Taboo (fady) in Madagascar. In Madagascar there is an elaborate system of taboo known as fady.31.2 It has been carefully studied in a learned monograph by Professor A. van Gennep,31.3 who argues that originally all property was based on religion, and that marks of property were marks of taboo.31.4 However, so far as the evidence permits us to judge, it does not appear that the system has been used by the Malagasy for the protection of property to the same extent as by the Polynesians, the Melanesians, and the Indonesians. But we hear of Malagasy charms placed in the fields to afflict with leprosy and other maladies any persons who should dare to steal from them.31.5 And we are told that some examples of fady or taboo “seem to imply a curious basis for the moral code in regard to the rights of property among the last generation of Malagasy. It does not appear to have been fady to steal in general, but certain articles were specified, to steal which there were various penalties attached. Thus, to steal an egg caused the thief to become leprous; to steal landy (native silk) caused blindness or some other infirmity. And to steal iron was also visited by some bodily affliction.”31.6 In order to recover stolen property the Malagasy had recourse to a deity called Ramanandroany. The owner would take a remnant of the thing that had been purloined, and going with it to the idol would say, “As to whoever stole our property, O Ramanandroany, kill him by day, destroy him by night, and strangle him; let there be none amongst men like him; let him not be able to increase in riches, not even a farthing, but let him pick up his livelihood as a hen pecks rice-grains; let his eyes be blinded, and his knees swollen, O Ramanandroany.” It was supposed that these curses fell on the thief.32.1
Property protected by superstitious fears elsewhere. Similar modes of enforcing the rights of private property by the aid of superstitious fears have been adopted in many other parts of the world. The subject has been copiously illustrated by Dr. Edward Westermarck in his very learned work on the origin and development of the moral ideas.32.2 Here I will cite only a few cases out of many. The Kouis of Laos, on the borders of Siam, protect their plantations against thieves in a very simple way. They place a “shaking tubercule” (prateal anchot) on the land which is to be guarded; and if any thief should thereafter dare to lay hands on the crop, he is immediately seized by a shaking fit like that of a drenched dog and cannot budge from the spot. They say that a fisherman at Sangkeah employed this charm with the best results. He used always to find his bow-net empty till one day he had the happy thought of protecting it by a “shaking tubercule.” It acted like magic. The thief went down as usual into the river and brought up the net full of fish. But hardly had he stepped on the bank when he began to shiver and shake, with the dripping net and its writhing silvery contents glued to his breast. Two days afterwards, the proprietor, making his rounds, discovered the thief on the same spot, shivering and chattering away as hard as ever, but of course the fish in the net were dead and rotten.33.1 Among the Kawars, a primitive hill tribe of the Central Provinces in India, “the sword, the gun, the axe, the spear have each a special deity, and in fact in the Bangawan, the tract where the wilder Kawars dwell, it is believed that every article of household furniture is the residence of a spirit, and that if any one steals or injures it without the owner’s leave the spirit will bring some misfortune on him in revenge. Theft is said to be unknown among them, partly on this account and partly perhaps because no one has much property worth stealing.”33.2 In Ceylon, when a person wishes to protect his fruit-trees from thieves, he hangs up certain grotesque figures round the orchard and dedicates it to the devils. After that no native will dare to touch the fruit; even the owner himself will not venture to use it till the charm has been removed by a priest, who naturally receives some of the fruit for his trouble.33.3 The Indians of Cumana in South America surrounded their plantations with a single cotton thread, and this was safeguard enough; for it was believed that any trespasser would soon die. The Juris of Brazil adopt the same simple means of stopping gaps in their fences.33.4
Property in Annam protected by ghosts and curses. The Annamites in the interior of Tonquin believe that the ghosts of young girls who have been buried in a corner of the dwelling act as a vigilant police; if thieves have made their way into the house and are preparing to depart with their booty, they hear the voice of a ghost enumerating the things on which they have laid hands, and in a panic they drop them and take to flight.33.5 But if in spite of all an Annamite should chance to be robbed, he can easily recover the stolen property as follows. With a clod of earth taken from the kitchen floor, a pinch of vermilion, the white of an egg, and a little alcohol he makes a ball, which stands for the head of the thief. This he puts in the fire on the hearth, and having lit some incense sticks he pronounces the following incantation: “On such a day of such a month of such a year So-and-so was robbed of various things. The name of the thief is unknown. I pray the guardian-spirit of the kitchen to hold the rascal’s head in the fire that it may burn.” After that, if the thief does not restore the stolen property, he will be a dead man within a month.34.1
Thieves cursed in Nias. Similarly in Nias, an island to the west of Sumatra, when a thief cannot be found he is cursed, and to give weight to the curse a dog is burned alive. While the animal is expiring in torments, the man who has been robbed expresses his wish that the thief may likewise die in agony; and they say that thieves who have been often cursed do die screaming.34.2 Thieves cursed among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo. Curses are also employed for the same purpose with excellent effect by the Sea Dyaks of Borneo. On this point a missionary bears the following testimony. “With an experience of nearly twenty years in Borneo, during which I came into contact with thousands of the people, I have known of only two instances of theft among the Dyaks. One was a theft of rice. The woman who lost the rice most solemnly and publicly cursed the thief, whoever it might be. The next night the rice was secretly left at her door. The other was a theft of money. In this case, too, the thief was cursed. The greater part of the money was afterwards found returned to the box from which it had been abstracted. Both these incidents show the great dread the Dyak has of a curse. Even an undeserved curse is considered a terrible thing, and, according to Dyak law, to curse a person for no reason at all is a fineable offence.
“A Dyak curse is a terrible thing to listen to. I have only once heard a Dyak curse, and I am sure I do not want to do so again. I was travelling in the Saribas district, and at that time many of the Dyaks there had gone in for coffee-planting; indeed, several of them had started coffee plantations on a small scale. A woman told me that some one had over and over again stolen the ripe coffee-berries from her plantation. Not only were the ripe berries stolen, but the thief had carelessly picked many of the young berries and thrown them on the ground, and many of the branches of the plants had been broken off. In the evening, when I was seated in the public part of the house with many Dyak men and women round me, we happened to talk about coffee-planting. The woman was present, and told us of her experiences, and how her coffee had been stolen by some thief, who, she thought, must be one of the inmates of the house. Then she solemnly cursed the thief. She began in a calm voice, but worked herself up into a frenzy. We all listened horror-struck, and no one interrupted her. She began by saying what had happened, and how these thefts had gone on for some time. She had said nothing before, hoping that the thief would mend his ways; but the matter had gone on long enough, and she was going to curse the thief, as nothing, she felt sure, would make him give up his evil ways. She called on all the spirits of the waters and the hills and the air to listen to her words and to aid her. She began quietly, but became more excited as she went on. She said something of this kind:
Curses on a man thief. “ ‘If the thief be a man, may he be unfortunate in all he undertakes! May he suffer from a disease that does not kill him, but makes him helpless—always in pain—and a burden to others. May his wife be unfaithful to him, and his children become as lazy and dishonest as he is himself. If he go out on the war-path, may he be killed, and his head smoked over the enemy’s fire. If he be boating, may his boat be swamped and may he be drowned. If he be out fishing, may an alligator kill him suddenly, and may his relatives never find his body. If he be cutting down a tree in the jungle, may the tree fall on him and crush him to death. May the gods curse his farm so that he may have no crops, and have nothing to eat, and when he begs for food, may he be refused, and die of starvation.
Curses on a woman thief. “ ‘If the thief be a woman, may she be childless, or if she happen to be with child let her be disappointed, and let her child be still-born, or, better still, let her die in childbirth. May her husband be untrue to her, and despise her and ill-treat her. May her children all desert her if she live to grow old. May she suffer from such diseases as are peculiar to women, and may her eyesight grow dim as the years go on, and may there be no one to help her or lead her about when she is blind.’
“I have only given the substance of what she said; but I shall never forget the silence and the awed faces of those who heard her. I left the house early next morning, so I do not know what was the result of her curse—whether the thief confessed or not.”36.1
Thieves cursed in ancient Greece. The ancient Greeks seem to have made a very liberal use of curses as a cheap and effective mode of protecting property, which dispenses the injured party from resorting to the tedious, expensive, and too often fruitless formalities of the law. These curses they inscribed on tablets of lead and other materials and deposited either in the place which was to be protected from depredation or in the temple of the god to whose tender mercies the criminal was committed. For example, in a sacred precinct dedicated to Demeter, Persephone, Pluto and other deities of a stern and inflexible temper at Cnidus, a number of leaden tablets were found inscribed with curses which consigned the malefactors of various sorts to the vengeance of the two Infernal Goddesses, Demeter and her daughter. “May he or she never find Persephone propitious!” is the constantly repeated burden of these prayers; and in some of them the sinner is not only excommunicated in this world but condemned to eternal torments in the world hereafter. Often the persons who launched these curses were ladies. One irate dame consigns to perdition the thief who had stolen her bracelet or the defaulter who had failed to send back her underclothes.36.2 Another curse, engraved on a marble slab found at Smyrna, purports that if any man should steal one of the sacred vessels of a certain goddess or injure her sacred fish, he may die a painful death, devoured by the fishes.36.3 Sometimes, apparently, these Greek imprecations were as effective in reclaiming sinners as Dyak curses are to this day. Thus we read of a curious dedication to a lunar deity of Asia Minor, by name Men Aziottenos, which declares how one Artemidorus, having been reviled by a couple of rude fellows, cursed them in a votive tablet, and how one of the culprits, having been punished by the god, made a propitiatory offering and mended his wicked ways.37.1 Landmarks protected by gods and curses. To prevent people from encroaching on their neighbours’ land by removing the boundary stones, the Greeks committed landmarks to the special protection of the great god Zeus;37.2 and Plato dwells with unction on the double punishment, divine and human, to which the sinner exposed himself who dared to tamper with these sacred stones.37.3 The Romans went even further, for they created a god for the sole purpose of looking after landmarks, and he must have had his hands very full if he executed all the curses which were levelled not only at every man who shifted his neighbour’s boundary stone, but even at the oxen which he employed to plough up his neighbour’s land.37.4 The Hebrew code of Deuteronomy pronounced a solemn curse on such as removed their neighbour’s landmarks;37.5 and Babylonian kings exhausted their imagination in pouring out a flood of imprecations against the abandoned wretch who thus set at naught the rights of property in land.37.6 King Nebuchadnezzar in particular, before he was turned out to grass, appears to have distinguished himself by the richness and variety of his execrations, if we may judge by a specimen of them which has survived. A brief extract from this masterpiece may serve to illustrate the king’s style of minatory eloquence. Referring to the bold bad man, “be it shepherd or governor, or agent or regent, levy master or magistrate,” whosoever he might be, who “for all days to come, for the future of human habitations,” should dare to tamper with the land which his Majesty had just marked out, “Ninib, lord of boundaries and boundary-stones, tear out his boundary stone. Gula, great lady, put lingering illness into his body, that dark and light red blood he may pour out like water. Ishtar, lady of countries, whose fury is a flood, reveal difficulties to him, that he escape not from misfortune. Nusku, mighty lord, powerful burner, the god, my creator, be his evil demon and may he burn his root. Whoever removes this stone, in the dust hides it, burns it with fire, casts it into water, shuts it up in an enclosure, causes a fool, a deaf man, an idiot to take it, places it in an invisible place, may the great gods, who upon this stone are mentioned by their names, curse him with an evil curse, tear out his foundation and destroy his seed.”38.1
Superstition as an ally of the rights of private property in Africa. In Africa also superstition is a powerful ally of the rights of private property. Thus the Balonda place beehives on high trees in the forest and protect them against thieves by tying a charm or “piece of medicine” round the tree-trunks. This proves a sufficient protection. “The natives,” says Livingstone, “seldom rob each other, for all believe that certain medicines can inflict disease and death; and though they consider that these are only known to a few, they act on the principle that it is best to let them all alone. The gloom of these forests strengthens the superstitious feelings of the people. In other quarters, where they are not subjected to this influence, I have heard the chiefs issue proclamations to the effect, that real witchcraft medicines had been placed at certain gardens from which produce had been stolen; the thieves having risked the power of the ordinary charms previously placed there.”38.2
The Wanika of East Africa. The Wanika of East Africa “believe in the power and efficacy of charms and amulets, and they wear them in great variety; legs, arms, neck, waist, hair, and every part of the body are laden with them, either for the cure or prevention of disease; for the expulsion or repulsion of evil spirits; and to keep at bay snakes, wild animals, and every other evil. They hang painted calabashes from the baobab at their hut doors to keep away thieves; shells, dolls, eggs scratched over with Arabic characters by the Wana Chuoni (sons of the book) of the coast, are placed about their plantations and in their fruit-trees, and they believe that death would overtake a thief who should disregard them. A charm bound to the leg of a fowl is ample protection for the village. There is no doubt that, superstitious as the people are, they dread running great risks for the sake of small gains, and so these charms answer their purpose.”39.1 The Boloki of the Congo. Among the Boloki of the Upper Congo, when a woman finds that the cassava roots, which she keeps soaking in a water-hole, are being stolen, she takes a piece of gum copal, and fixing it in the cleft of a split stick she puts it on the side of the hole, while at the same time she calls down a curse on the thief. If the thief is a man, he will henceforth have no luck in fishing; if she is a woman, she will have no more success in farming.39.2 The Ekoi of Southern Nigeria protect their farms against thieves by bundles of palm leaves to which they give the name of okpata. Should any one steal from a farm thus protected, he will fall sick and will not recover unless he gives a certain dance, to which the name of okpata is also applied.39.3
Guardian spirits (damzogs) of property in Darfur. In the mountains of Marrah, a district of Darfur, houses, goods, and cattle are protected against thieves by certain fierce and dangerous guardian-spirits called damzogs, which can be bought like watch dogs. Under the guardianship of such a spiritual protector the sheep and cows are left free to wander at will; for if any one were rash enough to attempt to steal or kill one of the beasts, his hand with the knife in it would remain sticking fast to the animal’s throat till the owner came and caught the rascal. An Arab merchant, travelling in Darfur, received from a friend the following account of the way to procure one of these useful guardians. “At the time when I first began to trade, my friend, I often heard that damzogs could be bought and sold, and that to procure one I must apply to the owner of a damzog, and discuss the price with him. When the bargain is concluded, it is necessary to give a large gourd of milk to the seller, who takes it to his house, where are his damzogs. On entering he salutes them, and goes and hangs up his vase to a hook, saying,—‘One of my friends—such a one—very rich, is in fear of robbers, and asks me to supply him with a guardian. Will one of you go and live in his house? There is plenty of milk there, for it is a house of blessing, and the proof thereof is, that I bring you this kara of milk.’ The damzogs at first refuse to comply with the invitation. ‘No, no,’ say they, ‘not one of us will go.’ The master of the hut conjures them to comply with his desires, saying, ‘Oh! let the one that is willing descend into the kara.’ He then retires a little, and presently one of the damzogs is heard to flop into the milk, upon which he hastens and claps upon the vase a cover made of date-leaves. Thus stopped up he unhooks the kara, and hands it over to the buyer, who takes it away and hangs it on the wall of his hut, and confides it to the care of a slave or of a wife, who every morning comes and takes it, emptying out the milk, washing it and replenishing it, and hanging it up again. From that time forward the house is safe from theft or loss.” The merchant’s informant, the Shereef Ahmed Bedawee, had himself purchased one of these guardian spirits, who proved most vigilant and efficient in the discharge of his duties; indeed his zeal was excessive, for he not only killed several slaves who tried to rob his master, but did summary execution on the Shereef’s own son, when the undutiful young man essayed to pilfer from his father’s shop. This was too much for the Shereef; he invited a party of friends to assist him in expelling the inflexible guardian. They came armed with guns and a supply of ammunition, and by raking the shop with repeated volleys of musketry they at last succeeded in putting the spirit to flight.40.1
The curses of smiths and potters. Amongst the Nandi of British East Africa nobody dares to steal anything from a smith; for if he did, the smith would heat his furnace, and as he blew the bellows to make the flames roar he would curse the thief so that he would die. And in like manner among these people, with whom the potters are women, nobody dares to filch anything from a potter; for next time she heated her wares the potter would curse him, saying, “Burst like a pot, and may thy house become red,” and the thief so cursed would die.41.1 Charms to protect property in West Africa. In Loango, when a man is about to absent himself from home for a considerable time he protects his hut by placing a charm or fetish before it, consisting perhaps of a branch with some bits of broken pots or trash of that sort; and we are told that even the most determined robber would not dare to cross a threshold defended by these mysterious signs.41.2 On the coast of Guinea fetishes are sometimes inaugurated for the purpose of detecting and punishing certain kinds of theft; and not only the culprit himself, but any person who knows of his crime and fails to give information is liable to be punished by the fetish. When such a fetish is instituted, the whole community is warned of it, so that he who transgresses thereafter does so at his peril. For example, a fetish was set up to prevent sheep-stealing and the people received warning in the usual way. Shortly afterwards a slave, who had not heard of the law, stole a sheep and offered to divide it with a friend. The friend had often before shared with him in similar enterprises, but the fear of the fetish was now too strong for him; he informed on the thief, who was brought to justice and died soon after of a lingering and painful disease. Nobody in the country ever doubted but that the fetish had killed him.41.3 Among the Ewe-speaking tribes of the Slave Coast in West Africa houses and household property are guarded by amulets (võ-sesao), which derive their virtue from being consecrated or belonging to the gods. The crops, also, in solitary glades of the forest are left under the protection of such amulets, generally fastened to long sticks in some conspicuous position; and so guarded they are quite safe from pillage. By the side of the paths, too, may be seen food and palm-wine lying exposed for sale with nothing but a charm to protect them; a few cowries placed on each article indicate its price. Yet no native would dare to take the food or the wine without depositing its price; for he dreads the unknown evil which the god who owns the charm would bring upon him for thieving.42.1 In Sierra Leone charms, called greegrees, are often placed in plantations to deter people from stealing, and it is said that “a few old rags placed upon an orange tree will generally, though not always, secure the fruit as effectually as if guarded by the dragons of the Hesperides. When any person falls sick, if, at the distance of several months, he recollects having stolen fruit, etc., or having taken it softly as they term it, he immediately supposes wangka has caught him, and to get cured he must go or send to the person whose property he had taken, and make to him whatever recompense he demands.”42.2
Charms to protect property in the West Indies. Superstitions of the same sort have been transported by the negroes to the West Indies, where the name for magic is obi and the magician is called the obeah man. There also, we are told, the stoutest-hearted negroes “tremble at the very sight of the ragged bundle, the bottle or the egg-shells, which are stuck in the thatch or hung over the door of a hut, or upon the branch of a plantain tree, to deter marauders.… When a negro is robbed of a fowl or a hog, he applies directly to the Obeah-man or woman; it is then made known among his fellow blacks, that obi is set for the thief; and as soon as the latter hears the dreadful news, his terrified imagination begins to work, no resource is left but in the superior skill of some more eminent Obeah-man of the neighbourhood, who may counteract the magical operations of the other; but if no one can be found of higher rank and ability; or if, after gaining such an ally, he should still fancy himself affected, he presently falls into a decline, under the incessant horror of impending calamities. The slightest painful sensation in the head, the bowels, or any other part, any casual loss or hurt, confirms his apprehensions, and he believes himself the devoted victim of an invisible and irresistible agency. Sleep, appetite and cheerfulness forsake him; his strength decays, his disturbed imagination is haunted without respite, his features wear the settled gloom of despondency: dirt, or any other unwholesome substance, becomes his only food, he contracts a morbid habit of body, and gradually sinks into the grave.”43.1 Superstition has killed him.
Conclusion. Similar evidence might doubtless be multiplied, but the foregoing cases suffice to shew that among many peoples and in many parts of the world superstitious fear has operated as a powerful motive to deter men from stealing. If that is so, then my second proposition may be regarded as proved, namely, that among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for private property and has thereby contributed to the security of its enjoyment.
IV.
MARRIAGE
Superstition as a prop of sexual morality. I pass now to my third proposition, which is, that among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for marriage, and has thereby contributed to a stricter observance of the rules of sexual morality both among the married and the unmarried. That this is true will appear, I think, from the following instances.
Adultery or fornication supposed by the Karens to blight the crops. Among the Karens of Burma “adultery, or fornication, is supposed to have a powerful influence to injure the crops. Hence, if there have been bad crops in a village for a year or two, and the rains fail, the cause is attributed to secret sins of this character, and they say the God of heaven and earth is angry with them on this account; and all the villagers unite in making an offering to appease him.” Pig’s blood used to expiate the crime. And when a case of adultery or fornication has come to light, “the elders decide that the transgressors must buy a hog, and kill it. Then the woman takes one foot of the hog, and the man takes another, and they scrape out furrows in the ground with each foot, which they fill with the blood of the hog. They next scratch the ground with their hands and pray: ‘God of heaven and earth, God of the mountains and hills, I have destroyed the productiveness of the country. Do not be angry with me, do not hate me; but have mercy on me, and compassionate me. Now I repair the mountains, now I heal the hills, and the streams and the lands. May there be no failure of crops, may there be no unsuccessful labours, or unfortunate efforts in my country. Let them be dissipated to the foot of the horizon. Make thy paddy fruitful, thy rice abundant. Make the vegetables to flourish. If we cultivate but little, still grant that we may obtain a little.’ After each has prayed thus, they return to the house and say they have repaired the earth.”45.1 Thus, according to the Karens adultery and fornication are not simply moral offences which concern no one but the culprits and their families: they physically affect the course of nature by blighting the earth and destroying its fertility; hence they are public crimes which threaten the very existence of the whole community by cutting off its food supplies at the root. But the physical injury which these offences do to the soil can be physically repaired by saturating it with pig’s blood.
Disastrous effects ascribed to sexual crime in Assam, Bengal, and Annam. Some of the tribes of Assam similarly trace a connexion between the crops and the behaviour of the human sexes; for they believe that so long as the crops remain ungarnered, the slightest incontinence would ruin all.45.2 Again, the inhabitants of the hills near Rajamahal in Bengal imagine that adultery, undetected and unexpiated, causes the inhabitants of the village to be visited by a plague or destroyed by tigers or other ravenous beasts. To prevent these evils an adulteress generally makes a clean breast. Her paramour has then to furnish a hog, and he and she are sprinkled with its blood, which is supposed to wash away their sin and avert the divine wrath. When a village suffers from plague or the ravages of wild beasts, the people religiously believe that the calamity is a punishment for secret immorality, and they resort to a curious form of divination to discover the culprits, in order that the crime may be duly expiated.45.3 The Khasis of Assam are divided into a number of clans which are exogamous, that is to say, no man may marry a woman of his own clan. Should a man be found to cohabit with a woman of his own clan, it is treated as incest and is believed to cause great disasters; the people will be struck by lightning or killed by tigers, the women will die in child-bed, and so forth. The guilty couple are taken by their clansmen to a priest and obliged to sacrifice a pig and a goat; after that they are made outcasts, for their offence is inexpiable.46.1 The Orang Glai, a savage tribe in the mountains of Annam, similarly suppose that illicit love is punished by tigers, which devour the sinners. If a girl is found with child, her family offers a feast of pigs, fowls, and wine to appease the offended spirits.46.2
Similar views held by the Battas of Sumatra. The Battas of Sumatra in like manner think that if an unmarried woman is with child, she must be given in marriage at once, even to a man of lower rank; for otherwise the people will be infested with tigers, and the crops in the fields will not be abundant. They also believe that the adultery of married women causes a plague of tigers, crocodiles, or other wild beasts. The crime of incest, in their opinion, would blast the whole harvest, if the wrong were not speedily repaired. Epidemics and other calamities that affect the whole people are almost always traced by them to incest, by which is to be understood any marriage that conflicts with their customs.46.3 The natives of Nias, an island to the west of Sumatra, imagine that heavy rains are caused by the tears of a god weeping at the commission of adultery or fornication. The punishment for these crimes is death. The two delinquents, man and woman, are buried in a narrow grave with only their heads projecting above ground; then their throats are stabbed with a spear or cut with a knife, and the grave is filled up. Sometimes, it is said, they are buried alive. However, the judges are not always incorruptible and the injured family not always inaccessible to the allurement of gain; and pecuniary compensation is sometimes accepted as a sufficient salve for wounded honour. But if the wronged man is a chief, the culprits must surely die. As a consequence, perhaps, of this severity, the crimes of adultery and fornication are said to be far less frequent in Nias than in Europe.47.1
Similar views among the tribes of Borneo. Similar views prevail among many tribes in Borneo. Thus in regard to the Sea Dyaks we are told by Archdeacon Perham that “immorality among the unmarried is supposed to bring a plague of rain upon the earth, as a punishment inflicted by Petara. Excessive rains thought by the Dyaks to be caused by sexual offences. It must be atoned for with sacrifice and fine. In a function which is sometimes held to procure fine weather, the excessive rain is represented as the result of the immorality of two young people. Petara is invoked, the offenders are banished from their home, and the bad weather is said to cease. Every district traversed by an adulterer is believed to be accursed of the gods until the proper sacrifice has been offered.”47.2 When rain pours down day after day and the crops are rotting in the fields, these Dyaks come to the conclusion that some people have been secretly indulging in lusts of the flesh; so the elders lay their heads together and adjudicate on all cases of incest and bigamy, and purify Blood of pigs shed to expiate incest and unchastity. the earth with the blood of pigs, which appears to these savages, as sheep’s blood appeared to the ancient Hebrews, to possess the valuable property of atoning for moral guilt. Not long ago the offenders, whose lewdness had thus brought the whole country into danger, would have been punished with death or at least slavery. A Dyak may not marry his first cousin unless he first performs a special ceremony called bergaput to avert evil consequences from the land. The couple repair to the water-side, fill a small pitcher with their personal ornaments, and sink it in the river; or instead of a jar they fling a chopper and a plate into the water. A pig is then sacrificed on the bank, and its carcase, drained of blood, is thrown in after the jar. Next the pair are pushed into the water by their friends and ordered to bathe together. Lastly, a joint of bamboo is filled with pig’s blood, and the couple perambulate the country and the villages round about, sprinkling the blood on the ground. After that they are free to marry. This is done, we are told, for the sake of the whole country, in order that the rice may not be blasted by the marriage of cousins.48.1 Again, we are informed that the Sibuyaus, a Dyak tribe of Sarawak, are very careful of the honour of their daughters, because they imagine that if an unmarried girl is found to be with child it is offensive to the higher powers, who, instead of always chastising the culprits, punish the tribe by visiting its members with misfortunes. Hence when such a crime is detected they fine the lovers and sacrifice a pig to appease the angry powers and to avert the sickness or other calamities that might follow. Further, they inflict fines on the families of the couple for any severe accident or death by drowning that may have happened at any time within a month before the religious atonement was made; for they regard the families of the culprits as responsible for these mishaps. The fines imposed for serious or fatal accidents are heavy; for simple wounds they are lighter. With the fear of these fines before their eyes parents keep a watchful eye on the conduct of their daughters. Among the Dyaks of the Batang Lupar river the chastity of the unmarried girls is not so strictly guarded; but in respectable families, when a daughter proves frail, they sacrifice a pig and sprinkle its blood on the doors to wash away the sin.48.2 The Hill Dyaks of Borneo abhor incest and do not allow the marriage even of cousins. In 1846 the Baddat Dyaks complained to Mr. Hugh Low that one of their chiefs had disturbed the peace and prosperity of the village by marrying his own granddaughter. Since that disastrous event, they said, no bright day had blessed their territory; rain and darkness alone prevailed, and unless the plague-spot were removed, the tribe would soon be ruined. The old sinner was degraded from office, but apparently allowed to retain his wife; and the domestic brawls between this ill-assorted couple gave much pain to the virtuous villagers.49.1
Incest punished with death by the pagan tribes of Borneo. Among the pagan tribes of Borneo in general, but of Sarawak in particular, “almost all offences are punished by fines only. Of the few offences which are felt to require a heavier punishment, the one most seriously regarded is incest. For this offence, which is held to bring grave peril to the whole house, especially the danger of starvation through failure of the padi crop, two punishments have been customary. If the guilt of the culprits is perfectly clear, they are taken to some open spot on the river-bank at some distance from the house. There they are thrown together upon the ground and a sharpened bamboo stake is driven through their bodies, so that they remain pinned to the earth. The bamboo, taking root and growing luxuriantly on this spot, remains as a warning to all who pass by; and, needless to say, the spot is looked on with horror and shunned by all men. The other method of punishment is to shut up the offenders in a strong wicker cage and to throw them into the river. This method is resorted to as a substitute for the former one, owing to the difficulty of getting any one to play the part of executioner and to drive in the stake, for this involves the shedding of the blood of the community. The kind of incest most commonly committed is the connection of a man with an adopted daughter, and (possibly on account of this frequency) this is the kind which is most strongly reprobated.… The punishment of the incestuous couple does not suffice to ward off the danger brought by them upon the community. The household must be purified with the blood of pigs and fowls; the animals used are the property of the offenders or of their family; and in this way a fine is imposed. When any calamity threatens or falls upon a house, especially a great rising of the river which threatens to sweep away the house or the tombs of the household, the Kayans are led to suspect that incestuous intercourse in their own or in neighbouring houses has taken place; and they look round for evidences of it, and sometimes detect a case which otherwise would have remained hidden. It seems probable that there is some intimate relation between this belief and the second of the two modes of punishment described above; but we have no direct evidence of such connection. All the other peoples also, except the Punans, punish incest with death. Among the Sea Dyaks the most common form of incest is that between a youth and his aunt, and this is regarded at least as seriously as any other form.”50.1
Evil and confusion supposed by the Dyaks to be wrought by fornication. Nor is it the heinous crime of incest alone which in the opinion of the Sea Dyaks endangers the whole community. The same effect is supposed to follow whenever an unmarried woman is found with child and cannot or will not name her seducer. “The greatest disgrace,” we are told, “is attached to a woman found in a state of pregnancy, without being able to name her husband; and cases of self-poisoning, to avoid the shame, are not of unusual occurrence. If one be found in this state, a fine must be paid of pigs and other things. Few even of the chiefs will come forward without incurring considerable responsibility. A pig is killed, which nominally becomes the father, for want, it is supposed, of another and better one. Then the surrounding neighbours have to be furnished with a share of the fine to banish the Jabu, which exists after such an event. If the fine be not forthcoming, the woman dare not move out of her room, for fear of being molested, as she is supposed to have brought evil (kudi) and confusion upon the inhabitants and their belongings.”50.2
Similar beliefs and customs among the tribes of Dutch Borneo. The foregoing accounts refer especially to the tribes of Borneo under British rule; but similar ideas and customs prevail among the kindred tribes of Dutch Borneo. Thus the Kayans or Bahaus in the interior of the island believe that adultery is punished by the spirits, who visit the whole tribe with failure of the crops and other misfortunes. Hence in order to avert these evil consequences from the innocent members of the tribe, the two culprits, with all their possessions, are first placed on a gravel bank in the middle of the river, in order to isolate or, in electrical language, to insulate them and so prevent the moral or rather physical infection from spreading. Then pigs and fowls are killed, and with the blood priestesses smear the property of the guilty pair in order to disinfect it. Finally, the two are placed on a raft, with sixteen eggs, and allowed to drift down stream. They may save themselves by plunging into the water and swimming ashore; but this is perhaps a mitigation of an older sentence of death by drowning, for young people still shower long grass stalks, representing spears, at the shamefaced and dripping couple.51.1 Certain it is, that some Dyak tribes used to punish incest by fastening the man and woman in separate baskets laden with stones and drowning them in the river. By incest they understood the cohabitation of parents with children, of brothers with sisters, and of uncles and aunts with nieces and nephews. A Dutch resident had much difficulty in saving the life of an uncle and niece who had married each other; finally he procured their banishment to a distant part of Borneo.51.2 The Blu-u Kayans, another tribe in the interior of Borneo, believe that an intrigue between an unmarried pair is punished by the spirits with failure of the harvest, of the fishing, and of the hunt. Hence the delinquents have to appease the wrath of the spirits by sacrificing a pig and a certain quantity of rice.51.3 In Pasir, a district of Eastern Borneo, incest is thought to bring dearth, epidemics, and all sorts of evils on the land.51.4 In the island of Ceram a man convicted of unchastity has to smear every house in the village with the blood of a pig and a fowl: this is supposed to wipe out his guilt and ward off misfortunes from the village.51.5
Failure of the crops and other disasters thought to be caused by incest in Celebes. When the harvest fails in Southern Celebes, the Macassars and Bugineese regard it as a sure sign that incest has been committed and that the spirits are angry. In the years 1877 and 1878 it happened that the west monsoon did not blow and that the rice crop in consequence came to nothing; moreover many buffaloes died of a murrain. At the same time there was in the gaol at Takalar a prisoner, who had been formerly accused of incest. Some of the people of his district begged the Dutch governor to give the criminal up to them, for according to the general opinion the plagues would never cease till the guilty man had received the punishment he deserved. All the governor’s powers of persuasion were needed to induce the petitioners to return quietly to their villages; and when the prisoner, having served his time, was released shortly afterwards, he was, at his own request, given an opportunity of sailing away to another land, as he no longer felt safe in his own country.52.1 Disastrous effects supposed to follow from shedding the blood of incestuous couples on the ground. Even when the incestuous couple has been brought to justice, their blood may not be shed; for the people think that, were the ground to be polluted by the blood of such criminals, the rivers would dry up and the supply of fish would run short, the harvest and the produce of the gardens would miscarry, edible fruits would fail, sickness would be rife among cattle and horses, civil strife would break out, and the country would suffer from other widespread calamities. Hence the punishment of the guilty is such as to avoid the spilling of their blood: usually they are tied up in a sack and thrown into the sea to drown. Yet they get on their journey to eternity the necessary provisions, consisting of a bag of rice, salt, dried fish, coco-nuts, and other things, among which three quids of betel are not forgotten.52.2 We can now perhaps understand why the Romans used to sew up a parricide in a sack with a dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape for company, and fling him into the sea. They probably feared to defile the soil of Italy by spilling upon it the blood of such a miscreant.52.3 Amongst the Tomori of Central Celebes a person guilty of incest is throttled; no drop of his blood may fall on the ground, for if it did, the rice would never grow again. The union of uncle with niece is regarded by these people as incest, but it can be expiated by an offering. A garment of the man and one of the woman are laid on a copper vessel; the blood of a sacrificed animal, either a goat or a fowl, is allowed to drip on the garments, and then the vessel with its contents is set floating down the river.53.1 Among the Tololaki, another tribe of Central Celebes, persons who have defiled themselves with incest are shut up in a basket and drowned. No drop of their blood may be spilt on the ground, for that would hinder the earth from ever bearing fruit again.53.2 Among the Bare’e-speaking Toradjas of Central Celebes in general the penalty for incest, that is for the sexual intercourse of parents with children or of brothers with sisters, is death. But whereas the death-sentence for adultery is executed with a spear or a sword, the death-sentence for incest is usually executed among the inland tribes by clubbing or throttling; for were the blood of the culprits to drip on the ground, the earth would be rendered barren. The people on the coast put the guilty pair in a basket, weight it with stones, and fling it into the sea. This prescribed manner of putting the incestuous to death, we are informed, makes the execution very grievous. However, the writers who furnish us with these particulars and who have lived among the people on terms of intimacy for many years, add that “incest seldom occurs, or rather the cases that come to light are very few.”53.3 In some districts of Central Celebes, the marriage of cousins, provided they are children of two sisters, is forbidden under pain of death; the people think that such an alliance would anger the spirits, and that the rice and maize harvests would fail. Strictly speaking, two such cousins who have committed the offence should be tied together, weighted with stones, and thrown into water to drown. In practice, however, the culprits are spared and their sin expiated by shedding the blood of a buffalo or a goat. The blood is mixed with water and sprinkled on the rice-fields or poured on the maize-fields, no doubt in order to appease the angry spirits and restore its fertility to the tilled land. The natives of these districts believe that were a brother and sister to commit incest, the ground on which the tribe dwells would be swallowed up. If such a crime takes place, the guilty pair are tied together, their feet weighted with stones, and thrown into the sea.54.1
Excessive rains, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions supposed to be produced by incest in Halmahera. When it rains in torrents, the Galelareese of Halmahera, another large East Indian island, say that brother and sister, or father and daughter, or in short some near kinsfolk are having illicit relations with each other, and that every human being must be informed of it, for then only will the rain cease to descend. The superstition has repeatedly caused blood relations to be accused, rightly or wrongly, of incest. Further, the people think that alarming natural phenomena, such as a violent earthquake or the eruption of a volcano, are caused by crimes of the same sort. Persons charged with such offences are brought to Ternate; it is said that formerly they were often drowned on the way or, on being haled thither, were condemned to be thrown into the volcano.54.2 In the Banggai Archipelago, to the east of Celebes, earthquakes are explained as punishments inflicted by evil spirits for indulgence in illicit love.54.3
Breaches of sexual morality thought to blight the fruits of the earth and otherwise disturb the course of nature in Africa. In some parts of Africa, also, it is believed that breaches of sexual morality disturb the course of nature, particularly by blighting the fruits of the earth; and probably such views are much more widely diffused in that continent than the scanty and fragmentary evidence at our disposal might lead us to suppose. Thus, the negroes of Loango, in West Africa, imagine that the commerce of a man with an immature girl is punished by God with drought and consequent famine until the transgressors expiate their transgression by dancing naked before the king and an assembly of the people, who throw hot gravel and bits of glass at the pair as they run the gauntlet. The rains in that country should fall in September, but in 1898 there was a long drought, and when the month of December had nearly passed, the sun-scorched stocks of the fruitless Indian corn shook their rustling leaves in the wind, the beans lay shrivelled and black on the ruddy soil, and the shoots of the sweet potato had flowered and withered long ago. The people cried out against their rulers for neglecting their duty to the primeval powers of the earth; the priests of the sacred groves had recourse to divination and discovered that God was angry with the land on account of the immorality of certain persons unknown, who were not observing the traditions and laws of their God and country. The feeble old king had fled, but the slave who acted as regent in his room sent word to the chiefs that there were people in their towns who were the cause of God’s wrath. So every chief called his subjects together and caused enquiries to be made, and then it was discovered that three girls had broken the customs of their country; for they were with child before they had passed through what is called the paint-house, that is, before they had been painted red and secluded for a season in token that they had attained to the age of puberty. The people were incensed and endeavoured to punish or even kill the three girls; and the English writer who has recorded the case has thought it worth while to add that on the very morning when the culprits were brought before the magistrate rain fell.55.1 Amongst the Bavili of Loango, who are divided into totemic clans, no man is allowed to marry a woman of his mother’s clan; and God is believed to punish a breach of this marriage law by withholding the rains in their due season.56.1 Similar notions of the blighting influence of sexual crime appear to be entertained by the Nandi of British East Africa; for we are told that when a warrior has got a girl with child, she “is punished by being put in Coventry, none of her girl friends being allowed to speak to or look at her until after the child is born and buried. Sexual purity required of those who handle corn or enter a granary. She is also regarded with contempt for the rest of her life and may never look inside a granary for fear of spoiling the corn.”56.2 Among the Basutos in like manner “while the corn is exposed to view, all defiled persons are carefully kept from it. If the aid of a man in this state is necessary for carrying home the harvest, he remains at some distance while the sacks are filled, and only approaches to place them upon the draught oxen. He withdraws as soon as the load is deposited at the dwelling, and under no pretext can he assist in pouring the corn into the basket in which it is preserved.”56.3 The nature of the defilement which thus disqualifies a man from handling the corn is not mentioned, but we may conjecture that unchastity would fall under this general head. For amongst the Basutos after a child is born a fresh fire has to be kindled in the dwelling by the friction of wood, and this must be done by a young man of chaste habits; it is believed that an untimely death awaits him who should dare to discharge this holy office after having lost his innocence.56.4 In Morocco whoever enters a granary must first remove his slippers and must be sexually clean. Were an unclean person to enter, the people believe not only that the grain would lose its blessed influence (baraka), but that he himself would fall ill. A Berber told Dr. Westermarck that he had suffered from painful boils through entering a granary in a state of uncleanness.57.1 The same rule applies in Morocco to a vegetable garden. Only the sexually clean may enter it, otherwise both the vegetables and the person entering would be the worse for it.57.2
Incest supposed by the Dinkas to be punished with sterility. The Dinkas of the Upper Nile believe that incest angers the ancestral spirits (jok), who punish the girl by making her barren. Even should she marry, she will have no children until she has confessed her sin, and atonement has been made for it. Her lover must provide a bullock for sacrifice. His father kills the animal, and the girl’s father takes some of the contents of the large intestine and smears it on his daughter’s abdomen and on that of her guilty partner. Thus the taint of sin is removed, and the woman is rendered capable of bearing children.57.3 The Maloulekes and Hlengoues, two tribes of Southern Africa to the north of the Thonga, think that if a young man gets a girl, who is not his wife, with child, people will die in the village. Hence, when the girl’s pregnancy is discovered, the lover has to provide a girl by way of fine.57.4
Incest enjoined in certain cases as a mode of ensuring good luck. It is very remarkable, however, that among tribes which strongly disapprove of incestuous relations in general, the act of incest is nevertheless positively enjoined in certain circumstances as a mode of ensuring good luck. Thus in the Thonga tribe of South-Eastern Africa, round about Delagoa Bay, there is a class of men who devote themselves to the business of hunting hippopotamuses on the rivers. In the pursuit of their trade they observe a number of curious superstitions which have been handed down among them for generations from father to son. For example, they inoculate themselves with a certain drug which is supposed to endow them with such a power over the hippopotamuses that when the hunter wounds one of them the animal cannot go far away and the man can track and despatch it. During the day the hunter fishes in the river, keeping his eye all the time on the unwieldy monsters disporting themselves in the water or lumbering through the thickets on the banks. Incest of Thonga hippopotamus hunter with his daughter. “When he sees that the propitious season has come and when he is ready to undertake a hunting expedition of one month, he first calls his own daughter to his hut and has sexual relations with her. This incestuous act, which is strongly taboo in ordinary life, has made of him a ‘murderer’: he has killed something at home; he has acquired the courage for doing great deeds on the river. Henceforth he will have no sexual relations with his wives during the whole campaign. On the same night, immediately after the act, he starts with his sons; they close the drift where the beasts leave the river by putting a canoe across the track.” Meantime the hippopotamuses are browsing in the forest or trampling down the crops of the fields in their clumsy fashion. As they come trooping back to the river they are stopped by the canoe in the path, and while they are examining the strange obstacle, the hunters, lying in ambush, dart their spears into the thick hides of the beasts. The handles of the spears are loosely attached to the blades, but connected with them by a long string, so that when the wounded monster, crashing irresistibly in his rage through the thicket, plunges into the river and sinks out of sight in the water, the handle of the spear becomes detached from the blade and floats like a buoy on the surface, shewing the direction taken by the beast. As soon as the hunter has thrown his spear he runs home to tell his wife. She must at once shut herself up in the hut and remain perfectly quiet, without eating or drinking or crushing her mealies; for were she to do any of these things, the wounded hippopotamus would shew fight and might kill her husband, whereas if she keeps quiet, the animal will be quiet too. All the hunters in the village are then called up, and embarking in a canoe, paddle away after their prey, whose retreat is marked by the bobbing of the spear-handle on the surface of the water and the occasional emergence of a great flat snout to breathe. When the beast has been despatched, and the carcase landed on the bank, it is turned on its back and the hunter creeps between its legs from behind and along its belly and chest as far as the mouth. Then he goes away. By this ceremony the man is supposed to take upon himself the defilement, possibly the nature, of the animal, so that in future when he meets hippopotamuses the animals will not perceive him to be a man but will mistake him for an hippopotamus; and thus he will be able to slaughter the deluded creatures with impunity.59.1
Suggested explanation of the Thonga practice. So far as we can guess at the meaning of these curious rites, their general intention seems to be to identify the hunter and his family with the game which he hunts in order to give him full power over the animals. This intention is manifested in the behaviour of the hunter’s wife while the hippopotamus is wounded; she so far identifies herself with the animal that whatever she does he is supposed to do. If she goes about her work briskly and refreshes herself with food and drink, the hippopotamus also will be brisk and refreshed, and will give warm work to his pursuers; whereas if she keeps perfectly still, the animal will make no resistance but follow the hunters like a sheep to the slaughter. Perhaps the same train of thought partially explains the incest which the hunter has to commit with his own daughter before he sets out for the chase. Can it be that by this violence done to his offspring he is supposed to acquire power over the beast? It may be so, yet it is difficult to see why the violence should take this particular form, and why, on the principles of homoeopathic or imitative magic, a pretence of wounding and killing the girl with a spear would not have served his turn better.
Incest prescribed among the Antambahoaka of Madagascar. Another tribe of savages who imagine that in certain circumstances incest is the road to fortune are the Antambahoaka of South-Eastern Madagascar. Before setting out for the chase or the fishing or war or other enterprise, every Antambahoaka arranges to have sexual relations with his sister or with his nearest female relation; he thinks in this way to ensure the success of his expedition.59.2 What the exact train of thought may be which prompts these exceptional and deliberate aberrations from the usual rules of morality, it is difficult to understand; I mention the facts because they apparently contradict the ordinary savage view of conduct, and so far help us to perceive how little as yet we really know about the inmost workings of the savage mind.
Similar beliefs as to the disastrous effect of sexual crimes among the civilized peoples of antiquity. Leaving out of account these remarkable and as yet not fully explained exceptions to the rule,60.1 we may say generally that among many savage races breaches of the marriage laws are believed to draw down on the community public calamities of the most serious character, and that in particular they are thought to blast the fruits of the earth through excessive rain or excessive drought. Traces of similar beliefs may perhaps be detected among the civilized races of antiquity. The Hebrews. Thus among the Hebrews we read how Job, passionately protesting his innocence before God, declares that he is no adulterer; “For that,” says he, “were an heinous crime; yea it were an iniquity to be punished by the judges: for it is a fire that consumeth unto Destruction, and would root out all mine increase.”60.2 In this passage the Hebrew word translated “increase” commonly means “the produce of the earth”;60.3 and if we give the word its usual sense here, then Job affirms adultery to be destructive of the fruits of the ground, which is precisely what many savages still believe. This interpretation of his words is strongly confirmed by two narratives in Genesis, where we read how Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was taken by a king into his harem, and how thereafter God visited the king and his household with great plagues, especially by closing up the wombs of the king’s wife and his maid-servants so that they bare no children. It was not till the king had discovered and confessed his sin, and Abraham had prayed God to forgive him, that the king’s women again became fruitful.61.1 These narratives seem to imply that adultery, even when it is committed in ignorance, is a cause of plague and especially of sterility among women. Again, in Leviticus, after a long list of sexual crimes, we read:61.2 “Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out from before you: and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomiteth out her inhabitants.” This passage seems to imply that the land itself was somehow physically affected by sexual transgressions in such a way that it could no longer support the inhabitants. The Greeks. Apparently the ancient Greeks entertained a similar view of the wasting effect of incest; for according to Sophocles the land of Thebes suffered from blight, pestilence, and the sterility both of women and cattle under the reign of Oedipus, who had unwittingly slain his father and married his mother; the country was emptied of its inhabitants, and the Delphic oracle declared that the only way to restore prosperity to it was to banish the sinner.61.3 No doubt the poet and his hearers set down these public calamities in part to the guilt of parricide which rested on Oedipus; but probably they also laid much of the evil at the door of the incest which he had committed with his mother. The Romans. In the reign of the emperor Claudius a Roman noble was accused of incest with his sister. He committed suicide, his sister was banished, and the emperor ordered that certain ancient ceremonies derived from the laws of King Servius Tullius should be performed, and that expiation should be made by the pontiffs at the sacred grove of Diana.61.4 As Diana appears to have been a goddess of fertility in general and of the fruitfulness of women in particular,62.1 the expiation for incest offered at her sanctuary may perhaps be accepted as evidence that the Romans, like other peoples, attributed to sexual immorality a tendency to blast the fruits both of the earth and of the womb.
Blighting effect attributed to incest by the ancient Irish. According to an ancient Irish legend Munster was afflicted in the third century of our era with a failure of the crops and other misfortunes. When the nobles enquired into the matter, they learned that these calamities were the result of an incest which the king had committed with his sister. In order to put an end to the evil they demanded of the king his two sons, the fruit of this unholy union, that they might consume them with fire and cast their ashes into the running stream.62.2 Again, Irish legend relates that Cairbre Musc “had two sons by his sister. Her name was Duben, and theirs were Corc and Cormac respectively. The children were twins, and the story of their birth is no less strange than that of Dylan and Llew, for one of them was found to have nipped off his brother’s ears before his birth. The crime of their parents caused the crops to fail, which, according to the idea prevalent in ancient Ireland, was its natural result, and Cairbre was obliged to confess his guilt to the nobles of his realm, who, when the children were born, ordered them to be burnt, that the incest might not remain in the land. ‘Give me,’ said Cairbre’s druid, ‘that Corc62.3 there, that I may place him outside Erinn, so that the incest may not be within it.’ Corc was given to the druid, and the latter, with his wife, whose name was Bói, took him to an island. They had a white cow with red ears, and an ablution was performed by them every morning on Corc, placed on the cow’s back; so in a year’s time to the day the cow sprang away from them into the sea, and she became a rock in it; to wit, the heathenism of the boy had entered into her. Bó Búi, or Bói’s Cow, is the name of the rock, and Inis Búi, or Bói’s Isle, that of the island. The boy was afterwards brought back into Erinn. Such is the story how Corc was purged of the virulence of his original sin, and the scene is one of the three islets called the Bull, the Cow and the Calf, not far from Dursey Island, in the gulf called Kenmare River.”63.1
Thus sexual irregularities are often supposed to endanger the whole community. Thus it appears that in the opinion of many peoples sexual irregularities, whether of the married or the unmarried, are not merely moral offences which affect only the few persons immediately concerned; they are believed to involve the whole people in danger and disaster either directly by a sort of magical influence or indirectly by rousing the wrath of gods to whom these acts are offensive. Nay they are often supposed to strike a blow at the very existence of the community by blighting the fruits of the earth and thereby cutting off the food supply. Wherever these superstitions prevail, it is obvious that public opinion and public justice will treat sexual offences with far greater severity than is meted out to them by peoples who, like most civilized nations, regard such misdemeanours as matters of private rather than of public concern, as sins rather than crimes, which may perhaps affect the eternal welfare of the individual sinner in a life hereafter, but which do not in any way imperil the temporal welfare of the innocent community as a whole. Hence the extreme rigour with which sexual crimes have been punished by many races. And conversely, wherever we find that incest, adultery, and fornication are treated by the community with extreme rigour, we may reasonably infer that the original motive for such treatment was superstition; in other words, that wherever a tribe or nation, not content with leaving these transgressions to be avenged by the injured parties, has itself punished them with exceptional severity, the reason for doing so has probably been a belief that the effect of all such delinquencies is to disturb the course of nature and thereby to endanger the whole people, who accordingly must protect themselves by effectually disarming and, if necessary, exterminating the delinquents. Ancient codes. This may explain, for example, why the Indian Laws of Manu decreed that an adulteress should be devoured by dogs in a public place, and that an adulterer should be roasted to death on a red-hot iron bed;64.1 why the Babylonian code of Hammurabi sentenced an adulterous couple to be strangled and cast into the river; and why the same code punished incest with a mother by burning both the culprits.64.2 On the same supposition we can understand the severity of the punishments meted out to certain sexual offences by the Mosaic law. Thus, for example, under it an adulteress and her paramour were sentenced to death:64.3 a woman who at marriage was found not to be a maid was stoned:64.4 the unchaste daughter of a priest was burned with fire;64.5 and if a man married a woman and her daughter, he and they were in like manner doomed to the flames.64.6