young child is almost universally supposed to be in a tabooed or dangerous state, it is necessary, in removing the taboo, to destroy the separable parts of the child’s body on the ground that they are infected, so to say, by the virus of the taboo and as such are dangerous. The cutting of the child’s hair would thus be exactly parallel to the destruction of the vessels which have been used by a tabooed person.[1] This view is borne out by a practice, observed by some Australians, of burning off part of a woman’s hair after childbirth as well as burning every vessel which has been used by her during her seclusion.[2] Here the burning of the woman’s hair seems plainly intended to serve the same purpose as the burning of the vessels used by her; and as the vessels are burned because they are believed to be tainted with a dangerous infection, so, we must suppose, is also the hair. We can, therefore, understand the importance attached by many peoples to the first cutting of a child’s hair and the elaborate ceremonies by which the operation is accompanied.[3] Again, we can understand why a man should poll his head after a journey.[4] For we have seen that a traveller is often believed to contract a dangerous infection from strangers and that, therefore, on his return home he is obliged to submit to various purificatory ceremonies before he is allowed to mingle freely with his own people.[5] On my hypothesis the polling of the hair is simply one of these purificatory or disinfectant ceremonies. The cutting of the hair after a vow may have the same meaning. It is a way of ridding the
- ↑ Above, pp. 167, 169 sqq.
- ↑ W. Ridley, “Report on Australian Languages and Traditions,” in Journ. Anthrop. Inst. ii. 268.
- ↑ See G. A. Wilken, Ueber das Haaropfer und einige andere Trauergebräuche hei den Völkern Indonesiens, p. 94 sqq.; H. Ploss, Das Kind in Brauch und Sitte der Völker,2 i. 289 sqq.
- ↑ Above, p. 194.
- ↑ Above, p. 157 sq.
