Once more, warriors are conceived by the savage to move, so to say, in an atmosphere of spiritual danger which constrains them to practise a variety of superstitious observances quite different in their nature from those rational precautions which, as a matter of course, they adopt against foes of flesh and blood. The general effect of these observances is to place the warrior, both before and after victory, in the same state of seclusion or spiritual quarantine in which, for his own safety, primitive man puts his human gods and other dangerous characters. Thus when the Maoris went out on the war-path they were sacred or taboo in the highest degree, and they and their friends at home had to observe strictly many curious customs over and above the numerous taboos of ordinary life. They became, in the irreverent language of Europeans who knew them in the old fighting days, “tabooed an inch thick”; and as for the leader of the expedition, he was quite unapproachable.547 Similarly, when the Israelites marched forth to war they were bound by certain rules of ceremonial purity identical with rules observed by Maoris and Australian blackfellows on the war-path. The vessels they used were sacred, and they had to practise continence and a custom of personal cleanliness of which the original motive, if we may judge from the avowed motive of savages who conform to the same custom, was a fear lest the enemy should obtain [pg 158] the refuse of their persons, and thus be enabled to work their destruction by magic.548 Among some Indian tribes of North America a young warrior in his first campaign had to conform to certain customs, of which two were identical with the observances imposed by the same Indians on girls at their first menstruation: the vessels he ate and drank out of might be touched by no other person, and he was forbidden to scratch his head or any other part of his body with his fingers; if he could not help scratching himself, he had to do it with a stick.549 The latter rule, like the one which forbids a tabooed person to feed himself with his own fingers, seems to rest on the supposed sanctity or pollution, whichever we choose to call it, of the tabooed hands.550 Moreover [pg 159] among these Indian tribes the men on the war-path had always to sleep at night with their faces turned towards their own country; however uneasy the posture they might not change it. They might not sit upon the bare ground, nor wet their feet, nor walk on a beaten path if they could help it; when they had no choice but to walk on a path, they sought to counteract the ill effect of doing so by doctoring their legs with certain medicines or charms which they carried with them for the purpose. No member of the party was permitted to step over the legs, hands, or body of any other member who chanced to be sitting or lying on the [pg 160] ground; and it was equally forbidden to step over his blanket, gun, tomahawk, or anything that belonged to him. If this rule was inadvertently broken, it became the duty of the member whose person or property had been stepped over to knock the other member down, and it was similarly the duty of that other to be knocked down peaceably and without resistance. The vessels out of which the warriors ate their food were commonly small bowls of wood or birch bark, with marks to distinguish the two sides; in marching from home the Indians invariably drank out of one side of the bowl, and in returning they drank out of the other. When on their way home they came within a day's march of the village, they hung up all their bowls on trees, or threw them away on the prairie,551 doubtless to prevent their sanctity or defilement from being communicated with disastrous effects to their friends, just as we have seen that the vessels and clothes of the sacred Mikado, of women at childbirth and menstruation, of boys at circumcision, and of persons defiled by contact with the dead are destroyed or laid aside for a similar reason. The first four times that an Apache Indian goes out on the war-path, he is bound to refrain from scratching his head with his fingers and from letting water touch his lips. Hence he scratches his head with a stick, and drinks through a hollow reed or cane. Stick and reed are attached to the warrior's belt and to each other by a leathern thong.552 The rule not to scratch their heads with their fingers, but to use a stick for the purpose instead, was regularly observed by Ojebways on the war-path.553
For three or four weeks before they went on a warlike expedition, the Nootka Indians made it an invariable rule to go into the water five or six times a day, when they washed and scrubbed themselves from head to foot with bushes intermixed with briars, so that their bodies and faces were often entirely covered with blood. During this severe exercise they continually exclaimed, “Good or great God, let me live, [pg 161] not be sick, find the enemy, not fear him, find him asleep, and kill a great many of them.” All this time they had no intercourse with their women, and for a week before setting out abstained from feasting and every kind of merriment. For the last three days they were almost constantly in the water, scrubbing and lacerating themselves in a terrible manner. They believed that this hardened their skin, so that the weapons of the enemy could not pierce them.554 Before they went out on the war-path the Arikaras and the Big Belly Indians (“Gros Ventres”) “observe a rigorous fast, or rather abstain from every kind of food for four days. In this interval their imagination is exalted to delirium; whether it be through bodily weakness or the natural effect of the warlike plans they cherish, they pretend to have strange visions. The elders and sages of the tribe, being called upon to interpret these dreams, draw from them omens more or less favourable to the success of the enterprise; and their explanations are received as oracles by which the expedition will be faithfully regulated. So long as the preparatory fast continues, the warriors make incisions in their bodies, insert pieces of wood in the flesh, and having fastened leather thongs to them cause themselves to be hung from a beam which is fixed horizontally above an abyss a hundred and fifty feet deep. Often indeed they cut off one or two fingers which they offer in sacrifice to the Great Spirit in order that they may come back laden with scalps.”555 It is hard to conceive any course of training which could more effectually incapacitate men for the business of war than that which these foolish Indians actually adopted. With regard to the Creek Indians and kindred tribes we are told they “will not cohabit with women while they are out at war; they religiously abstain from every kind of intercourse even with their own wives, for the space of three days and nights before they go to war, and so after they return home, because they are to sanctify themselves.”556 And as a [pg 162] preparation for attacking the enemy they “go to the aforesaid winter house, and there drink a warm decoction of their supposed holy consecrated herbs and roots for three days and nights, sometimes without any other refreshment. This is to induce the deity to guard and prosper them, amidst their impending dangers. In the most promising appearance of things, they are not to take the least nourishment of food, nor so much as to sit down, during that time of sanctifying themselves, till after sunset. While on their expedition, they are not allowed to lean themselves against a tree, though they may be exceedingly fatigued, after a sharp day's march; nor must they lie by, a whole day to refresh themselves, or kill and barbicue deer and bear for their war journey. The more virtuous they are, they reckon the greater will be their success against the enemy, by the bountiful smiles of the deity. To gain that favourite point, some of the aged warriors narrowly watch the young men who are newly initiated, lest they should prove irreligious, and prophane the holy fast, and bring misfortunes on the out-standing camp. A gentleman of my acquaintance, in his youthful days observed one of their religious fasts, but under the greatest suspicion of his virtue in this respect, though he had often headed them against the common enemy: during their three days' purification, he was not allowed to go out of the sanctified ground, without a trusty guard, lest hunger should have tempted him to violate their old martial law, and by that means have raised the burning wrath of the holy fire against the whole camp.” “Every war captain chuses a noted warrior, to attend on him and the company. He is called Etissû, or ‘the waiter.’ Everything they eat or drink during their journey, he gives them out of his hand, by a rigid abstemious rule,—though each carries on his back all his travelling conveniencies, wrapt in a deer skin, yet they are so bigoted in their religious customs in war that none, though prompted by sharp hunger or burning thirst, dares relieve himself. They are contented with such trifling allowance as the religious waiter distributes to them, even with a scanty hand. Such a regimen would be too mortifying to any of the white people, let their opinion of its violation be ever so dangerous. When I roved the [pg 163] woods in a war party with the Indians, though I carried no scrip, nor bottle, nor staff, I kept a large hollow cane well corked at each end, and used to sheer off now and then to drink, while they suffered greatly by thirst. The constancy of the savages in mortifying their bodies, to gain the divine favour, is astonishing, from the very time they beat to arms, till they return from their campaign. All the while they are out, they are prohibited by ancient custom, the leaning against a tree, either sitting or standing; nor are they allowed to sit in the day-time, under the shade of trees, if it can be avoided; nor on the ground, during the whole journey, but on such rocks, stones, or fallen wood, as their ark of war rests upon. By the attention they invariably pay to those severe rules of living, they weaken themselves much more than by the unavoidable fatigues of war; but it is fruitless to endeavour to dissuade them from those things which they have by tradition, as the appointed means to move the deity, to grant them success against the enemy, and a safe return home.”557 “An Indian, intending to go to war, will commence by blacking his face, permitting his hair to grow long, and neglecting his personal appearance, and also will frequently fast, sometimes for two or three days together, and refrain from all intercourse with the other sex. If his dreams are favorable, he thinks that the Great Spirit will give him success.”558 Among the Ba-Pedi and Ba-Thonga tribes of south Africa not only have the warriors to abstain from women, but the people left behind in the villages are also bound to continence; they think that any incontinence on their part would cause thorns to grow on the ground traversed by the warriors, and that success would not attend the expedition.559
When we observe what pains these misguided savages took to unfit themselves for the business of war by abstaining from food, denying themselves rest, and lacerating [pg 164] their bodies, we shall probably not be disposed to attribute their practice of continence in war to a rational fear of dissipating their bodily energies by indulgence in the lusts of the flesh. On the contrary, we can scarcely doubt that the motive which impelled them to observe chastity on a campaign was just as frivolous as the motive which led them simultaneously to fritter away their strength by severe fasts, gratuitous fatigue, and voluntary wounds at the very moment when prudence called most loudly for a precisely opposite regimen. Why exactly so many savages have made it a rule to refrain from women in time of war,560 we cannot say for certain, but we may conjecture that their motive was a superstitious fear lest, on the principles of sympathetic magic, close contact with women should infect them with feminine weakness and cowardice. Similarly some savages imagine that contact with a woman in childbed enervates warriors and enfeebles their weapons.561 Indeed the Kayans of central Borneo go so far as to hold that to touch a loom or women's clothes would so weaken a man that he [pg 165] would have no success in hunting, fishing, and war.562 Hence it is not merely sexual intercourse with women that the savage warrior sometimes shuns; he is careful to avoid the sex altogether. Thus among the hill tribes of Assam, not only are men forbidden to cohabit with their wives during or after a raid, but they may not eat food cooked by a woman; nay they should not address a word even to their own wives. Once a woman, who unwittingly broke the rule by speaking to her husband while he was under the war taboo, sickened and died when she learned the awful crime she had committed.563
If the reader still doubts whether the rules of conduct which we have just been considering are based on superstitious fears or dictated by a rational prudence, his doubts will probably be dissipated when he learns that rules of the same sort are often imposed even more stringently on warriors after the victory has been won and when all fear of the living corporeal foe is at an end. In such cases one motive for the inconvenient restrictions laid on the victors in their hour of triumph is probably a dread of the angry ghosts of the slain; and that the fear of the vengeful ghosts does influence the behaviour of the slayers is often expressly affirmed. The general effect of the taboos laid on sacred chiefs, mourners, women at childbirth, men on the war-path, and so on, is to seclude or isolate the tabooed persons from ordinary society, this effect being attained by a variety of rules, which oblige the men or women to live in separate huts or in the open air, to shun the commerce of the sexes, to avoid the use of vessels employed by others, and so forth. Now the same effect is produced by similar means in the case of victorious warriors, particularly such as have actually shed the blood of their enemies. In the island of Timor, when a warlike expedition has returned in triumph bringing the heads of the vanquished foe, the leader of the expedition is [pg 166] forbidden by religion and custom to return at once to his own house. A special hut is prepared for him, in which he has to reside for two months, undergoing bodily and spiritual purification. During this time he may not go to his wife nor feed himself; the food must be put into his mouth by another person.564 That these observances are dictated by fear of the ghosts of the slain seems certain; for from another account of the ceremonies performed on the return of a successful head-hunter in the same island we learn that sacrifices are offered on this occasion to appease the soul of the man whose head has been taken; the people think that some misfortune would befall the victor were such offerings omitted. Moreover, a part of the ceremony consists of a dance accompanied by a song, in which the death of the slain man is lamented and his forgiveness is entreated. “Be not angry,” they say, “because your head is here with us; had we been less lucky, our heads might now have been exposed in your village. We have offered the sacrifice to appease you. Your spirit may now rest and leave us at peace. Why were you our enemy? Would it not have been better that we should remain friends? Then your blood would not have been spilt and your head would not have been cut off.”565 The people of Paloo, in central Celebes, take the heads of their enemies in war and afterwards propitiate the souls of the slain in the temple.566 In some Dyak tribes men on returning from an expedition in which they have taken human heads are obliged to keep by themselves and abstain from a variety [pg 167] of things for several days; they may not touch iron nor eat salt or fish with bones, and they may have no intercourse with women.567
In Logea, an island off the south-eastern extremity of New Guinea, men who have killed or assisted in killing enemies shut themselves up for about a week in their houses. They must avoid all intercourse with their wives and friends, and they may not touch food with their hands. They may eat vegetable food only, which is brought to them cooked in special pots. The intention of these restrictions is to guard the men against the smell of the blood of the slain; for it is believed that if they smelt the blood, they would fall ill and die.568 In the Toaripi or Motumotu tribe of south-eastern New Guinea a man who has killed another may not go near his wife, and may not touch food with his fingers. He is fed by others, and only with certain kinds of food. These observances last till the new moon.569 Among the tribes at the mouth of the Wanigela River, in New Guinea, “a man who has taken life is considered to be impure until he has undergone certain ceremonies: as soon as possible after the deed he cleanses himself and his weapon. This satisfactorily accomplished, he repairs to his village and seats himself on the logs of sacrificial staging. No one approaches him or takes any notice whatever of him. A house is prepared for him which is put in charge of two or three small boys as servants. He may eat only toasted bananas, and only the centre portion of them—the ends being thrown away. On the third day of his seclusion a small feast is prepared by his friends, who also fashion some new perineal bands for him. This is called ivi poro. The next day the man dons all his best ornaments and badges for taking life, and sallies forth fully armed and parades the village. The next day a hunt is organised, and a kangaroo selected from the game captured. It is cut open and the spleen and liver rubbed [pg 168] over the back of the man. He then walks solemnly down to the nearest water, and standing straddle-legs in it washes himself. All the young untried warriors swim between his legs. This is supposed to impart courage and strength to them. The following day, at early dawn, he dashes out of his house, fully armed, and calls aloud the name of his victim. Having satisfied himself that he has thoroughly scared the ghost of the dead man, he returns to his house. The beating of flooring-boards and the lighting of fires is also a certain method of scaring the ghost. A day later his purification is finished. He can then enter his wife's house.”570 Among the Roro-speaking tribes of British New Guinea homicides were secluded in the warriors' clubhouse. They had to pass the night in the building, but during the day they might paint and decorate themselves and dance in front of it. For some time they might not eat much food nor touch it with their hands, but were obliged to pick it up on a bone fork, the heft of which was wrapped in a banana leaf. After a while they bathed in the sea and thence forward for a period of about a month, though they had still to sleep in the warriors' clubhouse, they were free to eat as much food as they pleased and to pick it up with their bare hands. Finally, those warriors who had never killed a man before assumed a beautiful ornament made of fretted turtle shell, which none but homicides were allowed to flaunt in their head-dresses. Then came a dance, and that same night the men who wore the honourable badge of homicide for the first time were chased about the village; embers were thrown at them and firebrands waved in order, apparently, to drive away the souls of the dead enemies, who seem to be conceived as immanent in some way in the headgear of their slayers.571 Again, among the Koita of British New Guinea, when a man had killed another, whether the victim were male or female, he did not wash the blood off the spear or club, but carefully allowed it to dry on the weapon. On his way home he bathed in fresh or salt water, and [pg 169] on reaching his village went straight to his own house, where he remained in seclusion for about a week. He was taboo (aina): he might not approach women, and he lifted his food to his mouth with a bone fork. His women-folk were not obliged to leave the house, but they might not come near him. At the end of a week he built a rough shelter in the forest, where he lived for a few days. During this time he made a new waist-band, which he wore on his return to the village. A man who has slain another is supposed to grow thin and emaciated, because he had been splashed with the blood of his victim, and as the corpse rotted he wasted away.572 Among the Southern Massim of British New Guinea a warrior who has taken a prisoner or slain a man remains secluded in his house for six days. During the first three days he may eat only roasted food and must cook it for himself. Then he bathes and blackens his face for the remaining three days.573
Among the Monumbos of German New Guinea any one who has slain a foe in war becomes thereby “unclean” (bolobolo), and they apply the same term “unclean” to menstruous and lying-in women and also to everything that has come into contact with a corpse, which shews that all these classes of persons and things are closely associated in their minds. The “unclean” man who has killed an enemy in battle must remain a long time in the men's clubhouse, while the villagers gather round him and celebrate his victory with dance and song. He may touch nobody, not even his own wife and children; if he were to touch them it is believed that they would be covered with sores. He becomes clean again by washing and using other modes of purification.574 In Windessi, Dutch New Guinea, when a party of head-hunters has been successful, and they are nearing home, they announce their approach and success by blowing on triton shells. Their canoes are also decked with branches. The faces of the men who have taken a head are blackened with charcoal. If several have taken part in [pg 170] killing the same victim, his head is divided among them. They always time their arrival so as to reach home in the early morning. They come rowing to the village with a great noise, and the women stand ready to dance in the verandahs of the houses. The canoes row past the room sram or house where the young men live; and as they pass, the murderers throw as many pointed sticks or bamboos at the wall or the roof as there were enemies killed. The day is spent very quietly. Now and then they drum or blow on the conch; at other times they beat the walls of the houses with loud shouts to drive away the ghosts of the slain.575 Similarly in the Doreh district of Dutch New Guinea, if a murder has taken place in the village, the inhabitants assemble for several evenings in succession and utter frightful yells to drive away the ghost of the victim in case he should be minded to hang about the village.576 So the Yabim of German New Guinea believe that the spirit of a murdered man pursues his murderer and seeks to do him a mischief. Hence they drive away the spirit with shouts and the beating of drums.577 When the Fijians had buried a man alive, as they often did, they used at nightfall to make a great uproar by means of bamboos, trumpet-shells, and so forth, for the purpose of frightening away his ghost, lest he should attempt to return to his old home. And to render his house unattractive to him they dismantled it and clothed it with everything that to their ideas seemed most repulsive.578 On the evening of the day on which they had tortured a prisoner to death, the American Indians were wont to run through the village with hideous yells, beating with sticks on the furniture, the walls, and the roofs of the huts to prevent the angry ghost of their victim from settling there and taking vengeance for the torments that his body had endured at their hands.579 “Once,” says a traveller, “on [pg 171] approaching in the night a village of Ottawas, I found all the inhabitants in confusion: they were all busily engaged in raising noises of the loudest and most inharmonious kind. Upon inquiry, I found that a battle had been lately fought between the Ottawas and the Kickapoos, and that the object of all this noise was to prevent the ghosts of the departed combatants from entering the village.”580
The executioner at Porto Novo, on the coast of Guinea, used to decorate his walls with the jawbones of the persons on whom he had operated in the course of business. But for this simple precaution their ghosts would unquestionably have come at night to knock with sobs and groans, in an insufferable manner, at the door of the room where he slept the sleep of the just.581 The temper of a man who has just been executed is naturally somewhat short, and in a burst of vexation his ghost is apt to fall foul of the first person he comes across, without discriminating between the objects of his wrath with that nicety of judgment which in calmer moments he may be expected to display. Hence in China it is, or used to be, customary for the spectators of an execution to shew a clean pair of heels to the ghosts as soon as the last head was off.582 The same fear of the spirits of his victims leads the executioner sometimes to live in seclusion for some time after he has discharged his office. Thus an old writer, speaking of Issini on the Gold Coast of West Africa, tells us that the “executioners, being reckoned impure for three days, they build them a separate hut at a distance from the village. Meantime these fellows run like madmen through the place, seizing all they can lay hands on; poultry, sheep, bread, and oil; everything they can touch is theirs; being deemed so polluted that the owners willingly give it up. They continue three days confined to their hut, their friends bringing them victuals. This time expired, they take their hut in pieces, which they [pg 172] bundle up, not leaving so much as the ashes of their fire. The first executioner, having a pot on his head, leads them to the place where the criminal suffered. There they all call him thrice by his name. The first executioner breaks his pot, and leaving their old rags and bundles they all scamper home.”583 Here the thrice-repeated invocation of the victim by name gives the clue to the rest of the observances; all of them are probably intended to ward off the angry ghost of the slain man or to give him the slip.
Among the Basutos “ablution is specially performed on return from battle. It is absolutely necessary that the warriors should rid themselves, as soon as possible, of the blood they have shed, or the shades of their victims would pursue them incessantly, and disturb their slumbers. They go in a procession, and in full armour, to the nearest stream. At the moment they enter the water a diviner, placed higher up, throws some purifying substances into the current. This is, however, not strictly necessary. The javelins and battle-axes also undergo the process of washing.”584 According to another account of the Basuto custom, “warriors who have killed an enemy are purified. The chief has to wash them, sacrificing an ox in presence of the whole army. They are also anointed with the gall of the animal, which prevents the ghost of the enemy from pursuing them any further.”585 Among the Bechuanas a man who has killed another, whether in war or in single combat, is not allowed to enter the village until he has been purified. [pg 173] The ceremony takes place in the evening. An ox is slaughtered, and a hole having been made through the middle of the carcase with a spear, the manslayer has to force himself through the animal, while two men hold its stomach open.586 Sometimes instead of being obliged to squeeze through the carcase of an ox the manslayer is merely smeared with the contents of its stomach. The ceremony has been described as follows: “In the purification of warriors, too, the ox takes a conspicuous part. The warrior who has slain a man in the battle is unclean, and must on no account enter his own courtyard, for it would be a serious thing if even his shadow were to fall upon his children. He studiously keeps himself apart from the civil life of the town until he is purified. The purification ceremony is significant. Having bathed himself in running water, or, if that is not convenient, in water that has been appropriately medicated, he is smeared by the doctor with the contents of the stomach of an ox, into which certain powdered roots have been already mixed, and then the doctor strikes him on the back, sides, and belly with the large bowel of an ox.... A doctor takes a piece of roasted beef and cuts it into small lumps of about the size of a walnut, laying them carefully on a large wooden trencher. He has already prepared charcoal, by roasting the root of certain trees in an old cracked pot, and this he grinds down and sprinkles on the lumps of meat on the trencher. Then the army surrounds the trencher, and every one who has slain a foe in the battle steps forth, kneels down before the trencher, and takes out a piece of meat with his mouth, taking care not to touch it or the trencher with his hands. As he takes the meat, the doctor gives him a smart cut with a switch. And when he has eaten that lump of meat his purification is complete. This ceremony is called Go alafsha dintèè, or ‘the purification of the strikers.’ ” The writer to whom we owe this description adds: “This taking of meat from the trencher without using the hands is evidently a matter of ritual.”587 The [pg 174] observation is correct. Here as in so many cases persons ceremonially unclean are forbidden to touch food with defiled hands until their uncleanness has been purged away. The same taboo is laid on the manslayer by the Bageshu of British East Africa. Among them a man who has killed another may not return to his own house on the same day, though he may enter the village and spend the night in a friend's house. He kills a sheep and smears his chest, his right arm, and his head with the contents of the animal's stomach. His children are brought to him and he smears them in like manner. Then he smears each side of the doorway with the tripe and entrails, and finally throws the rest of the stomach on the roof of his house. For a whole day he may not touch food with his hands, but picks it up with two sticks and so conveys it to his mouth. His wife is not under any such restrictions. She may even go to mourn for the man whom her husband has killed, if she wishes to do so.588 In some Bechuana tribes the victorious warrior is obliged to eat a piece of the skin of the man he killed; the skin is taken from about the navel of his victim, and without it he may not enter the cattle pen. Moreover, the medicine-man makes a gash with a spear in the warrior's thigh for every man he has killed.589 Among the Angoni, a Zulu tribe settled to the north of the Zambesi, warriors who have slain foes on an expedition smear their bodies and faces with ashes, hang garments of their victims on their persons, and tie bark ropes round their necks, so that the ends hang down over their shoulders or breasts. This costume they wear for three days after their return, and rising at break of day they run through the village uttering frightful yells to drive away the ghosts of the slain, which, if they were not thus banished from the houses, might bring sickness and misfortune on the inmates.590 In some Caffre tribes of South Africa men who have been wounded or killed an enemy in fight may not see the king nor drink [pg 175] milk till they have been purified. An ox is killed, and its gall, intestines, and other parts are boiled with roots. Of this decoction the men have to take three gulps, and the rest is sprinkled on their bodies. The wounded man has then to take a stick, spit on it thrice, point it thrice at the enemy, and then throw it in his direction. After that he takes an emetic and is declared clean.591
In some of these accounts nothing is said of an enforced seclusion, at least after the ceremonial cleansing, but some South African tribes certainly require the slayer of a very gallant foe in war to keep apart from his wife and family for ten days after he has washed his body in running water. He also receives from the tribal doctor a medicine which he chews with his food.592 When a Nandi of British East Africa has killed a member of another tribe, he paints one side of his body, spear, and sword red, and the other side white. For four days after the slaughter he is considered unclean and may not go home. He has to build a small shelter by a river and live there; he may not associate with his wife or sweetheart, and he may eat nothing but porridge, beef, and goat's flesh. At the end of the fourth day he must purify himself by taking a strong purge made from the bark of the segetet tree and by drinking goat's milk mixed with blood.593 Among the Akikuya of British East Africa all who have shed human blood must be purified. The elders assemble and one of them cuts a strip of hair from above both ears of each manslayer. After that the warriors rub themselves with the dung taken from the stomach of a sheep which has been slaughtered for the occasion. Finally their bodies are cleansed with water. All the hair remaining on their heads is subsequently shaved off by their wives. For a month after the shedding of blood they may have no contact with [pg 176] women.594 On the contrary, when a Ketosh warrior of British East Africa, who has killed a foe in battle, returns home “it is considered essential that he should have connection with his wife as soon as convenient; this is believed to prevent the spirit of his dead enemy from haunting and bewitching him.”595 An Angoni who has killed a man in battle is obliged to perform certain purificatory ceremonies before he may return to ordinary life. Amongst other things, he must be sure to make an incision in the corpse of his slain foe, in order to let the gases escape and so prevent the body from swelling. If he fails to do so, his own body will swell in proportion as the corpse becomes inflated.596 Among the Ovambos of southern Africa, when the warriors return to their villages, those who have killed an enemy pass the first night in the open fields, and may not enter their houses until they have been cleansed of the guilt of blood by an older man, who smears them for this purpose with a kind of porridge.597 Herero warriors on their return from battle may not approach the sacred hearth until they have been purified from the guilt of bloodshed. They crouch in a circle round the hearth, but at some distance from it, while the chief besprinkles their brows and temples with water in which branches of a holy bush have been placed.598 Again, ancient Herero custom requires that he who has killed a man or a lion should have blood drawn from his breast and upper arm so as to trickle on the ground: a special name (outoni) is given to the cuts thus made; they must be made with a flint, not with an iron tool.599 Among the Bantu tribes of Kavirondo, in eastern Africa, when a man has [pg 177] killed an enemy in warfare he shaves his head on his return home, and his friends rub a medicine, which generally consists of goat's dung, over his body to prevent the spirit of the slain man from troubling him.600 Exactly the same custom is practised for the same reason by the Wageia of German East Africa.601 With the Ja-Luo of Kavirondo the custom is somewhat different. Three days after his return from the fight the warrior shaves his head. But before he may enter his village he has to hang a live fowl, head uppermost, round his neck; then the bird is decapitated and its head left hanging round his neck. Soon after his return a feast is made for the slain man, in order that his ghost may not haunt his slayer.602 After the slaughter of the Midianites the Israelitish warriors were obliged to remain outside the camp for seven days: whoever had killed a man or touched the slain had to purify himself and his captive. The spoil taken from the enemy had also to be purified, according to its nature, either by fire or water.603 Similarly among the Basutos cattle taken from the enemy are fumigated with bundles of lighted branches before they are allowed to mingle with the herds of the tribe.604
The Arunta of central Australia believe that when a party of men has been out against the enemy and taken a life, the spirit of the slain man follows the party on its return and is constantly on the watch to do a mischief to those of the band who actually shed the blood. It takes the form of a little bird called the chichurkna, and may be heard crying like a child in the distance as it flies. If any of the slayers should fail to hear its cry, he would become paralysed in his right arm and shoulder. At night-time especially, when the bird is flying over the camp, the slayers have to lie awake and keep the right arm and shoulder carefully hidden, lest the bird should look down upon and harm them. When once they have [pg 178] heard its cry their minds are at ease, because the spirit of the dead then recognises that he has been detected, and can therefore do no mischief. On their return to their friends, as soon as they come in sight of the main camp, they begin to perform an excited war-dance, approaching in the form of a square and moving their shields as if to ward off something which was being thrown at them. This action is intended to repel the angry spirit of the dead man, who is striving to attack them. Next the men who did the deed of blood separate themselves from the others, and forming a line, with spears at rest and shields held out in front, stand silent and motionless like statues. A number of old women now approach with a sort of exulting skip and strike the shields of the manslayers with fighting-clubs till they ring again. They are followed by men who smite the shields with boomerangs. This striking of the shields is supposed to be a very effective way of frightening away the spirit of the dead man. The natives listen anxiously to the sounds emitted by the shields when they are struck; for if any man's shield gives forth a hollow sound under the blow, that man will not live long, but if it rings sharp and clear, he is safe. For some days after their return the slayers will not speak of what they have done, and continue to paint themselves all over with powdered charcoal, and to decorate their foreheads and noses with green twigs. Finally, they paint their bodies and faces with bright colours, and become free to talk about the affair; but still of nights they must lie awake listening for the plaintive cry of the bird in which they fancy they hear the voice of their victim.605
In the Washington group of the Marquesas Islands, the man who has slain an enemy in battle becomes tabooed for ten days, during which he may hold no intercourse with his wife, and may not meddle with fire. Hence another has to make fire and to cook for him. Nevertheless he is treated with marked distinction and receives presents of pigs.606 In [pg 179] Fiji any one who had clubbed a human being to death in war was consecrated or tabooed. He was smeared red by the king with turmeric from the roots of his hair to his heels. A hut was built, and in it he had to pass the next three nights, during which he might not lie down, but must sleep as he sat. Till the three nights had elapsed he might not change his garment, nor remove the turmeric, nor enter a house in which there was a woman.607 In the Pelew Islands, when the men return from a warlike expedition in which they have taken a life, the young warriors who have been out fighting for the first time, and all who handled the slain, are shut up in the large council-house and become tabooed. They may not quit the edifice, nor bathe, nor touch a woman, nor eat fish; their food is limited to coco-nuts and syrup. They rub themselves with charmed leaves and chew charmed betel. After three days they go together to bathe as near as possible to the spot where the man was killed.608
When the Tupi Indians of Brazil had made a prisoner in war, they used to bring him home amid great rejoicings, decked with the gorgeous plumage of tropical birds. In the village he was well treated: he received a house and furniture and was married to a wife. When he was thus comfortably installed, the relations and friends of his captor, who had the first pick, came and examined him and decided which of his limbs and joints they proposed to eat; and according to their choice they were bound to provide him with victuals. Thus he might live for months or years, treated like a king, supplied with all the delicacies of the country, and rearing a family of children who, when they were big, might or might not be eaten with their father. While he was thus being fattened like a capon for the slaughter, he wore a necklace of fruit or of fish-bones strung on a cotton thread. This was the measure of his life. For every fruit or every bone on the string he had a month to live; and as each moon waned and vanished they took a fruit or a bone from the necklace. [pg 180] When only one remained, they sent out invitations to friends and neighbours far and near, who flocked in, sometimes to the number of ten or twelve thousand, to witness the spectacle and partake of the feast; for often a number of prisoners were to die the same day, father, mother, and children all together. As a rule they shewed a remarkable stolidity and indifference to death. The club with which they were to be despatched was elaborately prepared by the women, who adorned it with tassels of feathers, smeared it with the pounded shells of a macaw's eggs, and traced lines on the egg-shell powder. Then they hung it to a pole, above the ground, in an empty hut, and sang around it all night. The executioner, who was painted grey with ashes and his whole body covered with the beautiful feathers of parrots and other birds of gay plumage, performed his office by striking the victim on the head from behind and dashing out his brains. No sooner had he despatched the prisoner than he retired to his house, where he had to stay all that day without eating or drinking, while the rest of the people feasted on the body of the victim or victims. And for three days he was obliged to fast and remain in seclusion. All this time he lay in his hammock and might not set foot on the ground; if he had to go anywhere, he was carried by bearers. They thought that, were he to break this rule, some disaster would befall him or he would die. Meantime he was given a small bow and passed his time in shooting arrows into wax. This he did in order to keep his hand and aim steady. In some of the tribes they rubbed the pulse of the executioner with one of the eyes of his victim, and hung the mouth of the murdered man like a bracelet on his arm. Afterwards he made incisions in his breast, arms, and legs, and other parts of his body with a saw made of the teeth of an animal. An ointment and a black powder were then rubbed into the wounds, which left ineffaceable scars so artistically arranged that they presented the appearance of a tightly-fitting garment. It was believed that he would die if he did not thus draw blood from his own body after slaughtering the captive.609 We [pg 181] may conjecture that the original intention of these customs was to guard the executioner against the angry and dangerous ghosts of his victims.
Among the Natchez of North America young braves who had taken their first scalps were obliged to observe certain rules of abstinence for six months. They might not sleep with their wives nor eat flesh; their only food was fish and hasty-pudding. If they broke these rules, they believed that the soul of the man they had killed would work their death by magic, that they would gain no more successes over the enemy, and that the least wound inflicted on them would prove mortal.610 When a Choctaw had killed an enemy and taken his scalp, he went into mourning for a month, during which he might not comb his hair, and if his head itched he might not scratch it except with a little stick which he wore fastened to his wrist for the purpose.611 This ceremonial mourning for the enemies they had slain was not uncommon among the North American Indians. Thus the Dacotas, when they had killed a foe, unbraided their hair, blackened themselves all over, and wore a small knot of swan's down on the top of the head. “They dress as mourners yet rejoice.”612 A Thompson River Indian of British Columbia, who had slain an enemy, used to blacken his own face, lest his victim's ghost should blind him.613 When the Osages have mourned over their own dead, “they will mourn for the foe just as if he was a friend.”614 From observing the great respect paid by [pg 182] the Indians to the scalps they had taken, and listening to the mournful songs which they howled to the shades of their victims, Catlin was convinced that “they have a superstitious dread of the spirits of their slain enemies, and many conciliatory offices to perform, to ensure their own peace.”615 When a Pima Indian has killed an Apache, he must undergo purification. Sixteen days he fasts, and only after the fourth day is he allowed to drink a little pinole. During the whole time he may not touch meat nor salt, nor look on a blazing fire, nor speak to a human being. He lives alone in the woods, waited on by an old woman, who brings him his scanty dole of food. He bathes often in a river, and keeps his head covered almost the whole time with a plaster of mud. On the seventeenth day a large space is cleared near the village and a fire lit in the middle of it. The men of the tribe form a circle round the fire, and outside of it sit all the warriors who have just been purified, each in a small excavation. Some of the old men then take the weapons of the purified and dance with them in the circle, after which both the slayer and his weapon are considered clean; but not until four days later is the man allowed to return to his family.616 No doubt the peace enforced by the [pg 183] government of the United States has, along with tribal warfare, abolished also these quaint customs. A fuller account of them has been given by a recent writer, and it deserves to be quoted at length. “There was no law among the Pimas,” he says, “observed with greater strictness than that which required purification and expiation for the deed that was at the same time the most lauded—the killing of an enemy. For sixteen days the warrior fasted in seclusion and observed meanwhile a number of tabus.... Attended by an old man, the warrior who had to expiate the crime of blood guilt retired to the groves along the river bottom at some distance from the villages or wandered about the adjoining hills. During the period of sixteen days he was not allowed to touch his head with his fingers or his hair would turn white. If he touched his face it would become wrinkled. He kept a stick to scratch his head with, and at the end of every four days this stick was buried at the root and on the west side of a cat's claw tree and a new stick was made of greasewood, arrow bush, or any other convenient shrub. He then bathed in the river, no matter how cold the temperature. The feast of victory which his friends were observing in the meantime at the village lasted eight days. At the end of that time, or when his period of retirement was half-completed, the warrior might go to his home to get a fetish made from the hair of the Apache whom he had killed. The hair was wrapped in eagle down and tied with a cotton string and kept in a long medicine basket. He drank no water for the first two days and fasted for the first four. After that time he was supplied with pinole by his attendant, who also instructed him as to his future conduct, telling him that he must henceforth stand back until [pg 184] all others were served when partaking of food and drink. If he was a married man his wife was not allowed to eat salt during his retirement, else she would suffer from the owl disease which causes stiff limbs. The explanation offered for the observance of this law of lustration is that if it is not obeyed the warrior's limbs will become stiffened or paralyzed.”617 The Apaches, the enemies of the Pimas, purify themselves for the slaughter of their foes by means of baths in the sweat-house, singing, and other rites. These ceremonies they perform for all the dead simultaneously after their return home; but the Pimas, more punctilious on this point, resort to their elaborate ceremonies of purification the moment a single one of their own band or of the enemy has been laid low.618 How heavily these religious scruples must have told against the Pimas in their wars with their ferocious enemies is obvious enough. “This long period of retirement immediately after a battle,” says an American writer, “greatly diminished the value of the Pimas as scouts and allies for the United States troops operating against the Apaches. The bravery of the Pimas was praised by all army officers having any experience with them, but Captain Bourke and others have complained of their unreliability, due solely to their rigid observance of this religious law.”619 In nothing, perhaps, is the penalty which superstition sooner or later entails on its devotees more prompt and crushing than in the operations of war.
Far away from the torrid home of the Pima and Apaches, an old traveller witnessed ceremonies of the same sort practised near the Arctic Circle by some Indians who had surprised and brutally massacred an unoffending and helpless party of Esquimaux. His description is so interesting that I will quote it in full. “Among the various superstitious customs of those people, it is worth remarking, and ought to have been mentioned in its proper place, that immediately after my companions had killed the Esquimaux at the Copper River, they considered themselves in a state of uncleanness, which induced [pg 185] them to practise some very curious and unusual ceremonies. In the first place, all who were absolutely concerned in the murder were prohibited from cooking any kind of victuals, either for themselves or others. As luckily there were two in company who had not shed blood, they were employed always as cooks till we joined the women. This circumstance was exceedingly favourable on my side; for had there been no persons of the above description in company, that task, I was told, would have fallen on me; which would have been no less fatiguing and troublesome, than humiliating and vexatious. When the victuals were cooked, all the murderers took a kind of red earth, or oker, and painted all the space between the nose and chin, as well as the greater part of their cheeks, almost to the ears, before they would taste a bit, and would not drink out of any other dish, or smoke out of any other pipe, but their own; and none of the others seemed willing to drink or smoke out of theirs. We had no sooner joined the women, at our return from the expedition, than there seemed to be an universal spirit of emulation among them, vying who should first make a suit of ornaments for their husbands, which consisted of bracelets for the wrists, and a band for the forehead, composed of porcupine quills and moose-hair, curiously wrought on leather. The custom of painting the mouth and part of the cheeks before each meal, and drinking and smoking out of their own utensils, was strictly and invariably observed, till the winter began to set in; and during the whole of that time they would never kiss any of their wives or children. They refrained also from eating many parts of the deer and other animals, particularly the head, entrails, and blood; and during their uncleanness, their victuals were never sodden in water, but dried in the sun, eaten quite raw, or broiled, when a fire fit for the purpose could be procured. When the time arrived that was to put an end to these ceremonies, the men, without a female being present, made a fire at some distance from the tents, into which they threw all their ornaments, pipe-stems, and dishes, which were soon consumed to ashes; after which a feast was prepared, consisting of such articles as they had long been prohibited from eating; and when all was over, each man was at [pg 186] liberty to eat, drink, and smoke as he pleased; and also to kiss his wives and children at discretion, which they seemed to do with more raptures than I had ever known them do it either before or since.”620
Thus we see that warriors who have taken the life of a foe in battle are temporarily cut off from free intercourse with their fellows, and especially with their wives, and must undergo certain rites of purification before they are readmitted to society. Now if the purpose of their seclusion and of the expiatory rites which they have to perform is, as we have been led to believe, no other than to shake off, frighten, or appease the angry spirit of the slain man, [pg 187] we may safely conjecture that the similar purification of homicides and murderers, who have imbrued their hands in the blood of a fellow-tribesman, had at first the same significance, and that the idea of a moral or spiritual regeneration symbolised by the washing, the fasting, and so on, was merely a later interpretation put upon the old custom by men who had outgrown the primitive modes of thought in which the custom originated. The conjecture will be confirmed if we can shew that savages have actually imposed certain restrictions on the murderer of a fellow-tribesman from a definite fear that he is haunted by the ghost of his victim. This we can do with regard to the Omahas, a tribe of the Siouan stock in North America. Among these Indians the kinsmen of a murdered man had the right to put the murderer to death, but sometimes they waived their right in consideration of presents which they consented to accept. When the life of the murderer was spared, he had to observe certain stringent rules for a period which varied from two to four years. He must walk barefoot, and he might eat no warm food, nor raise his voice, nor look around. He was compelled to pull his robe about him and to have it tied at the neck even in hot weather; he might not let it hang loose or fly open. He might not move his hands about, but had to keep them close to his body. He might not comb his hair and it might not be blown about by the wind. When the tribe went out hunting, he was obliged to pitch his tent about a quarter of a mile from the rest of the people “lest the ghost of his victim should raise a high wind, which might cause damage.” Only one of his kindred was allowed to remain with him at his tent. No one wished to eat with him, for they said, “If we eat with him whom Wakanda hates Wakanda will hate us.” Sometimes he wandered at night crying and lamenting his offence. At the end of his long isolation the kinsmen of the murdered man heard his crying and said, “It is enough. Begone, and walk among the crowd. Put on moccasins and wear a good robe.”621 Here the reason alleged for keeping the murderer at a considerable distance from the hunters gives the clue to all the other restrictions [pg 188] laid on him: he was haunted and therefore dangerous. The ancient Greeks believed that the soul of a man who had just been killed was wroth with his slayer and troubled him; wherefore it was needful even for the involuntary homicide to depart from his country for a year until the anger of the dead man had cooled down; nor might the slayer return until sacrifice had been offered and ceremonies of purification performed. If his victim chanced to be a foreigner, the homicide had to shun the native country of the dead man as well as his own.622 The legend of the matricide Orestes, how he roamed from place to place pursued by the Furies of his murdered mother, and none would sit at meat with him, or take him in, till he had been purified,623 reflects faithfully the real Greek dread of such as were still haunted by an angry ghost. When the turbulent people of Cynaetha, after perpetrating an atrocious massacre, sent an embassy to Sparta, every Arcadian town through which the envoys passed on their journey ordered them out of its walls at once; and the Mantineans, after the embassy had departed, even instituted a solemn purification of the city and its territory by carrying sacrificial victims round them both.624
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 [pg 189] 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 were buried they would come back and take [pg 190] their master's soul.”625 This seems to mean that if the bones of the victim were buried, his ghost would come back and fetch away the souls of the men who had eaten his body. The Gebars, a cannibal tribe in the north of New Guinea, are much afraid of the spirit of a slain man or woman. Among them persons who have partaken of human flesh for the first time reside for a month afterwards in a small hut and may not enter the dwelling-house.626