Rest Days; A Sociological Study 19 



entire village would suffer, if not then, at any rate in the near 

 future.-^ 



Air. Hodson suggests that the idea underlying the various 

 restrictions is that men must not give time and attention to any- 

 thing but the care of the crops. He points out, further, that at 

 such a period, the thatching grass and timber are too raw for 

 use in housebuilding. The practical effect of the taboo against 

 hunting, moreover, is to provide a much needed closed season 

 for the game. These appear, however, to be merely incidental 

 results and not the primary or original purpose of the regula- 

 tions. It is to be observed that similar taboos, imposing a similar 

 period of abstinence, mark a rain-compelling ceremony when the 

 headman works magic for the benefit of the entire community. 

 General gcniias are also proclaimed after the occurrence of 

 unusual phenomena such as earthcjuakes-* and eclipses, the acci- 

 dental death of a villager, or the breaking out of a contagious 

 disease. If it is known that an epidemic sickness is about, a 

 genua is proclaimed and the headman makes a propitiatory sacri- 

 fice of some animal. The destruction of a village by fire occa- 

 sions a general genua, because such an event shows the people 

 that spirits inimical to the village are about and active.-' It 



^ " The strength of the genua system among the Nagas lies ... in the 

 indirectness and uncertainty of its sanctions. A violation of a tabu on 

 hunting during the cultivating season would, — specificalh-, — bring about 

 a shortage of rice, but any subsequent misfortune would be attributed to 

 it. If all may suffer for the default of one, it becomes the business of 

 each to see that his neighbor keeps the law" (Hodson, in Folk-Lorc, 

 1910, xxi. 307). 



'* Among the Nandi, a people of British East Africa, there is a pro- 

 hibition of work for a whole day following an earthquake, a phenomenon 

 which Nandi speculation, in common with other savage philosophies, at- 

 tributes to the movement of underground spirits. If a hailstorm occurs, 

 if a hoe breaks, or a beast of prey seizes a goat, no work must be done in 

 the fields for the rest of the day and for twenty-four hours afterwards, 

 as it is believed that any sick person who eats the grain when harvested, 

 or who drinks beer made from the grain will die and that pregnant women 

 will abort (A. C. Hollis, Tlic Nandi, Oxford, 1909, pp. 20,. 100). 



" In Northern Arakan a ya or taboo is declared when an epidemic breaks 

 out and all intercourse with the infected village is forbidden until the 



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