Chapter 22 Taboo People: The Taboo of Killers

If the reader still doubts whether the rules of conduct which we have spoken of are due to superstitious fears or to considerations of reason, then, once you understand that rules of the same kind are found in those cases where the enemy, who has won the victory, is no longer afraid of a living enemy, Soldiers must still comply more strictly, and those doubts must disappear.In such a case the victor is still very inconveniently restrained in the moment of victory, probably one of the motives of which was the fear of the angry ghost of the slain.And this fear of a vengeful ghost does influence the behavior of the murderer, as has been clearly demonstrated many times.The taboos imposed on holy chiefs, mourners, women in childbirth, men in battle, etc. generally isolate the tabooed from ordinary people in society, and take various measures to make these tabooed men and women live in separate huts Or in the open air, prohibit sexual intercourse, avoid using other people's utensils, and so on.For victorious fighters, especially since they have actually killed the enemy, the same measures must be taken for the forbidden purpose.In Timor Island, every time a military expedition, the head of the enemy is captured, and the victory returns, according to religion and custom, the commander must immediately go to the house specially prepared for him, and live there for two months to cleanse his body and mind.During this period, he was not allowed to live with his wife, nor was he allowed to feed himself, and someone else had to feed him.Observance of these rules is due to the fear of the ghosts of the slain.This seems certain.Another relevant record also illustrates this point, and on this same island, every time an expedition is made to hunt heads, those heads must be sacrificed after the triumphant return to comfort their ghosts.If you don't pay homage in this way, there will be disasters.This ceremony also includes a group of music and dance, mourning the dead and praying for the forgiveness of the ghosts.

The eulogy said: "Please don't be angry that your head is hanging here. If we were not lucky, the head has been exposed in your village at this moment. We would like to pay homage to you. May your soul rest in peace. Harassment. Why make us enemies? Isn’t it better to be friendly? If you were friendly to each other in the past, you would not bleed and you would not be beheaded!” Later, they pay homage to the dead in the temple and pray for forgiveness. In Windsey, Netherlands New Guinea, whenever a group of headhunters returned successfully and approached home, they would blow a conch to announce their triumphant return.Their boats were decked out with branches, and the faces of those who had taken their heads were blackened with charcoal.If several people jointly obtain a head, the head will be divided equally among these people.They calculated the mileage along the way and arranged to arrive home in the early morning.They rowed the boat and returned to the village with a lot of noise. The women had already stood on the porch in front of the house and danced to welcome them.The boat passed near the house where the young people lived, and the person who got the head threw a sharpened wooden or bamboo stick to the wall or roof, and threw as many heads as he got.This day is spent peacefully, just playing a few drums or blowing a few conch shells from time to time, sometimes knocking on the wall and shouting loudly to drive away the ghosts of the killed.The Yabin people of New Guinea believed that the ghosts of the slain hunted their killers for revenge, so they beat the drums and shouted to drive the ghosts away.Fijians often bury people alive. After burying them, they beat drums and blow snails at night to make a lot of noise.In order to keep the ghosts from loving their old home, they removed all kinds of furniture and covered them with things they thought were disgusting.After the American Indians tortured the death row prisoners, they always shouted strangely along the village at night, and beat the furniture, walls, and roofs with sticks to prevent the ghosts of the victims from staying there and avenging the pain they suffered.A traveler said: "Once, we walked through a village of the Otava people at night, and found that all the residents in the village were screaming loudly, harsh and unpleasant, and in a mess. After questioning, it turned out that the Otawa people had recently communicated with Kikapo The people fought once, and now they are clamoring to drive away the ghosts of dead warriors from the village."

The people of Lisutu had to fast and take a bath after every battle. Soldiers must wash off the blood stains on their bodies as soon as possible, otherwise the ghosts on the battlefield would chase them constantly and disturb their sleep.They lined up to the nearby stream in full armor, and sometimes a fortune-teller stood on a high place and threw some detergent into the water, and the soldiers went to bathe one after another, even washing their spears and battle axes.For the Bagshu people in East Africa, anyone who kills is not allowed to return to his own home to spend the night that night, but can only spend the night at a friend's house in the village.The next day, slaughter a sheep, take out the internal organs of the sheep and smear the chest, right arm and head, and at the same time call your own children to do the same, and then use these internal organs to smear both sides of the door, and finally put all the remaining internal organs. Throw it on the roof.He couldn't touch the food with his hands that whole day, and had to put it in his mouth with two chopsticks.His wife was exempt from these restrictions, and could even go and mourn those her husband had killed if she wanted to.The Angoni people in the north of the Zambia River, whose warriors killed their enemies during the battle, smeared their bodies and faces with ashes after returning, put the clothes of the killed on themselves, and wrapped them with ropes made of bark. Wearing it like this for three days, with the tail hanging on your neck and the tail on your shoulders or chest, you get up at dawn on the fourth day and run all over the village, calling out strange voices to drive away the ghosts of those killed on the battlefield.They believe that if the ghosts are not driven away in this way, it will cause diseases and disasters to the family members.

Some of the above accounts do not mention any cases of enhanced isolation, at least after certain rituals of purification.In some tribes in South Africa, warriors who have killed particularly heroic enemies in wars have to be separated from their wives and family for ten days after returning from victory after washing their bodies in running water. Eat it with meals.The Nandi people in East Africa, if they kill someone from another tribe, they will paint half of their body, spear and sword with red and half with white.Within four days after the murder, the body is unclean, and they are not allowed to go home. They must build a small hut by the river to live temporarily, and they are not allowed to gather with their wives or sweethearts.At the end of the fourth day, cleanse yourself by taking a laxative decocted from bark called "segetet" and goat's milk mixed with blood.The Kavilando people live in the Lake District of East Africa and belong to the Tonyansa branch of the Bantu system. ] in the Bantu tribe, whoever kills an enemy in battle, shaves his head after returning home, and his friends wipe his body with a potion made of sheep dung to prevent the ghost of the slain from haunting him. he.The Wageyas of East Africa have exactly the same custom.The Ja-Luo people in Kavilando have a slightly different custom. The soldiers shave their heads on the third day after returning from battle. The bird's head continued to hang on the warrior's neck.After returning home, immediately set up a sacrificial banquet for the slain, drink offerings to the ghost of the deceased, and beg it not to disturb each other.In the Paro Islands [part of the Caroline Islands in Oceania], the men who had killed the enemy, the young warriors who went out to fight for the first time, and those who participated in the killing were shut up in the same council house, Be a taboo and unapproachable person, not to leave the big house, not to bathe, not to touch women, not to eat fish, only coconut and syrup.They rubbed their bodies with enchanted leaves and chewed cursed gourd leaves.Three days later, we went to the scene closest to the murder to take a bath together.

Young warriors among the Natchez Indians in North America must abide by the rules of abstinence for half a year after they return from their first murder and scalp. They are not allowed to sleep with their wives or eat meat.The only food during this time is fish and rough salami.They believe that if these precepts are violated, the ghosts of the slain will take the opportunity to put them to death and make their victories go to waste, and even the slightest harm done by the ghosts of the dead will be fatal.Choctu [a tribe of North American Indians] killed an enemy and took off the scalp, and then mourned for a month. During this period, they did not comb their hair, and if the scalp was itchy, they used the small wooden comb worn on their wrists. Scratch.The practice of mourning for one's own kills like this is not uncommon among North American Indians.

We have already learned that soldiers who kill the enemy in battle must be temporarily separated from their relatives and friends, especially their wives, and must go through certain cleansing rituals before they can be received by people.If we can believe that the seclusion and obligatory rites of atonement were merely to shake off, frighten away, or console the angry ghosts of the slain, then we can safely surmise that the hands were bloodied with the blood of kinsmen The murderers and murderers of the 1980s had to go through the same purification rites mentioned above, and the intention was originally the same.The belief that rebirth can be obtained through baptism, fasting, etc., is nothing more than a new interpretation of this custom given by people's later thinking development higher than those original ways of thinking that produced this custom.This speculation can be confirmed from the following facts.The reason why uncivilized primitive people strictly implement taboos on the murderers of members of the clan is that they are afraid that the ghosts of the murdered will come and haunt them.This is the case with the Omaha people of North America.There the relatives of the victim had the right to execute the murderer, though they sometimes renounced this right because they had received a generous gift from him.Although the murderer is spared from death, he must abide by strict precepts within a certain period of time (ranging from two to four years), such as: must walk barefoot, must not eat hot cooked food, must not speak loudly, and must not speak loudly to the front and back. Look around; you must wear long robes and must not lift up the skirts, and even in midsummer the neckline must be buttoned up, neither loose nor fluttering in the wind; your hands must be close to your body and you must not move freely, your hair must not be combed, and must not be in the wind. The wind blows; and when the men of the clan go hunting, he must pitch his tent a quarter of a mile or so away from them, or the ghost of the man he killed will blow up the wind and do harm. .He can only have one relative living with him in his tent.No one wants to eat with him. It is said, "He is the person that Waganda (the dead ghost) hates. If we eat with him, the dead ghost will also hate us." He sometimes wanders outside alone at night, Condolence and regret for one's wrongdoing.After such a long period of solitary isolation, the relatives of the victim heard his mourning and said to him: "Enough, go, go back to the crowd. Put on a good robe and moccasins." From The reasons for keeping the murderer from the hunter in these legends show that there are other restrictions on the murderer, also due to the fact that he is one who is pursued by the ghost of his victim, and is therefore dangerous.The ancient Greeks believed that the ghost of someone who had just been killed was very angry with his killer and would always attack and revenge.Therefore, even those who accidentally kill people by mistake still need to stay away from home for about a year, and they can only come back after the ghost of the dead is angry, and they have to offer sacrifices to the killed, and go through rituals such as fasting or cleansing.If the person killed is from a foreign country, the murderer must also avoid the hometown of the deceased, just like avoiding his own hometown.There is a legend that a man named Oreste [also translated Orestes, a hero in Greek legend.The Swiss scholar Bachofen had a new explanation for this legend, and Engels developed his opinion, thinking that Oreste was chased by the goddesses of restoration not because he killed his mother, but because these goddesses maintained matriarchy. A legend is vividly showing the intense process of patriarchy replacing matriarchy. ] kills his mother, is chased by her enraged ghost, wanders about, and has no one to sit with him to eat, no one to accept him, until his guilt is cleansed.This legend does reflect the ancient Greeks' fear of being chased and infested by angry ghosts.