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PSYCHE'S TASK 



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PSYCHE'S TASK 

A DISCOURSE CONCERNING 

THE INFLUENCE OF SUPERSTITION ON 

THE GROWTH OF INSTITUTIONS 



BY 



J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L., LL.D., Lrrr.D. 

FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
I'ROFESSOR OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN THK UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL 



MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 

1909 



Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost 
inseparably ; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the 
knowledge of evil and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, 
that those confused seeds, which were imposed on Psyche as an incessant labour 
to cull out and sort asunder, were not more intermixt. 

MILTON, Areopagitica. 

II ne faut pas croire cependant qu'un mauvais principe vicie radicalement une 
institution, ni meme qu'il y fasse tout le mal qu.'il porte dans son sein. Rien ne 
fausse plus 1'histoire que la logique : quand 1'esprit humain s'est arrete sur une 
idee, il en tire toutes les consequences possibles, lui fait produire tout ce qu'en eflfet 
elle pourrait produire, et puis se la reprsente dans 1'histoire avec tout ce cortege. 
II n'en arrive point ainsi ; les evenements ne sont pas aussi prompts dans leur 
deductions que 1'esprit humain. II y a dans toutes choses un melange de bien et 
de mal si profond, si invincible que, quelque part que vous penetriez, quand vous 
descendrez dans les derniers elements de la societe ou de 1'ame, vous y trouverez 
ces deux ordres de faits coexistant, se developpant 1'un a cote' de 1'autre et se 
combattant, mais sans s'exterminer. La nature humaine ne va jamais jusqu'aux 
dernieres limites, ni du mal ni idu bien ; elle passe sans cesse de 1'un a 1'autre, se 
redressant au moment ou elle semble le plus pres de la chute, faiblissant au 
moment ou elle semble marcher le plus droit. 

GUIZOT, Histoire de la civilisation dans F Europe, Cinquieme Le9on. 



TO 

ALL WHO ARE ENGAGED 

IN PSYCHE'S TASK 

OF SORTING OUT THE SEEDS OF GOOD 

FROM THE SEEDS OF EVIL 

I DEDICATE THIS DISCOURSE 



PREFACE 

THE substance of the following discourse was lately read at 
an evening meeting of the Royal Institution in London, 
and most of it was afterwards delivered in the form of 
lectures to my class at Liverpool. It is now published 
in the hope that it may call attention to a neglected 
side of superstition and stimulate enquiry into the early 
history of those great institutions which still form the frame- 
work of modern society. If it should turn out that these 
institutions have sometimes been built on rotten foundations, 
it would be rash to conclude that they must all come down. 
Man is a very curious animal, and the more we know of his 
habits the more curious does he appear. He may be the 
most rational of the beasts, but certainly he is the most 
absurd. Even the saturnine wit of Swift, unaided by a 
knowledge of savages, fell far short of the reality in his 
attempt to set human folly in a strong light. Yet the 
odd thing is that in spite, or perhaps by virtue, of his 
absurdities man moves steadily upwards ; the more we 
learn of his past history the more groundless does the old 
theory of his degeneracy prove to be. From false premises 
he often arrives at sound conclusions : from a chimerical 
theory he deduces a salutary practice. This discourse 
will have served a useful purpose if it illustrates a few 



viii PREFACE 

of the ways in which folly mysteriously deviates into wisdom, 
and good comes out of evil. It is a mere sketch of a 
vast subject. Whether I shall ever fill in these bald out- 
lines with finer strokes and deeper shadows must be left to 
the future to determine. The materials for such a picture 
exist in abundance ; and if the colours are dark, they are 
yet illuminated, as I have tried in this essay to point out, 
by a ray of consolation and hope. 

J. G. FRAZER. 

CAMBRIDGE, February 1909. 



CONTENTS 

PACE 

PREFACE . . . vii 

I. INTRODUCTION . i 

II. GOVERNMENT . . 4 

III. PRIVATE PROPERTY ... .17 

IV. MARRIAGE ... 31 
V. RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE . . 52 

VI. CONCLUSION . . 82 



INTRODUCTION 

WE are apt to think of superstition as an unmitigated 
evil, false in itself and pernicious in its consequences. That 
it has done much harm in the world, cannot be denied. It 
has sacrificed countless lives, wasted untold treasures, em- 
broiled nations, severed friends, parted husbands and wives, 
parents and children, putting swords, and worse than swords 
between them : it has filled gaols and madhouses with its 
innocent or deluded victims : it has broken many hearts, 
embittered the whole of many a life, and not content with 
persecuting the living it has pursued the dead into the grave 
and beyond it, gloating over the horrors which its foul 
imagination has conjured up to appal and torture the sur- 
vivors. It has done all this and more. Yet the case of 
superstition, like that of Mr. Pickwick after the revelations 
of poor Mr. Winkle in the witness-box, can perhaps afford 
to be placed in a rather better light ; and without posing as 
the Devil's Advocate or appearing before you in a blue flame 
and sulphureous fumes, I do profess to make out what the 
charitable might call a plausible plea for a very dubious 
client. For I propose to prove, or at least make probable, 
by examples that among certain races and at certain stages 
of evolution some social institutions which we all, or most of 
us, believe to be beneficial have partially rested on a basis of 
superstition. The institutions to which I refer are purely 
Secular or civil. Of religious or ecclesiastical institutions I 
shall say nothing. It might perhaps be possible to shew 
that even religion has not wholly escaped the taint or 

i B 



-X- 



2 INTRODUCTION i 

dispensed with the support of superstition ; but I prefer for 
to-night to confine myself to those civil institutions which 
people commonly imagine to be bottomed on nothing but 
hard common sense and the nature of things. While the 
institutions with which I shall deal have all survived into 
civilized society and can no doubt be defended by solid and 
weighty arguments, it is practically certain that among 
savages, and even among peoples who have risen above the 
level of savagery, these very same institutions have derived 
much of their strength from beliefs which nowadays we 
should condemn unreservedly as superstitious and absurd. 
The institutions in regard to which I shall attempt to prove 
this are four, namely, government, private property, marriage, 
and the respect for human life. And what I have to say 
may be summed up in four propositions as follows : 

I. Among certain races and at certain times superstition 
has strengthened the respect for government, especially 
monarchical government, and has thereby contributed to 
the establishment and maintenance of civil order. 

II. Among certain races and at certain times superstition 
has strengthened the respect for pjjvate property and has 
thereby contributed to the security of its enjoyment. 

III. Among certain races and at certain times superstition 
has strengthened the respect for _marriage and has thereby 
contributed to a stricter observance of the rules of sexual 
morality both among the married and the unmarried. 

IV. Among certain races and at certain times superstition 
has strengthened the respect for JiumanJife and has thereby 
contributed to the security of its enjoyment. 

Before proceeding to deal with these four propositions 
separately, I wish to make two remarks, which I beg you 
will bear in mind. First, in what I have to say I shall 
confine myself to certain races of men and to certain ages 
of history, because neither my time nor my knowledge 
permits me to speak of all races of men and all ages of 
history. How far the limited conclusions which I shall draw 
for some races and for some ages are applicable to others, 
must be left to future enquiries to determine. That is my 
first remark. My second is this. If it can be proved 
that in certain races and at certain times the institu- 



i INTRODUCTION 3 

tions in question have been based partly on superstition, it 
by no means follows that even among these races they have 
never been based on anything else. On the contrary, as all 
the institutions which I shall consider have proved them- 
selves stable and permanent, there is a strong presumption 
that they rest mainly on something much more solid than 
superstition. No institution founded wholly on superstition, 
that is on falsehood, can be permanent. If it does nooj 
answer to some real human need, if its foundations are notjj 
laid broad and deep in the nature of things, it must perish, 
and the sooner the better. That is my second remark. 



II 

GOVERNMENT 

WITH these two cautions I address myself to my first 
proposition, which is, that among certain races and at 
certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for 
government, especially monarchical government, and has 
thereby contributed to the establishment and maintenance 
of civil order. 

Among many peoples the task of government has been 
greatly facilitated by a superstition that the governors 
belong to a superior order of beings and possess certain 
supernatural or magical powers to which the governed xan 
make no claim and can offer no resistance. Thus Dr. 
Codrington tells us that among the Melanesians " the 
power of chiefs has hitherto rested upon the belief in their 
supernatural power derived from the spirits or ghosts with 
which they had intercourse. As this belief has failed, in 
the Banks' Islands for example some time ago, the position 
of a chief has tended to become obscure ; and as this belief 
is now being generally undermined a new kind of chief 
must needs arise, unless a time of anarchy is to begin." ] 
According to a native Melanesian account, the authority of 
chiefs rests entirely on the belief that they hold communica- 
tion with mighty ghosts and possess that supernatural power 
or mana, as it is called, whereby they are able to turn the 
influence of the ghosts to account. If a chief imposed a 
fine, it was paid because the people firmly believed that he 
could inflict calamity and sickness upon such as resisted 
him. As soon as any considerable number of his subjects 

1 R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 46. 
4 



ii GOVERNMENT 5 

began to disbelieve in his influence with the ghosts, his 
power to levy fines was shaken. 1 It is thus that in 
Melanesia religious scepticism tends to undermine the 
foundations of civil society. 

Similarly Mr. Basil Thomson tells us that "the key to 
the Melanesian system of government is Ancestor-worship. 
Just as every act in a Fijian's life was controlled by his fear 
of Unseen Powers, so was his conception of human authority 
based upon religion." The dead chief was supposed still to 
watch jealously over his people and to punish them with 
dearth, storms, and floods, if they failed to bring their 
offerings to his tomb and to propitiate his spirit And the 
person of his descendant, the living chief, was sacred ; it was 
hedged in by a magic circle of taboo and might not even be 
touched without incurring the wrath of the Unseen. " The 
first blow at the power of the chiefs was struck unconsciously 
by the missionaries. Neither they nor the chiefs themselves 
realized how closely the government of the Fijians was 
bound up with their religion. No sooner had a missionary 
gained a foothold in a chief village than the tabu was 
doomed, and on the tabu depended half the people's rever- 
ence for rank. The tabu died hard, as such institutions 
should do. The first-fruits were still presented to the chief, 
but they were no longer carried from him to the temple, 
since their excuse as an offering to persuade the ancestors 
to grant abundant increase had passed away. No longer 
supported by the priests, the Sacred Chief fell upon evil 
days " ; for in Fiji, as in other places, the priest and the 
chief, when they were not one and the same person, had 
played into each other's hands, both knowing that neither 
could stand firm without the aid of the other. 2 

In Polynesia the state of things was similar. There, 
too, the power of chiefs depended largely on a belief in 
their supernatural powers, in their relation to ancestral 
spirits, and in the magical virtue of taboo, which pervaded 
their persons and interposed between them and common folk 
an invisible but formidable barrier, to pass which was death. 
In New Zealand the Maori chiefs were deemed to be living 

1 R. H. Gxl ring ton, op. cit. p. 52. Study of the Decay of Custom (London, 
* Basil Thomson, The Fijiam, a 1908), pp. 57-59, 64, 158. 



6 GO VERNMENT n 

atuas or gods. Thus the Rev. Richard Taylor, who was for 
more than thirty years a missionary in New Zealand, tells 
us that in speaking a Maori chief "assumed a tone not 
natural to him, as a kind of court language ; he kept him- 
self distinct from his inferiors, eating separately ; his person 
was sacred, he had the power of holding converse with the 
gods, in fact laid claim to being one himself, making the 
tapu a powerful adjunct to obtain control over his people 
and their goods. Every means were used to acquire this 
dignity ; a large person was thought to be of the highest 
importance ; to acquire this extra size, the child of a chief 
was generally provided with many nurses, each contributing 
to his support by robbing their own offspring of their natural 
sustenance ; thus, whilst they were half-starved, miserable- 
looking little creatures, the chief's child was the contrary, 
and early became remarkable by its good appearance. Nor 
was this feeling confined to the body ; the chief was an 
atua, but there were powerful and powerless gods ; each 
naturally sought to make himself one of the former ; the 
plan therefore adopted, was to incorporate the spirits of 
others with their own ; thus, when a warrior slew a chief, 
he immediately gouged out his eyes and swallowed them, 
the atua tonga, or divinity, being supposed to reside in that 
organ ; thus he not only killed the body, but also possessed 
himself of the soul of his enemy, and consequently the more 
chiefs he slew, the greater did his divinity become. . . . 
Another great sign of a chief was oratory a good orator 
was compared to the korimako, the sweetest singing bird in 
New Zealand ; to enable the young chief to become one, he 
was fed upon that bird, so that he might the better acquire 
its qualities, and the successful orator was termed a kori- 
mako." ] Again, another writer informs us that the opinions 
of Maori chiefs " were held in more estimation than those 
of others, simply because they were believed to give 
utterance to the thoughts of deified men. No dazzling 
pageantry hedged them round, but their persons were 
sacred. . . . Many of them believed themselves inspired ; 

1 Rev. Richard Taylor, Te Ika A pp. 352 sq. ; as to the atuas or gods, 
Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabit- see ib. pp. 1 34 sqq. 
ants, Second Edition (London, 1870), 



ii GOVERNMENT 7 

thus Te Heu Heu, the great Taupo chief and priest, 
shortly before he was swallowed up by a landslip, said 
to a European missionary : ' Think not that I am a 
man, that my origin is of the earth. I come from the 
heavens ; my ancestors are all there ; they are gods, and I 
shall return to them.'" So sacred was the person of a 
Maori chief that it was not lawful to touch him, even to 
save his life. A chief has been seen at the point of suffoca- 
tion and in great agony with a fish bone sticking in his 
throat, and yet not one of his people, who were lamenting 
around him, dared to touch or even approach him, for it 
would have been as much as their own life was worth to do 
so. A missionary, who was passing, came to the rescue and 
saved the chiefs life by extracting the bone. As soon as 
the rescued man recovered the power of speech, which he 
did not do for half an hour, the first use he made of it 
was to demand that the surgical instruments with which the 
bone had been extracted should be given to him as com- 
pensation for the injury done him by drawing his sacred 
blood and touching his sacred head. 2 

Not only the person of a Maori chief but everything that 
had come into contact with it was sacred and would kill, so 
the Maoris thought, any sacrilegious person who dared to 
meddle with it. Cases have been known of Maoris dying of 1 
sheer fright on learning that they had unwittingly eaten 1 
the remains of a chief's dinner or handled something that)' 
belonged to him. For example, a woman, having partaken 
of some fine peaches from a basket, was told that they 
had come from a tabooed place. Immediately the basket 
dropped from her hands and she cried out in agony that 
the atua or godhead of the chief, whose divinity had been 
thus profaned, would kill her. That happened in the 
afternoon, and next day by twelve o'clock she was dead. 3 
Similarly a chief's tinder-box has proved fatal to several 
men ; for having found it and lighted their pipes with it 

1 A. S. Thomson, M.D., The Story 3 W. Brown, New Zealand and its 

tf New Zealand (London, 1859), i. Aborigines (London, 1845), p. 76. 

95 sq. Compare Old New Zealand, by a 

1 Rev.Vf.Y&te,stnA(foun(0/New Pakeha Maori (London, 1884), pp. 

Zealand (London, 1835), pp. 104 jy., 96 sy. 
note. 



8 GOVERNMENT n 

they actually expired of terror on learning to whom it 

belonged. 1 Hence a considerate chief would throw away 

where it could not be found any garment or mat for which 

he had no further use, lest one of his subjects should find 

it and be struck dead by the shock of its inherent divinity. 

For the same reason he would never blow a fire with his 

mouth ; for his sacred breath would communicate its 

sanctity to the fire, and the fire would pass it on to the 

meat that might be cooked on it, and the meat would 

carry it into the stomach of the eater, and he would die. 2 

I/Thus, the divinity which hedged a Maori chief was a de- 

wouring flame which shrivelled up and consumed whatever 

jt touched. No wonder that such men were implicitly 

obeyed. 

In the rest of Polynesia the state of things was similar. 
For example, the natives of Tonga in like manner believed 
that if any one fed himself with his own hands after touching 
the sacred person of a superior chief, he would swell up and 
die ; the sanctity of the chief, like a virulent poison, infected 
the hands of his inferior, and, being communicated through 
them to the food, proved fatal to the eater, unless he dis- 
infected himself by touching the chief's feet in a particular 
way. 3 When a king of Tahiti entered on office he was girded 
with a sacred girdle of red feathers, which not only raised 
him to the highest earthly station, but identified him with the 
gods. 4 Henceforth " everything in the least degree connected 
with the king or queen the cloth they wore, the houses in 
which they dwelt, the canoes in which they voyaged, the men 
by whom they were borne when they journeyed by land, 
became sacred and even the sounds in the language, compos- 
ing their names, could no longer be appropriated to ordinary 
significations. . . . The ground on which they even accident- 
ally trod, became sacred ; and the dwelling under which 
they might enter, must for ever after be vacated by its 
proprietors, and could be appropriated only to the use of 
these sacred personages. No individual was allowed to 

1 Rev. R. Taylor, op. cit. p. 164. (London, 1818), i. 141 sq. note, 434, 

2 Rev. R. Taylor, op. cit. pp. 164, note, ii. 82 sq., 222 sq. 

165. * W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, 

3 W. Mariner, Account of the Natives Second Edition (London, 1836), iii. 
of the Tonga Islands, Second Edition 108. 



ii GOVERNMENT 9 

touch the body of the king or queen ; and every one who 
should stand over them, or pass the hand over their heads, 
would be liable to pay for the sacrilegious act with the 
forfeiture of his life. It was on account of this supposed 
sacredness of person that they could never enter any 
dwellings, excepting those that were specially dedicated 
to their use, and prohibited to all others ; nor might they 
tread on the ground in any part of the island but their own 
hereditary districts." 1 

In like manner the Ca_zejnb.es, in the interior of Angola, 
regarded their king as so holy that no one could touch him 
without being killed by the magical power which emanated 
from his sacred person ; however, any one who had accident- 
ally or necessarily come into personal contact with his 
Majesty could escape death by touching the king's hands 
in a special manner. 2 Similar beliefs are current in the 
Malay region, where the theory of the king as the Divine 
Man is said to be held perhaps as strongly as in any other 
part of the world. " Not only is the king's person con- 
sidered sacred, but the sanctity of his body is believed to 
communicate itself to his regalia, and to slay those who 
break the royal taboos. Thus it is firmly believed that any 
one who seriously offends the royal person, who touches 
(even for a moment) or who imitates (even with the king's 
permission) the chief objects of the regalia, or who wrong- 
fully makes use of any of the insignia or privileges of 
royalty, will be ktna daulat, i.e. struck dead, by a quasi- 
electric discharge of that Divine Power which the Malays 
suppose to reside in the king's person, and which is called 
daulat or Royal Sanctity." 3 Further, the Malays firml>J 
believe that the king possesses a personal influence over the 
works of nature, such as the growth of the crops and thd 
bearing of fruit-trees. 4 Some of the Hill Dyaks of Sarawak 
used to bring their seed-rice to Rajah Brooke to be fertilised 
by him ; and once when the rice-crops of a tribe were thin, 

1 W. Ellis, op. cit. iii. 101 sq. ; J. Valdez, Six Years of a Traveller's Life 

Wilson, Missionary Voyage' to the South- in Western Africa (London, 1861), ii. 

\ ern Pacific Ocean (London, 1799), pp. 251 sq. 

329 sq. 3 W. W. Skeat, Malay Magit 

3 ZeitschriftfiirallgemeineErdkunde (London, 1900), pp. 23 sq. 

(Berlin), vi. (1856) pp. 398 sq.; F. T. W. W. Skeat, op. cit. p. 36. 



io GOVERNMENT n 

the chief remarked that it could not be otherwise, since they 
had not been visited by the Rajah. 1 

Similarly in Africa kings are commonly supposed to be 
endowed with a magical power of making the rain to fall 
and the crops to grow : drought and famine are set down to 
the weakness or ill-will of the king, and accordingly he is 
punished, deposed, or put to death. 2 To take two or three 
instances out of many, a writer of the eighteenth century 
speaks as follows of the kingdom of Loango in West Africa : 
" The government with these people is purely despotic. 
They say their lives and goods belong to the king ; that he 
may dispose of and deprive them of them when he pleases, 
without form of process, and without their having anything 
to complain of. In his presence they pay marks of respect 
which resemble adoration. The individuals of the lower 
classes are persuaded that his power is not confined to the 
earth, and that he has credit enough to make rain fall from 
heaven ; hence they fail not, when a continuance of drought 
makes them fearful about the harvest, to represent to him 
that if he does not take care to water the lands of his 
kingdom, they will die of hunger, and will find it impossible 
to make him the usual presents. The king, to satisfy the 
people, without however compromising himself with heaven, 
devolves the affair on one of his ministers, to whom he gives 
orders to cause to fall without delay upon the plains as 
much rain as is wanted to fertilize them. When the 
minister sees a cloud which he presumes must shed rain, 
he shews himself in public, as if to exercise the orders of 
his prince. The women and children troop around him, 
crying with all their might, Give us rain, give us rain : and 
he promises them some." 8 The king of Loango, says 
another old writer, " is honoured among them as though he 
were a God : and is called Sambee and Pango, which mean 
God. They believe he can let them have rain when he 

1 Hugh Low, Sarawak (London, 3 Proyart's " History of Loango, 
1848), pp. 259 sq. Kakongo, and other Kingdoms in 

2 For evidence see The Golden Africa," in Pinkerton's Voyages and 
Bough, Second Edition (London, 1900), Travels, xvi. 577. Compare Dapper, 
i. 154 sqq., 157 sqq. ; Lectures on the Description de I'Afrique (Amsterdam, 
Early History of the Kingship ( London, 1686), pp. 335 sq. 

1905). PP- H2 sqq. 



n GOVERNMENT n 

likes ; and once a year, in December, which is the time they 
want rain, the people come to beg of him to grant it to 
them, on this occasion they make him presents, and 
none come empty-handed." On a day appointed, when 
the chiefs with their troops had assembled in warlike 
array, the drums used to beat and the horns to sound, 
and the king shot arrows into the air, which was 
believed to bring down the rain. 1 On the other side 
of Africa a similar state of things is reported by the old 
Portuguese historian Dos Santos. He says : " The king 
of all these lands of the interior and of the river of Sofala is 
a woolly-haired Kaffir, a heathen who adores nothing what- 
ever, and has no knowledge of God ; on the contrary, he 
esteems himself the god of all his lands, and is so looked 
upon and reverenced by his subjects." " When they suffer 
necessity or scarcity they have recourse to the king, firmly 
believing that he can give them all that they desire or have 
need of, and can obtain anything from his dead predecessors, 
with whom they believe that he holds converse. For this 
reason they ask the king to give them rain when it is required, 
and other favourable weather for their harvest, and in coming to 
ask for any of these things they bring him valuable presents, 
which the king accepts, bidding them return to their 
homes and he will be careful to grant their petitions. They 
are such barbarians that though they see how often the king 
does not give them what they ask for, they are not unde- 
ceived, but make him still greater offerings, and many days 
are spent in these comings and goings, until the weather 
turns to rain, and the Kaffirs are satisfied, believing that the 
king did not grant their request until he had been well 
bribed and importuned, as he himself affirms, in order to 
maintain them in their error." : Nevertheless " it was 
formerly the custom of the kings of this land to commit 
suicide by taking poison when any disaster or natural 
physical defect fell upon them, such as impotence, infectious 
disease, the loss of their front teeth by which they were 
disfigured, or any other deformity or affliction. To put 

1 "The Strange Adventures of 8 J. Dos Santos, " Eastern Ethiopia," 
Andrew Battel," in Pinkerton's Voyages chapters v. and ix., in G. McCall 
and Travels, xvi. 330. Theal's Records of South - Eastern 

Africa, vii. (1901) pp. 190 sq., 199. 



12 GOVERNMENT 11 

an end to such defects they killed themselves, saying that the 
king should be free from any blemish." However, in the 
time of Dos Santos the king of Sofala, in defiance of all 
precedent, persisted in living and reigning after he had lost a 
front tooth ; and he even went so far as to tax his royal pre- 
decessors with folly for having made away with themselves 
for such trifles as a decayed tooth or a little grey hair, 
declaring his firm resolution to live as long as he possibly 
could for the benefit of his loyal subjects. 1 At the present 
day the principal medicine-man of the _.Nandi, a tribe in 
British East Africa, is also supreme chief of the whole people. 
He is a diviner, and foretells the future : he makes women and 
cattle fruitful ; and in time of drought he obtains rain either 
directly or through the intervention of the rainmakers. The 
Nandi believe implicitly in these marvellous powers of their 
chief. His person is usually regarded as absolutely sacred. 
Nobody may approach him with weapons in his hand or 
speak in his presence unless he is first addressed ; and it is 
deemed most important that nobody should touch the chiefs 
head, otherwise his powers of divination and so forth would 
depart from him. 2 This widespread African conception of the 
divinity of kings culminated long ago in ancient Egypt, 
where the kings were treated as gods both in life and in 
death, temples being dedicated to their worship and priests 
appointed to conduct it. 3 . And when the harvests failed, the 
ancient Egyptians, like the modern negroes, laid the blame 
fof the failure on the reigning monarch. 4 

A halo of superstitious veneration also surrounded the 
Yncas or governing class in ancient Peru. Thus the old 
historian Garcilasso de la Vega, himself the son of an Ynca 
princess, tells us that " it does not appear that any Ynca of 
the blood royal has ever been punished, at least publicly, 
and the Indians deny that such a thing has ever taken place. 
They say that the Ynca never committed any fault that 

1 J. Dos Santos, op, cit. pp. 194 A. Moret, Du caractere religieux de la 
sq. royautt pharaonique (Paris, 1902) ; 

2 A. C. Hollis, The Nandi, their The Golden Bough, Second Edition, 
Language and Folk-lore (Oxford, 1909), i. 161 ; Lectures on the Early History 
pp. 49 sq. of the Kingship (London, 1905), pp. 

8 C. P. Tiele, History of the 148 sq. 

Egyptian Religion (London, 1882), * Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviii. 5, 

pp. 103 sq. For fuller details see 14. 



ii GOVERNMENT 13 

required correction ; because the teaching of their parents, 
and the common opinion that they were children of the Sun, 
born to teach and to do good to the rest of mankind, kept 
them under such control, that they were rather an example 
than a scandal to the commonwealth. The Indians also 
said that the Yncas were free from the temptations which 
usually lead to crime, such as passion for women, envy and 
covetousness, or the thirst for vengeance ; because if they 
desired beautiful women, it was lawful for them to have as 
many as they liked ; and any pretty girl they might take a 
fancy to, not only was never denied to them, but was given 
up by her father with expressions of extreme thankfulness 
that an Ynca should have condescended to take her as his 
servant. The same thing might be said of their property ; 
for, as they could never feel the want of anything, they had 
no reason to covet the goods of others ; while as governors 
they had command over all the property of the Sun and of 
the Ynca ; and those who were in charge, were bound to 
give them all that they required, as children of the Sun and 
brethren of the Ynca. They likewise had no temptation to 
kill or wound any one, either for revenge, or in passion ; for 
no one ever offended them. On the contrary, they received 
adoration only second to that offered to the royal person ; 
and if any one, how high soever his rank, had enraged any 
Ynca, it would have been looked upon as sacrilege, and very 
severely punished. But it may be affirmed that an Indian 
was never punished for offending against the person, honour, 
or property of any Ynca, because no such offence was ever 
committed, as they held the Yncas to be like gods." l 

Nor have such superstitions been confined to savages and 
other peoples of alien race in remote parts of the world. They 
seem to have been shared by the ancestors of all the Arya 
peoples from India to Ireland. Thus in the ancient Indian 
law-Book called the Laws of Manu, we read : " Because a 
king has been formed of particles of those lords of the gods, 
he therefore surpasses all created beings in lustre ; and, like 
the sun, he burns eyes and hearts ; nor can anybody on earth 
even gaze on him. Through his (supernatural) power he is 

1 Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part translated by C. R. Markham (London, 
of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas, 1859),!. 154;?. 



\ 



14 GOVERNMENT n 

Fire and Wind, he Sun and Moon, he the Lord of justice 
(Yama), he Kubera, he Varuna, he great Indra. Even an 
infant king must not be despised (from an idea) that he is a 
(mere) mortal ; for he is a great deity in human form " l 
And in the same law-book the effects of a good king's reign 
are thus described : " In that (country) where the king avoids 
taking the property of (mortal) sinners, men are born in (due) 
time (and are) long-lived. And the crops of the husband- 
man spring up, each as it was sown, and the children die not, 
and no misshaped (offspring) is born." - 

Similarly in Homeric Greece, kings and chiefs were 
described as sacred or divine ; their houses, too, were divine, 
and their chariots sacred ; 3 and it was thought that the reign 
of a good king caused the black earth to bring forth wheat 
and barley, the trees to be loaded with fruit, the flocks to 
multiply, and the sea to yield fish. 4 When the crops failed, 
the Burgundians used to blame their kings and depose 
them. 5 Similarly the Swedes always ascribed the abund- 
ance or scantiness of the harvest to the goodness or badness 
of their kings, and in time of dearth they have been known 
to sacrifice them to the gods for the sake of procuring good 
crops. 6 In ancient Ireland it was also believed that when 
kings observed the customs of their ancestors the seasons 
were mild, llie crops plentiful, the cattle fruitful, the waters 
abounded with fish, and the fruit-trees had to be propped 
U*/ on account of the weight of their produce. A canon 
ascribed to St. Patrick enumerates among the blessings that 
attend the reign of a just king " fine weather, calm seas, 
crops abundant, and trees laden with fruit." r Superstitions 
of the kind which were thus current among the Celts of 
Ireland centuries ago appear to have survived among the 
Celts of Scotland down to Dr. Johnson's time ; for when he 
travelled in Skye it was still held that the return of the 

1 The Laws of Manu, vii. 5-8, 6 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviii. 5, 
translated by G. Biihler, p. 217 (Sacred 14. 

Books of the East, vol. xxv. ). 6 Snorro Starleson, Chronicle of the 

2 The Laws of Manu, ix. 246 sq. t Kings of Norway, translated by S. 
translated by G. Biihler, p. 385. Laing, saga i. chapters 18 and 47. 

3 Homer, Odyssey, ii. 409, iv. 43, 7 P. W. Joyce, Social History oj 
691, vii. 167, viii. 2, xviii. 405 ; Iliad, Ancient Ireland (London, 1903), i. 
ii. 335, xvii. 464, etc. 56 sq.; J. O'Donovan, The Book of 

4 Homer, Odyssey, xix. 109-114. Rights (Dublin, 1847), p. 8, note. 



I 



ii GOVERNMENT 15 

chief of the Macleods to Dunvegan, after any considerable 
absence, produced a plentiful catch of herring ; l and at a 
still later time, when the potato crop failed, the clan Macleod 
desired that a certain fairy banner in the possession of their 
chief might be unfurled, 2 apparently in the belief that the 
magical banner had only to be displayed to produce a fine 
crop of potatoes. 

Perhaps the last relic of such superstitions whic 
lingered about our English kings was the notion that the 
could heal scrofula by their touch. The disease was accord 
ingly known as the King's Evil ; 3 and on the analogy of the 
Polynesian superstitions which I have cited, we may perhaps 
conjecture that the skin disease of scrofula was originally 
supposed to be caused as well as cured by the king's touch. 
Certain it is that in Tonga some forms of scrofula, as well 
as indurations of the liver, to which the natives were very 
subject, were thought to be caused by touching a chief and 
to be healed, on homoeopathic principles, in the very same 
fashion. 4 Similarly in Loango palsy is called the king's 
disease, because the negroes imagine it to be heaven's own 
punishment for treason meditated against the king. 6 In 
England the belief that the king could heal scrofula by his 
touch survived into the eighteenth century. Dr. Johnson 
was touched in his childhood for scrofula by Queen Anne. 6 
It is curious that so typical a representative of robust 
common sense as Dr. Johnson should in his childhood and 
old age have thus been brought into contact with these 
ancient superstitions about royalty both in England and 
Scotland. 

The foregoing evidence, summary as it is, may suffice 
to prove that many peoples have regarded their rulers, 
whether chiefs or kings, with superstitious awe as beings of 

1 S. Johnson, Journey to the Western 4 W. Mariner, An Account of the 

Islands (Baltimore, 1810), p. 115. Natives of the Tonga Islands, Second 

Edition (London, 1818), i. 434, note. 

8 J. G. Campbell, Superstitions or fi ,, ,, . 

,1 ir- LI j r i j f c / j Proyarts "History of Loaneo, 

the Highlands and Islands of Scotland Kak * and other Kingdoms in 

(Glasgow, 1900), p. 5 . Afrjca ^, in pinkerton . s v * yages and 

x 3 W. G. Black, Folk - Medicine Travels, xvi. 573. 

(London, 1883), pp. 140 sqq. See a J. Boswell, Life of Samuel John- 

further my Lectures on the Early son, Ninth Edition (London, 1822), i. 

History of the Kingship, pp. 125-127. 18 so. 



16 GOVERNMENT n 

a higher order and endowed with mightier powers than 
common folk. Imbued with such a profound veneration 
for their governors and with such an exaggerated concep- 
tion of their power, they cannot but have yielded them a 
prompter and more implicit obedience than if they had 
known them to be men just like themselves. If that is so, 
I may claim to have proved my first proposition, which is, 
that among certain races and at certain times superstition 
has strengthened the respect for government, especially 
monarchical government, and has thereby contributed to the 
establishment and maintenance of civil order. 



Ill 

PRIVATE PROPERTY 

I PASS now to my second proposition, which is, that among 
certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened 
the respect for private property, and has thereby contributed 
to the security of its enjoyment. 

Nowhere, perhaps, does this appear more plainly than 
in Polynesia, where the system of taboo reached its highest 
development ; for the effect of tabooing a thing was, in 
the opinion of the natives, to endow it with a super- 
natural or magical energy which rendered it practically 
unapproachable by any but the owner. Thus taboo became 
a powerful instrument for strengthening the ties, perhaps our 
socialist friends would say riveting the chains, of private 
property. Indeed, some good authorities who were person- 
ally acquainted with the working of taboo in Polynesia, 
have held that the system was originally devised for no 
other purpose. For example, an Irishman who lived as a 
Maori with the Maoris for years, and knew them intimately, 
writes as follows : " The original object of the ordinary tapu 
seems to have been the preservation of property. Of this 
nature in a great degree was the ordinary personal tapu. 
This form of tapu was permanent, and consisted in a certain 
sacred character which attached to the person of a chief and 
never left him. It was his birthright, a part in fact of him- 
self, of which he could not be divested, and which was well 
understood and recognized at all times as a matter of course. 
The fighting men and petty chiefs, and every one indee 
who could by any means claim the title of rangatira whic 
in the sense I now use it means gentleman were all i 
some degree more or less possessed of this mysteriou 

17 C 



i8 PRIVATE PROPERTY in 

Duality. It extended or was communicated to all their 
loveable property, especially to their clothes, weapons, 
)rnamerits, and tools, and to everything in fact which 
they touched. This prevented their chattels being stolen 
or mislaid, or spoiled by children, or used or handled in 
any way by others. And as in the old times, as I have 
before stated, every kind of property of this kind was 
precious in consequence of the great labour and time 
necessarily, for want of iron tools, expended in the manu- 
facture, this form of the tapu was of great real service. An 
[infringement of it subjected the offender to various dreadful 
(imaginary punishments, of which deadly sickness was one." 
The culprit was also liable to what may be called a civil 
action, which consisted in being robbed and beaten ; but 
the writer whom I have just quoted tells us that the worst 
part of the punishment for breaking taboo was the imaginary 
part, since even when the offence had been committed un- 
wittingly the offender has been known to die of fright on 
learning what he had done. 1 Similarly, another writer, 
^peaking of the Maoris, observes that "violators of the tapu 
fere punished by the gods and also by men. The former 
sent sickness and death ; the latter inflicted death, loss of 
>roperty, and expulsion from society. It was a dread -of 
the gods, more than of men, which upheld the tapu. Human 
eyes might be deceived, but the eyes of the gods could never 
be deceived." 2 " The chiefs, as might be expected, are fully 
aware of the advantages of the tapu, finding that it confers 
on them, to a certain extent, the power of making laws, and 
the superstition on which the tapu is founded will ensure 
the observance of them. Were they to transgress the tapu, 
they believe that the attua (God) would kill them, and so 
universal is this belief that it is, or rather was, a very rare 
occurrence to find any one daring enough to commit the 
sacrilege. To have preserved this influence so completely 

1 Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha "The breaking of the tapu, if the 
Maori (London, 1884), pp. 94-97, com- crime does not become known, is, they 
pare id. p. 83. believe, punished by the atua, who 

2 A. S. Thomson, The Story of inflicts disease upon the criminal ; if 
New Zealand (London, 1859), i. 103. discovered, it is punished by him whom 
Compare E. Dieffenbach, Travels in it regards, and often becomes the cause 
New Zealand (London, 1843), " IO 5 : of war." 



"i PRIVATE P KOPEK TV 19 

among a people naturally so shrewd and intelligent, great 
care must, no doubt, have been taken not to apply it unless 
in the usual and recognised manner. To have done other- 
wise would have led to its being frequently transgressed ; 
and consequently to the loss of its influence. Before the 
natives came into contact with the Europeans the tapu seems 
to have acted with the most complete success ; as the belief 
was general, that any disregard of it would infallibly subject 
the offender to the anger of the attua, and death would be 
the consequence. Independently, however, of the support 
which the tapu derives from the superstitious fears of these 
people, it has, like most other laws, an appeal to physical 
force in case of necessity. A delinquent, if discovered, 
would be stripped of everything he possessed ; and if a 
slave, would in all probability be put to death many 
instances of which have actually occurred. So powerful is 
this superstitious feeling that slaves will not venture to eat 
of the same food as their master ; or even to cook at the 
same fire ; believing that the attua would kill them if they did 
so. Everything about, or belonging to, a chief is accounted 
sacred by the slaves. Fond as they are of tobacco, it 
would be perfectly secure though left exposed on the roof 
of a chief's house ; no one would venture to touch it" 1 

Hence it has been truly said that " this form of tapu was 
a great preserver of property. The most valuable articles 
might, in ordinary circumstances, be left to its protection, in 
the absence of the owners, for any length of time." 2 If any 
one wished to preserve his crop, his house, his garments, or 
anything else, he had only to taboo the property, and it was 
safe. To shew that the thing was tabooed, he put a mark 
to it. Thus, if he wished to use a particular tree in the 
forest to make a canoe, he tied a wisp of grass to the trunk ; 
if he desired to appropriate a patch of bulrush in a swamp, 
he stuck up a pole in it with a bunch of grass at the top ; if 
he left his house with all its valuables, to take care of itself, 
he secured the door with a bit of flax, and the place straight- 
way became inviolable, nobody would meddle with it 3 

* \V. -Brown, New Zealand and its s Rev. R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui t 

Aborigines (London, 1845), PP- I2 S 9- or New Zealand and its Inhabitants, 

8 Old New Zealand^ by a Pakeha Second Edition (London, 1870), pp. 

Maori (London, 1884), p. 97. 167, 171. 



20 PRIVATE PROPERTY in 

Hence although the restrictions imposed by taboo were 
often vexatious and absurd, and the whole system has some- 
times been denounced by Europeans as a degrading super- 
stition, yet observers who looked a little deeper have rightly 
perceived that its enactments, enforced mainly by imaginary 
but still powerful sanctions, were often beneficial. " The 
New Zealanders," says one writer, " could not have been 
governed without some code of laws analogous to the tapu. 
Warriors submitted to the supposed decrees of the gods who 
would have spurned with contempt the orders of men, and it 
was better the people should be ruled by superstition than 
by brute force." l Again, an experienced missionary, who 
knew the Maoris well, writes that " the tapu in many in- 
stances was beneficial ; considering the state of society, 
absence of law, and fierce character of the people, it formed 
no bad substitute for a dictatorial form of government, and 
made the nearest approach to an organized state of society." 2 
In other parts of Polynesia the system of taboo with its 
attendant advantages and disadvantages, its uses and abuses, 
was practically the same, and everywhere, as in New 
Zealand, it tightened for good or evil the ties of private 
property. This indeed was perhaps the most obvious effect 
of the institution. In the Marquesas Islands, it is said, 
taboo was invested with a divine character as the expres- 
sion of the will of the gods revealed to the priests ; as 
such it set bounds to injurious excesses, prevented depreda- 
tions, and united the people. Especially it converted the 
I tabooed or privileged classes into landed proprietors ; the 
I land belonged to them alone and to their heirs ; common 
folk lived by industry and by fishing. Taboo was the 
bulwark of the landowners ; it was that alone which elevated 
them by a sort of divine right into a position of affluence 
and luxury above the vulgar ; it was that alone which 
ensured their safety and protected them from the encroach- 
ments of their poor and envious neighbours. " Without 
doubt," say the writers from whom I borrow these observa- 
tions, " the first mission of taboo was to establish property 
the base of all society." s 

1 A. S. Thomson, The Story of New 2 Rev. R. Taylor, op. cit. pp. 172 sq. 
Zealand (London, 1859), i. 105. 3 Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Des- 



in PRIVATE PROPERTY 21 

In Samoa also superstition played a great part in 
fostering a respect for private property. That it did so, we 
have the testimony of a missionary, Dr. George Turner, who 
lived for many years among the Samoans and has given us 
a very valuable account of their customs. He says : " I 
hasten to notice the second thing which I have already 
remarked was an auxiliary towards the maintenance of 
peace and order in Samoa, viz. superstitious fear. If the 
chief and heads of families, in their court of inquiry into 
any case of stealing, or other concealed matter, had a diffi- 
culty in finding out the culprit, they would make all involved 
swear that they were innocent. In swearing before the 
chiefs the suspected parties laid a handful of grass on the 
stone, or whatever it was, which was supposed to be the 
representative of the village god, and laying their hand on 
it, would say, ' In the presence of our chiefs now assembled, 
I lay my hand on the stone. If I stole the thing may I 
speedily die.' This was a common mode of swearing. The 
meaning of the grass was a silent additional imprecation 
that his family might all die, and that grass might grow 
over their habitation. If all swore, and the culprit was 
still undiscovered, the chiefs then wound up the affair by 
committing the case to the village god, and solemnly invok- 
ing him to mark out for speedy destruction the guilty 
mischief-maker. But, instead of appealing to the chiefs, and 
calling for an oath, many were contented with their own 
individual schemes and imprecations to frighten thieves and 
prevent stealing. When a man went to his plantation and 
saw that some cocoa-nuts, or a bunch of bananas, had been 
stolen, he would stand and shout at the top of his voice two 
or three times, ' May fire blast the eyes of the person who 
has stolen my bananas ! May fire burn down his eyes and 
the eyes of his god too ! ' This rang throughout the 
adjacent plantations, and made the thief tremble. They 

graz, lies Marquises OH Nonk-hiva This last writer, who was a missionary 

(Paris, 1843), pp. 258-260. For to the Marquesas, observes that while 

details of the taboo system in the taboo was both a political and a re- 

Marques.ns Islands, see G. H. von ligious institution, he preferred to class 

Ivingsdorff, Reise t<w die Welt (Franc- it under the head of religion because 

fort, 1812), i. 114-119; Le P. Mat- it rested on the authority of the gods 

thias (1 * * * I^ttres stir les hies and formed the highest sanction of the 

Marquises (Paris, 1843), PP- 47 S W- whole religious system. 



22 PRIVATE PROPERTY in 

dreaded such uttered imprecations. . . . But there was 
another and more extensive class of curses, which were also 
feared, and formed a powerful check on stealing, especially 
from plantations and fruit trees, viz. the silent hieroglyphic 
taboo, or tapui (tapooe\ as they call it. Of this there was a 
great variety." l 

Among the Samoan taboos which were employed for 
the protection of property were the following: I. The 
sea -pike taboo. To prevent his bread-fruits from being 
stolen a man would plait some cocoa-nut leaflets in the 
form of a sea-pike and hang one or more such effigies 
from the trees which he wished to protect. Any ordinary 
thief would be afraid to touch a tree thus guarded, for he 
believed that if he stole the fruit a sea-pike would mortally 
wound him the next time he went to sea. 2. The white- 
shark taboo. A man would plait a cocoa-nut leaf in the 
shape of a shark and hang it on a tree. This was equiva- 
lent to an imprecation that the ' thief might be devoured 
by a shark the next time he went to fish. 3. The cross- 
stick taboo. This was a stick hung horizontally on the 
tree. It expressed a wish that whoever stole fruit from 
the tree might be afflicted with a sore running right across 
his body till he died. 4. The ulcer taboo. This was made 
by burying some pieces of clam-shell in the ground and 
setting up at the spot several reeds tied together at the top 
in a bunch like the head of a man. By this the owner 
signified his wish that the thief might be laid low with 
ulcerous sores all over his body. If the thief happened 
thereafter to be troubled with swellings or sores, he con- 
fessed his fault and sent a present to the owner of the land, 
who in return sent* to the culprit a herb both as a medicine 
and as a pledge of forgiveness. 5. The tJiunder taboo. A man 
would plait cocoa-nut leaflets in the "form of a small square 
mat and suspend it from a tree, adding some white streamers 
of native cloth. A thief believed that for trespassing on 
such a tree he or his children might be struck by lightning, 
or perhaps that lightning might strike and blast his own 
trees. " From these few illustrations," says Dr. Turner in 
conclusion, " it will be observed that Samoa formed no 

1 G. Turner, Samoa (London, 1884), pp. 183-184. 



in PRIVATE PROPERTY 23 

exception to the remarkably wide-spread system of super- 
stitious taboo ; and the extent to which it preserved honesty 
and order among a heathen people will be readily imagined." 1 

In Tonga a man guilty of theft or of any other crime 
was said to have broken the taboo, and as such persons 
were supposed to be particularly liable to be bitten by 
sharks, all on whom suspicion fell were compelled to go 
into water frequented by sharks ; if they were bitten or 
devoured, they were guilty ; if they escaped, they were 
innocent. 2 

In Melanesia also a system of taboo (tambu, tafiu} exists ; 
it is described as "a prohibition with a curse expressed or I 
implied," and derives its sanction from a belief that the chief j 
or other person who imposes a taboo has the support of a 
powerful ghost or spirit (tindalo). If a common man took 
it upon himself to taboo anything, people would watch to see 
whether a transgressor of the taboo fell sick ; if he did, it 
was a proof that the man who imposed the taboo was 
backed by a powerful ghost, and his reputation would rise 
accordingly. Each ghost affected a particular sort of leaf, 
which was his taboo mark. 8 In New Britain plantations, 
cocoa-nut trees, and other possessions are protected against 
thieves by marks of taboo attached to them, and it is 
thought that whoever violates the taboo will be visited by 
sickness or other misfortune. The nature of the sickness 
or misfortune varies with that of the mark or magical 
object which embodies the mystic virtue of the taboo. One 
plant used for this purpose will cause the thief's head to 
ache ; another will make his thighs swell ; another will 
break his legs ; and so forth. Even the murmuring of a 
spell over a fence is believed to ensure that whoever steals 
sticks from the fence will have a swollen head. 4 In Fiji 
the institution of taboo was the secret of power and the 
strength of despotic rule. It was wondrously diffused, 
affecting things great and small. Here it might be seen 
tending a brood of chickens and there directing the energies 

1 G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 185-188. esians (Oxford, 1891), pp. 215 sq. 

* * W. Mariner, An Account of the * R. Parkinson, Im Bismarck- 

Natives of the Tonga Islands, Second Archipel (Leipsic, 1887), p. 144; id., 

Edition (London, 1818), ii. 221. Dreissig Jahre in der Siidsee (Stutt- 

8 R. H. Codrington, The Melan- gart, 1907), pp. 193 sq. 



24 PRIVATE PROPERTY in 

of a kingdom. The custom was much in favour with the 
chiefs, who adjusted it so that it sat lightly on them and 
heavily on others. By it they gained influence, supplied 
their wants, and commanded at will their inferiors. In 
imposing a taboo a chief need only be checked by a regard 
for ancient precedent. Inferior persons endeavoured by 
the help of the system to put their yam-beds and plantain- 
plots within a sacred pale. 1 

A system of taboo based on superstition prevails all over 
the islands of the Malay Archipelago, where the common 
term for taboo is pamali, pomali, or pemali, though in some 
places other words, such as poso, potu, or boboso are in use to 
express the same idea. 2 In this great region also the super- 
stition associated with taboo is a powerful instrument to 
enforce the rights of private property. Thus, in the island 
of Timor " a prevalent custom is the pomali y exactly equiva- 
lent to the ' taboo ' of the Pacific islanders and equally 
respected. It is used on the commonest occasions, and a 
few palm leaves stuck outside a garden as a sign of the 
pomali will preserve its produce from thieves as effectually as 
the threatening notice of man-traps, spring guns, or a savage 
dog would do with us." 3 In Amboyna the word for taboo 
is pamali. A man who wishes to protect his fruit-trees or 
other possessions against theft may do it in various ways. 
For example, he may make a white cross on a pot and 
hang the pot on the fruit-tree ; then the thief who steals 
fruit from that tree will be a leper. Or he may place the 
effigy of a mouse under the tree ; then the thief will have 
marks on his nose and ears as if a mouse had gnawed them. 
Or he may plait dry sago leaves into two round discs and 
tie them to the tree ; then the thief's body will swell up and 
burst. 4 In Ceram the methods of protecting property from 
thieves are similar. For example, a man places a pig's jaw 
in the branches of his fruit-tree ; after that any person who 

1 Thomas Williams, Fiji and the Oeliasers (Dordrecht, 1875), pp. 148- 
Fijians, Second Edition (London, 152. 

1860), i. 234. 3 A. R. Wallace, The Malay Archi- 

2 G. A. Wilken, Handleiding voor pelago, Sixth Edition (London, 1877), 
de vergelijkende Volkenkunde van p. 196. 

Nederlandseh Indie (Leyden, 1893), 4 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en 

pp. 596-603 ; G. W. W. C. Baron van kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en 
Hoevell, Ambon en inter bcpaaldelijk de Papua (The Hague, 1886), pp. 61 sq. 



in PRIVATE PROPERTY 25 

dares to steal the fruit from the tree will be rent in pieces 
by a wild boar. The image of a crocodile with a thread of 
red cotton tied round its neck will be equally efficacious ; the 
thief will be devoured by a crocodile. A wooden effigy of 
a snake will make the culprit to be stung by a serpent A 
figure of a cat with a red band round its neck will cause all 
who approach the tree with evil intentions to suffer from 
excruciating pains in their stomachs, as if a cat were clawing 
their insides. 1 An image of a swallow will cause the thief to 
suffer as if a swallow were pecking his eyes out : a piece of 
thorny wood and a red spongy stone will inflict piercing 
pangs on him and make his whole body to be red and pitted 
with minute holes : a burnt-out brand will cause his house to 
burst into flames, without any apparent reason ; and so on. 2 
Similarly in the Ceram Laut Islands a man protects his 
cocoa-nut trees or sago palms by placing charmed objects at 
the foot of them. For example, he puts the effigy of a fish 
under his cocoa-nut trees and says, " Grandfather fish, cause 
the person who steals my cocoa-nuts to be sick and vomit." 
The culprit accordingly is seized with pains in his stomach 
and can only be relieved of them by the owner of the cocoa- 
nuts, who spits betel-nut juice on the ailing part and blows 
into the sufferer's ear, saying, " Grandfather fish, return to the 
sea. You have there room enough and great rocks of coral 
where you can swim about." Or again he may make a 
miniature coffin and place it on the ground under the tree ; 
then the thief will suffer from shortness of breath and a feel- 
ing of suffocation, as if he were actually shut up in a coffin. 
And many other devices there are whereby in these islands 
the owner of fruit-trees protects the fruit from the depreda- 
tions of his unscrupulous neighbours. In every case he 
deposits at the foot of the tree or fastens to the trunk a 
charmed object, which he regards as endowed with super- 
natural powers, and he invokes its aid to guard his 
possessions. 8 

1 J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit. pp. 114 Laut, en van een gedeelte van de zuid- 

sq. kust van Ceram, in vroegeren en 

k * Van Schmidt, " Aanteekeningen lateren tijd," Tijdschrift voor Nctr- 

nopehs de zeden, gewoonten en ge- lands Indie, v. Tweede deel (Batavia, 

bruiken, benevens de vooroordeelen en 1843), PP- 499'5 2 - 

bijgeloovigheden der bevolking van de 3 J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit. pp. 167 

eilanden Saparoea, Haroekoc, Noessa sq. 



26 PRIVATE PROPERTY in 

In Madagascar there is an elaborate system of taboo 
known as fady. 1 It has been carefully studied in a 
learned monograph by Mr. A. van Gennep, 2 who argues that 
originally all property was based on religion, and that marks 
of property were marks of taboo. 3 However, so far as the 
evidence permits us to judge, it does not appear that the 
system has been used by the Malagasy for the protection of 
property to the same extent as by the Polynesians, the 
Melanesians, and the Indonesians. But we hear of Mala- 
gasy charms placed in the fields to afflict with leprosy and 
other maladies any persons who should dare to steal from 
them. 4 And we are told that some examples of fady or 
taboo " seem to imply a curious basis for the moral code in 
regard to the rights of property among the last generation of 
Malagasy. It does not appear to have been fady to steal in 
general, but certain articles were specified, to steal which there 
were various penalties attached. Thus, to steal an egg caused 
the thief to become leprous ; to s'teal landy (native silk) 
caused blindness or some other infirmity. And to steal 
iron was also visited by some bodily affliction." 5 In order 
to recover stolen property the Malagasy had recourse to a 
deity called Ramanandroany. The owner would take a 
remnant of the thing that had been purloined, and going 
with it to the idol would say, " As to whoever stole our pro- 
perty, O Ramanandroany, kill him by day, destroy him by 
night, and strangle him ; let there be none amongst men 
like him ; let him not be able to increase in riches, not even 
a farthing, but let him pick up his livelihood as a hen pecks 
rice-grains ; let his eyes be blinded, and his knees swollen, 
O Ramanandroany." It was supposed that these curses fell 
on the thief. 6 

Similar modes of enforcing the rights of private property 

1 H. F. Standing, " Malagasy fady" 4 A. van Gennep, Tabou et Tote- 
The Antananarivo Annual and Mada- misme a Madagascar, p. 184. The 

gascar Magazine, vol. ii. (Antananarivo, writer has devoted a chapter (xi. pp. 

1896), pp. 252-265 (Reprint of the 183-193) to taboos of property. 

second Four Numbers'). 6 H. F. Standing, " Malagasy fady" 

2 A. van Gennep, Tabou et Toti- Antananarivo Annual and Mada- 
misme a Madagascar (Paris, 1904). & ascar Magazine, ii. (Antananarivo, 

1896), p. 256. 

3 A. van Gennep, op. cit. pp. 183 W. Ellis, History of Madagascar, 
sqq. i. 414. 



in PRIVATE PROPERTY 27 

by the aid of superstitious fears have been adopted in many 
other parts of the world. The subject has been copiously 
illustrated by Dr. Edward Westermarck in his very learned 
work on the origin and development of the moral ideas. 1 
Here I can cite only a few cases out of many. In Ceylon, 
when a person wishes to protect his fruit-trees from thieves, 
he hangs up certain grotesque figures round the orchard and 
dedicates it to the devils. After that no native will dare to 
touch the fruit ; even the owner himself will not venture to 
use it till the charm has been removed by a priest, who 
naturally receives some of the fruit for his trouble. 2 The 
Indians of Cumana in South America surrounded their 
plantations with a single cotton thread, and this was safe- 
guard enough ; for it was believed that any trespasser would 
soon die. The Juris of Brazil adopt the same simple means 
of stopping gaps in their fences. 3 In Africa also super- 
stition is a powerful ally of the rights of private property. 
Thus the Balonda place beehives on high trees in the 
forest and protect them against thieves by tying a charm 
or " piece of medicine " round the tree-trunks. This proves 
a sufficient protection. " The natives," says Livingstone, 
" seldom rob each other, for all believe that certain 
medicines can inflict disease and death ; and though they 
consider that these are only known to a few, they act on the 

1 E. Westermarck, The Origin and riage tie, conceptions which in time 

Development of Moral Ideas, ii. (Lon- grew strong enough to stand by them- 

don, 1908), pp. 59-69. In an article selves and to fling away the crutch of 

on taboo published many years ago superstition which in earlier days had 

(Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ninth Edi- been their sole support. For we shall 

tion, xxiii. (1888), pp. 15 sqq.} I scarcely err in believing that even in 

briefly pointed out the part which the advanced societies the moral sentiments, 

system of taboo has played in the in so far as they are merely sentiments 

evolution of law and morality. I may and are not based on an induction from 

be allowed to quote a passage from the experience, derive much of their force 

article : " The original character of the from an original system of taboo. Thus 

taboo must be looked for not in its civil on the taboo were grafted the golden 

but in its religious element. It was fruits of law and morality, while the 

not the creation of a legislator, but the parent stem dwindled slowly into the 

gradual outgrowth of animistic beliefs, sour crabs and empty husks of popular 

to which the ambition and avarice of superstition on which the swine of 

chiefs and priests afterwards gave an modern society are still content to feed." 

artificial extension. But in serving the * R. Percival, Account of the Island 

\cause of avarice and ambition it sub- of Ceylon (London, 1803), p. 198. 

served the cause of civilization, by s C. F. Ph. v. Martius, Zur Ethno- 

fostering conceptions of the rights of graphie Amerikas, zumal Brasilitns 

property and the sanctity of the mar- (Leipsic, 1867), p. 86. 



28 PRIVA TE PROPERTY HI 

principle that it is best to let them all alone. The gloom 
of these forests strengthens the superstitious feelings of the 
people. In other quarters, where they are not subjected to 
this influence, I have heard the chiefs issue proclamations to 
the effect, that real witchcraft medicines had been placed at 
certain gardens from which produce had been stolen ; the 
thieves having risked the power of the ordinary charms 
previously placed there." l 

Amongst the Nandi of British East Africa nobody dares 
to steal anything from a smith ; for if he did, the smith would 
heat his furnace, and as he blew the bellows to make the 
flames roar he would curse the thief so that he would die. 
And in like manner among these people, with whom the potters 
are women, nobody dares to filch anything from a potter ; 
for next time she heated her wares the potter would curse 
him, saying, " Burst like a pot, and may thy house become 
red," and the thief so cursed would die. 2 In Loango, when 
a man is about to absent himself from home for a consider- 
able time he protects his hut by placing a charm or fetish 
before it, consisting perhaps of a branch with some bits of 
broken pots or trash of that sort ; and we are told that even 
the most determined robber would not dare to cross a 
threshold defended by these mysterious signs. 3 On the 
coast of Guinea fetishes are sometimes inaugurated for the 
purpose of detecting and punishing certain kinds of theft ; 
and not only the culprit himself, but any person who knows 
of his crime and fails to give information is liable to be 
punished by the fetish. When such a fetish is instituted, 
the whole community is warned of it, so that he who 
transgresses thereafter does so at his peril. For example, a 
fetish was set up to prevent sheep-stealing and the people 
received warning in the usual way. Shortly afterwards a 
slave who had not heard of the law, stole a sheep and 
offered to divide it with a friend. The friend had often 
before shared with him in similar enterprises, but the fear of 
the fetish was now too strong for him ; he informed on the 

1 David Livingstone, Missionary pp. 36, 37. 

Travels and Researches in South Africa 3 Proyart's "History of Loango, 

(London, 1857), p. 285. Kakongo, and other Kingdoms in 

2 A. C. Hollis, The Nandi, their Africa," Pinkerton's Voyages and 
Language and Folk-lore (Oxford, 1909), Travels, xvi. 595. 



in PRIVATE PROPERTY 29 

thief, who was brought to justice and died soon after of a 
lingering and painful disease. Nobody in the country ever 
doubted but that the fetish had killed him. 1 Among the 
Ewe-speaking tribes of the Slave Coast in West Africa 
houses and household property are guarded by amulets 
(vd-sesao), which derive their virtue from being consecrated 
or belonging to the gods. The crops, also, in solitary glades 
of the forest, are left under the protection of such amulets, 
generally fastened to long sticks in some conspicuous 
position ; and so guarded they are quite safe from pillage. 
By the side of the paths, too, may be seen food and palm- 
wine lying exposed for sale with nothing but a charm to 
protect them ; a few cowries placed on each article indicates 
its price. Yet no native would dare to take the food or 
the wine without depositing its price ; for he dreads the 
unknown evil which the god who owns the charm would 
bring upon him for thieving. 2 In Sierra Leone charms, 
called greegrees, are often placed in plantations to deter 
people from stealing, and it is said that " a few old rags 
placed upon an orange tree will generally, though not 
always, secure the fruit as effectually as if guarded by the 
dragons of the Hesperides. When any person falls sick, if, 
at the distance of several months, he recollects having stolen 
fruit, etc., or having taken it softly as they term it, he 
immediately supposes wangka has caught him, and to get 
cured he must go or send to the person whose property he 
had taken, and make to him whatever recompense he 
demands." 3 Superstitions of the same sort have been 
transported by the negroes to the West Indies, where the 
name for magic is obi and the magician is called the obeah 
man. There also, we are told, the stoutest- hearted negroes 
" tremble at the very sight of the ragged bundle, the bottle or 
the egg-shells, which are stuck in the thatch or hung over 
the door of a hut, or upon the branch of a plantain tree, to 
deter marauders. . . . When a negro is robbed of a fowl or 

1 Rev. J. Leighton Wilson, Western Peoples of the Slave Coast of West 
Africa (London, 1856), pp. 275 sq. Africa (London, 1894), p. 118. 
v * A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Thomas Winterbottom, An Ac- 
Peoples of the Slave Coast of West count of the Native Africans in thf 
Africa (London, 1890), pp. 91 sq. Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone 
Compare id., The Yoruba-speaking (London, 1803), pp. 261 sq. 



30 PRIVATE PROPERTY in 

a hog, he applies directly to the Obeah-v\z.n or woman ; it is 
then made known among his fellow blacks, that obi is set for 
the thief; and as soon as the latter hears the dreadful news, 
his terrified imagination begins to work, no resource is left 
but in the superior skill of some more eminent Obeah-m&n 
of the neighbourhood, who may counteract the magical 
operations of the other ; but if no one can be found of 
higher rank and ability ; or if, after gaining such an ally, he 
should still fancy himself affected, he presently falls into a 
decline^ under the incessant horror of impending calamities. 
The slightest painful sensation in the head, the bowels, or 
any other part, any casual loss or hurt, confirms his 
apprehensions, and he believes himself the devoted victim 
of an invisible and irresistible agency. Sleep, appetite and 
cheerfulness forsake him ; his strength decays, his disturbed 
imagination is haunted without respite, his features wear the 
settled gloom of despondency ; dirt, or any other unwhole- 
some substance, becomes his only food ; he contracts a 
morbid habit of body, and gradually sinks into the grave." l 
Superstition has killed him. 

Similar evidence might doubtless be multiplied, but the 
foregoing cases suffice to shew that among many peoples and 
in many parts of the world superstitious fear has operated as 
a powerful motive to deter men from stealing. If that is so, 
then my second proposition may be regarded as proved, 
namely, that among certain races and at certain times super- 
stition has strengthened the respect for private property and 
has thereby contributed to the security of its enjoyment. 

1 Bryan Edwards, History, Civil Indies, Fifth Edition (London, 1819), 
and Commercial, of the British West ii. 107-111. 






IV 
MARRIAGE 

I PASS now to my third proposition, which is, that 
among certain races and at certain times superstition has 
strengthened the respect for marriage, and has thereby 
contributed to a stricter observance of the rules of sexual 
morality both among the married and the unmarried. That 
this is true will appear, I think, from the following instances. 
Among the Karens of Burma " adultery, or fornication, 
is supposed to have a powerful influence to injure the crops. 
Hence, if there have been bad crops in a village for a year 
or two, and the rains fail, the cause is attributed to secret 
sins of this character, and they say the God of heaven and 
earth is angry with them on this account ; and all the 
villagers unite in making an offering to appease him." 
And when a case of adultery or fornication has come to light, 
" the elders decide that the transgressors must buy a hog, 
and kill it. Then the woman takes one foot of the hog, and 
the man takes another, and they scrape out furrows in the 
ground with each foot, which they fill with the blood of the 
hog. They next scratch the ground with their hands and 
pray : ' God of heaven and earth, God of the mountains and 
hills, I have destroyed the productiveness of the country. 
Do not be angry with me, do not hate me ; but have mercy 
on me, and compassionate me. Now I repair the mountains, 
now I heal the hills, and the streams and the lands. May 
there be no failure of crops, may there be no unsuccessful 
labours, or unfortunate efforts in my country. Let them be 
dissipated to the foot of the horizon. Make thy paddy 
fruitful, thy rice abundant. Make the vegetables to flourish. 



32 MARRIAGE iv 

If we cultivate but little, still grant that we may obtain a 
little.' After each has prayed thus, they return to the 
house and say they have repaired the earth." l Thus, 
according to the Karens adultery and fornication are not 
simply moral offences which concern no one but the culprits 
and their families : they physically affect the course of 
nature by blighting the earth and destroying its fertility ; 
hence they are public crimes which threaten the very exist- 
ence of the whole community by cutting off its food supplies 
at the root. But the physical injury which these offences 
do to the soil can be physically repaired by saturating it 
with pig's blood. 

Some of the tribes of Assam similarly trace a con- 
Inection between the crops and the behaviour of the 
/ human sexes ; for they believe that so long as the crops 
/ remain ungarnered, the slightest incontinence would ruin 
I all. 2 Again, the inhabitants of the hills near Rajamahal in 
Bengal imagine that adultery, undetected and unexpiated, 
causes the inhabitants of the village to be visited by a 
plague or destroyed by tigers or other ravenous beasts. To 
prevent these evils an adultress generally makes a clean 
breast. Her paramour has then to furnish a hog, and he 
and she are sprinkled with its blood, which is supposed to 
wash away their sin and avert the divine wrath. When a 
village suffers from plague or the ravages of wild beasts, the 
people religiously believe that the calamity is a punishment 
for secret immorality, and they resort to a curious form of 
divination to discover the culprits, in order that the crime 
may be duly expiated. 3 The Khasis of Assam are divided 
into a number of clans which are exogamous, that is to 
say, no man may marry a woman of his own clan. Should 
a man be found to cohabit with a woman of his own clan, it 
is treated as incest and is believed to cause great disasters ; 
the people will be struck by lightning or killed by tigers, 

1 Rev. F. Mason, D.D.," On Dwell- 2 T. C. Hodson, "The Genna 

ings, Works of Art, Laws, etc., of the amongst the Tribes of Assam, "Journal 

Karens, " Jottrnal of the Asiatic Society of the Anthropological Institute, xxxvi. 

of Bengal, New Series, xxxvii. (1868) (1906) p. 94. 

part ii. No. 3, pp. 147^. Compare 3 Lieutenant Thomas Shaw, "On 

A. R. McMahon, The Karens of the the Inhabitants of the Hills near Raja- 

Golden Chersonese (London, 1876), mahall," Asiatic Researches, Fourth 

pp. 334 sq. Edition, iv. (1807) pp. 60-62. 



iv MARRIAGE 33 

the women will die in child-bed, and so forth. The guilty 
couple are taken by their clansmen to a priest and obliged 
to sacrifice a pig and a goat ; after that they are made 
outcasts, for their offence is inexpiable. 1 The Orang Glai, 
a savage tribe in the mountains of Annam, similarly suppose 
that illicit love is punished by tigers, which devour the 
sinners. If a girl is found with child, her family offers a 
feast of pigs, fowls, and wine to appease the offended spirits. 2 

The Battas of Sumatra in like manner think that if an 
unmarried woman is with child, she must be given in 
marriage at once, even to a man of lower rank ; for other- 
wise the people will be infested with tigers, and the crops 
in the fields will not be abundant. They also believe that 
the adultery of married women causes a plague of tigers, 
crocodiles, or other wild beasts. The crime of incest, in 
their opinion, would blast the whole harvest, if the wrong 
were not speedily repaired. Epidemics and other calamities 
that affect the whole people are almost always traced by 
them to incest, by which is to be understood any marriage 
that conflicts with their customs. 3 

Similar views prevail among many tribes in Borneo. 
Thus in regard to the Sea Dyaks we are told by Archdeacon 
Perham that "immorality among the unmarried is supposed to 
bring a plague of rain upon the earth, as a punishment inflicted 
by Petara. It must be atoned for with sacrifice and fine. In 
a function which is sometimes held to procure fine weather, the 
excessive rain is represented as the result of the immorality 
of two young people. Petara is invoked, the offenders are 
banished from their home, and the bad weather is said to 
cease. Every district traversed by an adulterer is believed 
to be accursed of the gods until the proper sacrifice has been 
offered." 4 When rain pours down day after day and the 

1 Major P. R. T. Gurdon, The uitgebreide artikelen, No. 3 (Amster- 

A'Aasis (London, 1907), pp. 94, 123. dam, 1886), pp. 514 sq. ; M. Joustra, 

monier, " Notes sur 1'Annam," " Het leven, de zeden en gewoonten der 

Excursions et reconnaissances, x. No. Bataks," Mededetlingen van ivege het 

24 (Saigon, 1885), pp. 308 s</. Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, 

3 J. B. Neumann, "Het Fane- xlvi. (1902) p. 411. 

erf \Bila -troomgebied op het eiland * Rev. J. Perham, " Petara, or Sea 

Sumatra," Tijdschrift van het Neder- Dyak Gods," Journal of the Straits 

landsch Aaardrijkshundig Genootschaf, />' ranch of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 

Tweede Serie, dl. iii., afdeeling, meer 8, December 1881, p. 150; H. Ling 

D 



34 MARRIAGE iv 

crops are rotting in the fields, these Dyaks come to the 
conclusion that some people have been secretly indulging 
in lusts of the flesh ; so the elders lay their heads together 
and adjudicate on all cases of incest and bigamy, and purify 
the earth with the blood of pigs, which appears to these 
savages, as sheep's blood appeared to the ancient Hebrews, 
to possess the valuable property of atoning for moral guilt. 
Not long ago the offenders, whose lewdness had thus brought 
the whole country into danger, would have been punished 
with death or at least slavery. A Dyak may not marry his 
first cousin unless he first performs a special ceremony called 
bergaput to avert evil consequences from the land. The 
couple repair to the water-side, fill a small pitcher with their 
personal ornaments, and sink it in the river ; or instead of a 
jar they fling a chopper and a plate into the water. A pig 
is then sacrificed on the bank, and its carcass, drained of 
blood, is thrown in after the jar. Next the pair are pushed 
into the water by their friends' and ordered to bathe to- 
gether. Lastly, a joint of bamboo is filled with pig's blood, 
and the couple perambulate the country and the villages 
round about, sprinkling the blood on the ground. After 
that they are free to marry. This is done, we are told, for 
the sake of the whole country, in order that the rice may not 
be blasted by the marriage of cousins. 1 Again, we are 
informed that the Sibuyaus, a Dyak tribe of Sarawak, are 
very careful of the honour of their daughters, because they 
imagine that if an unmarried girl is found to be with child 
it is offensive to the higher powers, who, instead of always 
chastising the culprits, punish the tribe by visiting its 
members with misfortunes. Hence when such a crime is 
detected they fine the lovers and sacrifice a pig to appease 
the angry powers and to avert the sickness or other calami- 
ties that might follow. Further, they inflict fines on the 

Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and regularly substituting / or b for v. 

British Borneo (London, 1896), See Rev. J. Perham, op. cit. pp. 133 

i. 1 80. Petara is the general Dyak sqq. ; H. Ling Roth's Natives of Sara- 

name for deity. The common idea is wak and British Borneo, i. 1 68 sqq. 
that there are many petaras, indeed 1 H. Ling Roth, " Low's Natives 

that every man has his own. The of Borneo," Journal of the Anthropo- 

word is said to be derived from logical Institute, xxi. (1892) pp. 113 

Sanscrit and to be etymologically sq. t 133 ; compare id., ibid. xxii. 

identical with Avatar, the Dyaks (1893) p. 24. 



iv MARRIAGE 35 

families of the couple for any severe accident or death by 
drowning that may have happened at any time within a 
month before the religious atonement was made ; for they 
regard the families of the culprits as responsible for these 
mishaps. The fines imposed for serious or fatal accidents 
are heavy ; for simple wounds they are lighter. With the 
fear of these fines before their eyes parents keep a watch- 
ful eye on the conduct of their daughters. Among the 
Dyaks of the Batang Lupar river the chastity of the un- 
married girls is not so strictly guarded ; but in respectable 
families, when a daughter proves frail, they sacrifice a pig 
and sprinkle its blood on the doors to wash away the sin. 1 
The Hill Dyaks of Borneo abhor incest and do not allow 
the marriage even of cousins. In 1846 the Baddat Dyaks 
complained to Mr. Hugh Low that one of their chiefs had 
disturbed the peace and prosperity of the village by marrying 
his own granddaughter. Since that disastrous event, they 
said, no bright day had blessed their territory ; rain and 
darkness alone prevailed, and unless the plague-spot were 
removed, the tribe would soon be ruined. The old sinner 
was degraded from office, but apparently allowed to retain 
his wife ; and the domestic brawls between this ill-assorted 
couple gave much pain to the virtuous villagers. 2 

The Bahau, another tribe in the interior of Borneo, 
believe that adultery is punished by the spirits, who visit 
the whole tribe with failure of the crops and other mis- 
fortunes. Hence in order to avert these evil consequences 
from the innocent members of the tribe, the two culprits, 
with all their possessions, are first placed on a gravel bank 
in the middle of the river, in order to isolate or, in electrical 
language, to insulate them and so prevent the moral or 
rather physical infection from spreading. Then pigs and 
fowls are killed, and with the blood priestesses smear the 
property of the guilty pair in order to disinfect it. Finally, 
the two are placed on a raft, with sixteen eggs, and allowed 
to drift down stream. They may save themselves by 
plunging into the water and swimming ashore ; but this is 

* Spenser St. John, Life in the a Hugh Low, Sarawak (London, 
Forests of the Far East, Second 1848), pp. 300 sy. 
Edition (London, 1863), i. 63 sg. 



36 MARRIAGE iv 

perhaps a mitigation of an older sentence of death by 
drowning, for young people still shower long grass stalks, 
representing spears, at the shamefaced and dripping couple. 1 
Certain it is, that some Dyak tribes used to punish incest 
by fastening the man and woman in separate baskets laden 
with stones and drowning them in the river. By incest 
they understood the cohabitation of parents with children, 
of brothers with sisters, and of uncles and aunts with nieces 
and nephews. A Dutch resident had much difficulty in 
saving the life of an uncle and niece who had married each 
other ; finally he procured their banishment to a distant 
part of Borneo. 2 The Blu- u Kayans, another tribe in the 
interior of Borneo, believe that an intrigue between an 
unmarried pair is punished by the spirits with failure of the 
harvest, of the fishing, and of the hunt. Hence the delin- 
quents have to appease the wrath of the spirits by sacrificing 
a pig and a certain quantity of rice. 3 In Pasir, a district of 
Eastern Borneo, incest is thought' to bring dearth, epidemics, 
and all sorts of evils on the land. 4 In the island of Ceram 
a man convicted of unchastity has to smear every house 
in the village with the blood of a pig and a fowl : this is 
supposed to wipe out his guilt and ward off misfortunes 
from the village. 5 

Among the Macassars and Bugineese of Southern Celebes 
incest is a capital crime ; but the blood of the guilty pair 
may not be shed, for the people think that, were the ground 
to be polluted by the blood of such criminals, the rivers 
would dry up and the supply of fish would run short, the 
harvest and the produce of the gardens would miscarry, 
edible fruits would fail, sickness would be rife among cattle 
and horses, civil strife would break out, and the country 
would suffer from other widespread calamities. Hence the 
punishment of the guilty is such as to avoid the spilling of 
their blood : usually they are tied up in a sack and thrown 

1 A. W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer durch 4 A. H. F. J. Nusselein, "Beschrij- 
Borneo (Leyden, 1904-1907), i. 367. ving van het landschap Pasir," Bij- 

2 M. T. H. Perelaer, Ethnogra- dragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volken- 
phische Beschrijving der Dajaks (Zalt- kunde -van Nederlandsch Indie, Iviii. 
Bommel, 1870), pp. 59 sq. (1905) p. 538. 

3 A. W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer durch 6 A. Bastian, Indonesien, i. (Berlin, 
Borneo, ii. 99. 1884) p. 144. 



iv MARRIAGE 37 

into the sea to drown. Yet they get on their journey to 
eternity the necessary provisions, consisting of a bag of rice, 
salt, dried fish, cocoa-nuts, and other things, among which 
three quids of betel are not forgotten. 1 We can now per- 
haps understand why the Romans used to sew up a parricide 
in a sack with a dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape for com- 
pany, and fling him into the sea. They probably feared to 
defile the soil of Italy by spilling upon it the blood of such 
a miscreant. 2 Amongst the Tomori of Central Celebes a 
person guilty of incest is throttled ; no drop of his blood 
may fall on the ground, for if it did, the rice would never 
grow again. The union of uncle with niece is regarded by 
these people as incest, but it can be expiated by an offering. 
A garment of the man and one of the woman are laid on a 
copper vessel ; the blood of a sacrificed animal, either a goat 
or a fowl, is allowed to drip on the garments, and then the 
vessel with its contents is set floating down the river. 3 
Among the Tololaki, another tribe of Central Celebes, 
persons who have defiled themselves with incest are shut 
up in a basket and drowned. No drop of their blood may 
be spilt on the ground, for that would hinder the earth from 
ever bearing fruit again. 4 When it rains in torrents, the 
Galelareese of Halmahera, another large East Indian island, 
say that brother and sister, or father and daughter, or in 
short some near kinsfolk are having illicit relations with 
each other, and that every human being must be informed 
of it, for then only will the rain cease to descend. The! 
superstition has repeatedly caused blood relations to bel 
accused, rightly or wrongly, of incest. Further, the people' 

1 B. F. Matthes, " Over de ado's of viii. 214. If the view suggested above 

gewoonten der Makassaren en Boe- is correct, the scourging of the criminal 

gineezen," Verslagen en Mededeelingin to the effusion of blood (virgis san- 

der Koninklijke Akademie van We- guineis verberatus) must have been a 

tenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde, later addition to the original penalty. 

Derde Reeks, ii. (Amsterdam, 1885) 3 A. C. Kruijt, " Eenige aanteeke- 

p. 182. ningen omtrent de Toboengkoe en de 

* Digest, xlviii. 9. 9, Poena parricidii Tomori," Mededeelingen van wege het 

more majorunt haec instituta est, ut Nederlandsche Zeudelinggenootschap % 

parricida virgis sanguineis verberatus xliv. (1900) p. 235. 

delude ctilleo insuatur cum cane^gallo * A. C. Kruijt, "Van Posso naar 

ghllinaffo el vipera et simia : deinde in Mori," Mededeelingen van vaege het 

mart prof undum culleusjactatur. Com- Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, 

pare Valerius Maximus, i. I. 13; Pro- xliv. (1900) p. 162. 
fessor J. E. B. Mayor's note on Juvenal, 



38 MARRIAGE iv 

think that alarming natural phenomena, such as a violent 
earthquake or the eruption of a volcano, are caused by 
crimes of the same sort. Persons charged with such offences 
are brought to Ternate ; it is said that formerly they were 
often drowned on the way or, on being haled hither, were 
condemned to be thrown into the volcano. 1 In the Banggai 
Archipelago, to the east of Celebes, earthquakes are ex- 
plained as punishments inflicted by evil spirits for indulgence 
in illicit love. 2 

In some parts of Africa, also, it is believed that breaches 
of sexual morality disturb the course of nature, particularly 
by blighting the fruits of the earth ; and probably such views 
are much more widely diffused in that continent than the 
scanty and fragmentary evidence at our disposal might lead 
us to suppose. Thus, the negroes of Loango, in West 
Africa, imagine that the commerce of a man with an im- 
mature girl is punished by God with drought and consequent 
famine until the trangressors expiate their transgression by 
dancing naked before the king and an assembly of the 
people, who throw hot gravel and bits of glass at the pair 
as they run the gauntlet. The rains in that country should 
fall in September, but in 1898 there was a long drought, 
and when the month of December had nearly passed, the 
sun-scorched stocks of the fruitless Indian corn shook their 
rustling leaves in the wind, the beans lay shrivelled and 
black on the ruddy soil, and the shoots of the sweet potato 
had flowered and withered long ago. The people cried out 
against their rulers for neglecting their duty to the primeval 
powers of the earth ; the priests of the sacred groves had 
recourse to divination and discovered that God was angry 
with the land on account of the immorality of certain persons 
unknown, who were not observing the traditions and laws of 
their God and country. The feeble old king had fled, but 
the slave who acted as regent in his room sent word to the 
chiefs that there were people in their towns who were the 
cause of God's wrath. So every chief called his subjects 
together and caused enquiries to be made, and then it was 

1 M. J. van Baarda, " Fabelen, Indie, xlv. (1895) p. 514. 

Verhalen en Overleveringen der Gale- 2 F. S. A. de Clerq, Bijdragen tot 

lareezen," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- de Kennis der Residentie Ternate 

en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch (Leyden, 1890), p. 132. 



iv MARRIAGE 39 

discovered that three girls had broken the customs of 
their country, for they were with child before they had 
passed through what is called the paint-house, that is, before 
they had been painted red and secluded for a season in 
token that they had attained to the age of puberty. The 
people were incensed and endeavoured to punish or even 
kill the three girls ; and the English writer who has re- 
corded the case has thought it worth while to add that 
on the very morning when the culprits were brought before 
the magistrate rain fell. 1 Amongst the Bavili of Loango, 
who are divided into totemic clans, no man is allowed 
to marry a woman of his mother's clan ; and God is 
believed to punish a breach of this marriage law by 
withholding the rains in their due season. 2 Similar notions 
of the blighting influence of sexual crime appear to be 
entertained by the Nandi of British East Africa ; for we 
are told that when a warrior has got a girl with child, 
she " is punished by being put in Coventry, none of her 
girl friends being allowed to speak to or look at her until 
after the child is born and buried. She is also regarded 
with contempt for the rest of her life and may never look 
inside a granary for fear of spoiling the corn." 5 Among 
the Basutos in like manner " while the corn is exposed to 
view, all defiled persons are carefully kept from it. If the 
aid of a man in this state is necessary for carrying home the 
harvest, he remains at some distance while the sacks are 
filled, and only approaches to place them upon the draught 
oxen. He withdraws as soon as the load is deposited at 
the dwelling, and under no pretext can he assist in pouring 
the corn into the basket in which it is preserved." * The 
nature of the defilement which thus disqualifies a man from 
handling the corn is not mentioned, but we may conjecture 
that unchastity would fall under this general head. For 
amongst the Basutos after a child is born a fresh fire has to 
be kindled in the dwelling by the friction of wood, and this 

1 Dapper, Description de FAfrique 3 A. C. Hollis, The Nandi, their 

(Amsterdam, 1686), p. 326; R. E. Language a nd Folk- lore (Oxford, 1909), 

Dennett, At the Back of the Black p. 76. 

Mart's Mind (London, 1906), pp. 53, * Rev. E. Casalis, The Basutos 

67-71. (London, 1861), p. 252. 

* R. E. Dennett, of. cit. p. 52. 



40 MARRIAGE iv 

must be done by a young man of chaste habits ; it is 
believed that an untimely death awaits him who should 
dare to discharge this holy office after having lost his 
innocence. 1 

These examples suffice to prove that among many 
savage races breaches of the marriage laws are believed to 
draw down on the community public calamities of the most 
serious character, that in particular they are thought to 
blast the fruits o the earth through excessive rain or 
s [excessive drought. Traces of similar beliefs may perhaps 
hbe detected among the civilised races of antiquity. Thus 
among the Hebrews we read how Job, passionately protest- 
ing his innocence before God, declares that he is no 
adulterer ; " For that," says he, " were an heinous crime ; yea 
it were an iniquity to be punished by the judges : for it is a 
fire that consumeth unto Destruction, and would root out all 
mine increase." 5 In this passage the Hebrew word trans- 
lated " increase " commonly means " the produce of the 
earth " ; 8 and if we give the word its usual sense here, then 
Job affirms adultery to be destructive of the fruits of the 
ground, which is precisely what many savages still believe. 
This interpretation of his words is strongly confirmed by 
two narratives in Genesis, where we read how Sarah, 
Abraham's wife, was taken by a king into his harem, and how 
thereafter God visited the king and his household with 
great plagues, especially by closing up the wombs of the 
king's wife and his maid-servants so that they bare no 
children. It was not till the king had discovered and 
confessed his sin, and Abraham had prayed God to forgive 
him, that the king's women again became fruitful. 4 These 
narratives seem to imply that adultery, even when it is com- 
mitted in ignorance, is a cause of plague and especially of 

1 Rev. E. Casalis, The Basutos, p. killed their enemies in battle, are all 

267. The writer tells us (pp. 255 sq.) considered impure." No doubt all such 

that "death with all that immediately persons would also be prohibited from 

precedes or follows it, is in the eyes of handling the corn, 
these people the greatest of all defile- 2 Job xxxi. II sq. (Revised Version), 

ments. Thus the sick, persons who 3 nwan. See Hebrew and English 

have touched or buried a corpse, or Lexicon, by F. Brown, S. R. Driver, 

who have dug the grave, individuals who and Ch. A. Briggs (Oxford, 1906), 

inadvertently walk over or sit upon a p. 100. 

grave, the near relatives of a person 4 Genesis xii. 10-20, xx. 1-18. 

deceased, murderers, warriors who have 



iv MARRIAGE 4' 

sterility among women. Again, in Leviticus, after a long 
list of sexual crimes, we read : l " Defile not ye yourselves 
in any of these things : for in all these the nations are 
defiled which I cast out from before you : and the land is 
defiled : therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and 
the land vomiteth out her inhabitants." This passage seems 
to imply that the land itself was somehow physically affected 
by sexual transgressions in such a way that it could no 
longer support the inhabitants. Apparently the ancient 
Greeks entertained a similar view of the wasting effect of 
incest ; for according to Sophocles the land of Thebes 
suffered from blight, pestilence, and the sterility both of 
women and cattle under the reign of Oedipus, who had 
unwittingly slain his father and married his mother ; the 
country was emptied of its inhabitants, and the Delphic oracle 
declared that the only way to restore prosperity to it 
was to banish the sinner. 2 No doubt the poet and his 
hearers set down these public calamities in part to the guilt 
of parricide which rested on Oedipus ; but probably they 
also laid much of the evil at the door of the incest which 
he had committed with his mother. In the reign of the 
emperor Claudius ajjlornan noble was accused of incest with 
his sister. He committed suicide, his sister was banished, 
and the emperor ordered that certain ancient ceremonies 
derived from the laws of King Servius Tullius should be 
performed, and that expiation should be made by the 
pontiffs at the sacred grove of Diana. 3 As Diana appears 
to have been a goddess of fertility in general and of the 
fruitfulness of women in particular, 4 the expiation for incest 
offered at her sanctuary may perhaps be accepted as evidence 
that the Romans, like other peoples, attributed to sexual 
immorality a tendency to blast the fruits both of the earth 
and of the womb. According to an ancient Jrish legend 
Munster was afflicted in the third century of our era with a 
failure of the crops and other misfortunes. When the 
nobles enquired into the matter, they learned that these 

1 Leviticus xviii. 24 sq. 3 Tacitus, Annals, xii. 4 and 8. 

4 See my Lectures on the Early 

2 Sophocles, Oedipus Tyraiitnis, History of the Kingship (London, 
22 sqq., 95 sqq. 1905), pp. 13 sqq., 17. 



42 MARRIAGE iv 

calamities were the result of an incest which the king had 
committed with his sister. In order to put an end to the 
evil they demanded of the king his two sons, the fruit of 
this unholy union, that they might consume them with fire 
and cast their ashes into the running stream. 1 

Thus it appears that in the opinion of many peoples 
sexual irregularities, whether of the married or the unmarried, 
are not regarded merely as moral offences which affect only 
the few persons immediately concerned ; they are believed 
to involve the whole people in danger and disaster either 
directly by a sort of magical influence or indirectly by 
rousing the wrath of gods to whom these acts are offensive. 
Nay they are often supposed to strike a blow at the very 
existence of the community by blighting the fruits of the 
earth and thereby cutting off the food supply. Wherever 
these superstitions prevail, it is obvious that public opinion 
and public justice will treat sexual offences with far greater 
severity than is meted out to them by peoples who, 
like most civilised nations, regard such misdemeanours as 
matters of private rather than of public concern, as sins 
rather than crimes, which may perhaps affect the eternal 
welfare of the individual sinner in a life hereafter, but 
which do not in any way imperil the temporal welfare of the 
innocent community as a whole. And conversely, wherever 
we find that incest, adultery, and fornication are treated by 
the community with .extreme rigour, we may reasonably 
infer that the original motive for such treatment was super- 
stition ; in other words, that wherever a tribe or nation, not 
content with leaving these transgressions to be avenged by 
the injured parties, has itself punished them with exceptional 
severity, the reason for doing so has probably been a 
belief that the effect of all such delinquencies is to disturb 
the course of nature and thereby to endanger the whole 
people, who accordingly must protect themselves by 
effectually disarming and, if necessary, exterminating 
the delinquents. This may explain, for example, why the 
Indian Laws of Manu decreed that an adulteress should be 

1 G. Keating, Historv of Ireland, Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland 
translated by J. O'Mahony (New (London, 1903), ii. 512 sq. 
York, 1857), pp. 337 sg. ; P. W. 



iv MARRIAGE 43 

devoured by dogs in a public place and that an adulterer 
should be roasted to death on a red-hot iron bed ; ' why the 
Babylonian code of Hammurabi sentenced an adulterous 
couple to be strangled and cast into the river ; why the same 
code punished incest with a mother by burning both the 
culprits ; 2 why the Mosaic law condemned the adulteress 
and her paramour to death ; 3 and why among the Saxons, 
down to the days of St. Boniface, the maiden who had 
dishonoured her father's house, or the adulteress, was com- 
pelled to hang herself, was burned, and her paramour hung 
over the blazing pile, or she was scourged or cut to pieces 
with knives by all the women of the village till she was 
dead. 4 Among the Nandi of British East Africa " incest, 
intercourse with a step-mother, step-daughter, cousin or other 
near relation, is punished by what is known as injoket. A 
crowd of people assemble outside the house of the culprit, 
who is dragged out, and the punishment is inflicted by the 
women, all of whom, both young and old, strip for the 
occasion. The man is flogged, his houses and crops 
destroyed, and some of his stock confiscated." 5 Among 
the Baganda adultery was invariably punished by the deatli 
of both the delinquents : they were first put to horrible 
tortures to wring a confession from them and then killed. 6 
" The Hottentots," says an old writer, " allow not marriages 
between first or second cousins. They have a traditionary 
law, which ordains, that both man and woman, so near to 
each other in blood, who shall be convicted of joining 
together either in marriage or fornication, shall be cudgel'd 
to death. This law, they say, has prevail'd through all the 
generations of 'em ; and that they execute it at once, 
upon conviction, without any regard to wealth, power, or 
affinity." 7 It is difficult to believe that in these and similar 

1 Laws of Mann, viii. 371 sy. t 4 H. II. Milman, History of Latin 

translated by G. Btihler, pp. 318 sq. Christianity, ii. 54. 
(Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxv.). 6 A. C. Hollis, The Nandi, their 

Compare Gautama, xxiii. 14 sy., trans- Language and Folk-lore (Oxford, 1909), 

lated by G. Biihler, p. 285 (Sacred p. 76. 
Books of the East, vol. ii.). 6 Rev. J. Roscoe, "Further Notes 

8 Code of Hammurabi, 129, 157, on the Manners and Customs of the 

C. H. W. Johns, Babylonian and Baganda," Journal of the Anthropo- 

^ Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters logical Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 39. 
(Edinburgh, 1904), pp. 54, 56. ~ I'eter Kolben, The Present State 

3 Deuteronomy xxii. 22. of the Cape of Good Hope (London, 



44 MARRIAGE iv 

cases the community would inflict such severe punishment 
for sexual offences if it did not believe that its own safety, 
and not merely the interest of a few individuals, was 
imperilled thereby. 

If now we ask why illicit relations between the sexes 
should be supposed to disturb the balance of nature 
and particularly to blast the fruits of the earth, a partial 
answer may be conjecturally suggested. It is not enough 
to say that such relations are displeasing to the gods, who 
punish indiscriminately the whole community for the sins of a 
few. For we must always bear in mind that the gods are 
creations of man's fancy ; he fashions them in human like- 
ness, and endows them with tastes and opinions which are 
merely vast cloudy projections of his own. To affirm, there- 
fore, that something is a sin because God wills it so, is only 
to push the enquiry one stage farther back and to raise the 
hfurther question, Why is God supposed to dislike and punish 
wthese particular acts? In the case .with which we are here 
concerned the reason why so many savage gods prohibit 
adultery, fornication, and incest under pain of their severe 
Displeasure may perhaps be found in the analogy which 
9.ny savage men trace between the reproduction of the 
uman species and the reproduction of animals and plants. 
he analogy is not purely fanciful, on the contrary it is real 
and vital ; but primitive peoples have given it a false ex- 
tension in a vain attempt to apply it practically to increasing 
the food supply. They have imagined, in fact, that by per- 
forming or abstaining from certain sexual acts they thereby 
directly promoted the reproduction of animals and the 
multiplication of plants. 1 All such acts and abstinences, it 



i. 157. For many more ex- For some instances see George Catlin, 

amples of the death penalty and other O-Kee-Pa, a Religious Ceremony and 

severe punishments inflicted for sexual other Customs of the Mandans (Lon- 

offences, see E. Westermarck, The don, 1867), Folium Reservatum, pp. 

Origin and Development of Moral Ideas , i.-iii. (multiplication of buffaloes); 

ii. (London, 1908) pp. 366 sqq,, 425 History of the Expedition under the 

sqq. Command of Captains Lewis and Clark 

1 For examples of the attempt to to the Sources of the Missouri (London, 

multiply edible plants in this fashion, 1905), i. 209 sq. (multiplication or 

see The Golden Bough, Second Edition, attraction of buffaloes) ; Maximilian 

ii. 204 sqq. The reported examples Prinz zu Wied, Keise in das innere 

of similar attempts to assist the multi- Nord- America (Coblentz, 1839-1841), 

plication of animals seem to be rarer. ii. 181, 263-267 (multiplication or 



iv MARRIAGE 45 

is obvious, are purely superstitious and wholly fail to effect 
the desired result. They are not religious but m_aical ;| 
that is, they compass their end, not by an appeal to the! 
gods, but by manipulating natural forces in accordance! 
with certain false ideas of physical causation. In the 
present case the principle on which savages seek to pro- 
pagate animals and plants is that of magical sympathy 
or imitation : they fancy that they assist the reproductive 
process in nature by mimicking or performing it among 
themselves. Now in the evolution of society such efforts to 
control the course of nature directly by means of magical 
rites appear to have preceded the efforts to control it 
indirectly by appealing to the vanity and cupidity, the 
good-nature and pity of the gods ; in short, magjcseems 
to be older than religion. 1 In most races, it : Fs truc^ine 
epoch of unadulterated magic, of magic untinged by religion, 
belongs to such a remote past that its existence, like that of 
our ape-like ancestors, can be a matter of inference only ; 
almost everywhere in history and the world we find magic 
and religion side by side, at one time allies, at another 
enemies, now playing into each other's hands, now cursing, 
objurgating, and vainly attempting to exterminate one 
another. On the whole the lower intelligences cling closely, 
though secretly, to magic, while the higher intelligences have 
discerned the vanity of its pretensions and turned to religion 
instead. The result has been that beliefs and rites which II JU 
were purely magical in origin often contract in course off! 
time a religious character ; they are modified in accordance! 1 
with the advance of thought, they are translated into terms 
of gods and spirits, whether good and beneficent, or evil and 
malignant. We may surmise, though we cannot prove, that 
a change of this sort has come over the minds of many races 
with regard to sexual morality. At some former time, 

attraction of buffaloes); Reports of Journalof the Anthropological Institute, 

the Cambridge Anthropological Ex- xxiv. (1895) P- '74 (multiplication 

pedition to Torres Straits, v. (1904), of edible rats); id. "The Dieyerie 

p. 271 (multiplication of turtles); Tribe," in Native Tribes of South 

J. Roscoe, "Further Notes on the Australia (Adelaide, 1879), p. 280 

Manners and Customs of the Baganda," (multiplication of dogs and snakes). 

Journal of the Anthropological Institute, * I have give my reasons for think- 

xxxii. (1902) p. 53 (multiplication of ing so elsewhere (The Golden Bough, 

edible green locusts) ; S. Gason, in Second Edition, i. 69 sqq ). 



46 MARRIAGE iv 

perhaps, straining a real analogy too far, they believed that 
those relations of the human sexes which for any reason 
they regarded as right and natural had a tendency to 
promote sympathetically the propagation of animals and 
plants and thereby to ensure a supply of food for the com- 
munity ; while on the contrary they may have imagined 
that those relations of the human sexes which for any 
reason they deemed wrong and unnatural had a tend- 
ency to thwart and impede the propagation of animals 
and plants and thereby to diminish the common supply of 
food. Such a belief, it is obvious, would furnish a sufficient 
motive for the strict prohibition of what were deemed im- 
proper relations between men and women ; and it would 
explain the deep horror and detestation with which sexual 
irregularities are viewed by many, though certainly not by 
all, savage tribes. For if improper relations between the 

I human sexes prevent animals and plants from multiply- 
ing, they strike a fatal blow at the existence of the tribe 
by cutting off its supply of food at the roots. No 
wonder, therefore, that wherever such superstitions have 
prevailed the whole community, believing its very existence 
to be put in jeopardy by sexual immorality, should turn 
savagely on the culprits, and beat, burn, drown or otherwise 
exterminate them in order to rid itself of so dangerous a 
pollution. And when with the advance of knowledge men 
began to perceive the mistake they had made in imagining 
that the commerce of the human sexes could affect the 
: propagation of animals and plants, they would still through 
long habit be so inured to the idea of the wickedness of 
certain sexual relations that they could not dismiss it from 
their minds, even when they discerned the fallacious nature 
of the reasoning by which they had arrived at it. The old 
practice would therefore stand, though the old theory had 
f;illen : the old rules of sexual morality would continue to 
be observed, but if they were to retain the respect of the 
community, it was necessary to place them on a new 
theoretical basis. That basis, in accordance with the general 
advance of thought, was supplied by religion. Sexual 
relations which had once been condemned as wrong 
and unnatural because they were supposed to thwart the 



I 
e j 

'I 

>' 



iv MARK /AGE 47 

natural multiplication of animals and plants and thereby 
to diminish the food supply, would now be condemned 
because it was imagined that they were displeasing to gods 
or spirits, those stalking-horses which savage man rigs out 
in the cast-off clothes of his still more savage ancestors 
The moral practice would therefore remain the same 
though its theoretical basis had been shifted from magi 
to religion. In this or some such way as this we ma 
conjecture that the Karens, Dyaks, and other savages 
reached those curious conceptions of sexual immorality 
and its consequences which we have been considering. 
But from the nature of the case the development of moral 
theory which I have sketched is purely hypothetical and 
hardly admits of verification. 

However, even if we assume for a moment that the 
savages in question reached their present view of sexual 
immorality in the way I have surmised, there remains 
behind all the question, I low did they originally come tol 
regard certain relations of the sexes as immoral ? For 
clearly the notion that such immorality interferes with the 
course of nature must have been secondary and derivative : 
people must on independent grounds have concluded that 
certain relations between men and women were wrong and 
injurious before they extended the conclusion by false 
analogy to nature. The question brings us face to face 
with the deepest and darkest problem in the history of 
society, the problem of the origin of the laws which 
still regulate marriage and the relations of the sexes 
among civilised nations ; for broadly speaking the funda- 
mental laws which we recognise in these matters are recog- 
nised also by savages, with this difference, that among 
many savages the sexual prohibitions are far more numerous, 
the horror excited by breaches of them far deeper, and the 
punishment inflicted on the offenders far sterner than with 
us. The problem has often been attacked, but never solved. 
Perhaps it is destined, like so many riddles of that Sphinx 
which we call nature, to remain for ever insoluble. At 
all events this is not the place to broach so intricate and 
profound a discussion. I return to my immediate subject. 

In the opinion of many savages the effect of sexual 



48 MARRIAGE. iv 

immorality is not merely to disturb, directly or indirectly, 
the course of nature by blighting the crops, causing the 
earth to quake, volcanoes to vomit fire, and so forth : the 
delinquents themselves, their offspring, or their innocent 
spouses are supposed to suffer in their own persons for the 
sin that has been committed. Thus the Baganda of Central 
Africa believe that if a wife who is with child by her hus- 
band commits adultery she will either die in childbed or go 
mad and attempt to kill and devour her offspring. Further, 
they think that if, after the child is born and before it is 
named, either husband or wife proves unfaithful to the other, 
their child will die, unless the medicine-man saves its life by 
a magical ceremony. Since death in child-bed is regarded 
by these people as a sure proof that the woman had been 
guilty of adultery, the unfortunate husband who loses his 
wife in this way is fined by her family for his culpable 
negligence in allowing her to go astray with another man 
and so to incur the fatal consequences of her sin. 1 Again, 
it appears to be a common notion with savages that the 
infidelity of a wife prevents her husband from killing game 
and even exposes him to imminent risk of being himself 
killed or wounded by wild beasts. This belief is entertained 
by the Wagogo and other peoples of East Africa, by the 
Moxos Indians of Bolivia, and by Aleutian hunters of sea- 
otters. In such cases any mishap that befalls the husband 
during the chase is set down by him to the score of his wife's 
misconduct at home ; he returns in wrath and visits his ill- 
luck on the often innocent object of his suspicions even, it 
may be, to the shedding of her blood. 2 While the Huichol 
Indians of Mexico are away seeking for a species of cactus 
which they regard as sacred, their women at home are bound 
to be strictly chaste ; otherwise they believe that they would 
be visited with illness and would endanger the success of the 
men's expedition. 3 An old writer on Madagascar tells us 

1 Rev. J. Roscoe, "Further Notes logical Institute, xxxii. (1902) pp. 318 
on the Manners and Customs of the sq. ; A. D'Orbigny, Voyage dans 
Baganda," Journal of the Anthropo- FAmfrique mtridionale, iii. Part i. 
logical Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 39. p. 226; J. Petroff, Report on the 

2 P. Reichard, Deutsch Ostafrika Population, Industries, and Resources 
(Leipsic, 1892), p. 427; H. Cole, of Alaska, p. 155. 

" Notes on the Wagogo of German 3 C. Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico 

East Africa, "Journal of the Anthropo- (London, 1903), ii. 128 jy. 



iv Af ARK I AGE 49 

that though Malagasy women are voluptuous they will not 
allow themselves to be drawn into an intrigue while their 
husbands are absent at the wars, for they believe that infi- 
delity at such a time would cause the absent spouse to be 
wounded or slain. 1 If only King David had held this belief 
he might have contented himself with a single instead of a 
double crime, and need not have sent his Machiavellian 
order to put the injured husband in the forefront of the 
battle. 2 The Zulus imagine that an unfaithful wife who 
touches her husband's furniture without first eating certain 
herbs causes him to be seized with a fit of coughing of 
which he soon dies. Moreover, among the Zulus " a man 
who has had criminal intercourse with a sick person's wife is 
prohibited from visiting the sick-chamber ; and, if the sick 
person is a woman, any female who has committed adultery 
with her husband must not visit her. They say that, if 
these visits ever take place, the patient is immediately 
oppressed with a cold perspiration and dies. This prohibi- 
tion was thought to find out the infidelities of the women 
and to make them fear discovery." a For a similar reason, 
apparently, during the sickness of a Caffre chief his tribe 
was bound to observe strict continence under pain of death. 4 
The notion seems to have been that any act of incontinence 
would through some sort of magical sympathy prove fatal 
to the sick chief. Similarly, in the kingdom of Congo, 
when the sacred pontiff called the Chitom was going his 
rounds throughout the country, all his subjects had to live 
strictly chaste, and any person found guilty of incontinence 
at such times was put to death without mercy. They 
thought that universal chastity was essential to the preser- 
vation of the life of the pontiff, whom they revered as the 
head of their religion and their common father. Accord- 
ingly when he was abroad he took care to warn his faithful 

1 De Flacourt, Histoire de la Grande 3 "Mr. Farewell's Account of 

Isle Madagascar (Paris, 1658), pp. 97 Chaka, the King of Natal," Appendix 

sq. Compare John Struys, Voiages to W. F. W. Owen's Narrative of 

and Travels (London, 1684), p. 22; Voyages to explore the Shores of Africa, 

Abbe" Rochon, Voyage to Madagascar Arabia, and Madagascar (London, 

and the East Indies, translated from 1833), ii. 395. 
the French (London, 1792), pp. 46 

}q. * L. Albert! , De A'a/ers (Amster- 

9 2 Samuel xi. dam, 1810), p. 171. 

E 



50 MARRIAGE iv 

subjects by a public crier, that no man might plead ignorance 
as an excuse for a breach of the law. 1 

Speaking of the same region of West Africa, an old 
writer tells us that " conjugal chastity is singularly respected 
among these people ; adultery is placed in the list of the 
greatest crimes. By an opinion generally received, the 
women are persuaded that if they were to render themselves 
guilty of infidelity, the greatest misfortunes would overwhelm 
them, unless they averted them by an avowal made to their 
husbands, and in obtaining their pardon for the injury they 
might have done." 2 Amongst the Sulka of New Britain 
unmarried people who have been guilty of unchastity are 
believed to contract thereby a fatal pollution (sle) of which 
they will die, if they do not confess their fault and undergo 
a public ceremony of purification. Such persons are avoided : 
no one will take anything at their hands : parents point 
them out to their children and warn them not to go near 
them. The infection which they are supposed to spread is 
apparently physical rather than moral in its nature ; for 
special care is taken to keep the paraphernalia of the dance 
out of their way, the mere presence of persons so polluted 
being thought to tarnish the paint on the instruments. Men 
who have contracted this dangerous taint rid themselves of 
it by drinking sea-water mixed with shredded cocoa-nut and 
ginger, after which they are thrown into the sea. Emerging 
from the water they put off the dripping clothes which they 
wore during their state of defilement and throw them away. 
This purification is believed to save their lives, which other- 
wise must have been destroyed by their unchastity. 3 

These examples may suffice to shew that among many 

1 J. B. Labat, Relation historique Indian island of Buru a man's death is 
de f&thiopie occidentals (Paris, 1732), sometimes supposed to be due to the 
i. 259 sq. adultery of his wife ; but apparently 

2 Proyart, ' ' History of Loango, the notion is that the death is brought 
Kakongo, and other Kingdoms in about rather by the evil magic of the 
Africa," in Pinkerton's Voyages and adulterer than by the act of adultery it - 
Travels, xvi. 569. self. See J. H. W. van der Miesen, 

3 P. Rascher, M.S.C., "Die Sulka, " Een en ander over Boeroe, inzonder- 
ein Beitrag zur Ethnographic Neu- heit wat betreft het distrikt Waisama, 
Pommern," Archiv fiir Anthropologie, gelegen aan de Z.O. Kust," Mededee- 
xxix. (1904) p. 21 1 ; R. Parkinson, lingen van -wege het Nederlandsche 
Dreissig Jahre in der Siidsee (Stutt- Zendelinggenootschap, xlvi. (1902) pp. 
gart, 1907), pp. 179.17. In the East 451-454. 



iv MARRIAGE 51 

races sexual immorality, whether in the form of adultery, 
fornication, or incest, is believed of itself to entail, naturally 
and inevitably, without the intervention of society, most 
serious consequences not only on the culprits themselves, but 
also on the community, often indeed to menace the very 
existence of the whole people by destroying the food supply. 
I need hardly remind you that all these beliefs are entirely 
baseless ; no such consequences flow from such acts ; in 
short, the beliefs in question are a pure superstition. Yet 
we cannot doubt that wherever this superstition has existed 
it must have served as a powerful motive to deter men 
from adultery, fornication, and incest. If that is so, the 
I think I have proved my third proposition, which is, tha 
among certain races and at certain times superstition h 
strengthened the respect for marriage, and has thereby con 
tributed to the stricter observance of the rules of sexua 
morality both among the married and the unmarried. 



V 
RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 

1 PASS now to my fourth and last proposition, which is, that 
among certain races and at certain times superstition has 
strengthened the respect for human life and has thereby 
contributed to the security of its enjoyment. 

The particular superstition which has had this salutary 
effect is the fear of ghosts, especially the ghosts of the 
murdered. The fear of ghosts is widespread, perhaps 
universal, among savages ; it is hardly extinct among our- 
selves. If it were extinct, some learned societies might put 
up their shutters. Dead or alive, the fear of ghosts has 
certainly not been an unmixed blessing. Indeed it might 
with some show of reason be maintained that no belief has 
done so much to retard the economic and thereby the social 
progress of mankind as the belief in the immortality of the 
;oul ; for this belief has led race after race, generation 
fter generation, to sacrifice the real wants of the living to 
he imaginary wants of the dead. The waste and destruction 
f life and property which this faith has entailed are enor- 
mous and incalculable. But I am not here concerned with 
the disastrous and deplorable consequences, the unspeakable 
follies and crimes and miseries, which have flowed in practice 
from the theory of a future life. My business at present is 
with the more cheerful side of a gloomy subject, with 
the wholesome, though groundless, terror which ghosts, 
apparitions, and spectres strike into the breasts of hardened 
ruffians and desperadoes. So far as such persons reflect 
at all and regulate their passions by the dictates of 
prudence, it seems plain that a fear of ghostly retribution, 

52 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 53 

of the angry spirit of their victim, must act as a salutary 
restraint on their disorderly impulses ; it must reinforce 
the dread of purely secular punishment and furnish the 
choleric and malicious with a fresh motive for pausing before 
they imbrue their hands in blood. This is so obvious, and 
the fear of ghosts is so notorious, that both might perhaps 
be taken for granted, especially at this late hour of the 
evening. But for the sake of completeness I will mention 
a few illustrative facts, taking them almost at random from 
distant races in order to indicate the wide diffusion of this 
particular superstition. I shall try to shew that while allj 
ghosts are feared, the ghosts of slain men are especially! 
dreaded by their slayers. 

The ancient Greeks believed that the soul of any man 
who had just been killed was angry with his slayer and 
troubled him ; hence even an involuntary homicide had to 
depart from his country for a year until the wrath of the 
dead man had cooled down ; nor might the slayer return 
until sacrifice had been offered and ceremonies of purifica- 
tion performed. If his victim chanced to be a foreigner, 
the homicide had to shun the country of the dead man as 
well as his own. 1 The legend of the matricide Orestes, how 
he roamed from place to place pursued and maddened by 
the ghost of his murdered mother, reflects faithfully the 
ancient Greek conception of the fate which overtakes the 
murderer at the hands of the ghost. 2 

But it is important to observe that not only does the hag-ll 
ridden homicide go in terror of his victim's ghost ; he is himself 1 1 
an object of fear and aversion to the whole community on 1 1 
account of the angry and dangerous spirit which dogs his steps. I \ 
It was probably more in self-defence than out of consideration 
for the manslayer that Attic law compelled him to quit the 
country. This comes out clearly from the provisions of the 
law. For in the first place, on going into banishment the 
homicide had to follow a prescribed road : 3 clearly it would 
have been hazardous to let him stray about the country 
with a wrathful ghost at his heels. In the second place, if 

1 Plato, Lau>s, ix. 8, pp. 865 D- umenides, 85 sqq. ; Euripides, Iphig. 
\ 866- A ; Demosthenes, xxiii. pp. 643 in Taur. 940 sqq, ; Pausanias, ii. 31. 

sq. ; Hesychius, s.v. dTmaiT0>6t. 8, viii. 34. 1-4. 

2 Aeschylus, Choefkor. 1021 sff., 3 Demosthenes, xxiii. pp. 643 sq. 



54 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 

another charge was brought against a banished homicide, he 
was allowed to return to Attica to plead in his defence, but 
he might not set foot on land ; he had to speak from a ship, 
and even the ship might not cast anchor or put out a gang- 
way. The judges avoided all contact with the culprit, for 
they judged the case sitting or standing on the shore. 1 
Obviously the intention of this rule was literally to insulate 
the slayer, lest by touching Attic earth even indirectly through 
the anchor or the gangway he should blast it by a sort of 
electric shock, as we might say ; though doubtless the 
Greeks would have said that the blight was wrought by 
contact with the ghost, by a sort of effluence of death. For 
the same reason if such a man, sailing the sea, happened to 
be wrecked on the coast of the country where his crime had 
been committed, he was allowed to camp on the shore till a 
ship came to take him off, but he was expected to keep his 
feet in sea-water all the time, 2 evidently to neutralise the 
ghostly infection and prevent it from spreading to the soil. 
For the same reason, when the turbulent people of Cynaetha 
in Arcadia had perpetrated a peculiarly atrocious massacre 
and had sent envoys to Sparta, all the Arcadian states 
through which the envoys took their way ordered them out 
of the country ; and after their departure the Mantineans 
purified themselves and their belongings by sacrificing 
victims and carrying them round the city and the whole of 
their land. 3 So when the Athenians had heard of a 
massacre at Argos, they caused purificatory offerings to be 
carried round the public assembly. 4 

No doubt the root of all such observances was a fear of 
the dangerous ghost which haunts the murderer and against 
which the whole community as well as the homicide himself 
must be on its guard. The Greek practice in these respects 
is clearly mirrored in the legend of Orestes ; for it is said that 
the people of Troezen would not receive him in their houses 
until he had been purified of his guilt, 5 that is, until he had 

1 Demosthenes, xxiii. pp. 645 sq. ; 2 Plato, Laws, ix. 8. p. 866 c D. 

Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, 57; 3 p o i y bi us , iv. 17-21. 
Pausanias, i. 28. ii; Pollux, viii. 120; 

Helladius, quoted by Photius, Biblio- * ^arch, Praecept. gcr. rafub. 
tkeca, p. 535 A, lines 28 sqq. ed. I. 

Bekker. 6 Pausanias, ii. 31. 8. 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 55 

been rid of his mother's ghost. The Greek mode of purify- 
ing a homicide was to kill a sucking pig and wash the 
hands of the guilty man in its blood : until this ceremony 
had been performed the manslayer was not allowed 
to speak. 1 Among the hill -tribes near Rajamahal in 
Bengal, if two men quarrel and blood be shed, the one 
who cut the other is fined a hog or a fowl, " the blood 
of which is sprinkled over the wounded person, to purify 
him, and to prevent his being possessed by a devil." * In 
this case the blood -sprinkling is avowedly intended to 
prevent the man from being haunted by a spirit ; only it 
is not the aggressor but his victim who is supposed to be 
in danger and therefore to stand in need of purification. 
We have seen that among these and other savage tribes pig's 
blood is sprinkled on persons and things as a mode of 
purifying them from the pollution of sexual crimes. 8 Among 
the Cameroon negroes in West Africa accidental homicide 
can be expiated by the blood of an animal. The relations 
of the slayer and of the slain assemble. An animal is 
killed, and every person present is smeared with its blood 
on his face and breast. They think that the guilt of man- 
slaughter is thus atoned for, and that no punishment will 
overtake the homicide. 4 In Car Nicobar a man possessed 
by devils is cleansed of them by being rubbed all over with 
pig's blood and beaten with leaves. The devils are supposed 
to be thus swept off like flies from the man's body to the 
leaves, which are then folded up and tied tightly with a 
special kind of string. A professional exorciser administers 
the beating, and at every stroke with the leaves he falls 
down with his face on the floor and calls out in a squeaky 
voice, " Here is a devil." This ceremony is performed 
by night ; and before daybreak all the packets of leaves 

1 Aeschylus, Eumenides, 280 sgq. t 31. 8 (vol. iii. 276 sgy.). 

448 sqq. i id. quoted by Eustathius * Lieutenant Thomas Shaw, "The 

on Homer, Iliad, xix. 254, p. 1183, Inhabitants of the Hills near Rajama- 

tirirfiSfioi iS&Kti rpit KaOap^v 6 <rCr, wt hall," Asiatic Researches, Fourth 

817X01 A.krxv\oi {v r$, -rplv ar TaXaynoit Edition, iv. (London, 1807), p. 78, 

alfJMToi \<H.poKr6vov airriit at xparat Zi>t compare p. 77. 

Kcmurrdfrwx'/xu"; Apollonius Rhodius, s See above, pp. 32, 34, 35, 36. 

Argonaut, iv. 703- 7 17, with the 4 Missionary Autenrieth, "Zur Re- 

, notes of the scholiast. Purifications Hgi on der Kamerun-Neger," Mittei- 

of this sort are represented in Greek lungen der geographischen Gesellsckaft 

art. See my note on Pausanias ii. tu Jena, xii. (1893) pp. 93 sq. 



56 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

containing the devils are thrown into the sea. 1 The 
Greeks similarly used laurel leaves as well as pig's blood in 
purificatory ceremonies. 2 In all such cases we may assume 
that the purification was originally conceived as physical 
rather than as moral, as a sort of detergent which washed, 
swept, or scraped the ghostly or demoniacal pollution from 
the person of the ghost-haunted or demon-possessed man. 
The motive for employing blood in these rites of cleansing 
is not clear. Perhaps the purgative virtue ascribed to it 
may have been based on the notion that the offended spirit 
accepts the blood as a substitute for the blood of the man or 
woman. 3 However, it is doubtful whether this explanation 
could cover all the cases in which blood is sprinkled as a 
mode of purification. Certainly it is odd, as the sage 
Heraclitus long ago remarked, that blood-stains should be 
thought to be removed by blood-stains, as if a man who had 
been bespattered with mud should think to cleanse himself 
by bespattering himself with more mud. 4 But the ways of 
man are wonderful and sometimes past finding out 

There was a curious story that after Orestes had gone 
mad through murdering his mother he recovered his wits by 
biting off one of his own fingers ; the Furies of his murdered 
mother, which had appeared black to him before, appeared 
white as soon as he had mutilated himself in this way : it 
was as if the taste of his own blood sufficed to avert or 
disarm the wrathful ghost. 5 A hint of the way in which 
Ithe blood may have been supposed to produce this result is 
jfurnished by the practice of some savages. The Indians ot 
Guiana believe that an avenger of blood who has slain his 
man must go mad unless he tastes the blood of his victim ; 
the notion apparently is that the ghost drives him crazy, 
just as the ghost of Clytemnestra did to Orestes, who was 
also, be it remembered, an avenger of blood. In order to 
avert this consequence the Indian man-slayer resorts on the 

1 V. Solomon, " Extracts from and of E. Rohde (Psyche? ii. 77 

Diaries kept in Car Nicobar," Journal sg.). 

ef the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. 4 KaOaipovrai d' fiXXcos afym (juaivb- 

(1002) p. 227. /j.fvoi olov ef ris e/y irrj\bv ^u/3as TTT/Xcp 

' 2 See my note on Pausanias, ii. 31. dmw/fotro, Heraclitus, in H. Diels's 

8 (vol. iii. pp. 276 sqq.). Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, zweite 

This was the view of C. Meiners Auflage, i. (Berlin, 1906) p. 62. 

(Geschichte der Religioncn, ii. 137 jy.), 6 Pausanias, viii. 34. 3. 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 57 

third night to the grave of his victim, pierces the corpse 
with a sharp-pointed stick, and withdrawing it sucks the 
blood of the murdered man. After that he goes home with 
an easy mind, satisfied that he has done his duty and that 
he has nothing more to fear from the ghost. 1 A similar 
custom was observed by the Maoris in battle. When a 
warrior had slain his foe in combat, he tasted his blood, 
believing that this preserved him from the avenging spirit 
(atita) of his victim ; for they imagined that " the moment a 
slayer had tasted the blood of the slain, the dead man 
became a part of his being and placed him under the 
protection of the atua or guardian-spirit of the deceased." ! 
Thus in the opinion of these savages, by swallowing a 
portion of their victim they made him a part of themselves 
and thereby converted him from an enemy into an ally ; 
they established, in the strictest sense of the words, a blood- 
covenant with him. Some of the North American Indians 
also drank the blood of their enemies in battle. A traveller, 
who witnessed the return of a war-party of the Aricara 
Indians, says : " Many of them had the mark which 
indicates that they had drank the blood of an enemy. This 
mark is made by rubbing the hand all over with vermilion, 
and by laying it on the mouth, it leaves a complete impres- 
sion on the face, which is designed to resemble and indicate 
a bloody hand." l The motive for this practice is not 
mentioned, but it may very well have been the same as 
with the Maoris, a desire to appropriate and so disarm thej 
ghost of an enemy. Strange as it may seem, this truly! 
savage superstition exists apparMdgJnltaJ^to'thfaday.l 
There is a widespread opinion in Calabria that if a murclerer 
is to escape he must suck his victim's blood from the reeking 
blade of the dagger with which he did the deed. 4 We can 
now perhaps understand why the matricide Orestes was 
thought to have recovered his wandering wits as soon as he 

1 Rev. J. II. Bernau, Missionary 3 John Bradbury, Travels in the 

Labours in British Guiana (London, Interior of America (Liverpool, 1817), 

1847), pp. 57 sq. p. 160. 

4 Vincenro Dorsa, La Tradition* 

i *J. Dumont D'Urville, Voyage greco-latina negli usi e tielle credente 

autour du tuonde et <) la recherche Je f>opolari delta Calabria Citeriore 

la Pf rouse, iii. 305. (Cosenza, 1884), p. 138. 



58 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

had bitten off one of his fingers. By tasting his own blood, 
which was also that of his victim, since she was his mother, 
he might be supposed to form a blood-covenant with the 
ghost and so to convert it from a foe into a friend. The 
Kabyles of North Africa think that if a murderer leaps 
seven times over his victim's grave within three or seven 
days of the murder, he will be quite safe. Hence the fresh 
grave of a murdered man is carefully guarded. 1 

That the Greek practice of secluding and purifying a 
homicide was essentially an exorcism, in other words, that 
its aim was to ban the dangerous ghost of his victim, is 
rendered practically certain by the similar rites of seclusion 
and purification which among many savage tribes have to be 
observed by victorious warriors with the avowed intention of 
securing them against the spirits of the men whom they have 
slain in battle. These rites I have illustrated elsewhere, 2 but 
a few cases may be quoted here by way of example. Thus 
among the Basutos " ablution is especially performed on 
return from battle. It is absolutely necessary that the 
warriors should rid themselves, as soon as possible, of the 
blood they have shed, or the shades of their victims would 
pursue them incessantly, and disturb their slumbers. They 
go in a procession, and in full armour, to the nearest stream. 
At the moment they enter the water a diviner, placed higher 
up, throws some purifying substance into the current." 8 
According to another account of the Basuto custom, "warriors 
who have killed an enemy are purified. The chief has to 
wash them, sacrificing an ox in the presence of the whole 
army. They are also anointed with the gall of the animal, 
which prevents the ghost of the enemy from pursuing them 
any farther." 4 Among the Bantu tribes of Kavirondo, in 
British East Africa, when a man has killed an enemy in 
warfare he shaves his head on his return home, and his 
friends rub a medicine, which generally consists of cow's 
dung, over his body to prevent the spirit of the slain man 

1 J. Liorel, Kabylie du Jurjura 3 Rev. E. Casalis, The Basutos 
(Paris, n.d.), p. 441. (London, 1861), p. 258. 

2 The Golden Bough, Second Edition, * Father Porte, "Les Reminiscences 
i- 331 sqq. More evidence will be d'un missionaire du Basutoland," Les 
adduced in the third edition of that Missions catholiqttes, xxviii. (1896) 
work. p. 371. 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 59 

from troubling him. 1 Here cow's dung serves these negroes 
as a detergent of the ghost, just as pig's blood served the 
ancient Greeks. With the Ja-Luo of Kavirondo the custom 
is somewhat different Three days after his return from the 
fight the warrior shaves his head. But before he may enter 
his village he has to hang a live fowl, head uppermost, round 
his neck ; then the bird is decapitated and its head left 
hanging round his neck. Soon after his return a feast is 
made for the slain man, in order that his ghost may not 
haunt his slayer." In these two last cases the slayer shaves 
his head, precisely as the matricide Orestes is said to have 
shorn his hair when he came to his senses. 3 From this 
Greek tradition we may infer with some probability that the 
hair of Greek homicides, like that of these African warriors, 
was regularly cropped as one way of ridding them of the 
ghostly infection. Among the Ba-Yaka, a Bantu people 
of the Congo Free State, " a man who has been killed in 
battle is supposed to send his soul to avenge his death on the 
person of the man who killed him ; the latter, however, can 
escape the vengeance of the dead by wearing the red tail- 
feathers of the parrot in his hair, and painting his forehead 
red." * Perhaps, as I have suggested elsewhere, this costume 
is intended to disguise the slayer from his victim's ghost. 5 
Among the Natchez Indians of North America young 
braves who had taken their first scalps were obliged to 
observe certain rules of abstinence for six months. They 
might not sleep with their wives nor eat flesh ; their only 
food was fish and hasty -pudding. If they broke these rules 
they believed that the soul of the man they had killed would 
work their death by magic. 6 Among the tribes at the mouth 
of the Wanigela River, in British New Guinea, " a man who 

1 Sir H. Johnston, The Uganda 5 J. G. Frazer, "Folk-lore in the 

Protectorate (London, 1902), ii. 743 Old Testament," in Anthropological 

sq.\ C. W. Hobley, Eastern Uganda Essays presented to E. B. Tylor 

(London, 1902), p. 20. (Oxford, 1907), p. 108. 

8 Sir H. Johnston, op. cit. ii. 794 ; 8 " Relation des Natchez," Rectuil 

C. W. Hobley, op. cit. p. 31. de voyages au nord, ix. 24 (Amster- 

s Pausanias, viii. 34. 3 ; compare dam, 1737) ; Lettres tdifiantes et 

Strabo, xii. 2. 3, p. 535. curieuses, Nouvelle Edition, vii. 

E. Torday and T. A. Joyce, (Paris, 1781) p. 26; Charlevoix, 

" Notes on the Ethnography of the Histoire de la Nouvelle France (Paris, 

1 Ba-Yaka," Journal of the Anthropo- 1744), vi. 1 86 sq. 
logical Institute, xxxvi.( 1906) pp. 50 sq. 



60 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

has taken life is considered to be impure until he has under- 
gone certain ceremonies : as soon as possible after the deed 
he cleanses himself and his weapon. This satisfactorily 
accomplished, he repairs to his village and seats himself on 
the logs of sacrificial staging. No one approaches him or 
takes any notice whatever of him. A house is prepared for 
him which is put in charge of two or three small boys as 
servants. He may eat only toasted bananas, and only the 
centre portion of them the ends being thrown away. On 
the third day of his seclusion a small feast is prepared by his 
friends, who also fashion some new perineal bands for him. 
This is called ivi poro. The next day the man dons all his 
best ornaments and badges for taking life, and sallies forth 
fully armed and parades the village. The next day a hunt 
is organised, and a kangaroo selected from the game cap- 
tured. It is cut open and the spleen and liver rubbed over 
the back of the man. He then walks solemnly down to the 
nearest water, and standing straddle-legs in it washes himself. 
All young untried warriors swim between his legs. This is 
supposed to impart his courage and strength to them. The 
following day, at early dawn, he dashes out of his house, 
fully armed, and calls aloud the name of his victim. Having 
satisfied himself that he has thoroughly scared the ghost of 
the dead man, he returns to his house. The beating of 
flooring boards and the lighting of fires is also a certain 
method of scaring the ghost. A day later his purification is 
finished. He can then enter his wife's house." l In this 
last case the true nature of such so-called purifications is 
clearly manifest : they are in fact rites of exorcism observed 
for the purpose of banning a dangerous spirit. 

Amongst the Omaha Indians of North America a 
murderer whose life was spared by the kinsmen of his 
victim had to observe certain stringent rules for a period 
which varied from two to four years. He must walk bare- 
foot, and he might eat no warm food, nor raise his voice, 
nor look around. He had to pull his robe around him and 
to keep it tied at the neck, even in warm weather ; he' 

1 R. E. Guise, " On the Tribes in- the Anthropological Institute, xxviii. 
habiting the mouth of the Wanigela (1898) pp. 
River, New Guinea," Journal of 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 6 1 

might not let it hang loose or fly open. He might not 
move his hands about, but had to keep them close to his 
body. He might not comb his hair, nor might it be blown 
about by the wind. No one would eat with him, and only 
one of his kindred was allowed to remain with him in his 
tent. When the tribe went hunting, he was obliged to pitch 
his tent about a quarter of a mile from the rest of the people, 
" lest the ghost of his victim should raise a high wind which 
might cause damage." l The reason here alleged for banish- 
ing the murderer from the camp of the hunters gives the 
clue to all the other restrictions laid on him : he was 
haunted by the ghost and therefore dangerous ; hence people 
kept aloof from him, just as they are said to have done from 
the ghost-ridden Orestes. While the spirit of a murdered 
man is thus feared by everybody, it is natural that it should 
be specially dreaded by those against whom for any reason he 
may be conceived to bear a grudge. For example, among 
the Yabim of German New Guinea, when the relations of a 
murdered man have accepted a bloodwit instead of avenging 
his death, they must allow the family of the victim to mark 
them with chalk on the brow. Were this not done, the 
ghost of their dead kinsman might come and trouble them 
for not doing their duty by him ; he might drive away their 
pigs or loosen their teeth. 2 

Indeed the ghosts of all who have died a violent death 
are in a sense a public danger ; for their temper is naturally 
soured and they are apt to fall foul of the first person they 
meet without nicely discriminating between the innocent 
and the guilty. The Karens of Burma, for example, think 
that the spirits of all such persons go neither to the upper 
regions of bliss nor to the nether world of woe, but linger on 
earth and wander about invisible. They make men sick to 
death by stealing their souls. Accordingly these vampire- 
like beings are exceedingly dreaded by the people, who 
seek to appease their anger and repel their cruel assaults 

1 Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, "Omaha lich beiden Jabim beobachtet wurden," 

Sociology," Third Annual Report of Ncuhrichten itlxr A'aiser Wilhelms- 

the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, Land und den Bismarck - Archipel, 

i 1884^, p. 369. 1897, p. 99; B. Hagen, Unter den 

* K. Vetter, " Uber papuanische Papuas (Wiesbaden, 1899), p. 254. 
Rechtsverhaltnisse, wie solche nament- 



62 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

by propitiatory offerings and the most earnest prayers and 
supplications. 1 They put red, yellow, and white rice in a 
basket and leave it in the forest, saying : " Ghosts of such 
as died by falling from a tree, ghosts of such as died of 
hunger or thirst, ghosts of such as died by the tiger's tooth 
or the serpent's fang, ghosts of the murdered dead, ghosts of 
such as died of small-pox or cholera, ghosts of dead lepers, 

ill-treat us not, seize not upon our persons, do us no 
harm. O stay here in this wood. We will bring hither 
red rice, yellow rice, and white rice for your subsistence." 2 

However, it is not always by fair words and propitiatory 
offerings that the community attempts to rid itself of these 
invisible but dangerous intruders. People sometimes resort 
to more forcible measures. " Once," says a traveller among 
the Indians of North America, " on approaching in the 
night a village of Ottawas, I found all the inhabitants in 
confusion : they were all busily engaged in raising noises of 
the loudest and most inharmonious kind. Upon inquiry, 

1 found that a battle had been lately fought between the 
Ottawas and the Kickapoos, and that the object of all this 
noise was to prevent the ghosts of the departed combatants 
from entering the village." J Again, after the North 
American Indians had burned and tortured a prisoner to 
death, they used to run through the village, beating the 
walls, the furniture, and the roofs of the huts with sticks 
and yelling at the pitch of their voices to drive away the 
angry ghost of the victim, lest he should seek to avenge 
the injuries done to his scorched and mutilated body. 4 
Similarly among the Papuans of Doreh in Dutch New 
Guinea, when a murder has been committed in the village, 
the inhabitants assemble for several evenings successively 
and shriek and shout to frighten away the ghost, in case he 
should attempt to come back. 5 The Yabim, a tribe in 

1 Rev. E. B. Cross, "On the River (London, 1825),!. 109. 
Karens," Journal of the American 4 Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle 
Oriental Society, iv. No. 2 (New York, France (Paris, 1744), vi. 77, 122 sq, ; 
1854), pp. 312 sq. J. F. Lafitau, Mceurs des sauvages 

2 Bringaud, " Les Karins de la amiriquains (Paris, 1724), ii. 279. 
Birmanie," Les Missions catholiques, 6 H. von Rosenberg, Der malayische 
xx. (1888) p. 208. Archipel (Leipsic, 1878), p. 461. 

3 W. H. Keating, Narrative of an Compare J. L. van Hasselt, "Die 
Expedition to the Sources of St. Peter's Papuastamme an der Geelvinkbai 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 63 

German New Guinea, believe that " the dead can both help 
and harm, but the fear of their harmful influence is pre- 
dominant. Especially the people are of opinion that the 
ghost of a slain man haunts his murderer and brings mis- 
fortune on him. Hence it is necessary to drive away the 
ghost with shrieks and the beating of drums. The model 
of a canoe laden with taro and tobacco is got ready to 
facilitate his departure." J The Fijians used to bury the sick 
and aged alive, and having done so they always made a 
great uproar with bamboos, shell-trumpets, and so forth in 
order to scare away the spirits of the buried people and 
prevent them from returning to their homes ; and by way of 
removing any temptation to hover about their former abodes 
they dismantled the houses of the dead and hung them 
with everything that in their eyes seemed most repulsive. 2 
Among the Angoni, a Zulu tribe settled to the north of the 
Zambesi, warriors who have slain foes on an expedition 
smear their bodies and faces with ashes, and hang garments 
of their victims on their persons. This costume they wear 
for three days after their return, and rising at break of day 
they run through the village uttering frightful yells to 
banish the ghosts of the slain, which otherwise might bring 
sickness and misfortune on the people. 8 

In Travancore the spirits of men who have died a 
violent death by drowning, hanging, or other means are sup- 
posed to become demons, wandering about to inflict injury 
in various ways upon mankind. Especially the ghosts of 
murderers who have been hanged are believed to haunt the 
place of execution and its neighbourhood. To prevent this 
it used to be customary to cut off the criminal's heels with a 
sword or to hamstring him as he was turned off". 4 The 
intention of thus mutilating the body was no doubt to 

(Neuginea)," Mitteilttngen der gco- of the Western Pacific (London, 1853), 

graphischen Gesellschaft xu Jena, ix. p. 477. 

(1891) p. 101. 3 C. Wiese, " Beitrage zur Ge- 

1 K. Vetter, " Uber papuanische schichte der Zulu im Norden des 

Rechtsverhaltnisse," in Nachrichten Zambesi," Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic, 

iiber Kaiser Wilhelms-Land and den xxxii. (1900) pp. 197 sq. 

Bismarck Archipel (1897), p. 94 ; * Rev. Samuel Mateer, The Land 

B. Hagen, Unter den Papuas (Wies- of Charity, a Descriptive Account of 

(baden, 1899), p. 266. Travancore and its J^eople (London, 

8 John Jackson, in J. E. Erskine's 1871), pp. 203 sq. 
Journal of a Cruise among the Islands 



64 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

prevent the ghost from walking. How could he walk if he 
were hamstrung or had no heels ? With precisely the same 
intention it has been customary with some peoples to maim 
in various ways the dead bodies not only of executed criminals 
but of other persons ; for all ghosts are more or less dreaded. 
When any bad man died, the Esquimaux of Bering Strait 
used in the old days to cut the sinews of his arms and legs 
"in order to prevent the shade from returning to the body 
and causing it to walk at night as a ghoul." * The Omaha 
Indians said that when a man was killed by lightning he 
should be buried face downwards, and that the soles of his 
feet should be slit ; for if this were not done, his ghost 
would walk. 2 The Herero of South Africa think that the 
ghosts of bad people appear and are just as mischievous as 
in life ; for they rob, steal, and seduce women and girls, 
sometimes getting them with child. To prevent the dead 
from playing these pranks the Herero used to cut through 
the backbone of the corpse, tie it up in a bunch, and sew it 
into an ox-hide. 3 A simple way of disabling a dangerous 
ghost is to dig up his body and decapitate it. This is done 
by West African negroes and also by the Armenians ; to 
make assurance doubly sure the Armenians not only cut off 
the head but smash it or stick a needle into it or into the 
dead man's heart. 4 The Hindoos of the Punjaub believe 
that if a mother dies within thirteen days of her delivery, she 
will return in the guise of a malignant spirit to torment her 
husband and family. To prevent this some people drive 
nails through her head and eyes, while others also knock nails 
on either side of the door of the house. 5 A gentler way of 
attaining the same end is to put a nail or a piece of iron in 
the clothes of the poor dead mother. 6 In Bilaspore, if a 

1 E. W. Nelson, "The Eskimo teilungen des Seminars fiir orienta- 
about Bering Strait," Eighteenth Use ken Sprachen zu Berlin, iii. dritte 
Annual Report of the Bureau of Abteilung (1900), pp. 89 sq. 
American Ethnology, Parti. (Washing- 4 Rev. R. H. Nassau, Fetickism in 
ton, 1899) p. 423. West Africa (London, 1904), p. 220 ; 

2 Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, "A Study M. Abeghian, Der armenische Volks- 
of Siouan Cults," Eleventh Annual glaube (Leipsic, 1899), P- !' 
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology 6 H. A. Rose, " Hindu Birth 
(Washington, 1894), p. 420. Observances in the Punjab," Journal 

3 Dr. P. H. Brincker, "Character, of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 
Sitten, und Gebrauche speciell der xxxvii. (1907) pp. 225 sq, 

Bantu Deutsch-Siidwestafrikas," Mit- 6 G. F. D' Penha, "Superstitions 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 65 

mother dies leaving very young children, they tie her hands 
and feet before burial to prevent her from getting up by 
night and going to see her orphaned little ones. 1 The ghosts 
of women who die in child-bed are much dreaded in the Indian 
Archipelago ; it is supposed that they appear in the form of 
birds with long claws and are exceedingly dangerous to their 
husbands and also to pregnant women. A common way of 
guarding against them is to put an egg under each armpit of 
the corpse, to press the arms close against the body, and to 
stick needles in the palms of the hands. The people believe 
that the ghost of the dead woman will be unable to fly and 
attack people ; for she will not spread out her arms for fear 
of letting the eggs fall, and she will not clutch anybody for 
fear of driving the needles deeper into her palms. Some- 
times by way of additional precaution another egg is placed 
under her chin, thorns are thrust into the joints of her fingers 
and toes, and her hands, feet, and hair are nailed to the 
coffin. 2 Some Sea Dyaks of Borneo sow the ground near 
cemeteries with bits of stick to imitate caltrops, in order 
that the feet of any ghosts who walk over them may be 
lamed. 3 The Besisi of the Malay Peninsula bury their dead 
in the ground and let fall knives on the grave to prevent the 

and Customs in Salsette," The Indian (June 1881), p. 28; W. W. Skeat, 

Antiquary, xxviii. (1899), p. 115. As Malay Magic (London, 1900), p. 325; 

to these perturbed and perturbing J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige 

spirits in India, see further W. Crooke, rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua (The 

Popular Religion and Folk lore of Hague, 1 886), p. 8 1 ; A. C. Kruijt, 

Northern India (Westminster, 1896), " Eenige ethnografische aanteeke- 

i. 269-274. They are called churel. ningen omtrent de Toboengkoe en de 

i E. M. Gordon, Indian Folk Talcs ^ O r\," Mededeelingen van wegehet 

(London, 1908), p. 47. Ncderlandsche Zendeltnggenootschap, 

xliv. (Rotterdam, 1900), p. 218; id., 

Van Schmidt, " Aanteekenmgen Het animisms in den Indischen Archipel 

nopens de zeden, etc., der bevolkmg (The Hague, 1906), p. 252 ; G. A. 

van de eilanden Saparoea, etc.," Wilken, Handleiding voor de vergelij. 

Tijdschrift voor Netrlands Indie, v. kende y ^ enk unde van Nederlandsch- 

Tweede Deel (Batavia, 1843), PP- S*& Mil (Leyden, 1893), P- 559- The 

sqq.; G. Heijmering, "Zeden en commqn name for these dreaded ghosts 

gewoonten op het eiland Timor," is p ont i ana k. For a full account of 

Tijdschrift voor Neerlands Indie, them ^ A c Krui j t> Het Animisme 

vii. Negende Aflevenng (Batavia, , den j n(i ischen Archipel, pp. 245 

1845), pp. 278 *?., note; B. F. Matthes, 
Bijdragen tot de Ethnologic van Zuid- 

Ctlebcs (The Hague, 1875), p. 97; s J. Perham, " Sea Dyak Religion," 

\V. I-'.. Maxwell, " Folk-lore of the Journal of the Straits Branch of the 

^JlsA&ys," Journal of the Straits Branch Royal Asiatic Society, No. 14 (Singa- 

of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 7 pore, 1885), pp. 291 sq. 

F 



66 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

ghost from getting up out of it. 1 The Tunguses of Turuk- 
hansk on the contrary put their dead up in trees, and then 
lop off all the branches to prevent the ghost from coming 
down and giving them chase. 2 The Herbert River natives 
in Queensland used to cut holes in the stomach, shoulders, 
and lungs of their dead and fill the holes with stones, in 
order that, weighed down with this ballast, the ghost might 
not stray far afield ; to limit his range still further they com- 
monly broke his legs. 3 Other Australian blacks put hot 
coals in the ears of their departed brother ; this keeps the 
ghost in the body for a time, and allows the relations to get 
a good start away from him. Also they bark the trees in a 
circle round the spot, so that when the ghost does get out 
and makes after them, he wanders round and round in a 
circle, always returning to the place from which he started. 4 
The ancient Hindoos put fetters on the feet of their dead 
that they might not return to the land of the living. 5 

Some peoples bar the road from the grave to prevent 
the ghost from following them. ' The Tunguses make the 
barrier of snow or trees. 6 Amongst the Mangars, one of 
the fighting tribes of Nepal, " when the mourners return 
home, one of the party goes ahead and makes a barricade 
of thorn bushes across the road midway between the grave 
and the house of the deceased. On the top of the thorns 
he puts a big stone on which he takes his stand, holding a 
pot of burning incense in his left hand and some woollen 
thread in his right. One by one the mourners step on the 
stone and pass through the smoke of the incense to the 
other side of the thorny barrier. As they pass, each takes 
a piece of thread from the man who holds the incense and 
ties it round his neck. The object of this curious ceremony 
is to prevent the spirit of the dead man from coming home 
with the mourners and establishing itself in its old haunts. 

1 W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, p. 474. 

Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula 4 A. W. Howitt, op. cit. p. 473. 

(London, 1906), ii. 109. 6 H. Zimmer, Altindischcs Leben 

2 T. de Pauly, Description ethno- (Berlin, 1879), p. 402. 

graphique des peuples de la Russie (St. 6 T. de Pauly, Description ethno- 

Petersburg, 1862), Peuples ouralo- graphique des peuples de la Russie 

altaiques, p. 71. (St. Petersburg, 1862), Peuples ouralo- 

3 A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of altaiques, p. 71. 
South- East Australia (London, 1904), 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 67 

Conceived of as a miniature man, it is believed to be 
unable to make its way on foot through the thorns, while 
the smell of the incense, to which all spirits are highly 
sensitive, prevents it from surmounting this obstacle on the 
shoulders of one of the mourners." J The Algonquin 
Indians, not content with beating the walls of their huts to 
drive away the ghost, stretched nets round them in order 
to catch the spirit in the meshes, if he attempted to enter 
the house. Others made stinks to keep him off. 2 The 
Ojebways also resorted to a number of devices for warding 
off the spirits of the dead. These have been described as 
follows by a writer who was himself an Ojebway : " If the 
deceased was a husband, it is often the custom for the 
widow, after the burial is over, to spring or leap over the 
grave, and then run zigzag behind the trees, as if she were 
fleeing from some one. This is called running away from 
the spirit of her husband, that it may not haunt her. In 
the evening of the day on which the burial has taken place, 
when it begins to grow dark, the men fire off their guns 
through the hole left at the top of the wigwam. As soon 
as this firing ceases, the old women commence knocking 
and making such a rattling at the door as would frighten 
away any spirit that would dare to hover near. The next 
ceremony is, to cut into narrow strips, like ribbon, thin 
birch bark. These they fold into shapes, and hang round 
inside the wigwam, so that the least puff of wind will move 
them. With such scarecrows as these, what spirit would 
venture to disturb their slumbers ? Lest this should not 
prove effectual, they will also frequently take a deer's tail, 
and after burning or singeing off all the hair, will rub the 
necks or faces of the children before they lie down to sleep, 
thinking that the offensive smell will be another preventive 
to the spirit's entrance. I well remember when I used to 
be daubed over with this disagreeable fumigation, and had 
great faith in it all. Thinking that the soul lingers about 

1 (Sir) H. II. Risley, The Tribes and W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk- 
Castes of Bengal, Ethnographic Glossary, lore of Northern India (Westminster, 
ii. (Calcutta, 1891) pp. 75 sq. Com- 1896), ii. 57. 

pare~E. T. Atkinson, The Himalayan 8 Relations des jt 'suites, 1639, p. 44 

Districts of the North- Western Provinfes (Canadian reprint). 
of India, ii. (Allahabad, 1884) p. 832 ; 



68 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

the body a long time before it takes its final departure, 
they use these means to hasten it away." l 

The Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco in South 
America live in great fear of the spirits of their dead. 
They imagine that any one of these disembodied spirits can 
become incarnate again and take a new lease of life on 
earth, if only it can contrive to get possession of a living 
man's body during the temporary absence of his soul. For 
like many other savages they imagine that the soul absents 
itself from the body during sleep to wander far away in the 
land of dreams. So when night falls, the ghosts of the 
dead come crowding to the villages and lurk about, hoping 
to find vacant bodies into which they can enter. Such are 
to the thinking of the Lengua Indian the perils and 
dangers of the night. When he awakes in the morning 
from a dream in which he seemed to be hunting or fishing 
far away, he concludes that his soul cannot yet have 
returned from such a far journey, and that the spirit within 
him must therefore be some ghost' or demon, who has taken 
possession of his corporeal tenement in the absence of its 
proper owner. And if these Indians dread the spirits of 
the departed at all times, they dread them doubly at the 
moment when they have just shuffled off the mortal coil. 
No sooner has a person died than the whole village is 
deserted. Even if the death takes place shortly before sun- 
set the place must at all costs be immediately abandoned, 
lest with the shades of night the ghost should return and do 
a mischief to the villagers. Not only is the village deserted, 
but every hut is burned down and the property of the dead 
man destroyed. For these Indians believe that however 

I good and kind a man may have been in his lifetime, his 
ghost is always a source of danger to the peace and pros- 
perity of the living. The night after his death his dis- 
embodied spirit comes back to the village, and chilled by 
the cool night air looks about for a fire at which to warm 
himself. He rakes in the ashes to find at least a hot 
coal which he may blow up into a flame. But if they are 
all cold and dead, he flings a handful of them in the air 
and departs in dudgeon. Any Indian who treads on such 

1 Rev. Peter Jones, History of the Ojetnuay Indians (London, n.d.), pp. 99^. 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 69 

ashes will have ill-luck, if not death, following at his heels. 
To prevent such mishaps the villagers take the greatest 
pains to collect and bury all the ash -heaps before they 
abandon the village. What the fate of a hamlet would be 
in which the returning ghost found the inhabitants still 
among their houses, no Indian dares to imagine. Hence 
it happens that many a village which was full of life at 
noon is a smoking desert at sunset. And as the Lenguas 
ascribe all sickness to the machinations of evil spirits and 
sorcerers, they mutilate the persons of their dying or dead 
in order to counteract and punish the authors of the disease. 
For this purpose they cut off the portion of the body in 
which the evil spirit is supposed to have ensconced himself. 
A common operation performed on the dying or dead man 
is this. A gash is made with a knife in his side, the edges 
of the wound are drawn apart with the fingers, and in the 
wound are deposited a dog's bone, a stone, and the claw of 
an armadillo. It is believed that at the departure of the 
soul from the body the stone will rise up to the Milky Way 
and will stay there till the author of the death has been 
discovered. Then the stone will come shooting down in 
the shape of a meteor and kill, or at least stun, the guilty 
party. That is why these Indians stand in terror of falling 
stars. The claw of the armadillo serves to grub up the 
earth and, in conjunction with the meteor, to ensure the 
destruction of the evil spirit or the sorcerer. What the 
virtue of the dog's bone is supposed to be has not yet been 
ascertained by the missionaries. 1 

The Bhotias, who inhabit the Himalayan district of British 
India, perform an elaborate ceremony for transferring the 
spirit of a deceased person to an animal, which is finally 
beaten by all the villagers and driven away, that it may not 
come back. Having thus expelled the ghost the people 
return joyfully to the village with songs and dances. In 

1 " Sitten und Gebrauche der Len- diseased members of a corpse, in the 

gua-Indianer, nach Missionsberichten belief that if they did not do so the 

von G. Kurze," Mttteilungen der geo- person would suffer from the same 

graphischen Gesellschaft aujena, xxiii. disease at his next reincarnation. See 

(19*05) pp. 17 sy. t 19 sy., 21 sq. The Charles Partridge, Cross Kiver Natives 

Cross River natives of Southern Nigeria, (London, 1905), pp. 2385^. 
like the Lengua Indians, cut off the 



70 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

some places the animal which thus serves as a scape-goat is 
a yak, the forehead, back, and tail of which must be white. 
But elsewhere, under the influence of Hindooism, sheep and 
goats have been substituted for yaks. 1 

Widows and widowers are especially obnoxious to the 
I ghosts of their deceased spouses, and accordingly they have 
I to take special precautions against them. For example, 
among the Ewe negroes of Agome, in German Togoland, a 
widow is bound to remain for six weeks in the hut where 
her husband lies buried. She is naked, her hair is shaved 
off, and she is armed with a stick with which to repel the too 
pressing familiarities of her husband's ghost ; for were she 
to submit to them, she would die on the spot. At night she 
sleeps with the stick under her, lest the wily ghost should 
attempt to steal it from her in the hours of slumber. Before 
she eats or drinks she always puts some coals on the food 
or the beverage, to prevent her dead husband from eating or 
drinking with her ; for if he did so, she would die. If any 
one calls to her, she must not answer, for her dead husband 
would hear her, and she would die. She may not eat beans 
or flesh or fish, nor drink palm-wine or rum, but she is 
allowed to smoke tobacco. At night a fire is kept up in 
the hut, and the widow throws powdered peppermint leaves 
and red pepper on the flames to make a stink, which helps 
to keep the ghost from the house. 2 

Among many tribes of British Columbia the conduct of a 
widow and a widower for a long time after the death of their 
spouse is regulated by a code of minute and burdensome 
restrictions, all of which appear to be based on the notion 
that these persons, being haunted by the ghost, are not only 
themselves in peril, but are also a source of danger to others. 
Thus among the Shushwap Indians of British Columbia 
widows and widowers fence their beds with thorn bushes 
to keep off the ghost of the deceased ; indeed they lie on 
such bushes, in order that the ghost may be under little 

1 Charles A. Sherring, Western Tibet Mitteilungen von Forschungsreisenden 
and the British Borderland ( London, und Gelehrten aus den deutschen 
1906), pp. 127-132. Schutzgebieten, v. Heft 4 (Berlin, 1892), 

2 Lieutenant Herold, " Bericht p. 155 ; H. Klose, Togo ttnler deutschen 
betreffend religiose Anschauungen und Flagge (Berlin, 1899), p. 274. 
Gebrauche der deutschen Ewe-Neger," 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 71 

temptation to share their bed of thorns. They must build 
a sweat-house on a creek, sweat there all night, and bathe 
regularly in the creek, after which they must rub their 
bodies with spruce branches. These branches may be used 
only once for this purpose ; afterwards they are stuck in 
the ground all round about the hut, probably to fence off 
the ghost. The mourners must also use cups and cooking 
vessels of their own, and they may not touch their own 
heads or bodies. Hunters may not go near them, and 
any person on whom their shadow were to fall would at 
once be ill. 1 Again, among the Tsetsaut Indians, when a 
man dies his brother is bound to marry the widow, but he 
may not do so before the lapse of a certain time, because it 
is believed that the dead man's ghost haunts his widow and 
would do a mischief to his living rival. During the time of 
her mourning the widow eats out of a stone dish, carries a 
pebble in her mouth, and a crab-apple stick up the back of 
her jacket. She sits upright day and night. Any person 
who crosses the hut in front of her is a dead man. The 
restrictions laid on a widower are similar. 2 Among the 
Lkungen or Songish Indians, in Vancouver Island, widow 
and widower, after the death of husband or wife, are for- 
bidden to cut their hair, as otherwise it is believed that they 
would gain too great power over the souls and welfare of 
others. They must remain alone at their fire for a long 
time and are forbidden to mingle with other people. When 
they eat, nobody may see them. They must keep their 
faces covered for ten days. For two days after the burial 
they fast and are not allowed to speak. After that they 
may speak a little, but before addressing any one they 
must go into the woods and clean themselves in ponds 
and with cedar-branches. If they wish to harm an 
enemy they call out his name when they first break 
their fast, and they bite very hard in eating. That 
is believed to kill their enemy, probably (though this is 
not said) by directing the attention of the ghost to him. 

1 Franz Boas, in Sixth Report on a Franz Boaz, in Tenth Report on 

the North-Western Tribes of Canada, the North-Western Tribes of Canada, 

p. 92 (Report of the British Association p. 45 (Report of the British Associa- 

for the Advancement of Science, I^eds, t ion for the Advancement of Science, 

1890, separate reprint). Ipswich, 1895, separate reprint). 



72 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

They may not go near the water nor eat fresh salmon, 
or the fish might be driven away. They may not eat 
warm food, else their teeth would fall out. 1 Among the 
Bella Coola Indians the bed of a mourner is protected 
against the ghost of the deceased by thorn-bushes stuck 
into the ground at each corner. He rises early in the 
morning and goes out into the woods, where he makes a 
square with thorn-bushes, and inside of this square, where he 
is probably supposed to be safe from the intrusion of the 
ghost, he cleanses himself by rubbing his body with cedar- 
branches. He also swims in ponds, and after swimming he 
cleaves four small trees and creeps through the clefts, follow- 
ing the course of the sun. This he does on four subsequent 
mornings, cleaving new trees every day. We may surmise 
that the intention of creeping through the cleft trees is to 
give the slip to the ghost. The mourner also cuts his hair 
short, and the cut hair is burnt. If he did not observe these 
regulations, it is believed that he would dream of the deceased, 
which to the savage mind is another way of saying that he 
would be visited by his ghost. Amongst these Indians the 
rules of mourning for a widower or widow are especially 
strict. For four days he or she must fast and may not 
speak a word, else the dead wife or husband would come 
and lay a cold hand on the mouth of the offender, who 
would die. They may not go near water and are forbidden 
to catch or eat salmon for a whole year. During that time 
also they may not eat fresh herring or candle-fish (olachen). 
Their shadows are deemed unlucky and may not fall on any 
person. 2 

Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia 
widows or widowers, on the death of their husbands or wives, 
went out at once and passed through a patch of rose-bushes 
four times. The intention of this ceremony is not reported, 
but we may conjecture that it was supposed to deter the 
ghost from following for fear of scratching himself on the 
thorns. For four days after the death widows and widowers 

1 Franz Boaz, in Sixth Report on a Franz Boaz, in Seventh Report on 

the North- Western Tribes of Canada, the North- Western Tribes of Canada, 

pp. 23 sq. (Report of the British Asso- p. 13 (Report of the British Associa- 

ciation for the Advancement of Science, tion for the Advancement of Science, 

Leeds, 1890, separate reprint). Cardiff, 1891, separate reprint). 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 73 

had to wander about at evening or break of day wiping their 
eyes with fir-twigs, which they hung up in the branches of 
trees, praying to the Dawn. They also rubbed their eyes 
with a small stone taken from under running water, then 
threw it away, while they prayed that they might not 
become blind. The first four days they might not touch 
their food, but ate with sharp-pointed sticks, and spat out 
the first four mouthfuls of each meal, and the first four of 
water, into the fire. For a year they had to sleep on a bed 
made of fir-branches, on which rose-bush sticks were also 
spread at the foot, head, and middle. Many also wore a 
few small twigs of rose-bush on their persons. The use of 
the rose-bush was no doubt to keep off the ghost through 
fear of the prickles. They were forbidden to eat fresh fish 
and flesh of any kind for a year. A widower might not fish 
at another man's fishing-place or with another man's net. 
If he did, it would make the station and the net useless for 
the season. If a widower transplanted a trout into another 
lake, before releasing it he blew on the head of the fish, and 
after chewing deer-fat, he spat some of the grease out on its 
head, so as to remove the baneful effect of his touch. Then 
he let it go, bidding the fish farewell, and asking it to propa- 
gate its kind. Any grass or branches upon which a widow 
or widower sat or lay down withered up. If a widow were 
to break sticks or branches, her own hands or arms would 
break. She might not cook food or fetch water for her 
children, nor let them lie down on her bed, nor should she 
lie or sit where they slept. Some widows wore a breech- 
cloth made of dry bunch -grass for several days, lest the 
ghost of her dead husband should have connection with her. 
A widower might not fish or hunt, because it was unlucky 
both for him and for other hunters. He did not allow his 
shadow to pass in front of another widower or of any person 
who was supposed to be gifted with more knowledge or 
magic than ordinary. 1 Among the Lillooet Indians of 
British Columbia the rules enjoined on widows and widowers 
were somewhat similar. But a widower had to observe a 

p James Teit, The Thompson Indians of the American Museum of Natural 
of liritish Columbia, pp. 332 sq. (The History, April 1900). 
Jesup North I'adfic Expedition, Memoir 



74 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

singular custom in eating. He ate his food with the right 
hand passed underneath his right leg, the knee of which 
was raised. The motive for conveying food to his mouth 
in this roundabout fashion is not mentioned : we may con- 
jecture that it was to baffle the hungry ghost, who might be 
supposed to watch every mouthful swallowed by the mourner, 
but who could hardly suspect that food passed under the 
knee was intended to reach the mouth. 1 

Among the Kwakuitl Indians of British Columbia we 
are told " the regulations referring to the mourning period 
are very severe. In case of the death of husband or wife, 
the survivor has to observe the following rules : for four 
days after the death the survivor must sit motionless, the 
knees drawn up toward the chin. On the third day all the 
inhabitants of the village, including children, must take a 
bath. On the fourth day some water is heated in a wooden 
kettle, and the widow or widower drips it upon his head. 
When he becomes tired of sitting motionless, and must 
move, he thinks of his enemy, stretches his legs slowly four 
times, and draws them up again. Then his enemy must die. 
During the following sixteen days he must remain on the 
same spot, but he may stretch out his legs. He is not 
allowed, however, to move his hands. Nobody must speak 
to him, and whosoever disobeys this command will be punished 
by the death of one of his relatives. Every fourth day he 
takes a bath. He is fed twice a day by an old woman at 
the time of low water, with salmon caught in the preceding 
year, and given to him in the dishes and spoons of the 
deceased. While sitting so his mind is wandering to and 
fro. He sees his house and his friends as though far, far 
away. If in his visions he sees a man near by, the latter is 
sure to die at no distant day ; if he sees him very far away, 
he will continue to live long. After the sixteen days have 
passed, he may lie down, but not stretch out. He takes 
a bath every eighth day. At the end of the first month he 
takes off his clothing, and dresses the stump of a tree with 
it. After another month has passed he may sit in a corner 

1 James Teit, The Lillooet Indians Memoir of the American Museum of 
(Leyden and New York, 1906), p. 271 Natural History}. 
( The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 75 

of the house, but for four months he must not mingle with 
others. He must not use the house door, but a separate 
door is cut for his use. Before he leaves the house for the 
first time he must three times approach the door and return, 
then he may leave the house. After ten months his hair 
is cut short, and after a year the mourning is at an end." ' 

Though the reasons for the elaborate restrictions thus 
imposed on widows and widowers by the Indians of British 
Columbia are not always stated, we may safely infer that 
one and all they are dictated by fear of the ghost, who 
haunting the surviving spouse surrounds him or her with 
a dangerous atmosphere, a contagion of death, which 
necessitates his seclusion both from the people them- 
selves and from the principal sources of their food supply, 
especially from the fisheries, lest the infected person 
should poison them by his malignant presence. We can 
therefore, understand the extraordinary treatment of 
widower by the Papuans of Issoudun in British Nev 
Guinea. His miseries begin with the moment of his wife's 1 
death. He is immediately stripped of all his ornaments, 
abused and beaten by his wife's relations, his house is 
pillaged, his gardens devastated, there is no one to cook for 
him. He sleeps on his wife's grave till the end of his 
mourning. He may never marry again. By the death of 
his wife he loses all his rights. It is civil death for him. 
Old or young, chief or plebeian, he is no longer anybody, 
he does not count. He may not hunt or fish with the 
others ; his presence would bring misfortune ; the spirit of 
his dead wife would frighten the fish or the game. He is 
no longer heard in the discussions. He has no voice in the 
council of elders. He may not take part in a dance ; he 
may not own a garden. If one of his children marries, he 
has no right to interfere in anything or receive any present. 
If he were dead, he could not be ignored more completely. 
He has become a nocturnal animal. He is forbidden to 
shew himself in public, to traverse the village, to walk in the 
roads and paths. Like a boar, he must go in the grass or 

* Franz Boaz, in Fifth Report on nation for the Advancement of Science, 
the North- Western Tribes of Canada, Newcastlc-upon-Tyne, 1889, separate 
pp. 43 sq. {Report of the British Asso- reprint). 



76 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

the bushes. If he hears or sees any one, especially a 
woman, coming from afar, he must hide himself behind a 
tree or a thicket. If he wishes to go hunting or fishing by 
himself, he must go at night. If he has to consult any one, 
even the missionary, he does it in great secrecy and by 
night. He seems to have lost his voice, and only speaks in 
a whisper. He is painted black from head to foot. The 
hair of his head is shaved, except two tufts which flutter on 
his temples. He wears a skull-cap which covers his head 
completely to the ears ; it ends in a point at the back of 
his neck. Round his waist he wears one, two, or three 
sashes of plaited grass ; his arms and legs from the knees to 
the ankles are covered with armlets and leglets of the same 
sort ; and round his neck he wears a similar ornament. 
His diet is strictly regulated, but he does not observe it 
more than he can help, eating in secret whatever is given 
him or he can lay his hands on. " His tomahawk accompanies 
him everywhere and always. He needs it to defend himself 
against the wild boars and also against the spirit of his dead 
wife, who might take a fancy to come and play him some 
mischievous prank ; for the souls of the dead come back 
often and their visit is far from being desired, inasmuch as 
all the spirits without exception are bad and have no 
pleasure but in harming the living. Happily people can 
keep them at bay by a stick, fire, an arrow, or a tomahawk. 
The condition of a widower, far from exciting pity or 
compassion, only serves to render him the object of horror 
and fear. Almost all widowers, in fact, have the reputation 
of being more or less sorcerers, and their mode of life is not 
fitted to give the lie to public opinion. They are forced to 
become idlers and thieves, since they are forbidden to work : 
no work, no gardens ; no gardens, no food : steal then they 
must, and that is a trade which cannot be plied without 
some audacity and knavery at a pinch." ] 

It would be easy, but superfluous, to multiply evidence 
of the terror which a belief in ghosts has spread among man- 
kind, and of the consequences, sometimes tragical, sometimes 

1 Father Guis (de la Congregation mort-deuil," Les Missions catholiques, 
du Sacre"-Coeur d'Issoudun, Missionaire xxxiv. (Lyons, 1902) pp. 208 sq. 
en Nouvelle-Guinee), " Les Canaques, 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 77 

ludicrous, which that belief has brought in its train. 1 The pre- 
ceding instances may suffice for my purpose, which is merely 
to indicate the probability that this widespread superstition hasj 
served a useful purpose by enhancing the sacredness of human 
life. For it is reasonable to suppose that men are more lothj 
to spill the blood of their fellows when they believe that by 
so doing they expose themselves to the vengeance of an 
angry and powerful spirit whom it is difficult either to 
evade or to deceive. Fortunately in this matter we are not 
left wholly to conjecture. In the vast empire of China, as 
we are assured by the best living authority on Chinese 
religion, the fear of ghosts has actually produced this salutary 
result. Amongst the Chinese the faith in the existence of 
the dead, in their power to reward kindness and avenge 
injury, is universal and inveterate ; it has been handed down 
from an immemorial past, and it is nourished in the experience, 
or rather in the mind, of everybody by hundreds of ghost 
stories, all of which are accepted as authentic. Nobody 
doubts that ghosts may interfere at any moment for good 
or evil in the business of life, in the regulation of human 
destiny. To the Chinese their dead are not what our dead 
are to most of us, a dim sad memory, a shadowy congregation 
somewhere far away, to whom we may go in time, but who 
cannot come to us or exercise any influence on the land of the 
living. On the contrary, in the opinion of the Chinese the 
dead not only exist but keep up a most lively intercourse, 
an active interchange of good and evil, with the survivors. 
There is, indeed, even in China, a line of demarcation between 
men and spirits, between the living and the dead, but it is 
said to be very faint, almost imperceptible. This perpetual 
commerce between the two worlds, the material and the 
spiritual, is a source both of bane and of blessing : the 
spirits of the departed rule human destiny with a rod of 
iron or of gold. From them man has everything to hope, 
but also much to fear. Hence as a natural consequence it 
is to the ghosts, to the souls of the dead, that the Chinaman 
pays his devotions ; it is around their dear or dreadful figures 

1 Elsewhere I have illustrated the of the Primitive Theory of the Soul," 

'fear of the dead as it is displayed in Journal of the Anthropological hi- 

funeral customs. See my paper, "On stitute, xv. (1886) pp. 64 sqq. 
certain Burial Customs as illustrative 



78 RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

as a centre that his religion revolves. To ensure their good- 
will and help, to avert their wrath and fierce attacks, that is 
the first and the last object of his religious ceremonies. 1 

This faith of the Chinese in the existence and power 
of the dead, we are informed, " indubitably exercises a mighty 
and salutary influence upon morals. It enforces respect for 
human life and a charitable treatment of the infirm, the aged 
and the sick, especially if they stand on the brink of the 
grave. Benevolence and humanity, thus based on fears and 
selfishness, may have little ethical value in our eyes ; but for 
all that, their existence in a country where culture has not 
yet taught man to cultivate good for the sake of good alone, 
may be greeted as a blessing. Those virtues are even ex- 
tended to animals, for, in fact, these too have souls which 
may work vengeance or bring reward. But the firm belief 
in ghosts and their retributive justice has still other effects. 
It deters from grievous and provoking injustice, because the 
wronged party, thoroughly sure , of the avenging power of 
his own spirit when disembodied, will not always shrink 
from converting himself into a wrathful ghost by committing 
suicide," in order to wreak in death that vengeance on his 
oppressor which he could not exact in life. Cases of suicide 
committed with this intention are said to be far from rare 
in China. 2 " This simple complex of tenets," says Professor 
de Groot, " lays disrespect for human lives under great 
restraint. Most salutarily also they work upon female 
infanticide, a monstrous custom practised extensively among 
the poor in Amoy and the surrounding farming districts, 
as in many other parts of the Empire. The fear that the 
souls of the murdered little ones may bring misfortune, 
induces many a father or mother to lay the girls they are 
unwilling to bring up, in the street for adoption into some 
family or into a foundling-hospital." Humane and well-to-do 
people take advantage of these superstitious fears to inculcate 
a merciful treatment of female infants ; for they print and 
circulate gratuitously tracts which set forth many gruesome 
examples of punishments inflicted upon unnatural fathers 

1 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious 2 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious 
System of China, iv. (Leyden, 1901) System of China, iv. 450^. 
pp. 436 sqq., especially pp. 450, 464. 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 79 

and mothers by the ghosts of their murdered daughters. 
These highly-coloured narratives, though they bear all the 
marks of a florid fancy, are said to answer their benevolent 
purpose perfectly ; for they sink deep into the credulous 
minds to which they are addressed : they touch the seared 
conscience and the callous heart which no appeal to mere 
natural affection could move to pity. 1 

But while the fear of the ghost has thus operated directly 
to enhance the sanctity of human life by deterring the cruel, 
the passionate, and the malignant from the shedding of blood, 
it has operated also indirectly to bring about the same salu- 
tary result. For not only does the hag-ridden murderer 
himself dread his victim's ghost, but the whole community, 
as we have seen, dreads it also and believes itself endangered 
by the murderer's presence, since the wrathful spirit which 
pursues him may turn on other people and rend them. 
Hence society has a strong motive for secluding, banishing, 
or exterminating the culprit in order to free itself from what 
it believes to be an imminent danger, a perilous pollution, 
a contagion of death. 2 To put it in another way, thecpm- 
munity has an interest in punishing homicide. Not that the 
treatment of homicides by the tribe or state was originally 
conceived as a punishment inflicted on them : rather it was 
viewed as a measure of self-defence, a moral quarantine, a 
process of spiritual purification and disinfection, an exorcism. 
It was a mode of cleansing the people generally and some- 
times the homicide himself from the ghostly infection, which 
to the primitive mind appears to be something material 
and tangible, something that can be literally washed or 
scoured away by water, pig's blood, sheep's blood, or other 
detergents. But when this purification took the form of 
laying the manslayer under restraint, banishing him 
from the country, or putting him to death in order to 
appease his victim's ghost, it was for all practical purposes 
indistinguishable from punishment, and the fear of it would 
act as a deterrent just as surely as if it had been designed 

1 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious curse of barrenness on the land (Anti- 

System of China, iv. 457-460. phon, ed. F. Blass, Leipsic, 1871, 

i 2 The Greek orator Antiphon ob- pp. 13, 15, 30). See further L. K. 

serves that the presence of a homicide Farnell, The Evolution of Religion 

pollutes the whole city and brings the (London, 1905), pp. 139 sqq. 



8o RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE v 

to be a punishment and nothing else. When a man is 
about to be hanged, it is little consolation to him to be told 
that hanging is not a punishment but a purification. But 
:he one conception slides easily and almost imperceptibly 
nto the other ; so that what was at first a religious rite, a 
solemn consecration or sacrifice, comes in course of time to 
a purely civil function, the penalty which society exacts 
Vom those who have injured it : the sacrifice becomes an 
pcecution, the priest steps back and the hangman comes 
forward. Thus criminal justice was probably based in large 
measure on a crude form of superstition long before the 
subtle brains of jurists and philosophers deduced it logically, 
according to their various predilections, from a rigid theory 
of righteous retribution, a far-sighted policy of making the 
law a terror to evil-doers, or a benevolent desire to reform 
the criminal's character and save his soul in another world 
by hanging or burning his body in this one. If these deduc- 
tions only profess to justify theoretically the practice of 
punishment, they may be well or ill founded ; but if they 
claim to explain it historically, they are certainly false. 
You cannot thus reconstruct the past by importing into one 
age the ideas of another, by interpreting the earliest in 
terms of the latest products of mental evolution. You may 
make revolutions in that way, but you cannot write history. 
If these views are correct, the dread of the ghost has 
operated in a twofold way to protect human life. On the 
one hand it has made every individual for his own sake more 
reluctant to slay his fellow, and on the other hand it has roused 
the whole community to punish the slayer. It has placed 
every man's life within a double ring-fence of morality and 
law. The hot-headed and the cold-hearted have been fur- 
nished with a double motive for abstaining from the last 
fatal step : they have had to fear the spirit of their victim 
on the one side and the lash of the law on the other : they 
are in a strait between the devil and the deep sea, between 
the ghost and the gallows. And when with the progress of 
thought the shadow of the ghost passes away, the grim 
shadow of the gallows remains to protect society without 
the aid of superstitious terrors. It is thus that custom often 
outlives the motive which originated it. If only an institu- 



v RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE 81 

tion is good in practice, it will stand firm after its old 
theoretical basis has been shattered : a new and more solid, 
because a truer, foundation will be discovered for it to rest 
upon. More and more, as time goes on, morality shifts its 
ground from the sands of superstition to the rock of reason, 
from the imaginary to the real, from the supernatural to the 
natural. In the present case the State has not ceased to 
protect the lives of its peaceful citizens because the faith in 
ghosts is shaken. It has found a better reason than old 
wives' fables for guarding with the flaming sword of Justice 
the approach to the Tree of Life. 



G 



VI 
CONCLUSION 

To sum up this brief review of the influence which 
superstition has exercised on the growth of institutions, I 
think I have shewn, or at least made probable : 

I. That among certain races and at certain times super- 
stition has strengthened the respect for government, especially 
monarchical government, and has' thereby contributed to the 
establishment and maintenance of civil order : 

II. That among certain races and at certain times super- 
stition has strengthened the respect for private property and 
has thereby contributed to the security of its enjoyment : 

III. That among certain races and at certain times 
superstition has strengthened the respect for marriage and 
has thereby contributed to a stricter observance of the rules 
of sexual morality both among the married and the un- 
married : 

IV. That among certain races and at certain times 
superstition has strengthened the respect for human life 
and has thereby contributed to the security of its enjoy- 
ment. 

| But government, private property, marriage, and respect 

ifor human life are the pillars on which rests the whole fabric 

lof civil society. Shake them and you shake society to its 

foundations. Therefore if government, private property, 

marriage, and respect for human life are all good and 

essential to the very existence of civil society, then it 

follows that by strengthening every one of them superstition 

has rendered a great service to humanity. It has 

supplied multitudes with a motive, a wrong motive it is 

82 



vi CONCLUSION 83 

true, for right action ; and surely it is better, far better for 
the world that men should do right from wrong motives 
than that they should do wrong with the best intentions. 
What concerns society is conduct, not opinion : if only our 
actions are just and good, it matters not a straw to others 
whether our opinions be mistaken. The danger of false 
opinion, and it is a most serious one, is that it commonly 
leads to wrong action ; hence it is unquestionably a great evil 
and every effort should be made to correct it. But of the 
two evils wrong action is in itself infinitely worse than false 
opinion ; and all systems of religion or philosophy which 
lay more stress on right opinion than on right action, which 
exalt orthodoxy above virtue, are so far immoral and pre- 
judicial to the best interests of mankind : they invert the 
true relative importance, the real ethical value, of thought 
and action, for it is by what we do, not by what we think, 
that we are useful or useless, beneficent or maleficent to our 
fellows. As a body of false opinions, therefore, superstition 
is indeed a most dangerous guide in practice, and the evils 
which it has wrought are incalculable. But vast as are 
these evils, they ought not to blind us to the benefit which 
superstition has conferred on society by furnishing the 
ignorant, the weak, and the foolish with a motive, bad 
though it be, for good conduct. It is a reed, a broken 
reed, which has yet supported the steps of many a poor 
erring brother, who but for it might have stumbled and 
fallen. It is a light, a dim and wavering light, which, 
if it has lured many a mariner on the breakers, has yet 
guided some wanderers on life's troubled sea into a haven 
of rest and peace. Once the harbour lights are passed and 
the ship is in port, it matters little whether the pilot steered 
by a Jack-o'-lantern or by the stars. 

That, ladies and gentlemen, is my plea for Superstition. 
Perhaps it might be urged in mitigation of the sentence 
which will be passed on the hoary-headed offender when 
he stands at the judgment bar. Yet the sentence, do not 
tfoubt it, is death. But it will not be executed in our time. 
There will be a long, long reprieve. It is as his advocate, 
not as his executioner, that I have appeared before you 



84 CONCLUSION vi 

to-night. At Athens cases of murder were tried before the 
Areopagus by night, 1 and it is by night that I have spoken 
in defence of this power of darkness. But it grows late, 
and with my sinister client I must vanish before the cocks 
crow and the morning breaks gray in the east. 

1 Lucian, ffermottmus, 64, KO.TO. iroitv : id., De domo, 1 8, el M rv\oi m 

roi/s ' Apfioirayiras irotovvra, ol tv VVKTI iraireXcDs rv<f>\6s uv f) tv vvKrl wffwep 

teal <r/c6r(fj diKdovffu>, wi fir} s TOI)S ^ il- 'Apet'ou irdyov f3ov\r) iroiotTO ryv 
X^ovraj, d\V ^j r 



THE END 



Printed l>y R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh. 



HM 

201 

FRAZER, SIR JAMES GEROGE ,F82 



AUTHOR 



HATE 1 BORROWER'S NAME 



NUMBER 



SIR JAMES GEORCS 



Psyche's task 



HM ' 
201 

.F32