of solemn occasions, such as after the death of a son or daughter, the circumcision of a child, the first menstruation of a daughter, the occupation of a new house or of a new village, etc. For examples see C. W. Hobley, Ethnology of A-Kamba and other East African Tribes (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 58, 59, 60, 65, 67, 69, 74; H. A. Junod, “Les Conceptions physiologiques des Bantou Sud-Africains et leurs tabous,” Revue d'Ethnographie et de Sociologie, i. (1910) p. 148; Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 48, 144, 357, 363, 378, 428, etc.; id., “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) pp. 59, 61. Among the Baganda the act of stepping or leaping over a woman is regarded as equivalent to cohabitation with her, and is accepted as a ritual substitute for it (J. Roscoe, The Baganda, p. 357 note). The ideas on which this custom of ceremonial cohabitation is based are by no means clear.
213
Ch. Croonenberghs, S.J., “La fête de la Grande Danse dans le haut Zambeze,” Les Missions Catholiques, xiv. (1882) pp. 230-234; L. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa (London, 1898), pp. 157 sq. The two accounts supplement each other. I have combined features from both in the text.
214
H. Tönjes, Ovamboland, Land, Leute, Mission (Berlin, 1911), pp. 200 sq.
215
V. Frič and P. Radin, “Contributions to the Study of the Bororo Indians,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxvi. (1906) p. 392.
216
The ceremony is described independently by James Adair, History of the American Indians (London, 1775), pp. 96-111; W. Bartram, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida (London, 1792), pp. 507 sq.; A. Hodgson, Letters from North America (London, 1824), i. 131 sq.; B. Hawkins, “Sketch of the Creek Country,” in Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, iii. (Savannah, 1848) pp. 75-78; A. A. M'Gillivray, in H. R. Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes of the United States (Philadelphia, 1853-1856), v. 267 sq.; F. G. Speck, Ethnology of the Yuchi Indians (Philadelphia, 1909), pp. 112-131. The fullest descriptions are those of Adair and Speck. In the text I have chiefly followed Adair, our oldest authority. A similar ceremony was observed by the Cherokees. See the description (from an unpublished MS. of J. H. Payne, author of Home, Sweet Home) in “Observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians, by William Bartram, 1789, with prefatory and supplementary notes by E. G. Squier,” Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, vol. iii. Part i. (1853) p. 75. The Indians of Alabama also held a great festival at their harvest in July. They passed the day fasting, lit a new fire, purged themselves, and offered the first-fruits to their Manitoo: the ceremony ended with a religious dance. See Bossu, Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes occidentales (Paris, 1768), ii. 54. These Indians of Alabama were probably either the Creeks or the Cherokees.
217
W. Bartram, Travels, p. 507.
218
So amongst the Cherokees, according to J. H. Payne, an arbour of green boughs was made in the sacred square; then “a beautiful bushy-topped shade-tree was cut down close to the roots, and planted in the very centre of the sacred square. Every man then provided himself with a green bough.”
219
So Adair. Bartram, on the other hand, as we have seen, says that the people provided themselves with new household utensils.
220
B. Hawkins, “Sketch,” etc., p. 76.
221
F. G. Speck, Ethnology of the Yuchi Indians (Philadelphia, 1909), pp. 86-89, 105-107, 112-131.
222
Th. Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, iii. (Leipsic, 1862) p. 42; A. S. Gatschet, A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, i. (Philadelphia, 1884) pp. 66 sqq.; Totemism and Exogamy, iii. 167.
223
C. MacCauley, “Seminole Indians of Florida,” Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1887), pp. 522 sq.
224
That is, the grand chief of the nation. All the chiefs of the Natchez were called Suns and were connected with the head chief or Great Sun, who bore on his breast an image of the sun and claimed to be descended from the luminary. See Bossu, Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes occidentales (Paris, 1768), i. 42.
225
Le Page Du Pratz, History of Louisiana, or of the western parts of Virginia and Carolina, translated from the French, New Edition (London, 1774), pp. 338-341. See also J. R. Swanton, Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley (Washington, 1911), pp. 110 sqq., where the passage of Du Pratz is translated in full from the original French. From Mr. Swanton's translation it appears that the English version of Du Pratz, which I have quoted in the text, is a good deal abridged. On the festival of first-fruits among the Natchez see also Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, Nouvelle Édition, vii. (Paris, 1781) p. 19; Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle France (Paris, 1744), vi. 183; De Tonti, “Relation de la Louisiane et du Mississippi,” Recueil de Voyages au Nord, v. (Amsterdam, 1734) p. 122; Le Petit, “Relation des Natchez,” ibid. ix. 13 sq. (reprint of the account in the Lettres édifiantes cited above); Bossu, Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes occidentales (Paris, 1768), i. 43. According to Charlevoix, Le Petit, and Bossu the festival fell in July. For Chateaubriand's description of the custom, see below, pp. 135 sqq.
226
C. Hill-Tout, The Far West, the Home of the Salish and Déné (London, 1907), pp. 168-170.
227
J. Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, p. 349 (The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, April, 1900).
Joseph Thomson, Through Masai Land (London, 1885), p. 430; P. Reichard, Deutsch-Ostafrika (Leipsic, 1892), p. 288; O. Baumann, Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle (Berlin, 1894), p. 162; M. Merker, Die Masai (Berlin, 1904), p. 33; M. Weiss, Die Völkerstämme im Norden Deutsch-Ostafrikas (Berlin, 1910), p. 380. However, the motive which underlies the taboo appears to be a fear of injuring by sympathetic magic the cows from which the milk is drawn. See my essay “Folk-lore in the Old Testament,” in Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor (Oxford, 1907), pp. 164 sq. According to Reichard the warriors may partake of honey both with meat and with milk. Thomson does not mention honey and speaks of a purgative only. The periods during which meat and milk are alternately consumed vary, according to Reichard, from twelve to fifteen days. We may conjecture, therefore, that two of them, making up a complete cycle, correspond to a lunar month, with reference to which the diet is perhaps determined.
232
M. W. H. Beech, The Suk, their Language and Folklore (Oxford, 1911), p. 9. In both cases the motive, as with the Masai, is probably a fear of injuring the cattle, and especially of causing the cows to loose their milk. This is confirmed by other taboos of the same sort observed
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