20 Hitffon JVcbstcr 



would seem, therefore, that the negative regulations or taboos 

 have here in Assam much the same purpose as in other regions : 

 they are protective, and conciliatory, to a certain extent they are 

 even compelling, in so far as the observance of the taboos is 

 thought to prevent the spirits from working further damage. " I 

 see in these genua customs," writes Air. Hodson, "the foundation 

 of all communal life, for the primary lesson they teach, whether 

 directly or indirectly, is that harm to one is harm to all. and that 

 the strength of all is greater than the strength of one."-'' 



Besides the communal regulations the natives of Assam are 

 subject to many others which affect individuals alone. There are 

 gennas at childbirth, name-giving, ear-piercing, hair-cutting, and 

 marriage. ^^ As Mr. Hodson points out, such taboos are intended 



disease has disappeared. Similar periods of restriction, lasting three days, 

 are declared when a village is burnt or a new one erected. An individual 

 breaking such a regulation is fined by the local headman. The fact that 

 a village is tabooed is indicated to the traveller by suspending strings or 

 canes across the road (R. F. St. Andrew St. John, Joe. cit.). 



"'^ Idem, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1906, xxxvi. 103. 

 It may be noted that in Southern India the village rites of sacrifice are 

 frequently held when cholera or smallpox is raging, and that they are 

 analogous to some of the genua customs. " I have dignified," writes the 

 Bishop of Madras, " the periodical sacrifices to the village goddesses by 

 the name of festivals. But the term is a misnomer. There is really 

 nothing of a festal character about them. They are only gloomy and 

 weird rites for the propitiation of angry deities or the driving away of evil 

 spirits, and it is very difficult to detect any traces of a spirit of thank- 

 fulness or praise. Even the term worship is hardly correct. The object 

 of all the various rites and ceremonies is not to worship the deity in any 

 true sense of the word, but simply to propitiate it and avert its wrath " 

 (" The Village Deities of Southern India," Madras Government Museum, 

 Bulletin, 1907, v. 128 sq.). 



"' According to Mr. Furness the Nagas of Eastern Assam strictly taboo 

 a house where tattooing is being done. When a man or woman is sick, a 

 taboo is declared and likewise when any domestic animal is giving birth 

 to young. Even the hatching of a brood of chickens bans the house for 

 from two to ten days. These taboos are indicated by placing bunches 

 of leaves on the door-post and by tying across the doorway one of the 

 long pestles used for pounding husks of rice (Journal of the Anthro- 

 pological Institute, 1902, xx.xii. 466). 



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