The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third...

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 [pg 292] 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 than one year old, and it must be spitted and roasted before a wood fire. But he might not drink milk and eat beef at the same meal. He drank milk thrice a day in the dairy, and the milk was always drawn from a sacred herd which was kept for his exclusive use. Nine cows, neither more nor less, were daily brought from pasture to the royal enclosure to be milked for the king. The herding and the milking of the sacred animals were performed according to certain rules prescribed by ancient custom.1068 Amongst the Murrams of Manipur (a district of eastern India, on the border of Burma) “there are many prohibitions in regard to the food, both animal and vegetable, which the chief should eat, and the Murrams say the chief's post must be a very uncomfortable one.”1069 Among the hill tribes of Manipur the scale of diet allowed by custom to the ghennabura or religious head of a village is always extremely limited. The savoury dog, the tomato, the murghi, are forbidden to him.

If a man in one of these tribes is wealthy enough to feast his whole village and to erect a memorial stone, he is entitled to become subject to the same self-denying ordinances as the ghennabura. He wears the same special clothes, and for the space of a year at least he may not use a drinking horn, but must drink from a bamboo cup.1070 Among the Karennis or Red Karens of Burma a chief attains his position not by hereditary right but in virtue of the observance of taboo. He must abstain from rice and liquor. His mother too must have eschewed these things and lived only on yams and potatoes while she was with child. During that time she might neither eat meat nor drink water from a common well; and in order to be duly qualified for a chiefship her son must continue these habits.1071 Among the Pshaws and Chewsurs of the Caucasus, [pg 293] whose nominal Christianity has degenerated into superstition and polytheism, there is an annual office which entails a number of taboos on the holder or dasturi, as he is called. He must live the whole year in the temple, without going to his house or visiting his wife; indeed he may not speak to any one, except the priests, for fear of defiling himself. Once a week he must bathe in the river, whatever the weather may be, using for the purpose a ladder on which no one else may set foot. His only nourishment is bread and water.

In the temple he superintends the brewing of the beer for the festivals.1072 In the village of Tomil, in Yap, one of the Caroline Islands, the year consists of twenty-four months, and there are five men who for a hundred days of the year may eat only fish and taro, may not chew betel, and must observe strict continence. The reason assigned by them for submitting to these restraints is that if they did not act thus the immature girls would attain to puberty too soon.1073

To explain the ultimate reason why any particular food is prohibited to a whole tribe or to certain of its members would commonly require a far more intimate knowledge of the history and beliefs of the tribe than we possess. The general motive of such prohibitions is doubtless the same which underlies the whole taboo system, namely, the conservation of the tribe and the individual.