We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was forbidden to touch or even name raw flesh.773 At certain times a Brahman teacher is enjoined not to look on raw flesh, blood, or persons whose hands have been cut off.774 In Uganda the father of [pg 240] twins is in a state of taboo for some time after the birth; among other rules he is forbidden to kill anything or to see blood.775 In the Pelew Islands when a raid has been made on a village and a head carried off, the relations of the slain man are tabooed and have to submit to certain observances in order to escape the wrath of his ghost. They are shut up in the house, touch no raw flesh, and chew betel over which an incantation has been uttered by the exorcist. After this the ghost of the slaughtered man goes away to the enemy's country in pursuit of his murderer.776 The taboo is probably based on the common belief that the soul or spirit of the animal is in the blood. As tabooed persons are believed to be in a perilous state—for example, the relations of the slain man are liable to the attacks of his indignant ghost—it is especially necessary to isolate them from contact with spirits; hence the prohibition to touch raw meat. But as usual the taboo is only the special enforcement of a general precept; in other words, its observance is particularly enjoined in circumstances which seem urgently to call for its application, but apart from such circumstances the prohibition is also observed, though less strictly, as a common rule of life. Thus some of the Esthonians will not taste blood because they believe that it contains the animal's soul, which would enter the body of the person who tasted the blood.777 Some Indian tribes of North America, “through a strong principle of religion, abstain in the strictest manner from eating the blood of any animal, as it contains the life and spirit of the beast.” These Indians “commonly pull their new-killed venison (before they dress it) several times through the smoke and flame of the fire, both by the way of a sacrifice and to consume the blood, life, or animal spirits of the beast, which with them would be a most horrid abomination to eat.”778 Among the western Dénés or Tinneh Indians of British Columbia until lately no woman [pg 241] would partake of blood, “and both men and women abhorred the flesh of a beaver which had been caught and died in a trap, and of a bear strangled to death in a snare, because the blood remained in the carcase.”779 Many of the Slave, Hare, and Dogrib Indians scruple to taste the blood of game; hunters of the former tribes collect the blood in the animal's paunch and bury it in the snow.780 The Malepa, a Bantu tribe in the north of the Transvaal, will taste no blood. Hence they cut the throats of the cattle they slaughter and let the blood drain out of the carcase before they will eat it. And they do the same with game.781 Jewish hunters poured out the blood of the game they had killed and covered it up with dust. They would not taste the blood, believing that the soul or life of the animal was in the blood, or actually was the blood.782 The same belief was held by the Romans,783 and is shared by the Arabs,784 by Chinese medical writers,785 and by some of the Papuan tribes of New Guinea.786
It is a common rule that royal blood may not be shed upon the ground. Hence when a king or one of his family is to be put to death a mode of execution is devised by which the royal blood shall not be spilt upon the earth. About the year 1688 the generalissimo of the army rebelled against the king of Siam and put him to death “after the manner of royal criminals, or as princes of the blood are treated when convicted of capital crimes, which is by putting them into a large iron caldron, and pounding them to pieces with wooden pestles, because none of their royal blood must be spilt on the ground, it being, by their religion, thought great impiety to contaminate the divine blood by mixing it with earth.”787 [pg 242] Other Siamese modes of executing a royal person are starvation, suffocation, stretching him on a scarlet cloth and thrusting a billet of fragrant sandal-wood into his stomach,788 or lastly, sewing him up in a leather sack with a large stone and throwing him into the river; sometimes the sufferer's neck is broken with sandal-wood clubs before he is thrown into the water.789 When Kublai Khan defeated and took his uncle Nayan, who had rebelled against him, he caused Nayan to be put to death by being wrapt in a carpet and tossed to and fro till he died, “because he would not have the blood of his Line Imperial spilt upon the ground or exposed in the eye of Heaven and before the Sun.”790 “Friar Ricold mentions the Tartar maxim: ‘One Khan will put another to death to get possession of the throne, but he takes great care that the blood be not spilt. For they say that it is highly improper that the blood of the Great Khan should be spilt upon the ground; so they cause the victim to be smothered somehow or other.’ The like feeling prevails at the court of Burma, where a peculiar mode of execution without bloodshed is reserved for princes of the blood.”791 Another writer on Burma observes that “according to Mongolian tradition, it is considered improper to spill the blood of any member of the royal race. Princes of the Blood are executed by a blow, or blows, of a bludgeon, inflicted on the back of the neck. The corpse is placed in a red velvet sack, which is fixed between two large perforated jars, and then sunk in the river Irawadi. Princesses are executed in a similar manner, with the exception that they are put to death by a blow in front, instead of the back of the neck.”792 In 1878 the relations of Theebaw, king of Burma, were despatched by being beaten across the throat with a bamboo.793 In Tonquin the ordinary mode of execution is beheading, but persons of the blood royal are strangled.794 In Ashantee the [pg 243] blood of none of the royal family may be shed; if one of them is guilty of a great crime he is drowned in the river Dah.795 As the blood royal of Dahomey may not be spilled, offenders of the royal family are drowned or strangled. Commonly they are bound hand and foot, carried out to sea in a canoe, and thrown overboard.796 When a king of Benin came to the throne he used to put his brothers to death; but as no one might lay hands on a prince of the blood, the king commanded his brothers to hang themselves, after which he buried their bodies with great pomp.797 In Madagascar the blood of nobles might not be shed; hence when four Christians of that class were to be executed they were burned alive.798 In Uganda “no one may shed royal blood on any account, not even when ordered by the king to slay one of the royal house; royalty may only be starved or burned to death.”799 Formerly when a young king of Uganda came of age all his brothers were burnt except two or three, who were preserved to keep up the succession.800 Or a space of ground having been fenced in with a high paling and a deep ditch, the doomed men were led into the enclosure and left there till they died, while guards kept watch outside to prevent their escape.801 Among the Bawenda of southern Africa dangerous princes are strangled, for their blood may not be shed.802
The reluctance to spill royal blood seems to be only a particular case of a general unwillingness to shed blood or at least to allow it to fall on the ground. Marco Polo tells us that in his day persons caught in the streets of Cambaluc [pg 244] (Peking) at unseasonable hours were arrested, and if found guilty of a misdemeanour were beaten with a stick. “Under this punishment people sometimes die, but they adopt it in order to eschew bloodshed, for their Bacsis say that it is an evil thing to shed man's blood.”803 When Captain Christian was shot by the Manx Government at the Restoration in 1660, the spot on which he stood was covered with white blankets, that his blood might not fall on the ground.804 In West Sussex people believe that the ground on which human blood has been shed is accursed and will remain barren for ever.805 Among some primitive peoples, when the blood of a tribesman has to be spilt it is not suffered to fall upon the ground, but is received upon the bodies of his fellow-tribesmen. Thus in some Australian tribes boys who are being circumcised are laid on a platform, formed by the living bodies of the tribesmen;806 and when a boy's tooth is knocked out as an initiatory ceremony, he is seated on the shoulders of a man, on whose breast the blood flows and may not be wiped away.807 When Australian blacks bleed each other as a cure for headache and other ailments, they are very careful not to spill any of the blood on the ground, but sprinkle it on each other.808 We have already seen that in the Australian ceremony for making rain the blood which is supposed to imitate the rain is received upon the bodies of the tribesmen.809 “Also the Gauls used to drink their enemies' blood and paint themselves therewith. So also they write that the old Irish were wont; and so have I seen some of the Irish do, but not their enemies' but friends' blood, as, namely, at the execution of a notable traitor at Limerick, called Murrogh O'Brien, I saw an old woman, which was his foster-mother, take up his head whilst he was quartered and suck [pg 245] up all the blood that ran thereout, saying that the earth was not worthy to drink it, and therewith also steeped her face and breast and tore her hair, crying out and shrieking most terribly.”810 After a battle in Horne Island, South Pacific, it was found that the brother of the vanquished king was among the wounded. “It was sad to see his wife collect in her hands the blood which had flowed from his wounds, and throw it on to her head, while she uttered piercing cries. All the relatives of the wounded collected in the same manner the blood which had flowed from them, down even to the last drop, and they even applied their lips to the leaves of the shrubs and licked it all up to the last drop.”811 In the Marquesas Islands the persons who helped a woman at childbirth received on their heads the blood which flowed at the cutting of the navel-string; for the blood might not touch anything but a sacred object, and in Polynesia the head is sacred in a high degree.812 In South Celebes at childbirth a female slave stands under the house (the houses being raised on posts above the ground) and receives in a basin on her head the blood which trickles through the bamboo floor.813 Among the Latuka of central Africa the earth on which a drop of blood has fallen at childbirth is carefully scraped up with an iron shovel, put into a pot along with the water used in washing the mother, and buried tolerably deep outside the house on the left-hand side.814 In West Africa, if a drop of your blood has fallen on the ground, you must carefully cover it up, rub and stamp it into the soil; if it has fallen on the side of a canoe or a tree, the place is cut out and the chip destroyed.815 The Caffres, we are told, have a great horror of blood, and must purify themselves from the pollution if they have shed it and been bespattered by it. Hence warriors on the return from battle purge themselves with emetics, and that so violently that some of them give up the ghost. A Caffre would [pg 246] never allow even a drop of blood from his nose or a wound to lie uncovered, but huddles it over with earth, that his feet may not be defiled by it.816 One motive of these African customs may be a wish to prevent the blood from falling into the hands of magicians, who might make an evil use of it. That is admittedly the reason why people in West Africa stamp out any blood of theirs which has fallen on the ground or cut out any wood that has been soaked with it.817 From a like dread of sorcery natives of New Guinea are careful to burn any sticks, leaves, or rags which are stained with their blood; and if the blood has dripped on the ground they turn up the soil and if possible light a fire on the spot.818 The same fear explains the curious duties discharged by a class of men called ramanga or “blue blood” among the Betsileo of Madagascar. It is their business to eat all the nail-parings and to lick up all the spilt blood of the nobles. When the nobles pare their nails, the parings are collected to the last scrap and swallowed by these ramanga. If the parings are too large, they are minced small and so gulped down. Again, should a nobleman wound himself, say in cutting his nails or treading on something, the ramanga lick it up as fast as possible. Nobles of high rank hardly go anywhere without these humble attendants; but if it should happen that there are none of them present, the cut nails and the spilt blood are carefully collected to be afterwards swallowed by the ramanga. There is scarcely a nobleman of any pretensions who does not strictly observe this custom,819 the intention of which probably is to prevent these parts of his person from falling into the hands of sorcerers, who on the principles of contagious magic could work him harm thereby. The tribes of the White Nile are said never to shed human blood in their villages because they think the [pg 247] sight of it would render women barren or bring misfortune on their children. Hence executions and murders commonly take place on the roads or in the forest.820
The unwillingness to shed blood is extended by some peoples to the blood of animals. Thus, when the Caffres offer an ox to the spirits, the blood of the beast must be carefully caught in a calabash, and none of it may fall on the ground.821 When the Wanika in eastern Africa kill their cattle for food, “they either stone or beat the animal to death, so as not to shed the blood.”822 Amongst the Damaras cattle killed for food are suffocated, but when sacrificed they are speared to death.823 But like most pastoral tribes in Africa, both the Wanika and Damaras very seldom kill their cattle, which are indeed commonly invested with a kind of sanctity.824 Some of the Ewe-speaking negroes of Togoland, in West Africa, celebrate a festival in honour of the Earth at which it is unlawful to shed blood on the ground. Hence the fowls which are sacrificed on these occasions have their necks wrung, not their throats cut.825 In killing an animal for food the Easter Islanders do not shed its blood, but stun it or suffocate it in smoke.826 When the natives of San Cristoval, one of the Solomon Islands, sacrifice a pig to a ghost in a sacred place, they take great care that the blood shall not fall on the ground; so they place the animal in a large bowl and cut it up there.827 It is said that in ancient India the sacrificial victims were not slaughtered but strangled.828
The general explanation of the reluctance to shed blood on the ground is probably to be found in the belief that the soul is in the blood, and that therefore any ground on which it [pg 248] may fall necessarily becomes taboo or sacred. In New Zealand anything upon which even a drop of a high chief's blood chances to fall becomes taboo or sacred to him. For instance, a party of natives having come to visit a chief in a fine new canoe, the chief got into it, but in doing so a splinter entered his foot, and the blood trickled on the canoe, which at once became sacred to him. The owner jumped out, dragged the canoe ashore opposite the chief's house, and left it there. Again, a chief in entering a missionary's house knocked his head against a beam, and the blood flowed. The natives said that in former times the house would have belonged to the chief.829 As usually happens with taboos of universal application, the prohibition to spill the blood of a tribesman on the ground applies with peculiar stringency to chiefs and kings, and is observed in their case long after it has ceased to be observed in the case of others.
We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was not allowed to walk under a trellised vine.830 The reason for this prohibition was perhaps as follows. It has been shewn that plants are considered as animate beings which bleed when cut, the red juice which exudes from some of them being regarded as the blood of the plant.831 The juice of the grape is therefore naturally conceived as the blood of the vine.832 And since, as we have just seen, the soul is often believed to be in the blood, the juice of the grape is regarded as the soul, or as containing the soul, of the vine. This belief is strengthened by the intoxicating effects of wine. For, according to primitive notions, all abnormal mental states, such as intoxication or madness, are caused by the entrance of a spirit into the person; such mental states, in other words, are accounted forms of possession or inspiration. Wine, therefore, is considered on two distinct grounds as a spirit, or containing a spirit; first because, as a red juice, it is identified with the blood of the plant, and second because it intoxicates or inspires. Therefore if the Flamen Dialis had walked under a trellised vine, the spirit of the vine, embodied in the [pg 249] clusters of grapes, would have been immediately over his head and might have touched it, which for a person like him in a state of permanent taboo833 would have been highly dangerous. This interpretation of the prohibition will be made probable if we can shew, first, that wine has been actually viewed by some peoples as blood, and intoxication as inspiration produced by drinking the blood; and, second, that it is often considered dangerous, especially for tabooed persons, to have either blood or a living person over their heads.
With regard to the first point, we are informed by Plutarch that of old the Egyptian kings neither drank wine nor offered it in libations to the gods, because they held it to be the blood of beings who had once fought against the gods, the vine having sprung from their rotting bodies; and the frenzy of intoxication was explained by the supposition that the drunken man was filled with the blood of the enemies of the gods.834 The Aztecs regarded pulque or the wine of the country as bad, on account of the wild deeds which men did under its influence. But these wild deeds were believed to be the acts, not of the drunken man, but of the wine-god by whom he was possessed and inspired; and so seriously was this theory of inspiration held that if any one spoke ill of or insulted a tipsy man, he was liable to be punished for disrespect to the wine-god incarnate in his votary. Hence, says Sahagun, it was believed, not without ground, that the Indians intoxicated themselves on purpose to commit with impunity crimes for which they would certainly have been punished if they had committed them [pg 250] sober.835 Thus it appears that on the primitive view intoxication or the inspiration produced by wine is exactly parallel to the inspiration produced by drinking the blood of animals.836 The soul or life is in the blood, and wine is the blood of the vine. Hence whoever drinks the blood of an animal is inspired with the soul of the animal or of the god, who, as we have seen,837 is often supposed to enter into the animal before it is slain; and whoever drinks wine drinks the blood, and so receives into himself the soul or spirit, of the god of the vine.
With regard to the second point, the fear of passing under blood or under a living person, we are told that some of the Australian blacks have a dread of passing under a leaning tree or even under the rails of a fence. The reason they give is that a woman may have been upon the tree or fence, and some blood from her may have fallen on it and might fall from it on them.838 In Ugi, one of the Solomon Islands, a man will never, if he can help it, pass under a tree which has fallen across the path, for the reason that a woman may have stepped over it before him.839 Amongst the Karens of Burma “going under a house, especially if there are females within, is avoided; as is also the passing under trees of which the branches extend downwards in a particular direction, and the butt-end of fallen trees, etc.”840 The Siamese think it unlucky to pass under a rope on which women's clothes are hung, and to avert evil consequences the person who has done so must build a chapel to the earth-spirit.841
[pg 251]Probably in all such cases the rule is based on a fear of being brought into contact with blood, especially the blood of women. From a like fear a Maori will never lean his back against the wall of a native house.842 For the blood of women is supposed to have disastrous effects upon males. The Arunta of central Australia believe that a draught of woman's blood would kill the strongest man.843 In the Encounter Bay tribe of South Australia boys are warned that if they see the blood of women they will early become grey-headed and their strength will fail prematurely.844 Men of the Booandik tribe in South Australia think that if they see the blood of their women they will not be able to fight against their enemies and will be killed; if the sun dazzles their eyes at a fight, the first woman they afterwards meet is sure to get a blow from their club.845 In the island of Wetar it is thought that if a man or a lad comes upon a woman's blood he will be unfortunate in war and other undertakings, and that any precautions he may take to avoid the misfortune will be vain.846 The people of Ceram also believe that men who see women's blood will be wounded in battle.847 It is an Esthonian belief that men who see women's blood will suffer from an eruption on the skin.848 A Fan negro told Miss Kingsley that a young man in his village, who was so weak that he could hardly crawl about, had fallen into this state through seeing the blood of a woman who had been killed by a falling tree. “The underlying idea regarding blood is of course the old one that the blood is the life. The life in Africa means a spirit, hence the liberated blood is the liberated spirit, and liberated spirits are always whipping into people who do not want them. In the case of the young Fan, the opinion held was that the weak spirit of the woman had got into him.”849
Again, the reason for not passing under dangerous objects, like a vine or women's blood, is a fear that they may come in contact with the head; for among many peoples the head is peculiarly sacred. The special sanctity attributed to it is sometimes explained by a belief that it is the seat of a spirit which is very sensitive to injury or disrespect. Thus the Yorubas of the Slave Coast hold that every man has three spiritual inmates, of whom the first, called Olori, dwells in the head and is the man's protector, guardian, and guide. Offerings are made to this spirit, chiefly of fowls, and some of the blood mixed with palm-oil is rubbed on the forehead.850 The Karens of Burma suppose that a being called the tso resides in the upper part of the head, and while it retains its seat no harm can befall the person from the efforts of the seven Kelahs, or personified passions. “But if the tso becomes heedless or weak certain evil to the person is the result. Hence the head is carefully attended to, and all possible pains are taken to provide such dress and attire as will be pleasing to the tso.”851 The Siamese think that a spirit called khuan or kwun dwells in the human head, of which it is the guardian spirit. The spirit must be carefully protected from injury of every kind; hence the act of shaving or cutting the hair is accompanied with many ceremonies. The kwun is very sensitive on points of honour, and would feel mortally insulted if the head in which he resides were touched by the hand of a stranger. When Dr. Bastian, in conversation with a brother of the king of Siam, raised his hand to touch the prince's skull in order to illustrate some medical remarks he was making, a sullen and threatening murmur bursting from the lips of the crouching [pg 253] courtiers warned him of the breach of etiquette he had committed, for in Siam there is no greater insult to a man of rank than to touch his head. If a Siamese touch the head of another with his foot, both of them must build chapels to the earth-spirit to avert the omen. Nor does the guardian spirit of the head like to have the hair washed too often; it might injure or incommode him. It was a grand solemnity when the king of Burma's head was washed with water drawn from the middle of the river. Whenever the native professor, from whom Dr. Bastian took lessons in Burmese at Mandalay, had his head washed, which took place as a rule once a month, he was generally absent for three days together, that time being consumed in preparing for, and recovering from, the operation of head-washing. Dr. Bastian's custom of washing his head daily gave rise to much remark.852 The head of the king of Persia was cleaned only once a year, on his birthday.853 Roman women washed their heads annually on the thirteenth of August, Diana's day.854 The Indians of Peru fancied they could rid themselves of their sins by scrubbing their heads with a small stone and then washing them in a stream.855
Again, the Burmese think it an indignity to have any one, especially a woman, over their heads, and for this reason Burmese houses have never more than one story. The houses are raised on posts above the ground, and whenever anything fell through the floor Dr. Bastian had always difficulty in persuading a servant to fetch it from under the house. In Rangoon a priest, summoned to the bedside of a sick man, climbed up a ladder and got in at the window rather than ascend the staircase, to reach which he must have passed under a gallery. A pious Burman of Rangoon, finding some images of Buddha in a ship's cabin, offered a high price for them, that they might not be degraded [pg 254] by sailors walking over them on the deck.856 Formerly in Siam no person might cross a bridge while his superior in rank was passing underneath, nor might he walk in a room above one in which his superior was sitting or lying.857 The Cambodians esteem it a grave offence to touch a man's head; some of them will not enter a place where anything whatever is suspended over their heads; and the meanest Cambodian would never consent to live under an inhabited room. Hence the houses are built of one story only; and even the Government respects the prejudice by never placing a prisoner in the stocks under the floor of a house, though the houses are raised high above the ground.858 The same superstition exists amongst the Malays; for an early traveller reports that in Java people “wear nothing on their heads, and say that nothing must be on their heads ... and if any person were to put his hand upon their head they would kill him; and they do not build houses with storeys, in order that they may not walk over each other's heads.”859 In Uganda no person belonging to the king's totem clan was allowed to get on the top of the palace to roof it, for that would have been regarded as equivalent to getting on the top of the king. Hence the palace had to be roofed by men of a different clan from the king.860
The same superstition as to the head is found in full force throughout Polynesia. Thus of Gattanewa, a Marquesan chief, it is said that “to touch the top of his head, or anything which had been on his head, was sacrilege. To pass over his head was an indignity never to be forgotten. Gattanewa, nay, all his family, scorned to pass a gateway which is ever closed, or a house with a door; all must be [pg 255] as open and free as their unrestrained manners. He would pass under nothing that had been raised by the hand of man, if there was a possibility of getting round or over it. Often have I seen him walk the whole length of our barrier, in preference to passing between our water-casks; and at the risk of his life scramble over the loose stones of a wall, rather than go through the gateway.”861 Marquesan women have been known to refuse to go on the decks of ships for fear of passing over the heads of chiefs who might be below.862 The son of a Marquesan high priest has been seen to roll on the ground in an agony of rage and despair, begging for death, because some one had desecrated his head and deprived him of his divinity by sprinkling a few drops of water on his hair.863 But it was not the Marquesan chiefs only whose heads were sacred. The head of every Marquesan was taboo, and might neither be touched nor stepped over by another; even a father might not step over the head of his sleeping child;864 women were forbidden to carry or touch anything that had been in contact with, or had merely hung over, the head of their husband or father.865 No one was allowed to be over the head of the king of Tonga.866 In Hawaii (the Sandwich Islands) if a man climbed upon a chiefs house or upon the wall of his yard, he was put to death; if his shadow fell on a chief, he was put to death; if he walked in the shadow of a chiefs house with his head painted white or decked with a garland or wetted with water, he was put to death.867 In Tahiti any one who stood over the king or queen, or passed his hand over their heads, might be put to death.868 Until certain rites were performed over it, a Tahitian infant was especially taboo; whatever touched the child's head, while it was in this state, became sacred and was deposited in a consecrated [pg 256] place railed in for the purpose at the child's house. If a branch of a tree touched the child's head, the tree was cut down; and if in its fall it injured another tree so as to penetrate the bark, that tree also was cut down as unclean and unfit for use. After the rites were performed these special taboos ceased; but the head of a Tahitian was always sacred, he never carried anything on it, and to touch it was an offence.869 In New Zealand “the heads of the chiefs were always tabooed (tapu), hence they could not pass, or sit, under food hung up; or carry food, as others, on their backs; neither would they eat a meal in a house, nor touch a calabash of water in drinking. No one could touch their head, nor, indeed, commonly speak of it, or allude to it; to do so offensively was one of their heaviest curses, and grossest insults, only to be wiped out with blood.”870 So sacred was the head of a Maori chief that “if he only touched it with his fingers, he was obliged immediately to apply them to his nose, and snuff up the sanctity which they had acquired by the touch, and thus restore it to the part from whence it was taken.”871 On account of the sacredness of his head a Maori chief “could not blow the fire with his mouth, for the breath being sacred, communicated his sanctity to it, and a brand might be taken by a slave, or a man of another tribe, or the fire might be used for other purposes, such as cooking, and so cause his death.”872 It is a crime for a sacred person in New Zealand to leave his comb, or anything else which has touched his head, in a place where food has been cooked, or to suffer another person to drink out of any vessel which has touched his lips. Hence when a chief wishes to drink he never puts his lips to the vessel, but holds his hands close to his mouth so as to form a hollow, into which water is poured by another person, and thence is allowed to flow into his mouth. If a light is needed for his pipe, the burning ember taken from [pg 257] the fire must be thrown away as soon as it is used; for the pipe becomes sacred because it has touched his mouth; the coal becomes sacred because it has touched the pipe; and if a particle of the sacred cinder were replaced on the common fire, the fire would also become sacred and could no longer be used for cooking.873 Some Maori chiefs, like other Polynesians, object to go down into a ship's cabin from fear of people passing over their heads.874 Dire misfortune was thought by the Maoris to await those who entered a house where any article of animal food was suspended over their heads. “A dead pigeon, or a piece of pork hung from the roof, was a better protection from molestation than a sentinel.”875 If I am right, the reason for the special objection to having animal food over the head is the fear of bringing the sacred head into contact with the spirit of the animal; just as the reason why the Flamen Dialis might not walk under a vine was the fear of bringing his sacred head into contact with the spirit of the vine. Similarly King Darius would not pass through a gate over which there was a tomb, because in doing so he would have had a corpse above his head.876 Among the Awuna tribes of the Gold Coast, West Africa, the worshippers of Hebesio, the god of thunder, believe that their heads are sacred, being associated in some mysterious way with the presence of the protective spirit of their god, which has passed into them through this channel at baptism. Hence they carefully guard their heads against injury, especially against any wound that might draw blood, for they think that such a wound would entail the loss of reason on the sufferer, and that it would bring down the wrath of the thundering god and of his mouth-piece the fetish priest on the impious smiter.877