24 Hutton Webster 



king dies, no work is done for seven days thereafter.^ On the 

 island of Yam, one of the Carolines, the critical occasions when 

 communal taboos, lasting up to six months, are declared include 

 a time of drought, famine, or sickness, and the death of a chief 

 or famous man. " In short, any great public event is thus cele- 

 brated, and, in fact, there is always a tabu in full swing some- 

 where or other, to the great disgust of the traders, who only see 

 in these enforced holidays an excuse for idling, drunkenness and 

 debauchery."^ Among the Roro-speaking tribes of British New 

 Guinea an entire village will mourn for a chief or influential 

 man " by abstaining from fishing, hunting, and pot-making, and 

 by reducing garden-work to a minimum." The period of mourn- 

 ing lasts from six to ten days.^° The Tenguians of Northern 

 Luzon observe a tabooed period following a funeral until the 

 soul of the dead man takes its departure for its final home and 

 can no longer influence the living. ^^ The inhabitants of Kar 

 Nicobar abstain from work as a sign of mourning.^- 



In Northern Arakan, British Burma, when any villager is 

 killed by an animal, or when any woman resident in the village 

 dies in childbirth, or when the body of a person who died in such 

 a manner is brought into the village, all intercourse with that 

 village is cut off until the appearance of the next new moon.^^ 

 Amongst the hill tribes of Assam, death, whatever its mode, 

 " puts the tribal nerves on the stretch, and affects the communal 

 life, as is proved by the correlated variations of the geiuias or 



^Forbes, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1884, xiii. 420. 



" F. W. Christian, The Caroline Islands, London, 1899, p. 290. See 

 further an interesting description of the taboos enveloping the fishermen 

 of Yap, one of the Carolines (W. H. Furness, 3rd, Island of Stone 

 Money, Philadelphia, 1910, pp. 38 sq.). 



" C. G. Seligmann, Melanesians of British Nciv Guinea, Cambridge, 

 1910, p. 275. 



"Cole, in American Anthropologist, 1909, n. s., xi. 2>2>7- In this instance 

 abstinence from labor is not specifically stated to be one of the taboos 

 observed. 



^" C. B. Kloss, In the Andamans and Nicobars, London, 1903, p. 305. 



"R. F. St. Andrew St. John, in Journal of the Anthropological Insti- 

 tute, 1873, ii. 240. 



24 



