Rest Days; A Sociological Study i\y 



and on the nineteenth day from all cooked food.^^ He is not to 

 change his clothes or put on white {i. e., festive) raiment; he 

 must not offer sacrifices. The king is even forbidden to be seen 

 out of doors in his chariot. It is evident that the Babylonian 

 ruler who observed these regulations five times a month would 

 have been almost as strictly secluded as the Hawaiian monarch, 

 who likewise, during the four monthly tabu periods retired to the 

 precincts of his temple (supra). 



It has been usually held that these regulations are survivals 

 from ancient times when priest-kings were accredited with a 

 divine or supernatural nature. On this theory they would be 

 analogous to those prohibitions which in primitive society, as Dr. 

 Frazer has so well shown, envelope the lives of chieftains and 

 rulers " in an ocean of rites and taboos. "^^ The king is the repre- 

 sentative of his people ; his prosperity results in a like prosperity 

 for his people ; if he sins, the whole country sins and suffers with 

 him. The subject has been aptly illustrated by the regulations to 

 which in former days the Mikado of Japan was subject, by the 

 countless rules which fettered the lives of Egyptian monarchs, and 

 by those curious geasa or taboos, once observed by the ancient 

 rulers of Ireland. 



A consideration of the evidence yielded by primitive societies 

 leads me to suggest, however, that the Babylonian regulations may 

 have been, at least in part, the broken-down form of taboos im- 

 posing abstinence on the community at large. In Hawaii, where 

 the four lunar phases were observed as tabu periods, the prohibi- 

 tions aft'ecting the king represented only an intensification of the 

 communal taboos, to be explained by the extreme sanctity attached 

 to the Hawaiian ruler. In Assam, where the genna institution 

 enjoys a vigorous life (supra), we find that besides the prohibi- 

 tions communally observed at critical times the genna-bura or 

 priest-chief is surrounded with many elaborate taboos. Their 



^Taboos relating to the use of fire are discussed elsewhere (infra). 



^ For much evidence 'as to the sacredness of chiefs and kings and the 

 accompanying taboos see Frazer, The Golden Bough,' London, 1900, i. 

 233-47 ; idem, Psyche's Task, London, 1909, pp. 4-16. 



117 



