Rest Days; A Sociological Study 7 



to employ the familiar IMelanesian term, capable of affecting 

 whatever lies within its radius with its own mystic qualities.^'* 



At the same time the fact must be recognized that the majority 

 of taboos are now supported by animistic beliefs of a much more 

 precise character. The penalty for the infraction of the taboo 

 is generally death or some physical ailment believed to be in- 

 flicted by the offended spirits. Thus in Polynesia the atuas or 

 ancestral spirits, particularly of chiefs, by entering the body of 

 any impious person, caused disease or " intestinal embarrass- 

 ment " : the culprit forthwith swelled up and died. The same 

 ghostly powers might visit entire tribes with an epidemic, or send 

 down lightning and fire from heaven, or bring about the unsuc- 

 cessful issue of a war.^^ At the other end of the scale might be 

 mentioned the ancient Babylonians, who entertained very definite 

 conceptions of taboo and conceptions equally definite of the evil 

 spirits or demons which vexed the soul and body of one who 

 had violated a mamit, or prohibition with a supernatural penalty. 

 These considerations make it impossible for me to accept Mr. 

 N. W. Thomas's suggestion that the term " taboo " be limited " to 

 cases in which the punishment for violation is, so to speak, auto- 

 matic; the direct result of the discharge of mana."'^'^ The idea 

 of taboo is world wide and nothing is to be gained by employing 

 it with too restricted an application. 



Since persons, objects, and even actions are all liable to in- 

 fection prudence dictates a variety of precautions: the dangerous 

 object or individual is removed to a safe distance, or is carefully 

 isolated, or is bound hand and foot by a series of insulating 

 regulations. The entire community is interested in such pro- 



" The notion of transmissibility has been especially developed though 

 in different directions and to different ends by such writers as E. Crawley, 

 The Mystic Rose, London, 1902, passim, Hubert and Mauss, " Esquisse 

 d'une theorie generale de la magie," L'annee sociologique, Paris, 1904, vii. 

 108 sqq., F. B. Jevons, op. cit., chap, vi., and R. R. ]\Iarett, The Threshold 

 of Religion, London, 1909, pp. 115-41. 



^'J. S. Polack, Manners and Customs of the Nen' Zcalandcrs, London, 

 1840, i. 234. 



'"^Man, 1905, V. 63. 



