114 TABOO AND GENETICS 



acts as the conducting medium through which 

 the quahties of one pass into the other. 



Just as the holy thing, which is to be feared 

 as the seat of a mystic, supernatural force, is to 

 be avoided lest harm befall from contact with 

 it, or lest it be defiled by human touch and its 

 divine essence be affected, so the unclean thing 

 is also made taboo lest it infect man with its 

 own evil nature. Even as the savage will not 

 have his idol polluted by contact with his own 

 personality, however indirect, so he would him- 

 self avoid pollution in similar fashion by 

 shunning that which is unclean. Here also the 

 avoidance of the tabooed person or thing is 

 based on the principle of sympathetic magic 

 understood as a method of transference of 

 qualities, and on belief in the possibility of 

 infection by contact. 



The dual nature of taboo as the avoidance 

 of both the sacred and the unclean is noted by 

 authorities on the subject who differ in other 

 respects as to the definition of taboo, such as 

 in the relation of taboo to the magical ceremonies 

 by which man undertook to mould his environ- 

 ment to his wishes. Whether the tabooed 

 object be regarded in one light or the other, 

 the breaking of taboo is associated with dread 

 of the unknown — besides the fear of infection 

 with the qualities of the tabooed object according 

 to the laws of sympathetic magic. There is 



