1 8 H'utton Webster 



cerned, but shift their cultivation year by year. In the latter 

 case the natives preserve a memory of the time when they moved 

 their fields by chance " in a ceremony intended to determine by 

 magical rites the proper site for the new cultivation."-'^ The 

 Assamese would therefore represent an agricultural stage some- 

 what higher than that just studied among the Dayaks of Borneo. 

 The communal taboos, /. e., such as are observed by an entire 

 village, are either those of regular occurrence or those which 

 follow necessarily after some event has happened. The regular 

 taboos, for the most part, are connected with the crops. Before 

 sowing, the village is tabu or geiniar^ Gates are closed and 

 neither egress nor ingress allowed. In some villages the gennas 

 last for ten days. During this time the men cook and eat apart 

 from the women and various food restrictions are strictly en- 

 forced. The end of the festival is marked in some tribes by an 

 outburst of licentiousness, for afterwards, when the crops are 

 planted and so long as the} remain ungarnered, the slightest in- 

 continence might prove ruinous. Between the conclusion of this 

 initial crop genua and the commencement of the genua ushering 

 in the harvest, some tribes interpose a third genua which depends 

 on the appearance of the first blade of rice.-- In addition, dur- 

 ing the entire season until the harvest time there are various 

 restrictions communally observed. All fishing, hunting, cutting 

 grass, and felling trees are forbidden. The tribes which spe- 

 cialize in cloth-weaving, salt-making, or the manufacture of 

 pottery may not engage in such occupations. Drums and bugles 

 are silent throughout the period. If a man should beat a drum 

 or blow a bugle when the crops were in the ground or un- 

 harvested, not only would his own crops fail but those of the 



^ Hodson, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1906, xxxvi. 92. 



"' The term genua is also applied to the festival or assemblage of com- 

 munal rites by which all events possessing social importance are celebrated 

 (Davis, in Assam Census Report, 1891, i. 249). 



■- In Northern Arakan a season of restriction is imposed when the rice 

 plant is up and requires weeding. At this time all intercourse with the 

 village is forbidden for seven days (R. F. St. Andrew St. John, loc. cit.). 



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