The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1&2). James George Frazer

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СКАЧАТЬ of a child's nails are buried under an ash-tree, the child will turn out a fine singer.717 In Amboina before a child may taste sago-pap for the first time, the father cuts off a lock of the child's hair which he buries under a sago palm.718 In the Aru Islands, when a child is able to run alone, a female relation cuts off a lock of its hair and deposits it on a banana-tree.719 In the island of Roti it is thought that the first hair which a child gets is not his own and that, if it is not cut off, it will make him weak and ill. Hence, when the child is about a month old, his hair is cut off with much ceremony. As each of the friends who are invited to the ceremony enters the house he goes up to the child, cuts off a little of its hair and drops it into a cocoa-nut shell full of water. Afterwards the father or another relation takes the hair and packs it into a little bag made of leaves, which he fastens to the top of a palm-tree. Then he gives the leaves of the palm a good shaking, climbs down, and goes home without speaking to any one.720 Indians of the Yukon territory, Alaska, do not throw away their cut hair and nails, but tie them up in little bundles and place them in the crotches of trees or anywhere where they will not be disturbed by animals. For “they have a superstition that disease will follow the disturbance of such remains by animals.”721 The clipped hair and nails are often buried in any secret place, not necessarily in a temple or cemetery or under a tree, as in the cases already mentioned. In Swabia it is said that cut hair should be buried in a place where neither sun nor moon shines, therefore in the ground, under a stone, etc.722 In Danzig it is buried in a bag under the threshold.723 In Ugi, one of the Solomon Islands, men bury their hair lest it should fall into the hands of an enemy who would make magic with it and so bring sickness or calamity on them.724 The Zend Avesta directs that the clippings of hair and the parings of nails shall be placed in separate holes, and that three, six, or nine furrows shall be drawn round each hole with a metal knife.725 In the Grihya-Sûtras it is provided that the hair cut from a child's head at the end of the first, third, fifth, or seventh year shall be buried in the earth at a place covered with grass or in the neighbourhood of water.726 The Madi or Moru tribe of Central Africa bury the parings of their nails in the ground.727 The Kafirs carry still further this dread of allowing any portion of themselves to fall into the hands of an enemy; for not only do they bury their cut hair and nails in a sacred place, but when one of them cleans the head of another he preserves the insects which he finds, “carefully delivering them to the person to whom they originally appertained, supposing, according to their theory, that as they derived their support from the blood of the man from whom they were taken, should they be killed by another the blood of his neighbour would be in his possession, thus placing in his hands the power of some superhuman influence.”728 Amongst the Wanyoro of Central Africa all cuttings of the hair and nails are carefully stored under the bed and afterwards strewed about among the tall grass.729 In North Guinea they are carefully hidden (it is not said where) “in order that they may not be used as a fetish for the destruction of him to whom they belong.”730 In Bolang Mongondo (Celebes) the first hair cut from a child's head is kept in a young cocoa-nut, which is commonly hung on the front of the house, under the roof.731

      Sometimes the severed hair and nails are preserved, not to prevent them from falling into the hands of a magician, but that the owner may have them at the resurrection of the body, to which some races look forward. Thus the Incas of Peru “took extreme care to preserve the nail-parings and the hairs that were shorn off or torn out with a comb; placing them in holes or niches in the walls, and if they fell out, any other Indian that saw them picked them up and put them in their places again. I very often asked different Indians, at various times, why they did this, in order to see what they would say, and they all replied in the same words, saying, ‘Know that all persons who are born must return to life’ (they have no word to express resuscitation), ‘and the souls must rise out of their tombs with all that belonged to their bodies. We, therefore, in order that we may not have to search for our hair and nails at a time when there will be much hurry and confusion, place them in one place, that they may be brought together more conveniently, and, whenever it is possible, we are also careful to spit in one place.’ ”732 In Chile this custom of stuffing the shorn hair into holes in the wall is still observed, it being thought the height of imprudence to throw the hair away.733 Similarly the Turks never throw away the parings of their nails, but carefully keep them in cracks of the walls or of the boards, in the belief that they will be needed at the resurrection.734 Some of the Esthonians keep the parings of their finger and toe nails in their bosom, in order to have them at hand when they are asked for them at the day of judgment.735 The Fors of Central Africa object to cut any one else's nails, for should the part cut off be lost and not delivered into its owner's hands, it will have to be made up to him somehow or other after death. The parings are buried in the ground.736 To spit upon the hair before throwing it away is thought in some parts of Europe sufficient to prevent its being used by witches.737 Spitting as a protective charm is well known.

      Some people burn their loose hair to save it from falling into the power of sorcerers. This is done by the Patagonians and some of the Victorian tribes.738 The Makololo of South Africa either burn it or bury it secretly,739 and the same alternative is sometimes adopted by the Tirolese.740 Cut and combed out hair is burned in Pomerania and sometimes at Liége.741 In Norway the parings of nails are either burned or buried, lest the elves or the Finns should find them and make them into bullets wherewith to shoot the cattle.742 This destruction of the hair or nails plainly involves an inconsistency of thought. The object of the destruction is avowedly to prevent these severed portions of the body from being used by sorcerers. But the possibility of their being so used depends upon the supposed sympathetic connection between them and the man from whom they were severed. And if this sympathetic connection still exists, clearly these severed portions cannot be destroyed without injury to the man.

      Before leaving this subject, on which I have perhaps dwelt too long, it may be well to call attention to the motive assigned for cutting a young child's hair in Roti.743 In that island the first hair is regarded as a danger to the child, and its removal is intended to avert the danger. The reason of this may be that as a young child is almost universally supposed to be in a tabooed or dangerous state, it is necessary, in removing the taboo, to destroy the separable parts of the child's body on the ground that they are infected, so to say, by the virus of the taboo and as such are dangerous. The cutting of the child's hair would thus be exactly parallel to the destruction of the vessels which have been used by a tabooed person.744 This view is borne out by a practice, observed by some Australians, of burning off part of a woman's hair after childbirth as well as burning every vessel which has been used by her during her seclusion.745 Here the burning of the woman's hair seems plainly intended to serve the same purpose as the burning of the vessels used by her; and as the vessels are burned because they are believed to be tainted with a dangerous infection, so, we must suppose, is also the hair. We can, therefore, understand the importance attached by many peoples to the first cutting of a child's hair and the elaborate ceremonies by which the operation is accompanied.746 Again, we can understand why a man should poll his head after a journey.747 For we have seen that a traveller is often believed to contract a dangerous infection from strangers and that, therefore, on his return home he is obliged to submit to various purificatory ceremonies before he is allowed to mingle freely with his own people.748 On my hypothesis the polling of the hair is simply one of these purificatory or disinfectant ceremonies. The cutting of the hair after a vow may have the same meaning. It is a way of ridding the man of what has been infected by the dangerous state of taboo, sanctity, or uncleanness (for all these are only different expressions for the same primitive conception) under which he laboured during the continuance of the vow. Similarly at some Hindu places of pilgrimage on the banks of rivers men who have committed great crimes or are troubled by uneasy consciences have every hair shaved off by professional barbers before they plunge into the sacred stream, from which “they emerge new creatures, with all the accumulated guilt of a long life effaced.”749

      As might have been expected, the superstitions of the savage cluster thick about the subject of food; and he abstains from eating many animals and plants, wholesome enough in themselves, but which for one reason or another he considers would prove dangerous or fatal to the eater. Examples of such abstinence are too familiar and far too numerous to quote. But if the ordinary man is thus deterred by superstitious fear from partaking of various foods, the restraints of this kind which are laid upon sacred or СКАЧАТЬ