II. MAJOR TABUS (a) Tabus on Priests, Kings, Chiefs, etc.—Sir James Frazer has collected in the Golden Bough evidence of the tabus with which the semi-divine potentates, chiefs and priest-kings of prim itive communities are surrounded. Thus, at Shark Point, West Africa, the king lives alone in a wood. He may never leave his house ; he may not touch a woman ; on no account may he quit his royal chair, even to sleep, for in that case the wind would die down and all navigation would stop. The supreme ruler at Congo is regarded as a god on earth. No subject may taste of any crop until the first-fruits have been offered to his majesty. When he leaves his residence, to visit other parts of his terri tory, all married persons are under obligation to observe the strict est laws of continence, any violation of which would prove imme diately fatal to him. Were he to die a natural death, the world would be annihilated. "Among the Todas of southern India, the holy milkman who acts as priest of the sacred dairy, is subject to a variety of burdensome restrictions during the whole time of his incumbency, which may last many years. Thus, he must live at the sacred dairy and may never visit his home or any ordinary village; he must be celibate; if he is married, he must leave his wife. On no account may an ordinary person touch the holy milkman or the holy dairy : such a touch would so defile his holiness that he would forfeit his office. . . . Further, the holy milkman never cuts his hair or pares his nails so long as he holds office : he never crosses a river by a bridge, but wades through a ford and only certain fords." The sacred person must be guarded from harm without, but others must be protected also from hurt from him as a centre of contagion. Thus in a higher civilization, should anyone wear the mikado's clothes without his knowledge, he would have swellings all over his body. The touch of the king may remove the tabu caused by his own contagion. The Tongans were subject to a form of scrofula, which they often attributed to having inad vertently touched the chief or his belongings, and the touch or pressure of the chief's foot was sought as a cure for the malady.
The sick man "sat down before the chief, and taking the chief's foot pressed it against his own stomach, that the food in his belly might not injure him, and that he might not swell up and die." It is possible that scrofula may have obtained its name of "king's evil" in 17th century England from the belief that it was caused, as well as cured, by contact with the majesty of kings.
In short, "the chief has mana, and is therefore feared. Men do not dread contact with the king lest they become kingly, but lest they be blasted by the superman's supermanliness." (b) Tabus on Women.—In the "classic, well nigh universal" major tabu of the "woman shunned," the ambivalent nature of the emotion underlying tabu is especially seen. Full of mystery, especially at certain periods of her life, she is now worshipped as a goddess, now dreaded as a witch. The power to bring forth children indicates the possession of mana : hence the almost uni versal avoidance of the pregnant woman. Of the aborigines of the Amazon, it was said : "They believe that if a woman during her pregnancy eats of the meat, any other animal partaking of it will suffer; if a domestic animal or tame bird, it will die; if a dog, it will be for the future incapable of hunting, and even a man will be unable to shoot that kind of game for the future." In Fiji, a pregnant wife may not wait upon her husband. Among the Australian aborigines, women are secluded at childbirth and menstruation and all vessels used by them during this seclusion are burnt. Their very glance is poison and in some places girls, when tabu, are made to wear broad-brimmed hats lest their glance should infect the sun. Violation of the tabu on women may result in "sure death" through fright, as in the case of the Australian black fellow who, when he discovered that his wife had lain on his blanket during her tabued period, wholly succumbed to terror and died within a fortnight.