Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/434

observes the fast.^[1] The Hebrews associated fasting with divine revelations.^[2] St. Chrysostom says that fasting "makes the soul brighter, and gives it wings to mount up and soar on high."^[3]

Ideas of this kind partly underlie the common practice of abstaining from food before or in connection with the performance of a magic or religious ceremony;^[4] but there is yet another ground for this practice. The effect attributed to fasting is not merely psychical, but it also prevents pollution. Food may cause defilement, and, like other polluting matter, be detrimental to sanctity. Among the Maoris, "no food is permitted to touch the head or hair of a chief, which is sacred; and if food is mentioned in connection with anything sacred (or 'tapu') it is considered as an insult, and revenged as such."^[5] So also a full stomach may be polluting.^[6] This is obviously the reason why in Morocco and elsewhere^[7]

1. Ward, View of the History, etc. of the Hindoos, ii. 77.
2. Exodus, xxxiv. 28. Deuteronomy, ix. 9. Daniel, ix. 3.
3. St. Chrysostom, In Cap. I. Genes, Homil. X. (Migne, Patrologiæ cursus, Ser. Græca, liii. 83). Cf. Tertullian, De jejuniis, 6 sqq. (Migne, ii. 960, 961, 963); Haug, Alterthümmer der Christen, pp. 476, 482.
4. Bossu, Travels through Louisiana, i. 38 (Natchez). Clavigero, History of Mexico, i. 285 sq.; Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, iii. 440 sq. (ancient Mexicans). Landa, Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan, p. 156. Junghuhn, Die Battaländer auf Sumatra, ii. 311 sq. (natives of Tjumba). Beauchamp, in the Madras Government Museum's Bulletin, iv. 56 (Hindus of Southern India). Ward, op. cit. ii. 76 sq. (Hindus). Wassiljew, quoted by Haberland, 'Gebräuche und Aberglauben beim Essen,' in Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, xviii. 30 (Buddhists). Prophyry, De abstinentia ab esu animalium, ii. 44; Wachsmuth, Hellenische Alterthumskunde, ii. 560, 576; Hermann-Stark, Lehrbuch der gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der Griechen, p. 381; Anrich, Das antike Mysterienwesen, p. 25; Diels, 'Ein orphischer Demeterhymnus,' in Festschrift Theodor Gomperz dargebracht, p. 6 sqq. Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus, ii. 23, 74.
5. Angas, Polynesia, p. 149.
6. See Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 434 sq.
7. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, §219, p. 161.