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The general effect of the taboos laid on sacred chiefs, mourners, women at childbirth, men on the war-path, and so on, is to seclude or isolate the tabooed persons from ordinary society, this effect being attained by a variety of rules, which oblige the men or women to live in separate huts or in the open air, to shun the commerce of the sexes, to avoid the use of vessels employed by others, and so forth.
Talking is almost tabooed during such a race, since every breath lost in useless conversation saps so much energy. Even on a trial run Mr. Leonard had advised the boys to separate as soon as possible, and keep some distance apart, mostly to obviate this temptation to exchange views; so that each candidate could conserve every atom of his powers.
Apparently holiness, magical virtue, taboo, or whatever we may call that mysterious quality which is supposed to pervade sacred or tabooed persons, is conceived by the primitive philosopher as a physical substance or fluid, with which the sacred man is charged just as a Leyden jar is charged with electricity; and exactly as the electricity in the jar can be discharged by contact with a good conductor, so the holiness or magical virtue in the man can be discharged and drained away by contact with the earth, which on this theory serves as an excellent conductor for the magical fluid.
"Your father was a wise man," replied Mr. Royal, "and I agree with him. But it would be unsafe to announce it here; for slavery is a tabooed subject, except to talk in favor of it." "I am well aware of that," rejoined Alfred. "And now I must bid you good morning. You know my mother is an invalid, and I may find letters at the post-office that will render immediate return necessary.
In quite the lowest stage the guilt of the offending member is also regarded as capable of infecting the whole community; and he is, accordingly, avoided by the whole community and tabooed. Taboo is due to the collective action, and expresses the collective feeling of the community as a whole.
The head chief of the Masai may eat nothing but milk, honey, and the roasted livers of goats; for if he partook of any other food he would lose his power of soothsaying and of compounding charms. Knots and Rings tabooed
Occasionally we met groups of naked men, trotting along under immense loads, and screaming their barbarous songs of recognition; sometimes we beheld an uncouthly carved figure, daubed over with red ochre, and fixed in the ground, to give notice that one side of the road was tabooed.
A few that came in early an' got land cheap, like McIlvaine, here-he got a lift that the rest of us can't get." "I'm a free trader, myself," said one young fellow, blushing and looking away as Howard turned and said cheerily: "So'm I." The rest semed to feel that this was a tabooed subject a subject to be talked out of doors, where one could prance about and yell and do justice to it.
These animals were tabooed, consequently they could ramble wherever they found food most to their liking. About dusk we arrived at the village Patuone had described to us. We were most happy to see it, as we were heartily tired, and dripping wet from a recent and heavy shower.
The silent and solemn movements of the Court flunkeys, the painful attitudes of those who are not 'spoken to'; the eager yet laboured smiles of those who are 'spoken to ; the melancholy efforts at gaiety the dread of trespassing on tabooed subjects these things tend to make all but the most independent and unfettered minds shrink from such an ordeal as the 'honour' of dining with kings.
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