(M120) This practice of observing strict chastity as a condition of success in hunting and fishing is very common among rude races; and the instances of it which have been cited render it probable that the rule is always based on a superstition rather than on a consideration of the temporary weakness which a breach of the custom may entail on the hunter or fisherman. In general it appears to be supposed that the evil effect of incontinence is not so much that it weakens him, as that, for some reason or other, it offends the animals, who in consequence will not suffer themselves to be caught. In the Motumotu tribe of New Guinea a man will not see his wife the night before he starts on a great fishing or hunting expedition; if he did, he would have no luck. In the Motu tribe he is regarded as holy that night, and in the morning no one may speak to him or call out his name.(644) In German East Africa elephant hunters must refrain from women for several days before they set out for the chase.(645) We have seen that in the same region a wife’s infidelity during the hunter’s absence is believed to give the elephant power over him so as to kill or wound him.(646) As this belief is clearly a superstition, based on sympathetic magic, so doubtless is the practice of chastity before the hunt. The pygmies of the great African forest are also reported to observe strict continence the night before an important hunt. It is said that at this time they propitiate their ancestors by rubbing their skulls, which they keep in boxes, with palm oil and with water in which the ashes of the bark and leaves of a certain tree (_moduma_) have been mixed.(647)