(M177) The magical use to which spittle may be put marks it out, like blood or nail-parings, as a suitable material basis for a covenant, since by exchanging their saliva the covenanting parties give each other a guarantee of good faith. If either of them afterwards forswears himself, the other can punish his perfidy by a magical treatment of the perjurer’s spittle which he has in his custody. Thus when the Wajagga of East Africa desire to make a covenant, the two parties will sometimes sit down with a bowl of milk or beer between them, and after uttering an incantation over the beverage they each take a mouthful of the milk or beer and spit it into the other’s mouth. In urgent cases, when there is no time to stand on ceremony, the two will simply spit into each other’s mouth, which seals the covenant just as well.(1061) § 10. Foods tabooed. (M178) As might have been expected, the superstitions of the savage cluster thick about the subject of food; and he abstains from eating many animals and plants, wholesome enough in themselves, which for one reason or another he fancies would prove dangerous or fatal to the eater. Examples of such abstinence are too familiar and far too numerous to quote. But if the ordinary man is thus deterred by superstitious fear from partaking of various foods, the restraints of this kind which are laid upon sacred or tabooed persons, such as kings and priests, are still more numerous and stringent. We have already seen that the Flamen Dialis was forbidden to eat or even name several plants and animals, and that the flesh diet of Egyptian kings was restricted to veal and goose.(1062) In antiquity many priests and many kings of barbarous peoples abstained wholly from a flesh diet.(1063) The _Gangas_ or fetish priests of the Loango Coast are forbidden to eat or even see a variety of animals and fish, in consequence of which their flesh diet is extremely limited; often they live only on herbs and roots, though they may drink fresh blood.(1064) The heir to the throne of Loango is forbidden from infancy to eat pork; from early childhood he is interdicted the use of the _cola_ fruit in company; at puberty he is taught by a priest not to partake of fowls except such as he has himself killed and cooked; and so the number of taboos goes on increasing with his years.(1065) In Fernando Po the king after installation is forbidden to eat _cocco_ (_arum acaule_), deer, and porcupine, which are the ordinary foods of the people.(1066) The head chief of the Masai may eat nothing but milk, honey, and the roasted livers of goats; for if he partook of any other food he would lose his power of soothsaying and of compounding charms.(1067) The diet of the king of Unyoro in Central Africa was strictly regulated by immemorial custom. He might never eat vegetables, but must live on milk and beef. Mutton he might not touch. The beef he ate must be that of young animals not more