Part 21

An opinion is not necessarily erroneous because it is obsolete, nor a view wrong because 'it is generally abandoned.' I am here supporting the 'generally abandoned' hypothesis that many taboos, at least, are artificial and imposed, against Mr. Jevons's idea that the taboo, like armorial bearings, results from 'an inherent tendency of the human mind' 'prior to and even contradictory of experience.'[3] That 'a new-born baby is dangerous,' or that 'the water in which a holy person has washed is dangerous,' my private experience does not tell me; in fact, I never made either experiment: never tubbed in the water previously used by a bishop. But I am prepared to admit that neither babies nor bishops are proved by our experience to be dangerous. That is not the question. The savage argued, not from unbiassed and impartial scientific experiment, but from _fancied_ experience. Thus Mr. Jevons mentions a Maori who died after rinding out that he had eaten, unawares, the remains of the luncheon of a holy person, a chief. There was experience produced by suggestion. The suggestion was suggested in the interests of holy chiefs; they were 'tabooed an inch thick,' as Mr. Manning writes. As to the baby, the Dyaks, as in our own fairy belief, hold that 'new-born children are the especial prey of evil spirits,' just as corpses were in--Scotland, where, if the door was left ajar, the corpse sat up, and mopped and mowed. If the watchers left it, and dined in the 'but,' an awful _vacarme_ arose in the 'ben.' The minister entered, stilled the tumult, asked for the tongs, and came back holding in the tongs _a bloody glove_! This he dropped into the fire.

This kind of thing is contradictory to the experience of Mr. Jevons, but not to the _fancied_ experience of Dyaks, Scots, and other races. Opinion therefore makes taboos in accordance with experience, or what is believed to be experience, and the belief is fortified by suggestion, which produces death or disease when the taboo is broken. On the analogy of infectious diseases, the mischief of the tabooed thing is held to be contagious.

Thus I cannot hold with Mr. Jevons that the human mind is provided with an _a priori_ categorical imperative that there are some things which must not be done,' 'a feeling' 'independent of sense experience.'[4] If the choice of what things are 'not to be done' seems to us 'irrational,' that is merely because our reason is more enlightened than that of the savage. He prohibited just such things as his philosophy, and what he believed to be his experience, showed him to be dangerous for obscure reasons. Any fool could see that it was dangerous to eat poison berries or frolic with a bear. But it took reflection to discover that a baby or a corpse was dangerous by reason of evil spirits, _Iruntarinia_, whom the _Alkna Buma,_ or clairvoyant, could see, and describe, though Mr. Jevons and I could not discern them.[5] These Iruntarinia notoriously carry off women, and probably, like the fairies, have their best chance in the hour of child-birth: at all events, the fairies have.[6] The belief is socially useful: it prevents young Arunta women from wandering off alone, and philandering out of bounds.

Thus these taboos are sanctioned by the tribal counsellors as the results of experience, not their own perhaps, but that of the _Alkna Buma_, or clairvoyant, or 'sensitive,' or 'medium,' or habitually hallucinated person. Other taboos, as to women, are imposed for very good reasons, though not for the reasons alleged, and broken taboos are not (in actual ordinary experience) attended by the penalties which, however, suggestion may produce.

Taboo, then, is not imposed irrationally, nor in deference to 'an inherent tendency of the human mind' (that Mrs. Harris of philosophy), but for a very good reason, as savage reasoning goes, and in accordance with what is believed to be experience, and, by dint of suggestion, really does become experience.

It was 'irrational' in Dr. Johnson to touch certain posts, and avoid certain stones, and enter a door twice, if he first entered it with the wrong foot. All my life I have had similar private taboos, though nobody knows better that they are nonsense. But some solitary experience in childhood probably suggested a relation of cause and effect, where there was only a fortuitous sequence of antecedent and consequent, and so Dr. Johnson and I (though not so conspicuously as the Doctor) imposed taboos on ourselves in deference to (fancied) experience. Early man has acted in the same way on a large scale, obeying no categorical _a priori_ imperative, but merely acting on his philosophy and experience which is real to him, though not to civilised men. They usually do not understand it, but educated persons with a survival of savagery in their mental constitutions find the affair intelligible.

But the reason in actual practical experience for some taboos must be plain to the most civilised minds, except those of Badical voters for the Border Boroughs. Man, in the hunter stage, _must_ have game laws and a close-time for edible animals and plants. The Border Badical will not permit a close-time for trout, preferring to destroy them, and with them their offspring, when gravid and unfit for human food, or before they recover condition.

The 'primitive' Arunta are not so irrational, and have a close-time, protected by taboo, or, at least, by ceremonies of a nature more or less magical. In these ceremonies of a people not pastoral or agricultural, we seem to see the germs of the offerings of first-fruits to gods or spirits, though the Australian produce is offered neither to spirits nor to gods. These tribes recognise a great spirit, indeed, Twanyirika, but that he plays any other part in religion or society than presiding over the tribal mysteries we have at present no evidence to prove. Similar figures, associated with the mysteries, are, in other parts of Australia, provided with an ample mythology, and are subject to a being more august and remote. But either the Arunta are advanced thinkers who have passed beyond such ideas, or they have not yet attained to them, or our witnesses are uninformed on the subject.[7] In any case, the first-fruits of the game, grubs, and plants of the Arunta are not offered to Twanyirika, or to the minor sprites, _Iruntarinia_.

The ceremonies, partly intended to make the creatures used for food prolific, and partly, I think, to indicate that the close-time is over and that the creatures may be taken and eaten, are called Intichiuma. On the mummeries expected to make animals and plants plentiful we need not dwell. In each case the men who belong to the totem of the beast, grub, or plant perform the ceremonies. There is believed to be a close and essential connection between a man of the kangaroo totem and all kangaroos, between a man of the grub totem and all grubs, so each totem group does the magic to propagate its ally among beasts or plants. How these ideas arose we do not know. But if a local group was originally called kangaroos or grubs (and some name it must have), the association of names would inevitably lead, by association of ideas, to the notion that a mysterious connection existed between the men of a totem name and the plant, animal, or what not which gave the name. These men, therefore, would work the magic for propagating their kindred in the animal and vegetable world. But the existence of this connection would also suggest that, in common decency, a man should not kill and eat his animal or vegetable relations. In most parts of the world he abstains from this uncousinly behaviour: among the Arunta he may eat sparingly of his totem, and must do so at the end of the close-time or beginning of the season.

He thus, as a near relation of the actual kangaroos or grubs, declares the season open, and gives his neighbours of other totems a lead. Now they may begin to eat grubs or kangaroos; the taboo is off. Thus, in 1745, Gask tabooed the corn of his tenants; they must not reap it, because they refused 'to rise and follow Charlie.' Prince Charles, hearing of this, cut a few ears with his claymore, thus removing the taboo. In the same way the grub or kangaroo men publicly eat a little of their own totem, after which the tribesmen and other totems may fall to and devour. When the grub or whatever it is becomes plentiful, after the magic doings for its propagation, it is collected and placed before some members of the grub totem. The _Alatunja_, or convener, grinds up some of the grub, he and his fellow totemists eat a little, and hand the mass back to the members of other totems. They eat a little of their own totem, partly, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say, to strengthen their mystic connection with the creature. This, in a way, is a 'sacramental' idea, though no religious regard is paid to the plants and animals. But the men also partake, to remove the taboo, and to let the rest of the community gorge themselves legally.[8]

The rite has thus a practical purpose. The grubs or other creatures are not prematurely destroyed, like trout on the Border. In fact, trout themselves are sensible enough not to begin feeding on May fly prematurely. 'Throughout the previous week,' says Sir Herbert Maxwell, 'a few May flies had been seen ... but not a trout would point his nose at one.... This hesitation on the part of the trout to begin their annual banquet is one of the best known and, at the same time, least explicable features of the May fly fortnight.'[9] The Arunta also let the grub come on to its full rise before feeding. When a certain bulb is ripe, the men of its totem rub off and blow away the husks, then the general public may begin feeding. There is nothing sacramental in _this_ ceremony, which merely opens the season for tuber eating. The taboo is off. And so in other cases: the kangaroo men are smeared with the fat of the kangaroo, and eat a little of the animal.[10] The non-kangaroo tribesmen may then eat kangaroo. The traditions of the Arunta represent their mythical ancestors as in some cases feeding _solely_ on their totems. But this cannot possibly be true. A grub man would die, when grubs were out, of starvation, and so with the rest. 'When fruits is in, cats is out,' and a man of the gooseberry totem, who only ate gooseberries, would perish miserably.

The Arunta eating of the totem has nothing to do with consecrating the first-fruits of grubs or kangaroos to a god or with absorbing the qualities of a spirit. When Swedish peasants bake a cake shaped like a girl, from the last sheaf of the new corn, they perhaps originally ate the cake 'as the body of the corn spirit.'[11] But when the Lithuanian farmer takes the first swig of the new beer--'the second brew was for the servants'--perhaps he is only declaring his ownership, and opening the beer season.[12] In an unnamed part of Yorkshire the parson cuts the first corn; he is the _Alatunja_, and opens the harvest. In the Celebes the priest opens the rice harvest; all eat of it; 'after this every one is free to get in his rice.' At St. Andrews on the Medal Day (which is in harvest time) the Alatunja (that is the new captain) drives a ball from the first tee; after this every one is free to drive off in his turn--but not before. In some places, as in Indo-China, the first-fruits are offered to a god; in Zululand the king pops a little into the mouth of every man present, who 'may immediately get in his crops.' If he began harvest before he would die, or, if detected, would be speared, or forfeited. Sometimes the first-fruits are offered to 'the holy spirit of fire.' There are all sorts of ways and ceremonies of opening the season and taking off the taboo. I really don't think it follows that the first fruits are dangerous to eat, before the ceremony, _because_ 'they are regarded as instinct with a divine virtue, and consequently the eating of them is a sacrament or communion.[13] I It is dangerous to eat them, as it would be dangerous to steal a tabooed umbrella. They are tabooed because it is close-time.

The other ideas may come to be entertained, an automatic punishment may be thought to follow the breach of the taboo, though we do not learn that this is the case among the Arunta. But the origin of the taboo on the immature food, I think, is the perfectly practical idea of a close-time; plants are not to be gathered, nor animals killed, prematurely. The more or less supreme being of the Fuegians is angry--if you shoot flappers. 'Very bad to shoot little duck, come rain, come wind, blow, very much blow.'[14] The 'great black man, who cannot be escaped, and who influences the weather according to men's conduct,' is right about the flappers. He sanctions a necessary game law. The _How_ (king), in Tonga, used to wait till the yams were ripe, then he fixed a day for gathering them, and had a religious function. The sort of function depends on the stage at which local religion has arrived; but a close-time--no premature killing or gathering--is the practical idea at the base of all these affairs of first-fruits. Any other superstition, sacrificial or sacramental, may crystallise round the practical primitive prohibition, especially when it was sanctioned by the good old device of automatic punishment, following on infringement of taboo.

If Sir Herbert Maxwell could persuade Mr. Thomas Shaw, M.P., that the proverbially execrable weather on the Border is the direct result of fishing, especially with salmon-roe, out of season; if there was to be no fishing till Mr. Shaw, after tasting of the first trout, declared the season open; if the clergy of all denominations lent their presence to the imposing ceremony, then I believe that Tweed, Ettrick, Teviot, Yarrow, Ail, and Kale would be worth fishing in again.

Taboo, as Mr. Frazer and Mr. Jevons agree, has had its uses in the evolution of morality; but remark that strictly moral offences are nowhere under taboo. You may steal (as long as the object stolen is not tabooed and does not belong to a chief or priest), you may kill, you may interfere with the domestic bliss of your neighbour, you may lie, but the automatic punishment of taboo-breaking nowhere follows. Baiame or Pundjel may punish you; but there is no instant mechanical penalty, as under taboo.

After writing this paper, I found that Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson's experience of _tapu_, in the Pacific, led him to form the same opinions as are here expressed. 'The devil-fish, it seems, were growing scarce upon the reef; it was judged fit to interpose what we should call a close season ... a tapu had to be declared.' The tapus described 'are for thoroughly sensible ends.' There are tapus which, to us, appear absurd, 'but the tapu is more often the instrument of wise and needful restrictions.'[15]

These taboos are imposed from above, by Government. In other cases, where the taboo expresses an inference from savage superstition (say that a baby or a corpse is dangerous), the taboo is not imposed except by public opinion. That opinion is sanctioned (as in the case of first-fruits) by the action of the Alatunja, or headman: in more advanced societies, by the king. In many cases, taboos are imposed on the king himself by the priestly colleges. But the greatest authority is tradition, resting on fancied experience.

[1] _Introduction to the History of Religion_, p. 82.

[2] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 10-16.

[3] Jevons, p. 85.

[4] Jevons, pp. 85-87.

[5] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 15, 515.

[6] _Ibid._ p. 517.

[7] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 222, 246.

[8] The Arunta eating of the totem, at the magic ceremony, is not religious. Mr. Jevons, however, adduces it as proof of 'the existence of the totem-sacrament,' surviving 'in an etiolated form.' But what proof have we that the totems were once 'totem gods,' or in any way divine, among the Arunta? Jevons, 'The Science of Religion,' _International Monthly_, p. 489, April 1901.

[9] _Memories of the Months_, 1900, pp. 132, 133.

[10] Spencer and Gillen, chapter vi.

[11] _G. B_. ii. 318.

[12] _Ibid._

[13] _G. B_. ii. 335.

[14] Fitzroy, _Cruise of the Beagle_, ii. 180.

[15] _In the South Seas_, pp. 47-50.

XV

_WALKING THROUGH FIRE_

Perhaps the topic of this paper may be ranged under the head of 'Magic,' though in many cases the rite of passing through fire is sanctioned by religion, and the immunity of the performers is explained by the protection of gods. The immunity is really the curious feature. Mr. Frazer describes the Chinese vernal festival of fire in spring, connected as it is with the widespread custom of 'renewing the fire' at a certain season. The chief performers are labourers, who must fast for three days and observe chastity for a week; while they are taught in the temple how to discharge the difficult and dangerous duty which is to be laid upon them. 'The fire is made in an enormous brazier of charcoal, sometimes twenty feet wide.' The fire is gratified with salt and rice, thrown on it by a Taoist priest. Further, 'two exorcists, barefooted, and followed by two peasants, traverse the fire again and again till it is somewhat beaten down.' The procession of performers then walks through amidst much excitement. Their immunity is ascribed to the horny consistency of the soles of their feet, and they suffer if the fire touches their ankles.[1] Various Indian examples are given by Mr. Frazer. Captain Mackenzie found the performance remote from the 'sensational,' and thought that only girls with tender soles were likely to suffer. A case is also quoted from Strabo, women being the performers, and the instance of the Hirpi of Soracte is well known.[2] Mr. Frazer is interested mainly in the religious, magical, or ritual significance of the rite, which varies in different places. To me, on the other hand, the immunity of the performers appears a subject worthy of physiological inquiry.

The subject occurs everywhere in history, legend, folklore, law, and early religion, and yet nobody has thought it worth while to collect the ancient reports and to compare them with well-authenticated modern examples. In Mr. Tylor's celebrated work, 'Primitive Culture,' only one or two casual allusions are made to the theme. 'They built the high places of Baal, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and daughters to pass through to Moloch,' that is to pass through the fire, 'whether in ritual or symbolical sacrifice.'[3] As a supposed rite of purification the ceremony is again touched upon lightly.[4] Again: 'The ancient ceremony of passing through a fire, or leaping over burning brands, has been kept up vigorously in the British Isles,'[5] namely, at the midsummer ceremonies, when it is, or was, the custom to jump over, or run through, light fires. Nobody would guess that a rite of passing deliberately, and unscathed, through ovens or furnaces yet exists in Japan, Bulgaria, the Society Islands, Fiji, Southern India, Trinidad, the Straits Settlements, the Isle of Mauritius, and, no doubt, in other regions.

We must distinguish between such sportive playing with fire as prevailed recently in our isles and the more serious Fire Ceremony of Central Australia, which tests endurance on the one hand, and the apparent contravention of a natural law on the other. Again, we must discount the popular reply that the hand can be rapidly plunged into molten metal and withdrawn without injury, for we do not happen to be concerned with such a brief exposure to heat. Once more, the theory of the application of some unknown chemical substance must be rejected, because, as we shall prove, there are certainly cases in which nothing of the kind is done. Moreover, science is acquainted with no substance--alum or diluted sulphuric acid, or the like--which will produce the result of preventing cauterisation.[6] Sir William Crookes, at least, is not familiar with any such resources of science. His evidence as to fire-handling by D. D. Home is familiar, and I understand that Mr. Podmore can only explain it away by an hypothesis of a trick played in a bad light, by means of an asbestos glove or some such transparent trick.[7] Perhaps he adds a little 'hallucination' on the part of the spectators. But asbestos and hallucination are out of the question in the cases which I am about to quote.

Home was, or feigned to be, in a state of trance when he performed with fire. The seeress of Lourdes, Bernadette, was also in religious contemplation when she permitted the flame of a candle to play through her clasped fingers (which were unscathed) for a timed quarter of an hour.[8] Some Indian devotees, again, aver that they 'meditate' on some divine being while passing over the glowing embers, and the Nistinares of Bulgaria, who dance in the fire, are described as being in a more or less abnormal mental condition. But even this condition is absent in the well-attested Raiatean and Fijian examples, in which also no kind of chemical preparation is employed. Finally, where savages are concerned, the hardness of the skins of their feet is dwelt upon, as in the Chinese case already quoted. But, first, the sole of the boot would be scorched in the circumstances, while their feet are not affected; next, the savages' feet were _not_ leathery (so Dr. Hocken avers); thirdly, one of the Europeans who walked through the fire at Rarotonga declares that the soles of his own feet are peculiarly tender. Thus every known physical or conjectured psychical condition of immunity fails to meet the case, and we are left wholly without an ascertained, or a good conjectural, 'reason why' for the phenomena.

I shall begin with the most recent and the best authenticated cases, and work back in time, and in civilisation. Mr. Tregear, the well-known lexicographer of the Maori and the allied Mangarova languages, lately sent me the twenty-ninth number of 'The Journal of the Polynesian Society,' March 1899, Wellington, N.Z. Professors Max Müller and Sayce were Honorary Members of the Society, which studies Polynesian languages, customs, and conditions. Mr. Tregear attests the upright, truth-telling character of the British official, who is the narrator of his own experiment. As the journal is not widely circulated in England, I quote the whole of the brief report.

THE UMU-TI, OR FIRE-WALKING CEREMONY

BY COLONEL GUDGEON, BRITISH RESIDENT, RAROTONGA

[In this Journal, vol. ii p. 105, Miss Teuira Henry describes this ceremony as practised in Raiatea, of the Society group. We have lately received from Colonel Gudgeon the following account of his experiences in walking barefooted across the glowing hot stones of a native oven, made in Rarotonga by a man from Raiatea. Since the date of the paper quoted, it has come to light that the Maoris of New Zealand were equally acquainted with this ceremony, which was performed by their ancestors. On reading Colonel Gudgeon's account to some old chiefs of the Urewera tribe, they expressed no surprise, and said that their ancestors could also perform the ceremony, though it has long gone out of practice.--EDITORS.]

I must tell you that I have seen and gone through the fire ceremony of the _Umu-ti_.

The oven was lit at about dawn on the 20th of January, and I noticed that the stones were very large, as also were the logs that had been used in the oven for heating purposes.