquises (Paris, 1843), pp. 247 sq.] A Marquesan chief told Lieutenant Gamble that he was extremely ill, the Happah tribe having stolen a lock of his hair and buried it in a plantain leaf for the purpose of taking his life. Lieutenant Gamble argued with him, but in vain; die he must unless the hair and the plantain leaf were brought back to him; and to obtain them he had offered the Happahs the greater part of his property. He complained of excessive pain in the head, breast, and sides.[928 - D. Porter, Journal of a Cruise made to the Pacific Ocean

(New York, 1882), ii. 188.] A Maori sorcerer intent on bewitching somebody sought to get a tress of his victim's hair, the parings of his nails, some of his spittle, or a shred of his garment. Having obtained the object, whatever it was, he chanted certain spells and curses over it in a falsetto voice and buried it in the ground. As the thing decayed, the person to whom it had belonged was supposed to waste away.[929 - R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants,

pp. 203 sq.; A. S. Thomson, The Story of New Zealand (London, 1859), i. 116 sq.] Again, an Australian girl, sick of a fever, laid the blame of her illness on a young man who had come behind her and cut off a lock of her hair; she was sure he had buried it and that it was rotting. “Her hair,” she said, “was rotting somewhere, and her Marm-bu-la (kidney fat) was wasting away, and when her hair had completely rotted, she would die.”[930 - R. Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 468 sq.] When an Australian blackfellow wishes to get rid of his wife, he cuts off a lock of her hair in her sleep, ties it to his spear-thrower, and goes with it to a neighbouring tribe, where he gives it to a friend. His friend sticks the spear-thrower up every night before the camp fire, and when it falls down it is a sign that the wife is dead.[931 - J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 36.] The way in which the charm operates was explained to Dr. Howitt by a Wirajuri man. “You see,” he said, “when a blackfellow doctor gets hold of something belonging to a man and roasts it with things, and sings over it, the fire catches hold of the smell of the man, and that settles the poor fellow.”[932 - A. W. Howitt, “On Australian Medicine-men,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xvi. (1887) p. 27. Compare id., Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 360 sq.] A slightly different form of the charm as practised in Australia is to fasten the enemy's hair with wax to the pinion bone of a hawk, and set the bone in a small circle of fire. According as the sorcerer desires the death or only the sickness of his victim he leaves the bone in the midst of the fire or removes it and lays it in the sun. When he thinks he has done his enemy enough harm, he places the bone in water, which ends the enchantment.[933 - E. Palmer, “Notes on some Australian Tribes,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xiii. (1884) p. 293.] Lucian describes how a Syrian witch professed to bring back a faithless lover to his forsaken fair one by means of a lock of his hair, his shoes, his garments, or something of that sort. She hung the hair, or whatever it was, on a peg and fumigated it with brimstone, sprinkling salt on the fire and mentioning the names of the lover and his lass. Then she drew a magic wheel from her bosom and set it spinning, while she gabbled a spell full of barbarous and fearsome words. This soon brought the false lover back to the feet of his charmer.[934 - Lucian, Dial. meretr. iv. 4 sq.] Apuleius tells how an amorous Thessalian witch essayed to win the affections of a handsome Boeotian youth by similar means. As darkness fell she mounted the roof, and there, surrounded by a hellish array of dead men's bones, she knotted the severed tresses of auburn hair and threw them on the glowing embers of a perfumed fire. But her cunning handmaid had outwitted her; the hair was only goat's hair; and all her enchantments ended in dismal and ludicrous failure.[935 - Apuleius, Metamorph. iii. 16 sqq. For more evidence of the same sort, see Th. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians,

i. 248; James Bonwick, Daily Life of the Tasmanians, p. 178; James Chalmers, Pioneering in New Guinea, p. 187; J. S. Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders, i. 282; A. Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, iii. 270; G. H. von Langsdorff, Reise um die Welt, i. 134 sq.; W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches,

i. 364; A. B. Ellis, Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 99; R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 203; K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 343; Miss Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, p. 447; I. V. Zingerle, Sitten, Bräuche und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes,

§ 178; R. Andree, Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche, Neue Folge, pp. 12 sqq.; E. S. Hartland, Legend of Perseus, ii. 64-74, 132-139.]

Clipped hair may cause headache.

The Huzuls of the Carpathians imagine that if mice get a person's shorn hair and make a nest of it, the person will suffer from headache or even become idiotic.[936 - R. F. Kaindl, “Neue Beiträge zur Ethnologie und Volkeskunde der Huzulen,” Globus, lxix. (1896) p. 94.] Similarly in Germany it is a common notion that if birds find a person's cut hair, and build their nests with it, the person will suffer from headache;[937 - E. Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben, p. 509; A. Birlinger, Volksthümliches aus Schwaben, i. 493; F. Panzer, Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie, i. 258; J. A. E. Köhler, Volksbrauch, etc., im Voigtlande, p. 425; A. Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen, p. 282; I. V. Zingerle, op. cit. § 180; J. W. Wolf, Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie, i. p. 224, § 273. A similar belief prevails among the gypsies of Eastern Europe (H. von Wlislocki, Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Zigeuner, p. 81).] sometimes it is thought that he will have an eruption on the head.[938 - I. V. Zingerle, op. cit. § 181.] The same superstition prevails, or used to prevail, in West Sussex. “I knew how it would be,” exclaimed a maidservant one day, “when I saw that bird fly off with a bit of my hair in its beak that blew out of the window this morning when I was dressing; I knew I should have a clapping headache, and so I have.”[939 - Charlotte Latham, “Some West Sussex Superstitions,” Folk-lore Record, i. (1878) p. 40.] In like manner the Scottish Highlanders believe that if cut or loose hair is allowed to blow away with the wind and it passes over an empty nest, or a bird takes it to its nest, the head from which it came will ache.[940 - J. G. Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Glasgow, 1900), p. 237.] The Todas of southern India hide their clipped hair in bushes or hollows in the rocks, in order that it may not be found by crows, and they bury the parings of their nails lest they should be eaten by buffaloes, with whom, it is believed, they would disagree.[941 - W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas (London, 1906), pp. 268 sq.]

Cut hair may cause rain, hail, thunder and lightning. Magical uses of cut hair.

Again it is thought that cut or combed-out hair may disturb the weather by producing rain and hail, thunder and lightning. We have seen that in New Zealand a spell was uttered at hair-cutting to avert thunder and lightning. In the Tyrol, witches are supposed to use cut or combed-out hair to make hailstones or thunderstorms with.[942 - I. V. Zingerle, op. cit. §§ 176, 179.] Thlinkeet Indians have been known to attribute stormy weather to the rash act of a girl who had combed her hair outside of the house.[943 - A. Krause, Die Tlinkit-Indianer (Jena, 1885), p. 300.] The Romans seem to have held similar views, for it was a maxim with them that no one on shipboard should cut his hair or nails except in a storm,[944 - Petronius, Sat. 104.] that is, when the mischief was already done. In the Highlands of Scotland it is said that no sister should comb her hair at night if she have a brother at sea.[945 - J. G. Campbell, op. cit. pp. 236 sq.] In West Africa, when the Mani of Chitombe or Jumba died, the people used to run in crowds to the corpse and tear out his hair, teeth, and nails, which they kept as a rain-charm, believing that otherwise no rain would fall. The Makoko of the Anzikos begged the missionaries to give him half their beards as a rain-charm.[946 - A. Bastian, Die deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste, i. 231 sq.; id., Ein Besuch in San Salvador, pp. 117 sq.] When Du Chaillu had his hair cut among the Ashira of West Africa, the people scuffled and fought for the clippings of his hair, even the aged king himself taking part in the scrimmage. Every one who succeeded in getting some of the hairs wrapped them up carefully and went off in triumph. When the traveller, who was regarded as a spirit by these simple-minded folk, asked the king what use the clippings could be to him, his sable majesty replied, “Oh, spirit! these hairs are very precious; we shall make mondas (fetiches) of them, and they will bring other white men to us, and bring us great good luck and riches. Since you have come to us, oh spirit! we have wished to have some of your hair, but did not dare to ask for it, not knowing that it could be cut.”[947 - P. B. du Chaillu, Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa (London, 1861), pp. 426 sq.] The Wabondei of eastern Africa preserve the hair and nails of their dead chiefs and use them both for the making of rain and the healing of the sick.[948 - O. Baumann, Usambara und seine Nachbargebiete (Berlin, 1891), p. 141.] The hair, beard, and nails of their deceased chiefs are the most sacred possession, the most precious treasure of the Baronga of south-eastern Africa. Preserved in pellets of cow-dung wrapt round with leathern thongs, they are kept in a special hut under the charge of a high priest, who offers sacrifices and prayers at certain seasons, and has to observe strict continence for a month before he handles these holy relics in the offices of religion. A terrible drought was once the result of this palladium falling into the hands of the enemy.[949 - A. Junod, Les Ba-Ronga (Neuchâtel, 1898), pp. 398-400.] In some Victorian tribes the sorcerer used to burn human hair in time of drought; it was never burned at other times for fear of causing a deluge of rain. Also when the river was low, the sorcerer would place human hair in the stream to increase the supply of water.[950 - W. Stanbridge, “On the Aborigines of Victoria,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, N.S., i. (1861) p. 300.]

Cut hair and nails may be used as hostages for good behaviour of the persons from whose bodies they have been taken.

If cut hair and nails remain in sympathetic connexion with the person from whose body they have been severed, it is clear that they can be used as hostages for his good behaviour by any one who may chance to possess them; for on the principles of contagious magic he has only to injure the hair or nails in order to hurt simultaneously their original owner. Hence when the Nandi have taken a prisoner they shave his head and keep the shorn hair as a surety that he will not attempt to escape; but when the captive is ransomed, they return his shorn hair with him to his own people.[951 - A. C. Hollis, The Nandi (Oxford, 1909), pp. 30, 74 sq.] For a similar reason, perhaps, when the Tiaha, an Arab tribe of Moab, have taken a prisoner whom they do not wish to put to death, they shave one corner of his head above his temples and let him go. So, too, an Arab of Moab who pardons a murderer will sometimes cut off the man's hair and shave his chin before releasing him. Again, when two Moabite Arabs had got hold of a traitor who had revealed their plan of campaign to the enemy, they contented themselves with shaving completely one side of his head and his moustache on the other, after which they set him at liberty.[952 - Le P. A. Jaussen, Coutumes des Arabes au pays de Moab (Paris, 1908), pp. 94 sq.] We can now, perhaps, understand why Hanun King of Ammon shaved off one-half of the beards of King David's messengers and cut off half their garments before he sent them back to their master.[953 - 2 Samuel, x. 4.] His intention, we may conjecture, was not simply to put a gross affront on the envoys. He distrusted the ambitious designs of King David and wished to have some guarantee of the maintenance of peace and friendly relations between the two countries. That guarantee he may have imagined that he possessed in half of the beards and garments of the ambassadors; and if that was so, we may suppose that when the indignant David set the army of Israel in motion against Ammon, and the fords of Jordan were alive with the passage of his troops, the wizards of Ammon were busy in the strong keep of Rabbah muttering their weird spells and performing their quaint enchantments over the shorn hair and severed skirts in order to dispel the thundercloud of war that was gathering black about their country. Vain hopes! The city fell, and from the gates the sad inhabitants trooped forth in thousands to be laid in long lines on the ground and sawed asunder or ripped up with harrows or to walk into the red glow of the burning brick kilns.[954 - 2 Samuel, x., xii. 26-31.] Again, the parings of nails may serve the same purpose as the clippings of hair; they too may be treated as bail for the good behaviour of the persons from whose fingers they have been cut. It is apparently on this principle that when the Ba-yaka of the Congo valley cement a peace, the chiefs of the two tribes meet and eat a cake which contains some of their nail-parings as a pledge of the maintenance of the treaty. They believe that he who breaks an engagement contracted in this solemn manner will die.[955 - R. Torday and T. A. Joyce, “Notes on the Ethnography of the Ba-Yaka,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxvi. (1906) p. 49.] Each of the high contracting parties has in fact given hostages to fortune in the shape of the nail-parings which are lodged in the other man's stomach.

Cut hair and nails are deposited in sacred places, such as temples and cemeteries, to preserve them from injury. Cut hair and nails buried under certain trees or deposited among the branches.

To preserve the cut hair and nails from injury and from the dangerous uses to which they may be put by sorcerers, it is necessary to deposit them in some safe place. Hence the natives of the Maldives carefully keep the cuttings of their hair and nails and bury them, with a little water, in the cemeteries; “for they would not for the world tread upon them nor cast them in the fire, for they say that they are part of their body, and demand burial as it does; and, indeed, they fold them neatly in cotton; and most of them like to be shaved at the gates of temples and mosques.”[956 - François Pyrard, Voyages to the East Indies, the Maldives, the Moluccas, and Brazil, translated by Albert Gray (Hakluyt Society, 1887), i. 110 sq.] In New Zealand the severed hair was deposited on some sacred spot of ground “to protect it from being touched accidentally or designedly by any one.”[957 - E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 110.] The shorn locks of a chief were gathered with much care and placed in an adjoining cemetery.[958 - J. S. Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders, i. 38 sq. Compare G. F. Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand (London, 1847), ii. 108 sq.] The Tahitians buried the cuttings of their hair at the temples.[959 - James Wilson, A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean (London, 1799), p. 355.] In the streets of Soku, West Africa, a modern traveller observed cairns of large stones piled against walls with tufts of human hair inserted in the crevices. On asking the meaning of this, he was told that when any native of the place polled his hair he carefully gathered up the clippings and deposited them in one of these cairns, all of which were sacred to the fetish and therefore inviolable. These cairns of sacred stones, he further learned, were simply a precaution against witchcraft, for if a man were not thus careful in disposing of his hair, some of it might fall into the hands of his enemies, who would, by means of it, be able to cast spells over him and so compass his destruction.[960 - R. A. Freeman, Travels and Life in Ashanti and Jaman (Westminster, 1898), pp. 171 sq.] When the top-knot of a Siamese child has been cut with great ceremony, the short hairs are put into a little vessel made of plantain leaves and set adrift on the nearest river or canal. As they float away, all that was wrong or harmful in the child's disposition is believed to depart with them. The long hairs are kept till the child makes a pilgrimage to the holy Footprint of Buddha on the sacred hill at Prabat. They are then presented to the priests, who are supposed to make them into brushes with which they sweep the Footprint; but in fact so much hair is thus offered every year that the priests cannot use it all, so they quietly burn the superfluity as soon as the pilgrims' backs are turned.[961 - E. Young, The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe, p. 79.] The cut hair and nails of the Flamen Dialis were buried under a lucky tree.[962 - Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 15. The ancients were not agreed as to the distinction between lucky and unlucky trees. According to Cato and Pliny, trees that bore fruit were lucky, and trees which did not were unlucky (Festus, ed. C. O. Müller, p. 29, s. v.Felices; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 108); but according to Tarquitius Priscus those trees were unlucky which were sacred to the infernal gods and bore black berries or black fruit (Macrobius, Saturn, ii. 16, but iii. 20 in L. Jan's edition, Quedlinburg and Leipsic, 1852).] The shorn tresses of the Vestal virgins were hung on an ancient lotus-tree.[963 - Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 235; Festu, p. 57 ed. C. O. Müller, s. v.Capillatam vel capillarem arborem.] In Morocco women often hang their cut hair on a tree that grows on or near the grave of a wonder-working saint; for they think thus to rid themselves of headache or to guard against it.[964 - M. Quedenfelt, “Aberglaube und halbreligiöse Bruderschaft bei den Marokkanern,” Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, 1886, p. (680).] In Germany the clippings of hair used often to be buried under an elder-bush.[965 - A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube,

pp. 294 sq., § 464.] 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.[966 - W. Mannhardt, Germanische Mythen (Berlin, 1858), p. 630.] 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.[967 - W. Henderson, Folk-lore of the Northern Counties (London, 1879), p. 17.] In Amboyna, before a child may taste sago-pap for the first time, the father cuts off a lock of the infant's hair, which he buries under a sago-palm.[968 - J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 74.] In the Aru Islands, when a child is able to run alone, a female relation shears a lock of its hair and deposits it on a banana-tree.[969 - J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit. p. 265.] In the island of Rotti 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 polled with much ceremony. As each of the friends who are invited to the ceremony enters the house he goes up to the child, snips off a little of its hair and drops it into a coco-nut shell full of water. Afterwards the father or another relation takes the hair and packs it into a little 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.[970 - G. Heijmering, “Zeden en gewoonten op het eiland Rottie,” Tijdschrift voor Neêrlands Indië, 1843, dl. ii. pp. 634-637.] 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 wherever they are not likely to be disturbed by beasts. For “they have a superstition that disease will follow the disturbance of such remains by animals.”[971 - W. Dall, Alaska and its Resources (London, 1870), p. 54; F. Whymper, “The Natives of the Youkon River,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, N.S., vii. (1869) p. 174.]

Cut hair and nails may be stowed away for safety in any secret place.

Often the clipped hair and nails are stowed away in any secret place, not necessarily in a temple or cemetery or at a tree, as in the cases already mentioned. Thus in Swabia you are recommended to deposit your clipped hair in some spot where neither sun nor moon can shine on it, for example in the earth or under a stone.[972 - E. Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben, p. 509; A. Birlinger, Volksthümliches aus Schwaben, i. 493.] In Danzig it is buried in a bag under the threshold.[973 - W. Mannhardt, Germanische Mythen, p. 630.] In Ugi, one of the Solomon Islands, men bury their hair lest it should fall into the hands of an enemy who would make magic with it and so bring sickness or calamity on them.[974 - H. B. Guppy, The Solomon Islands and their Natives (London, 1887), p. 54.] The same fear seems to be general in Melanesia, and has led to a regular practice of hiding cut hair and nails.[975 - R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 203.] In Fiji, the shorn hair is concealed in the thatch of the house.[976 - Th. Williams, Fiji and the Fijians,

i. 249.] Most Burmese and Shans tie the combings of their hair and the parings of their nails to a stone and sink them in deep water or bury them in the ground.[977 - J. G. Scott and J. P. Hardiman, Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, part i. vol. ii. p. 37.] The Zend-Avesta directs that the clippings of hair and the parings of nails shall be placed in separate holes, and that three, six, or nine furrows shall be drawn round each hole with a metal knife.[978 - The Zend-Avesta, Vendîdâd Fargaard, xvii. (vol. i. pp. 186 sqq., translated by J. Darmesteter, Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv.).] In the Grihya-Sûtras it is provided that the hair cut from a child's head at the end of the first, third, fifth, or seventh year shall be buried in the earth at a place covered with grass or in the neighbourhood of water.[979 - Grihya-Sûtras, translated by H. Oldenberg, part i. p. 57; compare id., pp. 303, 399, part ii. p. 62 (Sacred Books of the East, vols. xxix., xxx.). Compare H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, p. 487.] At the end of the period of his studentship a Brahman has his hair shaved and his nails cut; and a person who is kindly disposed to him gathers the shorn hair and the clipped nails, puts them in a lump of bull's dung, and buries them in a cow-stable or near an adumbara tree or in a clump of darbha grass, with the words, “Thus I hide the sins of So-and-so.”[980 - Grihya-Sûtras, translated by H. Oldenberg, part ii. pp. 165 sq., 218.] The Madi or Moru tribe of central Africa bury the parings of their nails in the ground.[981 - R. W. Felkin, “Notes on the Madi or Moru Tribe of Central Africa,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, xii. (1882-84) p. 332.] In Uganda grown people throw away the clippings of their hair, but carefully bury the parings of their nails.[982 - Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika, p. 185 note. The same thing was told me in conversation by the Rev. J. Roscoe, missionary to Uganda; but I understood him to mean that the hair was not carelessly disposed of, but thrown away in some place where it would not easily be found.] The A-lur are careful to collect and bury both their hair and nails in safe places.[983 - Fr. Stuhlmann, op. cit. pp. 516 sq.] The same practice prevails among many tribes of South Africa, from a fear lest wizards should get hold of the severed particles and work evil with them.[984 - J. Macdonald, Light in Africa, p. 209; id., “Manners, Customs, Superstitions and Religions of South African Tribes,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xx. (1891) p. 131.] The Caffres carry still further this dread of allowing any portion of themselves to fall into the hands of an enemy; for not only do they bury their cut hair and nails in a secret spot, but when one of them cleans the head of another he preserves the vermin which he catches, “carefully delivering them to the person to whom they originally appertained, supposing, according to their theory, that as they derived their support from the blood of the man from whom they were taken, should they be killed by another, the blood of his neighbour would be in his possession, thus placing in his hands the power of some superhuman influence.”[985 - A. Steedman, Wanderings and Adventures in the Interior of Southern Africa (London, 1835), i. 266.] Amongst the Wanyoro of central Africa all cuttings of the hair and nails are carefully stored under the bed and afterwards strewed about among the tall grass.[986 - Emin Pasha in Central Africa, being a Collection of his Letters and Journals (London, 1888), p. 74.] Similarly the Wahoko of central Africa take pains to collect their cut hair and nails and scatter them in the forest.[987 - Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika, p. 625.] The Asa, a branch of the Masai, hide the clippings of their hair and the parings of their nails or throw them away far from the kraal, lest a sorcerer should get hold of them and make their original owners ill by his magic.[988 - M. Merkel, Die Masai (Berlin, 1904), p. 243.] In North Guinea the parings of the finger-nails and the shorn locks of the head are scrupulously concealed, lest they be converted into a charm for the destruction of the person to whom they belong.[989 - J. L. Wilson, Western Africa, p. 215.] For the same reason the clipped hair and nail-parings of chiefs in Southern Nigeria are secretly buried.[990 - Ch. Partridge, Cross River Natives (London, 1905), pp. 8, 203 sq.] Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia loose hair was buried, hidden, or thrown into the water, because, if an enemy got hold of it, he might bewitch the owner.[991 - James Teit, “The Thompson River Indians of British Columbia,” Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. i. part iv. (April 1900) p. 360.] In Bolang Mongondo, a district of western Celebes, the first hair cut from a child's head is kept in a young coco-nut, which is commonly hung on the front of the house, under the roof.[992 - N. P. Wilken en J. A. Schwarz, “Allerlei over het land en volk van Bolaang Mongondou,” Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xi. (1867) p. 322.] To spit upon the hair before throwing it away is thought in some parts of Europe to be a sufficient safeguard against its use by witches.[993 - I. V. Zingerle, Sitten, Bräuche und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes

(Innsbruck, 1871), §§ 176, 580; Mélusine, 1878, col. 79; E. Monseur, Le Folklore Wallon, p. 91.] Spitting as a protective charm is well known.[994 - Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxviii. 35; Theophrastus, Characters, “The Superstitious Man”; Theocritus, id. vi. 39, vii. 127; Persius, Sat. ii. 31 sqq. At the siege of Danzig in 1734, when the old wives saw a bomb coming, they used to spit thrice and cry, “Fi, ti, fi, there comes the dragon!” in the persuasion that this secured them against being hit (Tettau und Temme, Die Volkssagen Ostpreussens, Litthauens und Westpreussens (Berlin, 1837), p. 284). For more examples, see J. E. B. Mayor on Juvenal, Sat. vii. 112; J. E. Crombie, “The Saliva Superstition,” International Folk-lore Congress, 1891, Papers and Transactions, pp. 249 sq.; C. de Mensignac, Recherches ethnographiques sur la salive et le crachat (Bordeaux, 1892), pp. 50 sqq.; F. W. Nicolson, “The Saliva Superstition in Classical Literature,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, viii. (1897) pp. 35 sqq.]

Cut hair and nails kept against the resurrection.

Sometimes the severed hair and nails are preserved, not to prevent them from falling into the hands of a magician, but that the owner may have them at the resurrection of the body, to which some races look forward. Thus the Incas of Peru “took extreme care to preserve the nail-parings and the hairs that were shorn off or torn out with a comb; placing them in holes or niches in the walls; and if they fell out, any other Indian that saw them picked them up and put them in their places again. I very often asked different Indians, at various times, why they did this, in order to see what they would say, and they all replied in the same words saying, ‘Know that all persons who are born must return to life’ (they have no word to express resuscitation), ‘and the souls must rise out of their tombs with all that belonged to their bodies. We, therefore, in order that we may not have to search for our hair and nails at a time when there will be much hurry and confusion, place them in one place, that they may be brought together more conveniently, and, whenever it is possible, we are also careful to spit in one place.’ ”[995 - Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas, bk. ii. ch. 7 (vol. i. p. 127, Markham's translation).] In Chili this custom of stuffing the shorn hair into holes in the wall is still observed, it being thought the height of imprudence to throw the hair away.[996 - Mélusine, 1878, coll. 583 sq.] Similarly the Turks never throw away the parings of their nails, but carefully stow them in cracks of the walls or of the boards, in the belief that they will be needed at the resurrection.[997 - The People of Turkey, by a Consul's daughter and wife, ii. 250.] The Armenians do not throw away their cut hair and nails and extracted teeth, but hide them in places that are esteemed holy, such as a crack in the church wall, a pillar of the house, or a hollow tree. They think that all these severed portions of themselves will be wanted at the resurrection, and that he who has not stowed them away in a safe place will have to hunt about for them on the great day.[998 - M. Abeghian, Der armenische Volksglaube, p. 68.] With the same intention the Macedonians bury the parings of their nails in a hole,[999 - G. F. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore (Cambridge, 1903), p. 214.] and devout Moslems in Morocco hide them in a secret place.[1000 - M. Quedenfelt, “Aberglaube und halbreligiöse Bruderschaft bei den Marokkanern,” Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, 1886, p. (680).] Similarly the Arabs of Moab bestow the parings of their nails in the crannies of walls, where they are sanguine enough to expect to find them when they appear before their Maker.[1001 - Le P. A. Jaussen, Coutumes des Arabes au pays de Moab (Paris, 1908), p. 94 note

.] Some of the Esthonians keep the parings of their finger and toe nails in their bosom, in order to have them at hand when they are asked for them at the day of judgment.[1002 - Boecler-Kreutzwald, Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen und Gewohnheiten, p. 139; F. J. Wiedemann, Aus dem innern und äussern Leben der Ehsten, p. 491.] In a like spirit peasants of the Vosges will sometimes bury their extracted teeth secretly, marking the spot well so that they may be able to walk straight to it on the resurrection day.[1003 - L. F. Sauvé, Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges (Paris, 1889), p. 41.] In the village of Drumconrath, near Abbeyleix, in Ireland, there used to be some old women who, having ascertained from Scripture that the hairs of their heads were all numbered by the Almighty, expected to have to account for them at the day of judgment. In order to be able to do so they stuffed the severed hair away in the thatch of their cottages.[1004 - Miss A. H. Singleton, in a letter to me, dated Rathmoyle House, Abbeyleix, Ireland, 24th February 1904.] In Abyssinia men who have had their hands or feet cut off are careful to dry the severed limbs over a fire and preserve them in butter for the purpose of being buried with them in the grave. Thus they expect to get up with all their limbs complete at the general rising.[1005 - Dr. Antoine Petit, in Th. Lefebvre, Voyage en Abyssinie, i. 373.] The pains taken by the Chinese to preserve corpses entire and free from decay seems to rest on a firm belief in the resurrection of the dead; hence it is natural to find their ancient books laying down a rule that the hair, nails, and teeth which have fallen out during life should be buried with the dead in the coffin, or at least in the grave.[1006 - J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, i. 342 sq. (Leyden, 1892).] The Fors of central Africa object to cut any one else's nails, for should the part cut off be lost and not delivered into its owner's hands, it will have to be made up to him somehow or other after death. The parings are buried in the ground.[1007 - R. W. Felkin, “Notes on the For Tribe of Central Africa,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, xiii. (1884-86) p. 230.]

Cut hair and nails burnt to prevent them from falling into the hands of sorcerers.

Some people burn their loose hair to save it from falling into the hands of sorcerers. This is done by the Patagonians and some of the Victorian tribes.[1008 - A. D'Orbigny, Voyage dans l'Amérique méridionale, ii. 93; Lieut. Musters, “On the Races of Patagonia,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, i. (1872) p. 197; J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 36. The Patagonians sometimes throw their hair into a river instead of burning it.] In the Upper Vosges they say that you should never leave the clippings of your hair and nails lying about, but burn them to hinder the sorcerers from using them against you.[1009 - L. F. Sauvé, Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges, p. 170.] For the same reason Italian women either burn their loose hairs or throw them into a place where no one is likely to look for them.[1010 - Z. Zanetti, La Medicina delle nostre donne (Città di Castello, 1892), pp. 234 sq.] The almost universal dread of witchcraft induces the West African negroes, the Makololo of South Africa, and the Tahitians to burn or bury their shorn hair.[1011 - A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 99; Miss Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, p. 447; R. H. Nassau, Fetichism in West Africa (London, 1904), p. 83; A. F. Mockler-Ferryman, British Nigeria (London, 1902), p. 286; David Livingstone, Narrative of Expedition to the Zambesi, pp. 46 sq.; W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches,

i. 365. In some parts of New Guinea cut hair is destroyed for the same reason (H. H. Romilly, From my Verandah in New Guinea, London, 1889, p. 83).] For the same reason the natives of Uap, one of the Caroline Islands, either burn or throw into the sea the clippings of their hair and the parings of their nails.[1012 - W. H. Furness, The Island of Stone Money, Uap of the Carolines (Philadelphia and London, 1910), P. 137.] One of the pygmies who roam through the gloomy depths of the vast central African forests has been seen to collect carefully the clippings of his hair in a packet of banana leaves and keep them till next morning, when, the camp breaking up for the day's march, he threw them into the hot ashes of the abandoned fire.[1013 - Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika, p. 451.] Australian aborigines of the Proserpine River, in Queensland, burn a woman's cut hair to prevent it from getting into a man's bag; for if it did, the woman would fall ill.[1014 - W. E. Roth, North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 5 (Brisbane, 1903), p. 21.] When an English officer had cut off a lock of hair of a Fuegian woman, the men of her party were angry, and one of them, taking the lock away, threw half of it into the fire and swallowed the rest. “Immediately afterwards, placing his hands to the fire, as if to warm them, and looking upwards, he uttered a few words, apparently of invocation: then, looking at us, pointed upwards, and exclaimed, with a tone and gesture of explanation, ‘Pecheray, Pecheray.’ After which they cut off some hair from several of the officers who were present, and repeated a similar ceremony.”[1015 - Captain R. Fitzroy, Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle, i. (London, 1839). pp. 313 sq.] The Thompson Indians used to burn the parings of their nails, because if an enemy got possession of the parings he might bewitch the person to whom they belonged.[1016 - J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. i. part iv. (April 1900) p. 360.] In the Tyrol many people burn their hair lest the witches should use it to raise thunderstorms; others burn or bury it to prevent the birds from lining their nests with it, which would cause the heads from which the hair came to ache.[1017 - I. V. Zingerle, Sitten, Bräuche und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes

(Innsbruck, 1871), p. 28, §§ 177, 179, 180.] Cut and combed-out hair is burned in Pomerania and sometimes in Belgium.[1018 - U. Jahn, Hexenwesen und Zauberei in Pommern (Breslau, 1886), p. 15; Mélusine, 1878, col. 79; E. Monseur, Le Folklore Wallon, p. 91.] In Norway the parings of nails are either burned or buried, lest the elves or the Finns should find them and make them into bullets wherewith to shoot the cattle.[1019 - E. H. Meyer, Indogermanische Mythen, ii. Achilleis (Berlin, 1877), p. 523.] In Corea all the clippings and combings of the hair of a whole family are carefully preserved throughout the year and then burned in potsherds outside the house on the evening of New Year's Day. At such seasons the streets of Seoul, the capital, present a weird spectacle. They are for the most part silent and deserted, sometimes muffled deep in snow; but through the dusk of twilight red lights glimmer at every door, where little groups are busy tending tiny fires whose flickering flames cast a ruddy fitful glow on the moving figures. The burning of the hair in these fires is thought to exclude demons from the house for a year; but coupled with this belief may well be, or once have been, a wish to put these relics out of the reach of witches and wizards.[1020 - P. Lowell, Chosön, the Land of the Morning Calm, a Sketch of Korea (London, Preface dated 1885), pp. 199-201; Mrs. Bishop, Korea and her Neighbours (London, 1898), ii. 55 sq.]

Inconsistency in burning cut hair and nails.

This destruction of the hair and nails plainly involves an inconsistency of thought. The object of the destruction is avowedly to prevent these severed portions of the body from being used by sorcerers. But the possibility of their being so used depends upon the supposed sympathetic connexion between them and the man from whom they were severed. And if this sympathetic connexion still exists, clearly these severed portions cannot be destroyed without injury to the man.

Hair is sometimes cut because it is infected with the virus of taboo. In these cases hair-cutting is a form of purification. Hair of mourners cut to rid them of the pollution of death.

Before leaving this subject, on which I have perhaps dwelt too long, it may be well to call attention to the motive assigned for cutting a young child's hair in Rotti.[1021 - Above, p. 276 (#x_16_i11).] In that island the first hair is regarded as a danger to the child, and its removal is intended to avert the danger. The reason of this may be that as a young child is almost universally supposed to be in a tabooed or dangerous state, it is necessary, in removing the taboo, to remove also the separable parts of the child's body because they are infected, so to say, by the virus of taboo and as such are dangerous. The cutting of the child's hair would thus be exactly parallel to the destruction of the vessels which have been used by a tabooed person.[1022 - Above, pp. 4 (#x_3_i17), 131 (#x_9_i42), 139 (#x_10_i15), 145 (#x_10_i21), 156 (#x_10_i37).] This view is borne out by a practice, observed by some Australians, of burning off part of a woman's hair after childbirth as well as burning every vessel which has been used by her during her seclusion.[1023 - W. Ridley, “Report on Australian Languages and Traditions,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, ii. (1873) p. 268.] Here the burning of the woman's hair seems plainly intended to serve the same purpose as the burning of the vessels used by her; and as the vessels are burned because they are believed to be tainted with a dangerous infection, so, we must suppose, is also the hair. Similarly among the Latuka of central Africa, a woman is secluded for fourteen days after the birth of her child, and at the end of her seclusion her hair is shaved off and burnt.[1024 - Fr. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika, p. 795.] Again, we have seen that girls at puberty are strongly infected with taboo; hence it is not surprising to find that the Ticunas of Brazil tear out all the hair of girls at that period.[1025 - F. de Castelnau, Expédition dans les parties centrales de l'Amérique du Sud, v. (Paris, 1851) p. 46.] Once more, the father of twins in Uganda is tabooed for some time after the birth of the children, and during that time he may not dress his hair nor cut his finger nails. This state of taboo lasts until the next war breaks out. When the army is under orders to march, the father of twins has the whole of his body shaved and his nails cut. The shorn hair and the cut nails are then tied up in a ball, which the man takes with him to the war, together with the bark cloth he wore at the ceremonial dances after the birth of the twins. When he has killed a foe, he crams the ball into the dead man's mouth, ties the bark cloth round the neck of the corpse, and leaves them there on the battlefield.[1026 - J. Roscoe, “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 34.] The ceremony appears to be intended to rid the man of the taint of taboo which may be supposed to adhere to his hair, nails, and the garment he wore. Hence we can understand the importance attached by many peoples to the first cutting of a child's hair and the elaborate ceremonies by which the operation is accompanied.[1027 - See G. A. Wilken, Über das Haaropfer und einige andere Trauergebräuche bei den Völkern Indonesiens, pp. 94 sqq. (reprinted from the Revue Coloniale Internationale, Amsterdam, 1886-87); H. Ploss, Das Kind in Brauch und Sitte der Völker,

i. 289 sqq.; K. Potkanski, “Die Ceremonie der Haarschur bei den Slaven und Germanen,” Anzeiger der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Krakau, May 1896, pp. 232-251.] Again, we can understand why a man should poll his head after a journey.[1028 - Above, p. 261 (#x_15_i11).] For we have seen that a traveller is often believed to contract a dangerous infection from strangers, and that, therefore, on his return home he is obliged to submit to various purificatory ceremonies before he is allowed to mingle freely with his own people.[1029 - Above, pp. 111 (#x_9_i14)sqq.] On my hypothesis the polling of the hair is simply one of these purificatory or disinfectant ceremonies. Certainly this explanation applies to the custom as practised by the Bechuanas, for we are expressly told that “they cleanse or purify themselves after journeys by shaving their heads, etc., lest they should have contracted from strangers some evil by witchcraft or sorcery.”[1030 - J. Campbell, Travels in South Africa, Second Journey (London, 1822), ii. 205.] The cutting of the hair after a vow may have the same meaning. It is a way of ridding the man of what has been infected by the dangerous state, whether we call it taboo, sanctity, or uncleanness (for all these are only different expressions for the same primitive conception), under which he laboured during the continuance of the vow. Still more clearly does the meaning of the practice come out in the case of mourners, who cut their hair and nails and use new vessels when the period of their mourning is at an end. This was done in ancient India, obviously for the purpose of purifying such persons from the dangerous influence of death and the ghost to which for a time they had been exposed.[1031 - H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, pp. 426 sq.] Among the Bodos and Dhimals of Assam, when a death has occurred, the family of the deceased is reckoned unclean for three days. At the end of that time they bathe, shave, and are sprinkled with holy water, after which they hold the funeral feast.[1032 - L. F. Alfred Maury, “Les Populations primitives du nord de l'Hindoustan,” Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (Paris), IVme Série, vii. (1854) p. 197.] Here the act of shaving must clearly be regarded as a purificatory rite, like the bathing and sprinkling with holy water. At Hierapolis no man might enter the great temple of Astarte on the same day on which he had seen a corpse; next day he might enter, provided he had first purified himself. But the kinsmen of the deceased were not allowed to set foot in the sanctuary for thirty days after the death, and before doing so they had to shave their heads.[1033 - Lucian, De dea Syria, 53.] At Agweh, on the Slave Coast of West Africa, widows and widowers at the end of their period of mourning wash themselves, shave their heads, pare their nails, and put on new cloths; and the old cloths, the shorn hair, and the nail-parings are all burnt.[1034 - A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 160.] The Kayans of Borneo are not allowed to cut their hair or shave their temples during the period of mourning; but as soon as the mourning is ended by the ceremony of bringing home a newly severed human head, the barber's knife is kept busy enough. As each man leaves the barber's hands, he gathers up the shorn locks and spitting on them murmurs a prayer to the evil spirits not to harm him. He then blows the hair out of the verandah of the house.[1035 - W. H. Furness, Folk-lore in Borneo (Wallingford, Pennsylvania, 1899; privately printed), p. 28.] Among the Wajagga of East Africa mourners shear their hair under a fruit-bearing banana-tree and lay their shorn locks at the foot of the tree. When the fruit of the tree is ripe, they brew beer with it and invite all the mourners to partake of it, saying, “Come and drink the beer of those hair-bananas.”[1036 - B. Gutmann, “Trauer und Begräbnissitten der Wadschagga,” Globus, lxxxix. (1906) p. 198.] The tribes of British Central Africa destroy the house in which a man has died, and on the day when this is done the mourners have their heads shaved and bury the shorn hair on the site of the house; the Atonga burn it in a new fire made by the rubbing of two sticks.[1037 - Miss A. Werner, The Natives of British Central Africa (London, 1906), pp. 165, 166, 167.] When an Akikuyu woman has, in accordance with custom, exposed her misshapen or prematurely born infant in the wood for the hyaenas to devour, she is shaved on her return by an old woman and given a magic potion to drink; after which she is regarded as clean.[1038 - J. M. Hildebrandt, “Ethnographische Notizen über Wakamba und ihre Nachbarn,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, x. (1878) p. 395. Children who are born in an unusual position, the second born of twins, and children whose upper teeth appear before the lower, are similarly exposed by the Akikuyu. The mother is regarded as unclean, not so much because she has exposed, as because she has given birth to such a child.] Similarly at some Hindoo places of pilgrimage on the banks of rivers men who have committed great crimes or are troubled by uneasy consciences have every hair shaved off by professional barbers before they plunge into the sacred stream, from which “they emerge new creatures, with all the accumulated guilt of a long life effaced.”[1039 - Monier Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India, p. 375.] The matricide Orestes is said to have polled his hair after appeasing the angry Furies of his murdered mother.[1040 - Strabo, xii. 2. 3, p. 535; Pausanias, viii. 34. 3. In two paintings on Greek vases we see Apollo in his character of the purifier preparing to cut off the hair of Orestes. See Monumenti inediti, 1847, pl. 48; Annali dell' Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica, 1847, pl. x.; Archaeologische Zeitung, 1860, pll. cxxxvii. cxxxviii.; L. Stephani, in Compte rendu de la Commission archéologique (St. Petersburg), 1863, pp. 271 sq.]

§ 9. Spittle tabooed

People may be bewitched by means of their spittle. Hence people take care of their spittle to prevent it from falling into the hands of sorcerers.

The same fear of witchcraft which has led so many people to hide or destroy their loose hair and nails has induced other or the same people to treat their spittle in a like fashion. For on the principles of sympathetic magic the spittle is part of the man, and whatever is done to it will have a corresponding effect on him. A Chilote Indian, who has gathered up the spittle of an enemy, will put it in a potato, and hang the potato in the smoke, uttering certain spells as he does so in the belief that his foe will waste away as the potato dries in the smoke. Or he will put the spittle in a frog and throw the animal into an inaccessible, unnavigable river, which will make the victim quake and shake with ague.[1041 - C. Martin, “Über die Eingeborenen von Chiloe,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, ix. (1877) pp. 177 sq.] When a Cherokee sorcerer desires to destroy a man, he gathers up his victim's spittle on a stick and puts it in a joint of wild parsnip, together with seven earthworms beaten to a paste and several splinters from a tree which has been struck by lightning. He then goes into the forest, digs a hole at the foot of a tree which has been struck by lightning, and deposits in the hole the joint of wild parsnip with its contents. Further, he lays seven yellow stones in the hole, then fills in the earth, and makes a fire over the spot to destroy all traces of his work. If the ceremony has been properly carried out, the man whose spittle has thus been treated begins to feel ill at once; his soul shrivels up and dwindles; and within seven days he is a dead man.[1042 - J. Mooney, “Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1891), pp. 392 sq.] In the East Indian island of Siaoo or Siauw, one of the Sangi group, there are witches who by means of hellish charms compounded from the roots of plants can change their shape and bring sickness and misfortune on other folk. These hags also crawl under the houses, which are raised above the ground on posts, and there gathering up the spittle of the inmates cause them to fall ill.[1043 - B. C. A. J. van Dinter, “Eenige geographische en ethnographische aanteekeningen betreffende het eiland Siaoe,” Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, xii. (1899) p. 381.] If a Wotjobaluk sorcerer cannot get the hair of his foe, a shred of his rug, or something else that belongs to the man, he will watch till he sees him spit, when he will carefully pick up the spittle with a stick and use it for the destruction of the careless spitter.[1044 - A. W. Howitt, “On Australian Medicine-men,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xvi. (1887) p. 27; id., Native Tribes of South-east Australia, p. 365.] The natives of Urewera, a district in the north island of New Zealand, enjoyed a high reputation for their skill in magic. It was said that they made use of people's spittle to bewitch them. Hence visitors were careful to conceal their spittle, lest they should furnish these wizards with a handle for working them harm.[1045 - E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand (London, 1843), ii. 59.] Similarly among some tribes of South Africa no man will spit when an enemy is near, lest his foe should find the spittle and give it to a wizard, who would then mix it with magical ingredients so as to injure the person from whom it fell. Even in a man's own house his saliva is carefully swept away and obliterated for a similar reason.[1046 - Rev. J. Macdonald, Light in Africa, p. 209; id., in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xx. (1891) p. 131.] For a like reason, no doubt, the natives of the Marianne Islands use great precautions in spitting and take care never to expectorate near somebody else's house.[1047 - C. le Gobin, Histoire des Isles Marianes (Paris, 1700), p. 52. The writer confesses his ignorance of the reason of the custom.] Negroes of Senegal, the Bissagos Archipelago, and some of the West Indian Islands, such as Guadeloupe and Martinique, are also careful to efface their spittle by pressing it into the ground with their feet, lest a sorcerer should use it to their hurt.[1048 - C. de Mensignac, Recherches ethnographiques sur la salive et le crachat (Bordeaux, 1892), pp. 48 sq.] Natives of Astrolabe Bay, in German New Guinea, wipe out their spittle for the same reason;[1049 - Vahness, reported by F. von Luschan, in Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, 1900, p. (416).] and a like dread of sorcery prevents some natives of German New Guinea from spitting on the ground in presence of others.[1050 - K. Vetter, Komm herüber und hilf uns! iii. (Barmen, 1898) pp. 9 sq.] The Telugus say that if a man, rinsing his teeth with charcoal in the mornings, spits on the road and somebody else treads on his spittle, the spitter will be laid up with a sharp attack of fever for two or three days. Hence all who wish to avoid the ailment should at once efface their spittle by sprinkling water on it.[1051 - Indian Antiquary, xxviii. (1899) pp. 83 sq.]

Precautions taken by chiefs, kings, and wizards to guard their spittle from being put to evil uses by magicians.

If common folk are thus cautious, it is natural that kings and chiefs should be doubly so. In the Sandwich Islands chiefs were attended by a confidential servant bearing a portable spittoon, and the deposit was carefully buried every morning to put it out of the reach of sorcerers.[1052 - W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches,

i. 365.] On the Slave Coast of Africa, for the same reason, whenever a king or chief expectorates, the saliva is scrupulously gathered up and hidden or buried.[1053 - A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 99.] The same precautions are taken for the same reason with the spittle of the chief of Tabali in Southern Nigeria.[1054 - C. Partridge, Cross River Natives (London, 1905), p. 8.] At Bulebane, in Senegambia, a French traveller observed a captive engaged, with an air of great importance, in covering over with sand all the spittle that fell from the lips of a native dignitary; the man used a small stick for the purpose.[1055 - A. Raffenel, Voyage dans l'Afrique occidentale (Paris, 1846), p. 338.] Page-boys, who carry tails of elephants, hasten to sweep up or cover with sand the spittle of the king of Ashantee;[1056 - C. de Mensignac, op. cit. p. 48.] an attendant used to perform a similar service for the king of Congo;[1057 - Mission Evangelica al reyno de Congo por la serafica religion de los Capuchinos (Madrid, 1649), p. 70 verso.] and a custom of the same sort prevails or used to prevail at the court of the Muata Jamwo in the interior of Angola.[1058 - R. Andree, Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche, Neue Folge (Leipsic, 1889), p. 13.] In Yap, one of the Caroline Islands, there are two great wizards, the head of all the magicians, whose exalted dignity compels them to lead a very strict life. They may eat fruit only from plants or trees which are grown specially for them. When one of them goes abroad the other must stay at home, for if they were to meet each other on the road, some direful calamity would surely follow. Though they may not smoke tobacco, they are allowed to chew a quid of betel; but that which they expectorate is carefully gathered up, carried away, and burned in a special manner, lest any evil-disposed person should get possession of the spittle and do their reverences a mischief by uttering a curse over it.[1059 - F. W. Christian, The Caroline Islands (London, 1899), pp. 289 sq.] Among the Guaycurus and Payaguas of Brazil, when a chief spat, the persons about him received his saliva on their hands,[1060 - R. Southey, History of Brazil, i.

(London, 1822) pp. 127, 138.] probably in order to prevent it from being misused by magicians.

Use of spittle in making a covenant.

The magical use to which spittle may be put marks it out, like blood or nail-parings, as a suitable material basis for a covenant, since by exchanging their saliva the covenanting parties give each other a guarantee of good faith. If either of them afterwards forswears himself, the other can punish his perfidy by a magical treatment of the perjurer's spittle which he has in his custody. Thus when the Wajagga of East Africa desire to make a covenant, the two parties will sometimes sit down with a bowl of milk or beer between them, and after uttering an incantation over the beverage they each take a mouthful of the milk or beer and spit it into the other's mouth. In urgent cases, when there is no time to stand on ceremony, the two will simply spit into each other's mouth, which seals the covenant just as well.[1061 - J. Raum, “Blut und Speichelbünde bei den Wadschagga,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, x. (1907) pp. 290 sq.]

§ 10. Foods tabooed

Certain foods are tabooed to sacred persons, such as kings, chiefs, priests, and other sacred persons.