Chapter 20 Taboo People: Mourning the Taboos of the Dead

The savages considered their chiefs and kings to be possessed of a mystical divine power, ready to strike, and so naturally included them in the dangerous class of society, and thus placed murderers, menstruating women, and those whom they were afraid of The same restrictions were imposed on chiefs and kings.The holy kings and priests of Polynesia, for example, were not allowed to touch their food with their own hands, and so had to be served by others, and, as we have just learned, their used utensils, worn garments, and other things were forbidden to others. Use, or you will be punished by disease or death.Some savages today observe exactly the same taboos with regard to menarche girls, postpartum women, murderers, mourners, and all who have had contact with the dead.For example, starting with the latter group, anyone among the Māori who handled a dead body and helped to transport it to a cemetery, or touched the bones of a dead person, cut off all contact with almost everyone.He is not allowed to enter anyone's house, and is not allowed to come into contact with anyone or anything, otherwise anyone or thing he touches will be haunted by ghosts.He cannot even touch the food with his hands, as soon as the food is touched by his hands, it becomes unclean immediately, and no one else can touch it.The food for him must be placed on the ground. He sits or kneels, with his hands behind his back carefully, and tries his best to crawl on the ground and chew the food with his mouth.Sometimes someone else feeds him.The person who feeds him also stretches out his arms carefully, taking care not to touch him, an inaccessible person, and is also subject to many taboos, almost no less than himself.In nearly every populous village there is a lowly man, the lowest of the lowly, who lives exclusively on the pitiful meager money he gets from serving such taboos.It was always a lonely, silent, haggard, shriveled old man, ragged, covered from head to toe with ochre and foul-smelling shark oil, half-mad, sitting all day far from the village passage. In a remote and secluded place, motionless, with dull eyes watching the complicated things that he can never participate in.Twice a day, people give a little food and throw it on the ground in front of him, and he chews it with his mouth without his hands.At night, he put away the tattered things around him, crawled into the garbage pile covered with dead leaves, dirty, cold and hungry, spent a long desolate night in intermittent ghostly dreams, and then started another Troubled tomorrow.This is the only valet of the man who is considered fit to pay last friendly homage to the dead.When the mourner's period of solitary mourning is about to expire and he is about to return to his relatives and friends, all the dishes and dishes he used during the solitary period must be carefully smashed, and the clothes he has worn must be carefully thrown away so that they will not be lost. Uncleanness spreads among the people.These practices are like the clothes and utensils used by the chiefs of the holy kings, which must be destroyed for the same reason.Primitive or savage peoples in these respects are very careful in the analogy between the divine powers of gods and ghosts, and between the sacred and the odours.

It is common in Polynesia that no one who has touched a dead person should touch food with his hands.In Samoa, those who have dealt with the dead take special care not to take food, or, in the case of babies, to be fed for long periods of time.If there is any violation, it will be punished by the house gods and become bald or lose all teeth.In Tonga, anyone who comes into contact with a dead chief has to observe the taboo for ten months, and the chiefs also have to observe the taboo for three months, four months or five months, depending on the status of the chief who has just passed away. Certainly.If the deceased was the highest priestly chief, then the highest administrative chief also had to observe the taboo for ten months... During the period of keeping the taboo, no one is allowed to take food with his own hands, he must be fed by others, and he himself is not even allowed to use a toothpick. To use it, you must ask someone to hold it for him.If he is hungry and there is no one to help him, he must kneel down, put his hands on the ground, and pick up food with his mouth to eat.If these rules are violated, the body will swell and die.

Among the Shushwapu people of British Columbia, widows and widowers who have recently lost their husbands or wives are required to live alone, not to touch their body with hands, and to use cups and cooking utensils that are not allowed to be used by others.They had to build a sweat-bath close by the stream, and lie there all night sweating, and bathed frequently, and after the bath they had to wipe their bodies with spruce branches.These branches can only be used once, after which they are inserted in the ground around the hut.No hunter should go near these mourners, for it will bring misfortune.If the shadow of these mourners fell on anyone, he would immediately fall ill.They used thorny bushes for beds and pillows, in order to keep the ghosts of the dead away; and they also placed thorny bushes all around the berth.This precautionary practice clearly demonstrates the danger of what kind of ghosts it is that separates these mourners from the general public.In fact, it is nothing more than fear of the ghosts of the dead who are attached to them and refuse to leave.In the Mokoo area of ​​British New Guinea, a man whose wife died lost all civil rights and became an outcast by society. He was the object of fear and fear, and everyone avoided him and dared not approach him.He shall not plant flowers, be not seen in public places, not walk through the village, nor walk on the road or path, but must prowl like a wild animal in the thickets, if he sees or hears people (especially women) To get close, you have to hide behind a tree or lurk in the tall grass.If he wanted to fish or hunt, he had to do it alone at night.If he wanted to discuss anything with anyone, even a missionary, he had to go secretly at night, and he seemed to have a hoarse voice, and could only whisper.If he joins fishermen or hunters in fishing and hunting, he will definitely bring harm to those people. The ghost of his dead wife must scare away the fish and wild animals that are hunted.He went around always carrying a battle-axe as a weapon of defense: not only against the wild bears of the jungle, but also against the possibility that he might be harmed by the terrible ghost of his dead wife, for all ghosts of the dead are wicked and made for harm. Happy to be born.