especially taboo; whatever touched the child’s head, while it was in this state, became sacred and was deposited in a consecrated place railed in for the purpose at the child’s house. If a branch of a tree touched the child’s head, the tree was cut down; and if in its fall it injured another tree so as to penetrate the bark, that tree also was cut down as unclean and unfit for use. After the rites were performed, these special taboos ceased; but the head of a Tahitian was always sacred, he never carried anything on it, and to touch it was an offence.[1] The head of a Maori chief was so sacred that “if he only touched it with his fingers, he was obliged immediately to apply them to his nose, and snuff up the sanctity which they had acquired by the touch, and thus restore it to the part from whence it was taken.”[2] In some circumstances the tabooed person is forbidden to touch his head at all. Thus in North America, Tinneh girls at puberty, Creek lads during the year of their initiation into manhood, and young braves on their first war-path, are forbidden to scratch their heads with their fingers, and are provided with a stick for the purpose.[3] But to return to the Maoris. On account of the sacredness of his head “a chief could not blow the fire with his mouth, for the breath being sacred, communicated his sanctity to it, and a brand might be taken by a slave, or a man of another tribe, or the fire might be used for other purposes,
- ↑ James Wilson, A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean (London, 1799), p. 354 sq.
- ↑ R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui: or, New Zealand and its Inhabitants, p. 165.
- ↑ “Customs of the New Caledonian the Women,” in Journ. Anthrop. Inst. vii. 206; B. Hawkins, “Sketch of the Creek Country,” in Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, iii. pt. i. (Savannah, 1848), p. 78; A. S. Gatschet, Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, i. 185; Narrative of Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner (London, 1830), p. 122; Kohl, Kitschi-Gami, ii. 168.
