The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
(M115) Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia, men who have
partaken of human flesh as a ceremonial rite are subject for a long time
afterwards to many restrictions or taboos of the sort we have been dealing
with. They may not touch their wives for a whole year; and during the same
time they are forbidden to work or gamble. For four months they must live
alone in their bedrooms, and when they are obliged to quit the house for a
necessary purpose, they may not go out at the ordinary door, but must use
only the secret door in the rear of the house. On such occasions each of
them is attended by all the rest, carrying small sticks. They must all sit
down together on a long log, then get up, then sit down again, repeating
this three times before they are allowed to remain seated. Before they
rise they must turn round four times. Then they go back to the house.
Before entering they must raise their feet four times; with the fourth
step they really pass the door, taking care to enter with the right foot
foremost. In the doorway they turn four times and walk slowly into the
house. They are not permitted to look back. During the four months of
their seclusion each man in eating must use a spoon, dish, and kettle of
his own, which are thrown away at the end of the period. Before he draws
water from a bucket or a brook, he must dip his cup into it thrice; and he
may not take more than four mouthfuls at one time. He must carry a
wing-bone of an eagle and drink through it, for his lips may not touch the
brim of his cup. Also he keeps a copper nail to scratch his head with, for
were his own nails to touch his own skin they would drop off. For sixteen
days after he has partaken of human flesh he may not eat any warm food,
and for the whole of the four months he is forbidden to cool hot food by
blowing on it with his breath. At the end of winter, when the season of
ceremonies is over, he feigns to have forgotten the ordinary ways of men,
and has to learn everything anew. The reason for these remarkable
restrictions imposed on men who have eaten human flesh is not stated; but
we may surmise that fear of the ghost of the man whose body was eaten has
at least a good deal to do with them. We are confirmed in our conjecture
by observing that though these cannibals sometimes content themselves with
taking bites out of living people, the rules in question are especially
obligatory on them after they have devoured a corpse. Moreover, the
careful treatment of the bones of the victim points to the same
conclusion; for during the four months of seclusion observed by the
cannibals, the bones of the person on whom they feasted are kept
alternately for four days at a time under rocks in the sea and in their
bedrooms on the north side of the house, where the sun cannot shine on
them. Finally the bones are taken out of the house, tied up, weighted with
a stone, and thrown into deep water, “because it is believed that if they
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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