THE MORAL INFLUENCES OF PRIESTHOODS. 813 



no one dares meddle with. Thus we read that in the New 

 Hebrides &quot; the tapu is employed in all the islands to preserve 

 persons and objects ; &quot; that in New Zealand, tapu, from being 

 originally a thing made sacred, has come to mean a thing 

 forbidden. Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa furnish kindred facts : 

 the last place being one in which the name of the tabu 

 indicates the sort of curse which the owner of a tabued 

 thing hopes may fall on the thief. In Timor, &quot; a few palm 

 leaves stuck outside a garden as a sign of the pomali [tabu] 

 will preserve its produce from thieves as effectually as the 

 threatening notice of man-traps, spring guns, or a savage dog, 

 would do with us.&quot; Bastian tells us that the Congoese make 

 v.se of the fetich to protect their houses from thieves ; and 

 l:e makes a like statement respecting the negroes of the 

 Gaboon. Livingstone, too, describes the Balonda as having 

 this usage ; and evidence of kindred nature is furnished by 

 the Malagasy and by the Santals. 



As, originally, this dedication of anything to a god is made 

 either by a priest or by a chief in his priestly capacity, we 

 must class it as an Ecclesiastical Institution ; and the foster 

 ing of respect for proprietary rights which grows out of it, 

 must be counted among the beneficial disciplines which 

 Ecclesiastical Institutions give. 



649. Respecting the relation which exists between 

 alleged supernatural commands and the right ruling of con 

 duct at large, it is difficult to generalize. Many facts given 

 in foregoing chapters unite to show that everything depends 

 on the supposed character of the supernatural being to be 

 propitiated. Schoolcraft says of the Dakotahs 



&quot; They stand in great awe of the spirits of the dead, because they 

 tliink it is in the power of the departed spirits to injure them in any 

 way they please ; this superstition has, in some measure, a salutary 

 effect. It operates on them just as strong as our laws of hanging for 

 murder.&quot; 



But if, as happens in many cases, a dying man s peremptory 

 injunction to his son (like that of David to Solomon) is to 



